Britain pledges 20 million dlrs in Ethiopia food aid

June 9, 2008 (AFP) LONDON - Britain pledged at least 10 million pounds (12.6 million euros, 19.7 million dollars) for Ethiopia on Monday after the east African nation said 4.5 million people were in need of emergency food aid.

A team of officials were due in Ethiopia Tuesday to assess the situation in the drought-stricken country, a spokeswoman for the Department for International Development (DFID) told AFP.

The money will "be going to partners, for example UNICEF (the United Nations Children's Fund) or the World Food Programme, or various other NGOs who can support supplementary and therapeutic feeding programmes," she said.

"It's still to be decided how it's (the money) to be allocated, but at the moment, those are the most urgent needs ... We're taking advice on where our assistance is best placed," she added.

An Ethiopian government body said last week that the number of Ethiopians in need of emergency food aid had risen to 4.5 million after one of the country's worst droughts in years.

Monday's pledge of aid was in addition to the five million pounds Britain promised for Ethiopia last month.

Source: Agence France-Presse (AFP) 09 Jun 2008 via
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/KKAA-7FG2XL?OpenDocument&RSS20=02-P