Planting hope: How an EU-funded agriculture project is lifting up farmers in Somalia
Story | 5 September 2024
Emergency
Somalia
- 3.6 million
- people facing high levels of acute food insecurity
- 3.8 million
- people internally displaced
- US$261 million
- needed for WFP operations up to March 2025
A total of 3.6 million people are facing acute food insecurity in Somalia. Above-average rainfall and localized floods, during the Gu rainy season (April–June), affected 268,000 people and damaged livelihood assets. Families were already trying o rebuild livelihoods ravaged by the 2020-2023 drought – the country’s longest on record, which pushed Somalia to the brink of famine.
These unrelenting climate shocks are prolonging Somalia’s hunger crisis, at a time when significant funding shortfalls mean that WFP is only able to provide food assistance to less than half of the people most in need.
WFP has taken anticipatory action to safeguard the lives and livelihoods of people in anticipation of floods. This means families have the information and means to protect their homes or to move before the floods hit, leaving fewer people in need of emergency assistance.
Without additional funding, however, WFP will struggle to expand this preventive action or make longer-term investments to build resilience. WFP needs US$261 million operations up to March 2025.
What the World Food Programme is doing to respond to the Somalia emergency
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Crisis response
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WFP, the largest humanitarian agency in Somalia, saves lives by providing food and nutrition assistance to people in crisis. WFP works both directly and through over 100 partners, even in areas where insecurity makes access challenging. Somalia is also home to WFP’s largest use of anticipatory action in Africa, helping drought-affected households to prepare for a potential fourth poor rainy season with cash transfers and an information campaign.
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Resilience
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WFP changes lives in Somalia by helping to build sustainable, long-term resilience at community, state and national level against recurrent shocks like drought and flooding. This includes working with the Government to implement social protection programmes; strengthening climate-smart food systems (for example by training smallholder farmers and linking them to new markets); and developing the capacity of national institutions to sustainably address hunger.
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Government and UN integration
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WFP works with all levels of government in alignment with Somalia’s Ninth National Development Plan, the United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework, and the Humanitarian Response Plan. One example is WFP’s support for Baxnaano, a government-owned national safety net. WFP’s work is integrated with the broader United Nations, including joint programming with the United Nations Children’s Fund and the Food and Agriculture Organization.
How you can help
WFP urgently needs funding for its response in Somalia, to help those people most in need.
Donate now