Worsening situation in Somalia pushes aid costs to $641 mln
By Daniel Van Oudenaren
July 20, 2008 (WASHINGTON) – Aid operations in Somalia will cost $641 million this year, according to a mid-year review issued on Wednesday July 16 by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). The UN is appealing for $435 million in new funding pledges to meet the cost.
“Nutritional surveillance has indicated widespread and worsening high levels of malnutrition, exceeding the WHO emergency threshold (15%), and worsening food security in various regions of South Central Somalia,” said the OCHA report.
Market data released on July 8 by monitors at the Food Security Analysis Unit – Somalia (FSAU) shows that the price of maize rose to 15,000-18,500 Somali shillings per kilogram in four markets in the Shabelle Valley, from around 3,000 shillings at the same time last year.
Other market indicators point to danger for Somalia’s significant pastoral populations. The terms of trade for goats have fallen in all regions of Somalia, with particularly dramatic changes in the Juba Valley, the Shabelle Valley, and the southern Sorghum belt–where a goat’s price relative to cereal dropped about 75% since July of last year.
Civil insecurity is a key immediate cause of humanitarian emergency in the Somali regions of Lower Shabelle, Banadir, Middle Shabelle, Hiiran, Bakool, Gedo, Galgadud, and Mudug, according to FSAU, which is funded by USAID and the European Community.
Environmental degradation and poor rains are also contributing to food insecurity. South and central Somalia received below-average rains during the gu (main) rainy season, which ends in June. Last year south and central Somalia faced the lowest gu harvest in 13 years.
Over the past week aid workers have faced a spate of fatal attacks. A spokesman for an armed Islamist group, identifying himself only as Sheikh Mohamed, told Garowe Online that his organization blamed aid workers for supplying the enemy.
The UN World Food Program says that it is trying to assist 2.6 million Somalis in need – a number that is expected to reach 3.5 million by the end of the year.
The United States is the largest donor of humanitarian assistance in Somalia, granting $85 million so far this year. In the fiscal year 2009, Congress will also provide $11.6 million in security assistance to the UN Peacekeeping Operations.
But the Bush administration faces criticism for its involvement in the Somali conflict.
The Enough Project, a research and advocacy group, questioned U.S. support for Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government in an April strategy paper. Further in an opinion piece this week for the Washington Post, Frankie Martin, a fellow at American University in Washington, D.C., says that “the United States must immediately change a failed policy. Instead of effectively fighting those individuals who wish America harm, it has taken on the Somali people.”
(ST)