Climate change affecting millions today

Rashid Aran Omer slept alongside his small herd of cattle at a water station in the Wajir region of northern Kenya, waiting for an Oxfam tanker truck to crest the horizon and siphon its water into a hole lined with a bright yellow tarp.

"This is our only source of water now,` he told a visiting Oxfam representative.

"Without our animals, there is no milk for our children and we can`t afford good food for them. Many are experiencing diarrhea and are getting sick. With so little water, they cannot even wash their hands before they eat,` added Salada Alasow, a woman left caring for six children in northern Kenya while her husband took their livestock into Somalia in search of water.

Omer and Alasow are two of the more than 20 million people living in Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti and parts of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda who are suffering from a persistent, devastating drought. This is the fifth year in a row the skies above the arid lands of the Horn and East Africa have stubbornly refused to bring enough rain.

`Climate change is no future possibility here. It is a catastrophe today, curtailing rainfall and stunting the growing season,` Oxfam Canada`s executive director Robert Fox said.

Oxfam Canada is responding. In Ethiopia and Somalia, where Oxfam Canada has existing programs, we`re working with local partners to construct and rehabilitate the water supply as well as ponds and traditional wells.We`re also implementing sanitation and hygiene programs that include the construction of pit latrines and providing soap to help reduce water-borne disease.

In Somalia, Oxfam is implementing a $2.4 million Canadian government -funded project to support Internally Displaced Peopleand their host communities. This is the largest emergency water response in the region.

All over the world, rising temperatures and erratic weather have played havoc with harvests, leaving an unprecedented number of people in need. While year after year of drought has sent food prices skyrocketing and left millions of East Africans unable to replenish weakened herds or diminishing grain stocks, in Guatemala the government declared a state of public calamity when the number of families seeking food aid reached unmanageable numbers.

In many parts of the world, food shortages are becoming an everyday occurrence, moving from a crisis situation to a chronic one. We too must move from an emergency humanitarian response to the kind of longer term solutions found in programs and partnerships that increase farm production.

Unfortunately, the science tells us that these kinds of disasters are only going to increase.

In 2010, Oxfam will be focusing on the link between climate change and food production and looking at ways of ensuring there is enough food being grown to meet demand.

At the centre of all of this are the world`s women - the women collecting water and firewood, the women like Alasow left caring for their children, the women farmers attempting to feed their families. Our goal is to live in a world without hunger or poverty and we believe we can get there by promoting women`s rights. We hope you`ll continue supporting our efforts.