Impact of drought and famine in Somalia

Content

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION

Drought and Famine

Impact of Drought

Impact of Famine

Profile of Bay and Bakool Regions

The History and Political Economy of Aid in Somalia

Cholera in Bay and Bakool Regions: Reporting Several Casualties

Challenges and the Reality of Implementation Aid in Somalia

Review of Literature

Somalia Refuges during Drought & Famine

Data and methods

Suggestions

Conclusion

References

ABSTRACT

This article presents a comprehensive review and analysis of the available literature and information on droughts and famines in Bay and Bakool Regions to build a continental, regional and country level perspective on geospatial and temporal variation of droughts in Somalia. The available (though limited) evidence before the 20th century confirms the occurrence of several extreme and multi-year droughts and famines during each century, with the most prolonged and intense droughts and famines that occurred in Bay and Bakool Regions of Somalia. The future predictions of droughts and famines based on global climate models indicates an increased rate at the continental scale. However, the available evidence from the past clearly shows that the Somalia regions are likely to face extreme and extensive droughts and famines in future. To reduce the negative impacts of droughts and famines in the select regions of Somalia, there is a clear need for increased and integrated efforts. This article was adapted to better understand the Drought and Famine in Somalia. The study focused the impact of both drought and famine in two regions viz; Bay and Bakool Regions. As a result it draws out important continuities with the famine of the early 1990s as well as specific food security and vulnerability characteristics within Bay and Bakool Regions of Somalia which have been discussed on the basis of situation at that time. ‘Minority’ populations were most affected in both drought and famines. This identity overlaps with specific geographic areas and more inactive, rural and agriculturally based livelihoods, distinct from other population groups. These dimensions are important in understanding long-term marginalization processes and outcomes, also help to understand the differential levels of risk and other complicating factors in the 2016-17 drought and famine.

Key Words: Climate Models, Drought, Famine, Predictions, Food-Security and Vulnerability

INTRODUCTION

The available evidence from the past clearly shows that the Bay and Bakool Regions of Somalia are very likely to face extreme and widespread droughts in the future. The vulnerability is likely to increase due to fast growing populations, increasing water demands and degradation of land and environmental resources. Addressing such a daunting and evident challenge calls for much more serious and committed action from communities, governments, regional bodies, international organizations and donors than what is witnessed at present. Droughts are recurrent features varying from lack of rain in one season or up to one or more years. The vulnerability to droughts is high due to poverty, large dependency on rain fed agriculture and other factors. Therefore, droughts continue to incur a heavy toll to people, animals, environment and economy. The planning and management of droughts and famines requires a paradigm change shifting from crisis management to risk management. Comprehensive studies on historic drought and famine events could significantly guide better planning and mitigation strategies of droughts and famines. There is a significantly increasing number of scientific studies and information on various aspects of drought. The analysis of droughts during 1900’s to till present indicated that droughts and famines have intensified in terms of their frequency, severity and geospatial coverage over the last few decades. Few studies are available to construct drought and famine chronologies before the 20th century. However, studies based on lake sediment analysis indicated episodes of severe droughts prolonged for decades and even centuries in the past over Bay and Bakool Regions of Somalia which are also documented in the cultural histories of these regions. Drought predictions based on the global climate models simulations show varying results and thus remain uncertain for most of the African continent. However, the results of simulation models suggested a high likelihood of increased droughts in Bay and Bakool Regions of Somalia. Despite considerable improvements in these models, they are still not able to accurately represent the large number of complex factors responsible for causing the droughts across various regions of the continent. Their complex interactions induce uncertainty in the drought predictions.

Drought and Famine

I – Drought: The climate and weather systems of the earth are constantly changing. As part of these dynamic processes, extremes of temperature, rainfall, and air movement will naturally occur. Periods of unusual dryness, i.e. droughts, are therefore a normal feature of climate and weather systems in all countries, including those generally regarded as being “wet” and “cold” as well as those areas usually associated with the term “drought” – the semiarid areas of the tropics. While droughts may be regarded as unusual in that they do not occur all the time, or in some areas for most of the time, droughts should not be regarded as being “abnormal” and, in fact, should be planned for in all countries. Drought is notoriously difficult to define and different definitions abound. Nevertheless, it is important that those involved in drought preparedness, mitigation, and declaration activities share a common understanding of the ways in which drought may be defined and the assumptions and constraints involved in using particular definitions.

