An estimated 5.2 million people in Somalia need humanitarian assistance, according to the 2020 Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO). These include 1.7 million people who have been displaced by conflict, insecurity, forced evictions, droughts and floods; 108,000 returnees; and 42,000 refugees and asylum seekers. Most families with severe or extreme needs live in southern, central and southwest regions (Gedo, Bay, Bakool and Lower Juba). The main factors driving humanitarian needs in Somalia include food insecurity, climate related shocks, conflict and heightened protection risks. People with disabilities face additional vulnerabilities.

According to the HNO, up to 2.1 million people across Somalia are expected to face food consumption gaps and over 2.4 million Somali people require lifesaving essential healthcare and nutrition services. About 1.3 million boys, girls, pregnant and lactating women suffer from acute malnutrition, with 180,000 children under 5 suffering from life threatening severe malnutrition. An estimated 3.7 million people need protection-related assistance,  1.37 million children (including 691,295 girls) need assistance to either stay  or enroll in school, 2.2 million people need shelter and non-food items, and 2.7 million people require assistance to access basic WASH services in 2020.

Q. Since you arrived in Somalia in September 2019, what is your assessment of the humanitarian situation and the aid operation?

A. It is an undeniable fact that Somalia is making strides in building a peaceful, prosperous and resilient nation. Still, many challenges, including climatic shocks continue to affect large parts of the population, particularly vulnerable groups, including internally displaced persons, many of whom become displaced several times due to man-made and natural disasters.

Q. What is your main priority this year?

A. Many families are still recovering from the 2016/17 drought and 2.6 million Somalis remain displaced. Recurring climatic shocks and ongoing conflict require comprehensive, sustainable solutions that build resilience in communities to ensure they are able to deal with crises. We must find ways to address these challenges in a manner that will break the cycle of humanitarian emergencies and enable people to bounce back from shocks.

Q. What do you think needs to be done to achieve this?

A. We as international partners must continue supporting recovery and resilience initiatives. The recent Somalia Partnership Forum held in October gave us an opportunity to agree on a number of tangible commitments between the Government and the international community through the Mutual Accountability Framework. Together, we can build on our successes and produce lasting results.

Q. How important is the humanitarian-development nexus to ending humanitarian needs and reducing poverty in Somalia?

A. The importance of the nexus cannot be overstated. It is a triple nexus – comprising humanitarian/development/peace elements, all of which are crucial in achieving sustainable progress. I applaud the Government’s efforts in prioritising these components and we will continue to support Federal, State and local authorities in these initiatives as we strengthen our partnership in this worthy endeavour.

Somalia faces the worst desert locust outbreak in over 25 years, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Somaliland, Puntland and Galmudug are the worst affected with an estimated 70,000 hectares of land infested by hoppers and breeding adult locusts, which have already damaged crop and pastures in Somalia and Ethiopia. The infestation is affecting pasture and threatening staple food crops of agro-pastoral and pastoral families in rural areas.

According to FAO, given the exceptionally high rainfall and cyclone Pawan, another generation of the desert locust will likely affect the region in 2020. In order to avert this situation, the UN agency is closely working with the Federal Government of Somalia and partner organizations to embark on major interventions including ground spraying. “We are talking about a medium to long-term intervention,” said Mr. Etienne Peterschmitt, FAO Representative in Somalia. “The impact of our actions in the short term is going to be very limited, but we can make a difference to support livelihoods and avoid further disastrous consequences for the next Gu season in 2020 if we act now.” FAO warned that the locust outbreak is making the bad food security situation worse.

“As the weather seems favorable for the locust breading, there is a high probability that the locusts will continue to breed until March-April 2020, with a high probability of spreading to other Eastern African nations,” said Mr. David Phiri, FAO Sub Regional Coordinator for Eastern Africa.

Locust can cause massive damage to vegetation

FAO has developed a three-pronged approach to deal with the current situation in Somalia: provide support with ground control operations where possible in Somaliland, Puntland and Galmudug in coordination with Federal Government of Somalia, prepare a recovery package for communities that will be affected by the invading swarms across Somalia (discussions are ongoing with some donors including ECHO, OFDA and FAO will also be using its own resources through emergency funds available from headquarters), and to continue to build capacity in Somalia to better deal with future outbreaks.

Desert locusts are transboundary pests with the ability to spread over large areas causing massive damage to vegetation.  A typical Desert Locust swarm can contain up to 150 million locusts per square kilometer. Swarms migrate with the wind and can cover 100-150 km a day. An average swarm will destroy enough to feed 2,500 people for one year.

In December 2019, Somalia Protection Cluster officially launched the Somalia Protection Monitoring System (SPMS) online portal in Mogadisu. The aim of the SPMS is to identify trends and patterns of violations of rights and protection risks for populations of concern to inform effective programming and advocacy. By doing so, the SPMS informs protection sensitive programming of the humanitarian response.

The SPMS captures every month the perspective of community representatives on the protection situation in their area. Concerns reported included conflict-related injuries/death, arbitrary killing, kidnapping, ill-treatment (cruel, degrading treatment or punishment), sexual assault, child recruitment, land grabbing, family separation, child/early marriage and lack of access to formal justice among others.

The portal provides information on specific incidents occurred on the most affected groups and coping strategies used by the community members to address the situation. The Somalia Protection Cluster is grateful for the generous support to the SPMS by its donors: ECHO, Danida, SHF, OFDA, UNHCR. The portal can be accessed through this link (https://protection.drchub.org/ ).

In 2019, donors contributed US$992 million to Somalia humanitarian operations, enabling humanitarian partners to sustain response, respond to new shocks and help the most vulnerable people. This includes $860 million against the 2019 Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) and $133 million for activities outside of the appeal. The HRP funding coverage may, however, not be fully reflective of the funding status due to needs included in the Drought Impact Response Plan and Floods Response Plan that were triggered as the humanitarian situation evolved during the year.

Some clusters remain critically underfunded, with less than a quarter (Camp Coordination and Camp Management, Protection and Shelter/NFI) or less than 30 per cent (Health, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) of their requirements met. The gaps in funding are a cause of concern for the 2020 response; donors are encouraged to frontload their contributions to build on gains made in 2019, sustain life-saving response and support livelihoods early in 2020.

Strong performance of pooled funds in 2019 The humanitarian pooled funds, the Somalia Humanitarian Fund (SHF) and the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), allocated more than $103 million to humanitarian partners in Somalia in 2019.

Given the scale of humanitarian needs and the critical role the SHF plays in combining flexibility and strategic focus to, donors are encouraged to replenish the fund as early as possible for 2020. Having sufficient resources at disposal will advance the Fund’s ability to provide predictable, adequate and timely support in 2020.