Mid-Year Monitoring Report: 2016 Humanitarian Response Plan - Somalia (Covering January to June 2016)

Key Achievements toward Strategic Objectives

The Somalia Humanitarian Country Team set three strategic objectives for the 2016 Humanitarian Response Plan. These are:

• Address humanitarian needs by providing life-saving and life-sustaining assistance to people in need, prioritizing the most vulnerable
• Restore and strengthen livelihoods and basic service delivery to build resilience to recurrent shocks
• Strengthen the protection of the displaced and other vulnerable groups, and catalyse durable solutions.

Humanitarian partners continue to implement activities aimed at contributing towards reducing vulnerability through life-saving and life-sustaining assistance. In spite of challenges such as limited funding, humanitarian partners assisted drought-affected populations in Puntland and Somaliland, and reached flood-displaced people in southern and central Somalia with assistance. The over 1.1 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) continue to be prioritized for response.

Resilience initiatives continue to be undertaken with various population groups to strengthen their ability to cope with future shocks. Households and communities were equipped with disaster risk reduction skills. River embankments were constructed to mitigate the impact of flooding. Survivors of gender-based violence (GBV) were assisted with life-saving assistance in accordance with the standards and principles.

Partners are on track with their planned activities to strengthen the protection of the displaced and other vulnerable groups, as well as catalyze durable solutions. However, they still fall short of reaching all targeted people in need of humanitarian assistance. Furthermore, ongoing armed conflict, clan violence, and forced evictions have created new protection needs. Challenges Lack of funding, access and logistical constraints, bureaucratic impediments, restricted humanitarian space and limited capacity continued to hamper humanitarian activities.

Recommendations

Due to competing global humanitarian priorities, funding for most appeals was low at mid-year. For a protracted emergency such as Somalia, innovative approaches and more concerted efforts to step up robust resource mobilization are required. Additional advocacy, including with non-traditional donors, needs to be stepped up. Streamlining projects and prioritization is also required to target the most vulnerable groups, whilst building the resilience of the people in need and expanding durable solutions to protracted displacement. The volatile security situation continues to impact humanitarian efforts. Advocacy with parties engaged in the conflict to improve protection of the most vulnerable groups needs to continue.