Press Release

ECHO Convenes Stakeholders on Ethiopia’s Humanitarian Crisis and Reaches Consensus on Urgent Action

Silver Spring, MD-On December 13, 2025, Empowering Civil Societies and Humanitarian Outreach (ECHO) convened an online panel discussion titled “ECHO’s Humanitarian Pillar: What Can We Do Together?”, bringing together humanitarian actors, civil society organizations, and community members from Ethiopia and the United States. The discussion focused on the scale and complexity of Ethiopia’s humanitarian crisis, the gaps in the current response, and the need for coordinated and partnership-driven action.

The session opened with a keynote address by Mr. Henok Shishige, Executive Director of ECHO, who outlined the organization’s overall mission and its four foundational program pillars: Humanitarian Response, Civil Society Organizations Empowerment, Evidence-Based Advocacy, and Protection. He emphasized that the purpose of the event was to create a shared understanding of the humanitarian situation in Ethiopia and to foster collaboration among stakeholders.

Dr. Samuel Terefe then presented an extensive, data-driven analysis of the overlapping and largely unaddressed humanitarian crises in Ethiopia. His presentation highlighted the scale of need, noting that approximately 21.4 million people currently require humanitarian assistance, including internally displaced persons, refugees, women, children, and persons with disabilities. He emphasized that Ethiopia is hosting nearly 4.5 million internally displaced people and over 1 million refugees and asylum seekers, 4.4 million pregnant and breastfeeding women and children in urgent need of nutrition support. Dr. Samuel also discussed the challenges facing humanitarian intervention, including conflict, insecurity, climate shocks, access constraints, and severe funding gaps, underscoring the significant disparity between humanitarian needs and the response currently in place, with less than 25 percent of required humanitarian funding secured in 2025.

Mrs. Konjit Birhan, Program Director of ECHO, presented ECHO’s four pillars explaining how they are interconnected and collectively support stronger and wider program impact. She placed particular emphasis on the Humanitarian Pillar, noting that ECHO’s humanitarian response focuses on both local and international engagement. At the local level, ECHO is developing support mechanism for migrants who have fled Ethiopia and other countries to the United States, through the provision of relevant humanitarian services. Internationally, ECHO aims to address humanitarian gaps in Ethiopia through a coordinated humanitarian action. ECHO believes that establishing partnerships and engaging in evidence-based advocacy are vital for a strong and meaningful humanitarian response. She also highlighted ECHO’s ongoing development of a Humanitarian Dashboard, which will showcase the scale of the crisis, identify gaps, and support planning, coordination, and accountability.

Following the panel presentations, participants exchanged insights and recommendations, collectively emphasizing the urgency and severity of Ethiopia’s humanitarian crisis. The panel reached consensus on the following key recommendations:

• Urgently scale up humanitarian and emergency funding to address critical needs in food, nutrition, health, WASH, shelter, and protection for the 21.4 million people in need across Ethiopia.

• Improve and secure humanitarian access, including protection of aid workers and civilian infrastructure, and the removal of operational and access constraints in conflict-affected and hard-to-reach areas.

• Prioritize protection and inclusion, with particular focus on women, children, internally displaced persons, refugees, and persons with disabilities.

• Strengthen coordination, partnerships, and alliances among humanitarian actors, civil society organizations, donors, and community-based organizations in Ethiopia and the United States.

• Bridge the gap between humanitarian needs and response by aligning resources, programming, and delivery mechanisms with the scale and urgency of the crisis.

• Invest in resilience, early recovery, and livelihoods, including climate-adaptive programs and restoration of basic services to reduce dependency and future vulnerability.

• Promote evidence-based and data-driven humanitarian action, including the use of tools such as ECHO’s Humanitarian Dashboard to guide planning, advocacy, and accountability.

The discussion was formally concluded with closing remarks by Mr. Henok, who thanked participants for their engagement and reaffirmed ECHO’s commitment to principled, partnership-driven, and evidence-based humanitarian action to address the growing humanitarian challenges in Ethiopia.