With a population of 7.5 million, Somalia is mired in one of the most dire and complex emergencies in the world. The Somalia Food Security Analysis Unit (FSAU) and the Famine Early-Warning System Network (FEWSNET) report that Somalia is facing an unprecedented urban and rural food crisis, with nutrition and food security deteriorating to levels not seen since the famine of the early 1990s. Some 43 percent of the total population of the country, some 3.2 million people, are in need of emergency livelihood and life-saving assistance at least until June 2009, representing an increase of 75 percent since January 2008.
The population is increasingly struggling to cope with a devastating combination of conflict, massive displacement, drought, high food prices, devaluation of the Somali shilling and hyperinflation. The first to suffer, children constitute one of the most vulnerable groups. Lack of infrastructure and basic social services, along with poor infant feeding practices and limited access to nutritional foods have exacerbated malnutrition. 200,000 children (or 1 child in 6) are acutely malnourished, while global acute malnutrition rates have reached 25 percent in some areas of Somalia.
A new President has been elected and a new Transitional Federal Government (TFG) installed. WFP will engage with TFG authorities in the areas under its control and as its policies and programmes are formulated. Nevetheless, the country has been without a functioning Government for 18 years, and escalating conflict due to a complex anti-government insurgency continues to lead to alarming rates of displacement. According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, there are over 1.3 million internally displaced people with many facing critical levels of malnutrition. According to the FSAU, civil insecurity is fuelling an economic crisis, which is causing human suffering and is having a devastating impact on the general population and humanitarian situation. Insecurity is severely limiting the movement of goods, restricting trade and access, and continues to hamper humanitarian access and space. With an increasing number of attacks on aid workers over the past year, the operating environment in Somalia has deteriorated and forced several United Nations agencies and non-governmental organizations to suspend operations.
High food prices, the decline of the Somali shilling and low local food production due to conflict, three years of drought and successive failed harvests are further limiting access to food. The prices of imported rice and local cereals increased between 200 percent and 400 percent in the first 6 months of 2008. According to the FSAU, cereal prices declined from October 2008, but were still 350-825 percent above normal in January 2009, placing basic commodities beyond the reach of the poor and pushing the country towards total economic collapse.
In 2008, WFP scaled up emergency food assistance, primarily in south-central Somalia, to reach 2.4 million people with emergency food assistance under its protracted relief and recovery operation 10191.1 “Food aid for relief and protection of livelihoods”. To do this, WFP has modified its approach to adapt to the deteriorating humanitarian context in Somalia. The changes include:
These new approaches have proven to be successful. With over 200 staff members already working inside Somalia, and with plans to expand operations, WFP remains one of the few agencies on the ground in Somalia capable of reaching the most vulnerable populations. CARE International has handed the responsibility of feeding 1 million people to WFP, expanding the number of WFP beneficiaries to 3.5 million people by 1 April 2009.
There are complementarities among the humanitarian and development activities of the United Nations in Somalia. Progress or otherwise in the peace process impacts on the typologies and focus of WFP activities in Somalia. While the main objective of this WFP operation is to save lives, WFP will adopt a flexible approach to seek out opportunities to engage in recovery and livelihood support.
In line with the WFP Strategic Plan (2008-2011), the overall objectives of this emergency operation are to save lives and protect livelihoods in emergency and early recovery (Strategic Objective 1) while helping to prevent potential transition situations from collapsing (Strategic Objective 3). General food distributions and emergency nutrition assistance will contribute to save lives by ensuring adequate food consumption. WFP assistance will also support the re-establishment of livelihoods of targeted households through its recovery activities.
Given the severe nature of the crisis, 96 percent of WFP assistance will be channelled through relief interventions. General food distributions will target 1,319,000 rural people in crisis as well as 1,553,000 urban poor and internally displaced people. Other relief interventions will include emergency school feeding for 93,000 children and nutrition programmes for 475,000 pregnant and lactating women and children under 3; beneficiaries may receive general food distributions as well as school feeding and supplementary feeding. WFP will support 90,000 vulnerable people through recovery activities including food for work/assets, food for training and institutional feeding. Nearly 85 percent of the beneficiaries will be located in southern and central Somalia, with the remaining beneficiaries in Somaliland and Puntland in the north.
