Anticipatory Action Plan For Drought in Somalia (Version 23 June 2020)

1. Introduction

Drought in Somalia

In the last quarter century, Somalia has experienced three major droughts and two famines.
Famine in 1992 killed over 200,000 people and displaced 1 out of 5. During the 2011 East Africa drought, more than a quarter of a million people died in Somalia, half of them children under five. This event resulted in 955,000 Somali refugees in neighboring countries and devastating economic losses to agriculture, livestock and other critical sectors. In 2016-2017 Somalia experienced another devastating drought which left 5.4 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, displaced more than a million and caused damages and losses over $3.25 billion. The Horn is expected to face even more erratic and extreme weather patterns over the next half century.

Nearly 8 in 10 Somalis are estimated to live in severe poverty with incidence highest among the displaced. Poverty in Somalia is widespread with 77 percent of the population estimated to live in poverty in 20171 – the third highest poverty rate in the region. In rural areas, 8 out of 10 households do not have access to an improved water source within 30 minutes of their primary residences, with even higher rates without access to basic sanitation or hygiene facilities. Over half of children are not enrolled in primary education, and Somalia’s infant mortality rate of 9.5 percent is the second highest in the world – largely driven by malnutrition.

Since the 2016/17 drought, the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS), Federal Members States (FMS) and international partners have developed strategies to mitigate severe food insecurity and other risks in Somalia. This has included joint efforts to calculate the damages, losses and needs of the last major drought as captured in the 2018 Drought Impact Needs Assessment (DINA).
This work led to the development of the Somalia Resilience and Recovery Framework (RRF) which articulates how partners can better coordinate financing and implementation efforts to address some of the country’s most pressing short- and long-term needs.

The World Bank, OCHA as well as UN agency and donor partners are looking to bolster support for the anticipatory action agenda in a harmonized way to mitigate severe food insecurity and other risks in Somalia. Much work has been ongoing at the global level to develop frameworks for shifting financial instruments toward earlier responses. This includes efforts by the World Bank and OCHA to explore new ways of deploying their crisis financing tools such as the IDA Crisis Response Window (CRW) – currently under consideration by IDA Deputies – and the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF).