Drought conditions worsen in Puntland

Wednesday April 27, 2016

Drought ravages lives and livelihoods

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The situation in Puntland has significantly deteriorated from severe to extreme, according to the latest rainfall analysis by FAO-managed Somalia Water and Land Information Management (SWALIM). This is due to delayed and poorly distributed rains.

While between moderate and heavy rains have been recorded in parts of Somaliland, some areas of Puntland and Somaliland continue to experience drought conditions. The impact on lives and livelihoods is severe. Water resources and pasture have been depleted.

Many people have had to confront perishing livestock, disease outbreaks, food insecurity and limited access to water. Already, partners have reported an increase in malnutrition cases and high enrollment in nutrition programmes in the most affected areas.

Malnutrition-related deaths have also been reported in some of the worst affected areas such as Awdal region. If the drought continues hundreds of thousands of people, most of whom depend on livestock and crops for their livelihood, risk losing their livelihoods.

Nearly 385,000 people in Puntland and Somaliland face acute food insecurity and an estimated 1.3 million people are at risk of slipping into acute food insecurity if they do not receive assistance. Overall, some 1.7 million people or 40 per cent of the 4.6 million people are in need of some form of humanitarian assistance and livelihood support.

Humanitarian partners step up response but resources are limited

Humanitarian partners are scaling up efforts to save lives and livelihoods in the areas hardest hit by the drought. Partners are prioritizing the provision of WASH, Food Security and Livehoods, Health and Nutrition. They are also prioritizing keeping children in schools and protecting them from family separation, violence and abuse. Today, 95 national and international humanitarian organizations are operational in Puntland and Somaliland.

However, they are unable to scale up response to the level of needs because of lack of adequate funding. Funding across all clusters is low and inadequate to boost response.
Timely funding is critical to enable partners significantly scale up response to prevent the situation from deteriorating further.

Health and nutrition partners have deployed joint mobile health and nutrition teams to pastoral and other hard-to-reach groups. At the same time, malnourished children are receiving essential primary health care interventions, including emergency immunization.

Health partners have delivered health care services to more than 30,000 people, including Internally Displaced People (IDPs) living in drought-affected areas in Puntland and Somaliland. Between January and March, more than 11,000 acutely malnourished children were admitted into outpatient therapeutic and targeted supplementary feeding programmes. Mobile health clinics and hygiene promotion activities are also ongoing in the affected areas.

In Puntland, partners have pre-positioned nutrition supplies, including 500 cartons of high energy biscuits. In Somaliland, 15,000 cartons of ready-to-use therapeutic food have been provided to the Ministry of Health for wider distribution.

More than 245,000 people (79 per cent of the monthly target) had been reached with improved access to food and safety net-related interventions. Nearly 90,000 people were also reached with activities aimed at building livelihoods. Approximately 42,000 people received livelihood seasonal inputs such as seeds, tools, fishing equipment, irrigation vouchers and livestock distribution and vaccination.

An estimated 190,000 people have been provided with temporary and sustainable access to safe water through water vouchers and rehabilitation of boreholes. Protection Cluster reached some 11,800 people with protection activities. The Shelter Cluster assisted approximately 3,000 people with household items. Education partners reached some 9,900 children in Puntland.

Coordination with Puntland and Somaliland authorities is ongoing. Authorities have established regional and district-level drought response committees to coordinate with humanitarian organizations and mobilize resources for drought response.

This is critical for ensuring a coordinated and expedited response. Concerted efforts are being made to step up robust resource mobilization for Somalia to avert the risk of more people sliding further into crisis. To date, the 2016 Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) has only received US$145 million or 16 per cent of $885 million requested. On 31 March, humanitarians launched a Call for Aid seeking $105 million for drought response.

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