Just over a year ago, international media attention focused on the plight of thousands of drought-affected pastoralists who had gathered in the central Ogaden town of Gode in search of food and water. As conditions rapidly deteriorated, a massive relief effort was launched, spearheaded by the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). International NGOs such as Save the Children-USA and Medecins sans Frontieres-Belgium teamed up with local aid agencies to establish numerous emergency-feeding centres among the makeshift huts built by the displaced. The landscape around the town was dry, barren and studded by the desiccated carcasses of cattle that had died almost within reach of the nearby Shebelle river.

At first glance, today's visitor to Gode sees a very different picture. The rains have been good in recent months, and pastures and water are once again relatively plentiful. Cattle, camels, goats and the ubiquitous Somali black-headed sheep - a mainstay of the local livestock economy - are again looking fat and healthy. For those pastoralists who last year were able to move with their animals away from the epicentre of the drought and so save the bulk of their herds, the current period has been marked by a clear recovery as animals begin to calve again and milk production is restored.

However, according to a report recently issued by the UN Emergencies Unit for Ethiopia , appearances can be deceptive, and from a humanitarian perspective all is not well in a region where a great many people are still struggling with the legacy of last year's emergency. The UN and aid agencies operating in the region estimate that upwards of 100,000 people are displaced and still living in makeshift relief shelters or are utterly destitute and eking out an existence on the margins of towns like Gode. Some one million people - more than 40 percent of the total population - continue to receive food aid assistance.

Even "good" rains in the Ethiopian Somali region are usually no more than sporadic, erratic and uneven, with areas of good pasture embracing pockets where little or no rain has fallen. A helicopter survey of the region undertaken by the UN in May helped confirm that the pattern this year is a typical one with green pastures occurring adjacent to dry, rainless areas - all within a radius of 20 to 40 km.

The traditional mobility of Somali pastoralists is an adaptation to the harsh climatic realities of life in this region, and one that has enabled generations of Somalis to survive drought and even prosper. However, as populations grow and the pressure on pastures increase, this way of life is beginning to change, and today people are more settled and range less far with their animals in search of water and grazing than they did a decade ago.

With this trend towards a more sedentary, agro-pastoral and mixed, peri-urban/pastoral way of life, there is a perception among aid agencies that people in the Ethiopian Somali region are becoming more vulnerable to the effects of drought. People still move during the long dry season to find better pastures, but not as far as they used to, many being tied for economic reasons to urban markets and job opportunities.

After the failure of the 1999 "deyr" (short-season) rains, people from the areas around to the central Ogaden towns of Gode, Denan, Danot and Kebri Dehar moved steadily north to where grazing existed around Fik. When these pastures became exhausted, the movement continued farther northwards toward the upper reaches of the Fafen and Jerer rivers, close to Babile and Jijiga in the north of the region, or to the refugee camps around Hartishek and Aware. During the course of what became an abnormally extended migration, many families lost all their animals and therefore their means to an independent livelihood. Well beyond familiar territory and without the usual kin affiliations on which Somali society is founded, these people became stranded and almost entirely dependant on charity and external relief assistance.

The health of livestock is a barometer for the health of the people living in the mainly pastoral lowlands of the Somali region. Good deyr rains late last year and "patchy but encouraging" gu (main season) rains in April/May this year have helped stimulate the recovery of animals that survived last year's drought. Cattle started calving in March and, more recently, camels also started reproducing. As a result, the production of milk has improved while the price has halved since the beginning of the year. Milk is a vitally important source of protein and vitamins for pastoral communities, with its price and availability being closely linked to nutrition levels among children. Milk is also a valuable source of cash income.

Not everyone has benefited from the improved rains. For the thousands of destitute families living in makeshift plastic and stick camps around Gode, Fafen, Hartishek and elsewhere, there is little hope of a return to a traditional pastoral way of life, and it is probable that most will sooner or later swell the already growing ranks of the urban poor. While aid agencies and local government struggle to develop a strategy to help these families make the long journey home and re-establish some kind of independent livelihood, those who remain stranded in the camps can only look on as others fortunate enough to keep some livestock see their herds and incomes begin a slow but nonetheless positive recovery.

Unlike most parts of the Somali region, in Warder and Degeh Bur zones the gu rains this year were patchy at best, and in some places reportedly failed altogether. In these areas, people depend heavily on water collected in natural surface ponds or in "birkads" (man-made concrete-lined underground cisterns). Ahead of the coming dry season, these sources should be brimming full, but the latest field reports indicate that they are at best no more than half-full. With the next rains not expected until September or October at the earliest, there is a real fear that drought conditions in this part of the region may persist and even deepen further.

Faced with a situation in which serious humanitarian needs coexist with signs of improvement and recovery, the UN and other aid agencies have had to adopt a broad-based strategy combining relief with efforts to provide long-term, development support targeted at drought-affected communities. However, whereas donors were very positive in responding to appeals last year for food and other emergency relief aid, they have not responded as promptly to requests for the funding of projects aimed at building up the region's basic services and infrastructure, nor has the response for interventions that would give people a means to restore their livelihoods - restocking, seeds, tools - met with much support.

Though the number of international organisations actively involved in providing emergency assistance in the region has decreased since a year ago, a significant few have remained, usually with an additional focus on rehabilitation and development. Geographically, the focus has also broadened towards localities that were less or not at all covered during the emergency operations of last year.

Along the Shabelle river, NGOs such as the Italian aid organisation, Commitato Collaboratione Medica (CCM), have initiated food-for-work schemes to construct water irrigation channels for agricultural production. In Korahe Zone, Action contre la faim (ACF) have begun a number of small-scale development projects aimed at providing local communities with safe water supplies and basic health care services, they are also collaborating with the regional government and a number of other NGOs in developing a food security information and monitoring network for the region. Other examples of the commitment being shown by NGOs to address some of the basic needs of communities in this much neglected region include OXFAM GB, which in the aftermath of the drought has started an integrated rural development project in the northern zone of Shinile, which includes water point development, afforestation and primary health care, and the work of a local NGO, Hope for the Horn, which is working in the Gashaamo district to construct and improve "Haffir" dams (ponds) for the collection and storage of water.

Though undoubtedly worthy, some observers point out that such interventions will ultimately make little difference until there is a real commitment from the Ethiopian government and the international community to invest in the basic infrastructure and services in the Ethiopian Somali region, which for many years has been considered to be among the most neglected in the country. Investment is also needed in developing and diversifying a local economy that is felt to be overly reliant on livestock. In addition to drought, the livelihoods of many pastoralists in the region were severely hit by the re-imposition of a ban on livestock imports from the Horn of Africa by the Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states in September last year.

When the drought crisis erupted in April 2000, the UN Secretary-General appointed WFP Executive Director Catherine Bertini as his special envoy to help galvanise the international community into tackling and preventing a major famine in the Horn of Africa. Although the prospect of famine has largely receded, Bertini agreed to stay on as special envoy until the end of September 2001, and has committed herself to press for support for the recovery process. The extension of her mandate is seen as signaling the importance of maintaining the momentum built up during the response to the emergency in 2000, and keeping donor interest and commitment focused on supporting the often lengthy - and sometimes painful - process of rehabilitation and recovery.

As a semblance of normality returns to Gode and the surrounding region, the legacy of last year's drought remains. Vistas of green pastures and healthy animals contentedly grazing are indeed deceptive; for those who have lost everything as a result of drought, the suffering does not necessarily end with the coming of the rain.