ReliefWeb

SITUATION OVERVIEW

Humanitarian assistance continued across Somalia. In December, an estimated 568,200 people received food assistance, and more than 112,000 people were reached with activities aimed at building livelihoods. From August to December, 1.8 million people received livelihood seasonal inputs such as seeds, tools, fishing equipment, irrigation vouchers and livestock distribution and vaccination. Between January and December, nearly 203,000 malnourished children under age 5 were admitted into nutrition programmes. More than one million Somalis received basic health services, while some 1.9 million people were provided with temporary and/or sustainable access to safe water. Over 200,000 people were assisted with safe sanitation and some 892,900 people were reached with hygiene promotion activities. Nearly 471,500 people were reached with protection services, while education partners reached some 96,100 learners with teaching activities and school feeding programmes. An estimated 263,500 people were assisted with non-food items and 16,500 others with transitional shelter.

The humanitarian situation in Somalia is currently deteriorating at a rapid pace due to drought and humanitarian partners are shifting from drought response to pre-famine scale-up. The number of people in need of assistance has increased from five million in September to over 6.2 million, more than half of the population in Somalia. This includes a drastic increase in the number of people in IPC acute food insecurity “crisis” and “emergency” phases from 1.1 million six months ago to nearly 3 million projected for February to June. A massive and urgent scale up of humanitarian assistance in the coming months is needed to avert a famine in some of the worst drought-affected areas. There are already worrying similarities to the conditions that led to the famine in 2011, but a much larger percentage of the population is at risk this time. Donors have moved quickly to provide funding to support the initial scale-up of the drought response and the Humanitarian Country Team is putting together an Operational Response Plan for Pre-famine Scale-up.