Giving a hand up, not a hand-out

From the harvesting of water to training in bee-keeping, one Irish agency is helping communities in Eritrea to try to prevent a drought turning into a famine, writes Marie O'Halloran

A whistle blows and everything stops. Traffic comes to a halt. Drivers get out of their cars and stand to attention. Pedestrians do likewise and nobody says a word. For about 30 seconds the only movement around the city hall is the lowering by a soldier of the national flag, at sunset. Once the flag is down, the whistle blows again and everyone moves off as if nothing happened.

This is Asmara, capital of Eritrea in the horn of Africa, where the surreal daily ritual of deference to the flag is a normal part of life. It is a society recovering after its second war with its next-door neighbour, Ethiopia, and many regions are still suffering from the ravages of the conflict.

But in this sophisticated city, people stroll towards the numerous art deco cafés and bars, a legacy of the city's Italian colonial past. An espresso and fancy pastry cost just two nakfas in the local currency, the equivalent of 10 cents. A bottle of Asmara beer is about 25 cents. With its clean streets, paved roads, fabulous architecture and negligible crime rate, it is probably the safest city in all of Africa for visitors.

And it gives absolutely no indication that Eritrea is in the grip of a severe drought and in the worst situation since it became an independent state in 1993, after a 30-year war with Ethiopia.

The country is about one-and-a-half times the size of Ireland, with an estimated population of 3.5 million, 85 per cent of whom are dependent on agriculture. Up to one third of the population are "at risk" because of the failure of the rains and the government has appealed for international food aid. Where the land is tilled, stalks have grown from crops such as corn. The cobs, however, are soft, seedless and useless.

But there are small oases of greenery and growth. Self Help Development International, a Co Carlow-based agency, has worked in Eritrea since 1994, concentrating on long-term agricultural development. In the region around the southern town of Mendefera, the Irish agency, through local staff, is involved in small, specific and in many cases, "water harvesting" projects.

In the village of Newih Zeban, gutters and pipes have been installed on the roof of the elementary school and these are linked to a series of 30 large tanks. The tanks were filled from the brief rains that fell during the summer months and will supply water for the school's six teachers and 300 students for eight months. The materials cost €10,000 which Self Help paid. The ministry of agriculture provided the engineers and the local community provided its labour free of charge.

Pupils often walked up to 10 kilometres each day to fetch water and then would be too tired to walk to school. "Now they go to school and are given water to take home to their families at the end of the day," says Michael Berhane, Self Help's local co-ordinator of the scheme.

Outside the village of Adi Mongeti, five men show the wide well they have dug by hand to a depth of 10 metres. They had worked as labourers for other farmers but, with a Self Help loan, bought a water pump. With the well and pump, they have irrigated some 20 acres of land and produced enough vegetables to feed their families and sell excess produce. But now, because of the lack of rain, the water table is lower and they may have to dig a further five metres for water.

But times have been good, according to Gebre Hiwet Hidmo, one of the five, who shows off the new brick house he was able to build beside the mud hut he and his family had previously lived in with their livestock. The bright blue walls of his new home are decorated with wall hangings: camels herders with their animals, Jesus and Mary, and Chinese children in military uniform. "Now we need to buy a tractor," says Hidmo, because it costs €6 an hour to rent one.

The farmers are demanding mechanisation because of the shortage of labour. This shortage has also resulted in less land being cultivated. Hundreds of thousands of Eritrea's young men are away from their farms, on military service. In 1998, a border dispute between Eritrea and Ethiopia escalated into a fierce two-year war with the loss of tens of thousands of lives. Now, a UN peacekeeping force is in place in a 25-kilometre wide buffer zone between the two countries, along the 1,000-kilometre border, with some 200 Irish troops providing supplies and logistical support.

The ceasefire is holding and an international boundary commission is in the process of demarcating the border, a swamp of landmines. Thousands of Eritrean troops are stationed along that border, but their families and communities are hopeful they will return home once the demarcation of territory is finalised, which, it is planned, will be in about six months. However, in village after village, the absence of men aged 18 to 40 is obvious and many young women do military service as well, unless they are pregnant or have children.

Eritrea has never been self-sufficient in food production, but has - until this year - managed to feed its people. In fact, four years ago it almost attained self-sufficiency in food production, because the land was tilled and the rains were good. However, the drought has increased the country's vulnerability at a time when the economy has been severely damaged by the war.

"The situation is very serious and the critical period will be largely from the beginning of next year until the harvest in early October to the end of November," says Heuston Dagg of the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the UN's largest specialist agency.

Dagg, originally from Rathrush near Tullow, Co Carlow, says planning over the next six months will be critical in determining whether Eritrea suffers a famine or not. Most farmers will have to be supplied with seeds for planting next March. At the moment the problem is drought, not famine. "There is nobody starving but some people may go hungry," he says.

Food aid is already being distributed in areas around Keren, a market town north of Asmara. Eritreans are worried that, because of the famine in southern Africa, international agencies will be under pressure and there might not be enough food aid to go around.

"I don't think there will be a famine," says Dagg. "I think that, despite all the problems, donors will respond. People here have pride in themselves and their abilities and that is very positive."