Somalia country strategic plan (2026–2030)

CSP approved by the EB June 2026 session

As Somalia looks to 2030 and beyond, this five-year country strategic plan responds to the rapidly evolving conditions in the country, which are marked by entrenched and rising humanitarian needs, persistent conflict, recurring climate-related shocks and a historic decline in donor resources that together have triggered a major rethink of WFP’s strategic positioning in Somalia. 

Somalia has received humanitarian assistance for more than 30 years, during which famine has been declared twice. WFP’s analysis shows that people have been suffering from emergency levels of acute food insecurity – Integrated Food Security Phase Classification phase 4 – every year since 2010. At least 6.5 million Somalis, nearly a third of the population, are facing crisis levels or worse of acute food insecurity, a situation that is expected to continue throughout the period covered by this plan. In response, WFP will sharpen its focus on saving lives, prioritize the people most vulnerable to acute food and nutrition insecurity, advocate for resource partners to address total needs, and explore transformative, private sector-based models aimed at arresting escalating human costs. This strategic shift is grounded in localization and assurance while upholding the highest standards of transparency and accountability, focused on direct, field-level oversight, robust verification of transfers, and transparent reporting. 

WFP will harness its comparative advantage to focus on programme quality; conflict-sensitive, vulnerability-based targeting; operational efficiency; digital innovation; and stronger integration among interventions, while also facilitating maximum impact from the collective humanitarian response through the provision of expert analysis, logistics and supply chain services.

Building resilience to withstand shocks, and fostering self-reliance underpin this strategy, which links the provision of immediate access to food to long-term investments in resilient food systems and diversified livelihoods, with support for nutrition-sensitive safety nets at its core. 

Noting the Federal Government of Somalia’s ambitious long-term vision of transforming the fragile state into a “capable and resilient” middle-income country by 2060, WFP will align implementation of the country strategic plan with the national transformation plan for 2025–2029 and the United Nations sustainable development cooperation framework for Somalia for 2026–2030. 

Informed by evidence, analysis and insights from experience and evaluations, national plans and priorities, this plan reflects the WFP country office’s operational shift from project-based interventions to integrated, people-centred programming, continuing to prioritize life-saving assistance for the most critically food-insecure and malnourished communities while positioning WFP as an enabler of national systems and local actors to provide nutrition-sensitive safety nets such as school meals programmes. 

Central to this vision, WFP’s leadership in food security analysis, supply chains and service provision becomes a key enabler of programme integration and innovation, while the organization continues to provide strategic information and critical logistics and aviation services to other humanitarian actors. 

WFP will strengthen programmatic coordination across United Nations and non-governmental partners to enable common beneficiary services and integrated, cross-sectoral assistance with referral mechanisms that reduce duplication. These efforts are consistent with WFP’s leadership role in the humanitarian reset and with the work of the reset and reform task team established under that initiative. 

To deliver this programme in line with its strategic plan and corporate results framework, WFP proposes to implement four interlinked country strategic plan outcomes: 

➢ Outcome 1: Crisis-affected populations in Somalia have improved access to timely life-saving food and nutrition assistance and are enabled to better anticipate, cope with and recover from shocks during times of crisis. 

➢ Outcome 2: Food-insecure and at-risk populations, especially women, in targeted urban, peri-urban and rural communities have improved self-reliance, adequate nutrition and diversified livelihoods, and are more resilient to recurring shocks by 2030. 

➢ Outcome 3: Government and partner programmes, platforms and systems are enabled to increase the quality, coverage and sustainability of school-based programmes and shock-responsive, nutrition-sensitive safety nets for the most vulnerable people by 2030. 

➢ Outcome 4: The humanitarian community in Somalia is better able to reach vulnerable people and respond to needs and emergencies throughout the year. 

Humanitarian access remains severely constrained and costly because of terrorism, the presence of non-state armed groups, and clan-based conflict. With consideration of its duty of care to both employees and beneficiaries uppermost, WFP will apply conflict-sensitive approaches to secure safe access to the people most in need of life-saving assistance. While the shift to cash-based transfers in the country strategic plan for 2022–2025 demonstrated the operational effectiveness of digital delivery and mobile money, WFP maintains contingency plans to prepare for any major shift in the mix of the transfer modalities it uses. 

Noting the paradigm shift proposed by the UN80 initiative, WFP will work with other members of the United Nations humanitarian country team, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the United Nations Children’s Fund, to enhance programmatic coordination on food security, beneficiary data, and health and nutrition interventions in order to achieve greater impact, efficiency, predictability and results at scale. Long-established as the largest humanitarian actor in the country, WFP will integrate and measure results in its cross-cutting priorities such as nutrition, protection, accountability and environmental sustainability, while advancing equality, especially for women and persons with disabilities. 

To continue advancing its mandate while “doing better with less”, WFP has recalibrated its operational capacity in Somalia to the projected funding outlook with a view to maintaining its capacity for providing relief while streamlining its resilience programming. WFP is ready to “stay and deliver” in Somalia, embracing integrity, quality, impact and readiness to usher in a strategic reset under this country strategic plan. Working towards this goal, WFP will foster innovative partnerships, prioritizing expanded collaboration with Somalia’s dynamic private sector to strengthen resource mobilization and programme delivery