Somaliland Drought: Devastating Effects to Livestock

Communities in Somaliland are experiencing the drastic effects of the current drought that is ravaging the region.  Water, food and pasture are fast depleting. Nomadic pastoralists in parts of Somaliland who depend on livestock for their living have suffered huge losses due to death of livestock.

“The drought is very severe and pastoralists have lost most of their livestock. So far 80 per cent of livestock have died due to lack of pasture and water,” stated Dayib Hasan Raage, deputy mayor of Baki district, Awdal region.

Support is urgently needed to assist the communities to survive the devastating effects of the drought in the region. While basic lifesaving assistance in the form of food, water and nutrition support is needed, it is also important to not lose sight of the longer term needs as well with investments in resilience programming so communities can respond to future droughts.

World Vision in Somalia has one of the largest humanitarian foot prints in Somalia including some of the hard to reach locations where the drought has hit and has been responding to the population’s needs with interventions such as Community Based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM), Targeted Supplementary Feeding Program (TSFP) activities as well as protecting livelihoods through livestock restocking and unconditional cash exchange.  The interventions have been going on since the government declared a drought in July 2015. However, much more support is needed to reach more people who were not targeted for these interventions.

World vision seeks to reach 64,000 people during this emergency response.