During our stay in Ethiopia, it quickly became clear that there is one acute concern here in the Afar region: Water! Far too little of this has simply fallen from the sky in recent months. The dry periods without precipitation are becoming longer and longer, and more and more frequently they are turning into droughts. Climate change here often has deadly consequences for people.

Basically, the Afar are used to getting by with little water. Water supplies for the affected people in the Afar region are calculated at just five liters of water per person per day. (For comparison: direct water consumption per person per day in Austria is 130 liters!) Nevertheless, it unfortunately happens again and again that small villages or settlements, for various reasons, no longer have access to water.

For example, we learned that multinational corporations are also up to their tricks here and often want to sell meaningless “investments” as a kind of development aid. In the middle of the dust-dry Afar region, a sugar factory with sugar cane plantations was built, which consumed and also contaminated vast amounts of drinking water from the Awash River – the only vital water source in the region. After a short time, the factory was closed again due to lack of profitability, but unfortunately the water is still undrinkable today.

When APDA co-founder Maalika asks major international NGOs for help with water deliveries during an acute drought disaster, the approval process sometimes takes weeks. In that time, people would have long since dehydrated and died of thirst. So the APDA organization makes advance payments, and it is not uncommon for the large NGOs to shirk their financial responsibility afterwards with some bureaucratic excuse, Maalika tells us.

We were able – thanks to your donations – to help quickly and unbureaucratically on the ground: With our support of 20,000 euros, APDA was able to secure the water needs for 8,500 people acutely affected by the drought for one week. Another small drop in the still very hot stone. But many small drops eventually make a small river!

‼️Wenn you want to donate water and thus save lives: With only 20 euros you secure the water supply for 60 people for one day!