Food security gains in Somalia “fragile”
NAIROBI, 4 September 2013 (IRIN) - Somalia continues to make progress in its
recovery from the 2011 famine, but some 870,000 people - most of them
internally displaced persons (IDPs) - are predicted to require food
assistance up to December 2013, according to new data from the UN Food and
Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit
(FSNAU) for Somalia.
Many parts of the country have experienced average to above average rainfall
recently, which, coupled with low food prices and humanitarian intervention,
has led to the lowest number of people requiring food aid since
<
http://www.irinnews.org/report/93280/somalia-time-for-immediate-action-on-f
amine-un> famine led to the deaths of more than 250,000 people in southern
Somalia in July 2011.
However, experts warn that despite slight improvements, certain populations
remain extremely vulnerable to food insecurity; some 206,000 children under
the age of five are currently experiencing acute malnutrition -
<
http://www.irinnews.org/report/93701/global-food-and-nutrition-jargon-buste
r> Global Acute Malnutrition rates over 15 percent - down from 215,000 in
January.
“It took two to three seasons to deteriorate into a famine situation, so
while there is no immediate risk of famine, two or three good rainy seasons
does not completely remove the risk,” Daniel Molla, FSNAU’s chief technical
adviser, told IRIN. “The recovery is very fragile without good rains,
sustained humanitarian intervention and improvements in security.”
A 3 September
<
http://fsnau.org/in-focus/acute-malnutrition-persists-somalia-while-870000-
people-remain-food-insecure> technical release reported that IDPs constitute
72 percent of the 870,000 “people in Crisis and Emergency”, according to the
UN’s <
http://www.fews.net/ml/en/info/pages/scale.aspx> Integrated Food
Security Phase Classification. “Most of these people live in settlements in
very poor living conditions and rely on marginal, unreliable livelihood
strategies.”
In the capital Mogadishu, where more than one-third of the country’s 1.1
million IDPs reside, powerful “
<
http://www.irinnews.org/report/96686/somalia-mogadishu-idps-suffer-extortio
n-eviction> gatekeepers” often divert the flow of aid intended for IDPs. In
a 3 September blog, Horn of Africa advocate for the NGO
<
http://refugeesinternational.org/blog/without-solutions-idps-somalias-recov
ery-cant-succeed> Refugees International, cautioned that a planned
<
http://www.irinnews.org/report/97552/somali-government-to-relocate-idps-wel
come-returning-refugees> relocation of the city’s IDPs needed to be
“deliberate and thoughtful” in order to prevent increasing their
vulnerability.
Beyond those in need of urgent support, an estimated 2.3 million Somalis are
categorized as “stressed”, or struggling to meet their food needs and
vulnerable to “food shocks” such as rises in food prices and poor harvests.
FSNAU reported that many households in Mogadishu spend up to 75 percent of
their income on food, placing them at risk in the event of poor rainfall and
a rise in food prices. A threat by Britain’s Barclays Bank to
<
http://www.irinnews.org/report/98358/analysis-barclays-to-cut-somalia-s-rem
ittance-lifeline> withdraw banking services from more than 250
money-transfer companies could also affect the ability of millions of
Somalis who depend on remittances from relatives in the UK to buy food and
water.
Presenting the data on 3 September, Nina Dodd, nutrition analysis manager
for FSNAU, said the areas of Lower and Middle Shabelle, which together are
home to some 18.5 percent of Somalia’s 7.5 million people and
<
http://www.unhcr.org/519625ad9.html> more than 10 percent of the country’s
IDPs, are particularly exposed to food insecurity, as they were previously
supported by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), which was providing therapeutic
feeding but recently pulled out of Somalia, citing high levels of
insecurity.
Few humanitarian agencies are able to access populations in need of food,
and FSNAU was unable to assess the food security situation there; Dodd
warned, however, that “we may soon be warning of emergency levels” in
Shabelle if the situation persists.
“The nutrition and health cluster is trying to identify partners on the
ground who can take over the activities of MSF,” she added.
Visiting Mogadishu in July, John Ging, director of operations for the UN’s
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), said Somalia’s
humanitarian needs were “immense” and called on the international community
to invest in the country, where just 33 percent of the US$1.3 billion
2013-2015 <
https://docs.unocha.org/sites/dms/Somalia/MYR_2013_Somalia.pdf>
humanitarian appeal has been funded.
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Received on Wed Sep 04 2013 - 21:46:49 EDT