Nearly 3.5 million people across Somalia are expected to face critical food consumption gaps, depletion of livelihood assets or worse (IPC 3 and above) through the end of the year, in the absence of humanitarian assistance.
Key drivers of acute food insecurity in Somalia include the combined effects of poor and erratic rainfall distribution, flooding and conflict. Below-average crop production – 60% below the 1995 – 2020 average -, poor crop harvest projections and forecasts of successive below average rains, compound dire food insecurity and malnutrition prospects in country.
Aproximately 1.2 million children under the age of five are likely to be acutely malnourished, including nearly 213,400 who are likely to be severely malnourished.
Humanitarian assistance for food security and nutrition, as well as government support, reached more than 1.6 million people per month on average between January and June 2021. Reported funding gaps, access constraints resulting from the conflict and wider insecurity, challenge the required scale up humanitarian assistance in most affected areas during the remainder of 2021.