Somalia

Overview

As the number of people facing acute and catastrophic food insecurity continues to rise in Somalia, many people are leaving their communities in search for food, water, and basic services. As of October 2022, the number of people displaced by the drought has reached 1.1 million, more than 700,000 of whom are yet to receive shelter assistance. Over the years, Somalia has been highly vulnerable to recurring climate shocks, including droughts, floods, locust infestation, compounded by protracted conflict and massive displacement.

Cash and Voucher Assistance (CVA) still accounts for the majority of the response to address food security and cover basic needs. In addition to humanitarian CVA, social assistance programmes have emerged to address poverty and vulnerability of affected people, the largest being Baxnaano and Sagal programmes, covering some 1.9 million and 254,338 Somalis, respectively, in July 2022.

Our work

Ground Truth Solutions has been tracking the experiences of aid recipients in Somalia and Somaliland since 2017. In this time, cash and voucher recipients have consistently requested more involvement and consultation from aid actors than they receive. Despite ongoing efforts to centralise Accountability to Affected Populations in Somalia’s response planning, there are still significant gaps in the inclusion of affected people in decision-making on aid.

Ground Truth Solutions will continue to collect quantitative and qualitative perception-based data to support the humanitarian response going forward. We have also convened a community of practice as part of our Accountability in Action training series across Somalia. These monthly sessions bring together humanitarian staff at the intersection of CVA and AAP to explore key accountability concepts and their practical application to CVA.