II – Famine: For many, the word famine is defined by images of mass starvation, where whole communities are literally starving to death. Indeed, such is the power of the modern media that some tend to define famine in terms of the horrific and widely screened film of the feeding camps in northern Ethiopia in late 1984. Such a perspective is problematic in at least three respects: it tends to view famine as a single event rather than as a process which culminates in significantly increased morbidity and mortality; it is rarely the case that whole communities starve to death. Rather it is usually only certain more vulnerable groups within the community that experience significantly increased mortality rates; famines need not be as stark and visible as in the extreme situation of the barren Ethiopian feeding camps. Widespread starvation can occur almost unseen to the outside observer, behind closed doors in peoples’ homes even in agriculturally productive areas.

Impact of Drought

Of all the natural hazards, droughts are potentially those having the greatest economic impact and affecting the greatest number of people. Earthquakes and cyclones may be of enormous physical intensity but are invariably of short duration and geographically limited. By contrast droughts affect large geographical areas, often covering whole countries or parts of continents and may last for several months and, in some cases, several years. Of the main natural disasters, droughts are unique in terms of the length of time between the first indications from, for example, rainfall monitoring, that a drought is developing and the point at which it begins to impact significantly upon the population of the affected area. The length of such “warning time” varies significantly between societies.

Impact of Famine

1. A decline in food availability
2. A reduction in people’s access to, or their ability to acquire, food.

Until recently it was generally believed that the only cause of famine was a decline in food availability due to a reduction in production resulting from adverse weather, disease/pest infestation, or through a cutting-off of traditional sources of supply. However, over the last century there has been a growing realization that famines can occur in areas where overall food availability has not declined, but as a result of a reduction in the ability of certain groups within the population to acquire the food, for instance as a result of a loss in their income or a sudden rise in the price of food.

Profile of Bay and Bakool Regions

The Bay region is situated in the centre of southern Somalia, surrounded by Bakool in the northwest, Gedo on the west side, Middle Juba in the south, and Lower Shabelle on the east side. The major towns of Bay region are Baidoa, Buur-hakaba, Diinsoor, Qansahdhere and Berdaale. Then again, right now entire of Bay region is approximately servicing 50 primary and secondary schools including public and private and auxiliary schools, roughly hundreds of Qur’anic schools and followed by 10 colleges those are all giving training administration to the nearby understudies.

On other hand, The Bakool region lies approximately 420 km from Mogadishu. It is bordered on the East by Hiran region, on the North by Ethiopia, on the West by Gedo region, and on the South by Bay region. Bakool region is made up of five districts: Hudur, Wajit, Tieglo, El Barde and Rabdhurre. The population of the region is estimated to be around 400,000 with 120,000 people in Hudur district. The majority of the population belongs to the Hadama sub-clan who are mainly in Hudur and Wajit; other sub-clans include Jiron in Wajit, Laway in Hudur, Lesan in Hudur and Gilible in Tieglo, these are all sub-clans of Reewing. In El-Barde there is very small number of Darood, Ogaden, Bantu, and Hawiye and they are minority in Bakool region.

The History and Political Economy of Aid in Somalia

Humanitarian aid to Somalia has long been subject to various forms of direction, both as a political tool and as an opportunity for personal profiteering. This has contributed to a somewhat jaded atmosphere that surrounds interventions of various kinds in the Somali context. It is important to put the 2011–12 crises in the perspective of the 30-plus years of the history of aid in Somalia before addressing the specifics of the recent crisis. The Somali historian Lee Cassanelli (2000) has described foreign aid, in its various forms—refugee relief, development aid, and military assistance as being a target of Somalia’s power seekers since the 1970s. Bradbury and Maletta (2012) point out that humanitarian aid in particular has been instrumentalized by various Somali actors, foreign governments, aid agencies and non-state actors for the last twenty years. It has in fact been manipulated by a wide range of Somali actors, from the Siad Barre government, to warlords, business people, various local authorities and Somali NGOs, for the purposes of either projecting their authority or enriching themselves (Bradbury and Maletta 2012). The jaded atmosphere that continues to plague Somalia today is not a new phenomenon; it brings to the forefront concerns about accountability, transparency, and (ironically) both the independence of aid and aid dependency, that have been raised many times during the past twenty years. The refugee incur from Ethiopia to Somalia, a result of the Ogaden war in the late 1970s, is usually referred to as the starting point in this process, generating an “avalanche of aid” from the late 1970s to the late 1980s (Simons 1995). Somalia itself was one of the largest per capita recipients of international aid in the Cold War era, feeding the government’s patronage networks and contributing to a bloated civil service (ibid). The Somali go v ernment and many thousands of Somalis employed within the aid system were said to depend on the refugees for income, with all enterprising Somalis, refugees included, exploiting the aid system (ibid).

