I recently visited the town of Baidoa in Somalia that is now ground zero for the aid response to a starvation crisis that has left almost three million people...

By Johana Kipkoech

I woke up at 4AM to prepare for this long awaited day. My airport pick and the plane’s departure were also on time. My destination was still in my mind vague since I had not bothered to check on Google Earth, as I am accustomed to, to understand the environment in which I was visiting. In a way, this was a journey of faith.

As the plane pierced the clouds, I relaxed and focused on the beauty above the clouds. The clouds below were well woven...

Visiting the villages across the River Juba brings forth an array of mixed emotions. The lush green crops and the cool weather easily draw one to the area as you go toward the banks of River Juba from Dolow town in Gedo region of southern Somalia.

Inhabitants across the river are the Bantu Somali, farmers who rely on agricultural activities to make a living.  As they live across the river they are cut off from the town including access to health facilities and...

The new benchmark in development thinking is resilience, which is as simple as the dictionary definition, i.e. the ability to spring back into shape, to recover from difficulties. It gets complex because no two contexts are exactly the same and the factors to be weighed in program planning are manifold.

But when someone told me there is a current discussion about whether we make communities resilient, or we strengthen the existing...