Attachments
The IFRC Disaster Response Emergency Fund (DREF) has approved a total of CHF 492,619 for the implementation of the Somali Red Crescent Society (SRCS) Drought EAP.
The approved amount consists of an allocation of CHF 157,431 for readiness and prepositioning and CHF 373,102 allocated to implement early actions once the defined triggers are met.
Allocations are made from the Anticipatory Pillar of the DREF, under the DREF appeal code MDR00001.
Unearmarked contributions to the DREF are encouraged to guarantee enough funding is available for the Early Action Protocols being developed.
During the last twenty years, Somalia has experienced unprecedented shocks namely droughts, flooding, cyclones, desert locust invasions, and conflict. Among these shocks, Drought is the most high-impact natural hazard in terms of the number of people affected. Recurrent droughts have become the new norm occurring consecutively with devastating results on human life. Drought continues to aggravate the pre-existing fragile situation by causing food insecurity, losses of livelihoods, and large-scale internal displacement. The country has endured multiple, severe drought episodes since 1965, the most recent drought (in 2022) affected 5.6 million people. The impact of drought in the country is further compounded by conflict and insecurity facing large parts of the country. The extent of poverty and vulnerability in the country, along with the frequency of droughts and other natural and man-made shocks, demands approaches that predict and address shocks before negatively impacting the vulnerable populace.
The SRCS adopted a consultative and participatory process that involved community consultations and stakeholder engagements in the development of the Drought EAP. Stakeholders were drawn both from the subnational and national levels, contributing to the overall development of EAP. Further to the workshops with external stakeholders, internal workshops were also held with the SRCS branches and senior management to ensure ownership of the process. The Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre (RCCC), the Heidelberg Institute for Geoinformation Technology (HeiGIT), and the German Red Cross provided technical support related to drought risk assessment, trigger development, forecast skill assessment/evaluation as well as capacitating the SRCS in data and information management.
This EAP will aim to mitigate the cascading impacts of drought (water scarcity and food insecurity) by providing vulnerable people with early warning information, multi-purpose cash as well as rehabilitation of key water infrastructure. The target population will be pastoral farmers (host communities) as well as Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).
The drought trigger mechanism will be based on two datasets i.e the merged SPI-12 forecast produced by ICPAC and the Food Insecurity projection produced by FEWSNET. The SPI-12 will be utilized to capture hazard forecasts whilst the Food Insecurity Projection captures dynamic vulnerability. In this way, imminent drought events (SPI) that most probably will lead to food insecurity (IPC) will be captured.
Technical and financial support for the development of this EAP has been provided by the German Red Cross through the Forecast-based Financing (FbF) Project