ReliefWeb

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Despite low levels of funding for the Consolidated Appeal Process (CAP) in the first half of 2011, a massive inflow of donor support in the second half of the year enabled humanitarians to quickly scale up their response after famine was declared in parts of southern Somalia in July.

Precipitated by three consecutive failed rainy seasons that resulted in drought, the crisis in the second half of 2011 was the worst humanitarian emergency in the world. Four million Somalis (almost two-thirds of the population) fell into crisis and were in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, with three million of them located in southern Somalia.

The strategic priorities of the humanitarian community were reviewed twice over the course of the year: during the Mid-Year Review (MYR) in June and again in August after the determination that famine conditions were present in parts of Somalia. The donor community responded generously to the humanitarian agencies’ appeal for US$1 billion. By September, in a period of just two months, donors contributed $572 million, which was more than the first half of 2011 and more than the whole of 2010. At least 30 first-time donors to Somalia contributed funds to address the emergency. By the end of the year, the Somalia CAP was the best-funded humanitarian appeal worldwide, with US$841 million received out of $1 billion requested (an amount that would grow to $897 million as funds continued to come in in the first quarter of 2012). Thanks to the quick response from donors and the flexibility in the funding, particularly for cash-based programming in difficult to access areas, there was a massive scale-up in humanitarian response in the fourth quarter of the year. Within three months of the declaration of famine, the number of people receiving food reached 2.6 million in October. More than 480,000 acutely malnourished children received life-saving supplements. Mass vaccination campaigns reduced cases of measles by almost 50 per cent. Almost all clusters surpassed their targeted number of beneficiaries.

By November, as a result of the scale-up in emergency interventions, three of the six regions where famine had been declared, Bay, Bakool and Lower Shabelle, were lifted out of famine – although they remained at pre- famine levels. Famine conditions persisted in parts of Middle Shabelle region and in areas hosting IDPs in Mogadishu and the Afgooye Corridor until January 2012. Through innovative programming, the strengthening of local partnerships and the arrival of new actors, the humanitarian community was able to mitigate the worst effects of the crisis. However, sustained assistance is critical to consolidating the gains that have been made and further reducing Somalia’s distressingly high levels of malnutrition and mortality.

Access to people in need was a major challenge faced by humanitarian actors in Somalia in 2011. Despite the intensification of military activities in southern Somalia when fighting between the Kenyan Defence Forces (KDF) and Al Shabaab started in October and an Al Shabaab-imposed ban on 16 UN agencies and NGOs working in territories under its control in November, humanitarians managed to increase their emergency interventions, largely due to the expansion in the number of local partners and the innovative programming that was made possible by flexible funding.