“In Ethiopia, USAID has made the decision to resume food assistance to refugee populations after the Ethiopian government and implementing partners made reforms to Ethiopia’s refugee food assistance structure,” Jennings said in a statement.
The Ethiopian government transferred responsibility for the storage and distribution of food aid to USAID’s implementing partners, the statement said. USAID previously suspended food aid due to the discovery of a coordinated diversion scheme.
Oversight reforms strengthen program monitoring, reinforce commodity tracking and improve beneficiary registration processes, the statement said.
Although USAID is resuming assistance for refugees in Ethiopia, aid for other food-insecure populations in the country remains suspended until USAID can obtain further assurances from beneficiaries, the statement said.
USAID has appointed a new agency coordinator to implement bolstered oversight initiatives and created a working group to review staffing and monitoring across programs, the statement said. The measures will enable USAID to more quickly identify and address diversion risks and deliver assistance to those in need, according to the statement.