Cholera in Bay and Bakool Regions: Reporting Several Casualties

It is very difficult to get past and present registered cases that death for cholera diseases had recently so damaged entire of Somalia regions particular residents of these two regions. Concerning situational emergency in Somalia, It is obnoxious news to hear and extremely stunned what day-by-day occurring in Somalia. Countless individuals in Somalia are yet kicking the bucket insignificant, blasts, death killings, and seriously therapeutic treatment, hungry because of aggressive behaviour at home. Shortcoming of government could not ready to make instantly move and address the danger of any raised issues and brisk react of starvation confronting by its natives. Hence, this table is demonstrating an unofficial statistics done by local websites operating both regions a gauge of enrolled cases passed on by cholera infection in 2016 onwards, specific point of view Bay and Bakool areas.

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Source: Idalenews.com, Bay, Somalia 2016

Challenges and the Reality of Implementation Aid in Somalia

Most agency reports and meta-evaluations agree that the humanitarian community was unequivocally late in addressing the most acute needs of the people affected by the crisis (Darcy et al. 2012; Slim 2012). Although donors were quick to react to the famine declaration and to pledge funds towards the crisis, actual delivery of aid on the ground came later. Among the different types of programming, the fastest start-up time was among the voucher programs, mainly due to previous NGO experience implementing vouchers and difficulties establishing remittance contracts for cash distributions (Longley et al. 2012). Still other organizations were not able to begin implementation until well in 2012, when famine was officially declared to be over (Haider and Dini 2012). However, in many places malnutrition rates remained high for several months after the famine and indeed hundreds of thousands of people were still in need of assistance.

While food aid has long been associated with control and diversion by divergent actors, many of the agencies supporting cash expected that it would be less subject to these problems. In fact, the scrutiny of both the FAO and UNICEF programs revealed the same problems of diversion or capture and although at significantly lower levels. They might be described as the normal way of working in Somalia, although generally under-reported and exacerbated under conditions of remote management and the rapid expansion of humanitarian resources that took place from 2006 and again during the famine itself (FAO 2013; Hedlund et al. 2013).

Review of Literature

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Somalia Refuges during Drought & Famine

Kenya and Ethiopia currently host the number of Somali refugees. The number of refugees in both the countries increased significantly due to the combined effects of drought, famine and ongoing insecurity in Somalia. In Kenya, refugees registered by UNHCR live in campus. Nearly half a million are located in “Dadaab Refugee Camp”, originally designed to accommodate not more than 160,000 refugees but which now a small “Camp-City”, and a further 101,000 in Kakuma Camp.

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Source: Computed from Annual Reports of Disaster Management.

Bar Chart

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Data and methods

The main data and information sources for this study have been collected from the literature (e.g. published, peer and non-peer reviewed, unpublished sources). The list of reviewed material is not exhaustive, though an effort has been made to conduct compressive coverage.

Suggestions

1. Regardless of the extent to which climate change has contributed to famine in Somalia, urgent action is needed by all governments to slash greenhouse gas emissions to avoid catastrophic levels of global warming.
2. International humanitarian NGOs must do more than call for donations to fund emergency responses.
3. To address famine in the 21st century, we need to understand that it’s largely a man-made phenomenon.

Conclusion

Concerning situational crisis in Somalia, It is unpleasant news to hear and to a great degree shocked what step by step happening in Somalia. Incalculable people in Somalia are yet kicking the basin inconsequential; impacts, passing killings, and genuinely helpful treatment, hungry as a result of forceful conduct at home. Deficiency of government couldn't prepare to make right away move and address the risk of any raised issues and energetic respond of starvation standing up to by its locals. Along these lines, it is hard to get the genuine estimations of selected cases achieved by current drought and other social issues those meeting the all inclusive community of this locale for long time. Consequently, this table underneath is exhibiting a gage of selected cases passed on by cholera contamination particular perspective Bay and Bakool territories. Interventions in Somalia would ideally, in the absence of public social services, focus more on long-term risk reduction and less on final life saving measures. The Red Cross Red Crescent movement has lobbied for a ‘no regrets’ approach in this regard, in the Horn of Africa and globally. No Regrets actions are investments in existing local, private or public sector services, early in the crisis cycle to extend their coverage or increase access. Funding such an approach is difficult outside of the highly politicized Somali environment, let alone within it. However, the cost of not doing so in such a context may lead to another famine; the same, or a very similar, risk environment may still be in place. Food security, vulnerability and famine are monitored, analyzed and articulated through mandated organizations which are focused on proximate causes and humanitarian outcomes expressed through monthly and seasonal (highly detailed) snapshots. Longitudinal data and information in some critical areas, as well as wider processes of social and economic transformation, is more limited.

References

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