CERF allocates US$2.7 million for the support of relief operations in Somalia
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| Children receiving donated food at an IDP camp in Somalia. [Photo: IRIN] |
22 July 2008: The humanitarian situation in Somalia is rapidly and steadily deteriorating. A recent FAO Food Security Analysis determined that 2.6 million people (35 percent of the population) are in need of food assistance. The figure includes new caseloads of 600,000 urban poor and 1.1 million IDPs. with, 850,000 people displaced this year from Mogadishu alone. Furthermore, recent targeting of humanitarian workers has reemphasized the need for safe and reliable transportation for UN, NGO and other humanitarian staff.
The World Food Programmes (WFP) is using a CERF grant to provide humanitarian air services to over 4,000 humanitarian workers across Somalia. The UNHAS (UN Humanitarian Air Service) programme will allow humanitarian operations assisting Somalis to continue. WFP is utilizing the funds to provide humanitarian flights to 1,350 passengers per month including small cargo using five aircrafts. It is also using one of its aircraft for dedicated security assessments while rehabilitating the capacity of the Merka airstrip to host aircraft overnight.
[Last update: 25 July 2008]
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CERF allocates US$ 6 million for the food security crisis in Somalia
18 June 2008: The humanitarian situation in Somalia is deteriorating at an accelerated pace due to the combination of soaring food prices, a significantly devalued Somalia shilling, a deepening drought following multiple abnormally harsh dry seasons and a delayed and poor start to the “Gu” season rains (mid-April to June), the deteriorating status of infrastructure. Furthermore, internal armed conflict has increasingly impacted negatively on the humanitarian situation in the country. In Central and Southern Somalia UN and NGO humanitarian response capacities have been seriously challenged by the effects of violence and instability.
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| A family in Somalia. Thousands of people are on the verge of starvation. [Photo: IRIN] |
In all areas of Somalia, acute malnutrition is a chronic emergency. Somalia had a 2007 country-wide median prevalence of 15.2 percent acute malnutrition and 2.7 percent severe acute malnutrition. Furthermore, protracted IDPs who have been displaced for years due to the conflict require urgent assistance to their nutritional situation.
Compounding the problem, pastoralists in some areas have lost 50 percent of their herds and destitution is increasing, particularly in the south. In southern Somalia, historically the country’s breadbasket, production of staple foods – sorghum and maize, has fallen by up to 50 percent because of the protracted drought.
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is addressing acute malnutrition in children under five years among IDPs and vulnerable host populations using CERF funds. It is implementing Plumpy’doz (a compound of vegetable fat, peanut paste, sugar, skimmed milk powder malto-dextrine, and complex vitamins and minerals) distribution every two months at distribution sites. Emergency nutrition supplementary food and technical support are also being provided to help supplement 122,000 children in the Shabelles and Bossaso IDP camps.
A CERF grants is enabling the UN Development Programme (UNDP) to support cash interventions for 13,000 poor households, in order to provide an income to purchase food. The UNDP project is also rehabilitating crucial productive infrastructure such as canals and water storage basins, for recovery of local agricultural production, benefiting 250,000 people. The labour-intensive approach to the project is generating temporary employment with a direct cash injection of US$ 600,000 to people in the Middle Shabelles and Hiran regions.
Similarly, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is utilizing a CERF grant to support cash and work-for-food interventions for 55,300 households in the Middle and Lower Shabelles regions. It is supplying work tools required to rural production and support infrastructure projects which will increase capacity for water storage during the “Jilaal” dry season. The project is rehabilitating 800 km of irrigation canals, 40 km of river embankments, 100 water catchments and 400km of rural feeder roads.
[Last update: 26 June 2008]
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