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Facing hunger

Long-term development is key to fighting drought and saving lives

By UNDP Somalia

August 3^rd, 2022

When disaster strikes, we are here

Somalia is on the brink of famine. The rains have failed for four seasons in a row and drought threatens crop and livestock failure. There hasn’t been such an extended period of drought since the 1980s, when scenes from the Horn of Africa shocked the world. At the same time, the conflict in Ukraine has brought soaring prices and trade disruption that make it harder to provide life-saving assistance.

Humanitarian agencies have launched an appeal for US$993 million but have received less than a third of this. We know what happens next because we’ve seen it before. In the 1980s, up to 1 million died across the Horn. In 2011, emergency funding came too late to save the lives of 250,000 Somalis. This year, the most vulnerable – particularly children and the elderly – are already dying.

At UNDP, our work with the Government of Somalia, local people and the private sector is focussed on making communities stronger so they survive not just this drought but also future natural disasters, which climate change is making more frequent and severe.

We restore rangeland, help institutions conserve and distribute natural resources, build dams to store water and barriers to prevent flooding, support farmers and herders to add value to the products they sell – helping them to save for times of disaster – and improve early warning systems.

In a country where almost 80% of people are farmers or herders, this work doesn't only save lives - it's also of vital importance for the economy.

This work is carried out under three main projects. Read on for the details.

Facing hunger

Facing hunger

Facing hunger

Facing hunger

1. Integrated Water Resources Management for Improved Water Access and Disaster Reduction for Somalia’s Pastoralists

Funded by Global Environment Facility and UNDP.

The project will benefit at least 350,000 pastoralists by supporting the fair management and distribution of water resources.

UNDP has developed a strategy, approved by the federal government, that:

Identifies areas for investment and creates a national platform to share problems and solutions
Establishes a dashboard that tracks who is doing what on water management in every part of the country, including work by government, UN and NGOs, to get rid of overlap and ensure coordination
Protects communities and farmland from flooding with a combination of engineering works (such as flood walls and desalination plants) and nature-based solutions (such as planting trees in watersheds and along embankments). Examples of interventions include planned flood works in Beledweyne and the recently completed solar desalination plant in Sool.

The project is also creating subsidiary legal frameworks in each state aligned with the national water management strategy. This will help communities with competing claims on water resources (such as upstream and downstream communities) agree how water is allocated, thus reducing conflict, improving security and allowing for a faster response to droughts.

To help implementation of the strategy, UNDP trains staff at ministries and district departments on integrated water resource management and the impact of climate change. Officials in the water, environment and planning ministries are trained on long-term planning to identify what investments are needed. This includes using water surveys and feasibility studies to find the best locations for strategic waterpoints and groundwater drilling and undertaking assessments of population dynamics and traditional patterns of resource use. These plans then allow the government to pitch more easily for international support.

“We send warnings to communities living by streams and in low-laying areas and raise awareness through radio, TV and SMS messages.”

Facing hunger

At the same time, we are helping to expand the existing network of climate and weather monitoring systems and link it to disaster warning centres at the federal level and in Somaliland and Puntland.

UNDP also runs two-way awareness campaigns, bringing the latest information on water conservation and management to community leaders, NGOs and CBOs in rual areas while also learning from local communities about their land use and migration routes to help plan the best locations for nurseries, water points and other interventions.

In the ten most climate-sensitive regions, we are carrying out water storage and diversion projects, such as providing dams, boreholes, village water tanks, gully erosion schemes and rangeland rehabilitation.

To boost income among rural men and women, we provide training on how to process skins and hides into leather and link communities with international markets for processed goods so that Somali herders can move on from selling basic raw materials to capture more of the value chain. This project will also carry out a feasibility study on the creation of local tanneries that meet international health, safety and labour standards. It will also help rural people bypass middlemen to gain direct access to international frankincense markets in return for adopting sustainable harvesting practices and help establish new businesses ranging from honey production to solar-powered water and electricity provision.

2. Promoting Resilience through an Integrated Approach to Water, Environment and Disaster Risk Management in Somalia

Funded by Sweden

The overall objective of the project is to build capacity on integrated water resource management, environmental governance and disaster risk reduction (DRR).

At the national and sub-national level, officials are being trained and systems put in place for effective decision making on the allocation and use of water resources, improved environmental management and monitoring and awareness raising on nature-based responses to climate change.

We are also supporting the transition to a more proactive DRR culture that addresses multiple hazards, engages all stakeholders and integrates DRR into planning and programming across different sectors and levels, with a focus on promoting the resilience of the most vulnerable communities.

Starting with Somali National University in Mogadishu, and with plans to reach at least four other universities, UNDP is helping to incorporate water management and weather monitoring data into vocational training and university curricula, including courses on how to quickly and simply distribute this data to at-risk communities where it’s needed. Part of this capacity building process includes funding environmental Master’s scholarships and technical advisors for the Ministries of Environment, Water and Disaster Management who will:

Help form policies for environmental legislation, coordination and the convening of stakeholders
Establish systems for end-to-end early warning, including SOPs for data collection and dissemination
Raise awareness of disasters at the institutional level
Help set up Geospatial Units in all three ministries to assess and monitor usage trends for natural resources, the impact of water flows and charcoal production on the local environment and the impact of interventions. These will be linked disaster monitoring systems in the ground and involve a portal to make the data available where it is needed. This data will also inform reporting on progress toward SDG targets, helping to fill in some of Somalia’s significant data gaps.

3. Durable Solutions/Saameynta

Funded by The Netherlands and Switzerland

UNDP is part of the Saameynta programme (2022-25) to support land development, urban public works and employment and livelihoods. Under the preparatory phase in 2021, UNDP conducted an in-depth assessment of how local economies are affected by displacement in the programme’s three target cities of Baidoa, Beledweyne and Bossaso.

In supporting private sector growth, UNDP works with UNIDO and with the International Bank of Somalia on credit facilities in Baidoa and Beledweyne. These lend to commercial borrowers and, in Baidoa, to microfinance borrowers. They provide funds for working capital and, to a limited extent, equipment, and aim to enable firm-level expansion, leading to employment and livelihoods.

Other activities from Saamyenta and related projects will support public services for agricultural growth, including veterinary services and pest control, together with agricultural inspectorates to ensure the quality of inputs. It is expected that by the end of 2022, 100 small and medium SMEs will have access to business development services and finance.

Facing hunger

Further reading

For details on UNDP's Climate Promise and how we are supporting Somalia to meet its NDC commitments, see www.climatepromise.undp.org/what-we-do/where-we-work/somalia

For information on UNDP's other work in Somalia: www.so.undp.org

© 2026 UNDP Somalia

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