DEC East Africa Response Review - Somalia

DISASTERS EMERGENCY COMMITTEE – EAST AFRICA RESPONSE REVIEW: SOMALIA

Abhijit Bhattacharjee FINAL REPORT RESULTS MATTER CONSULTING LIMITED – August 2017

Abhijit Bhattcharjee, Annelies Thiele & Badra Yusuf Ali

Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study

DEC Response Review Team – East Africa Crisis Appeal Name

Overall Role

Specific tasks during datacollection/research

Core Team 1. Abhijit Bhattacharjee Abhijit@results-matter.co.uk

Team Leader

Inception report; lead Somalia country study.

2. Jock Baker jm.baker.ch@gmail.com

Deputy Team Leader

Lead South Sudan country study

3. Annelies Thiele anneliesthiele@gmail.com

Public Health & Nutrition Specialist

Participate in data collection in Somalia and South Sudan

4. Badra Yusuf Ali badrayusuf@gmail.com

Humanitarian Consultant

Participate in data collection in Somalia

5. Caroline Saint-Mleux carolinesaintmleux@yahoo.fr Support Team 6. Monica Blagescu MBlagescu@dec.org.uk

Senior Humanitarian Adviser

Participate in data collection in South Sudan

DEC Oversight

Conduct key informant interviews in Kenya and Ethiopia

7. Katy Bobin KBobin@dec.org.uk

DEC Manager & focal point for review team

Conduct key informant interviews in Kenya and Ethiopia

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and may not necessarily represent the views of DEC or its members.

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Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study

Abbreviations used AAP AWD CA CHS CI CNV CP CTP DEC FEWS NET ECHO FAO FGD FSNAU GAM DFID GBV HRP IDP IPC KII MAM MOH NBO OTP PDM SAM SGBV ToR UCT WASH WFP OCHA WHO WVI

Accountability to Affected Population Acute Watery Diarrhea Christian Aid Core Humanitarian Standard CARE International Community Nutrition Volunteer Child Protection Cash Transfer Programme Disasters Emergency Committee Famine and Early Warning System Network European Commission Humanitarian Aid Department Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations Focus Group Discussion Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit Global Acute Malnutrition Department for International Development Gender Based Violence Humanitarian Response Plan Internally Displaced Person Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Key Informant Interview Moderate Acute Malnutrition Ministry of Health Nairobi Outpatients Therapeutic Programme Post-Distribution Monitoring Severe Acute Malnutrition Sexual and Gender Based Violence Terms of Reference Unconditional Cash Transfer Water, Sanitation & Hygiene World Food Programme Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs World Health Organisation World Vision International

Glossary Clusters: Coordination is vital in emergencies. Clusters are groups of humanitarian organisations (UN and non-UN) working in the main sectors of humanitarian action, e.g. shelter and health. They are created when clear humanitarian needs exist within a sector, when there are numerous actors within sectors and when national authorities need coordination support. Clusters provide a clear point of contact and are accountable for adequate and appropriate humanitarian assistance. Clusters create partnerships between international humanitarian actors, national and local authorities, and civil society.

At the national and sub-national level, the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) helps to ensure that the humanitarian system functions efficiently and in support of the Humanitarian Coordinator’s (HC) leadership.

Defaulter: A term used in nutrition programming. A defaulter is an admitted malnourished child (in OTP, supplementary feeding of therapeutic treatment feeding centres) that has ‘disappeared’ - often care iii

Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study

takers (mothers, older girls or boys) will suddenly cease to show up, due to reasons such as being busy with other responsibilities, migration to other areas because of drought, or insecurity. Other reasons are the distance between the homes and the nutrition centres, lack of awareness on the importance of regular intake of supplementary or therapeutic feeding etc. Active defaulter tracing should be part of each nutrition program, often using outreach by trained community nutrition volunteers.

Hawala is an alternative or parallel remittance system, which works outside the circle of banks and formal financial systems. It works on the basis of middlemen called the hawaladars or the hawala dealers. Despite being illegal, Hawala is extensively used due to the inseparable element of trust and extensive use of family or regional affiliations.

IPC Classification: The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) is a set of standardised tools that aims at providing a "common currency" for classifying the severity and magnitude of food insecurity. The IPC-Acute scale categorises the severity of acute food insecurity into Five Phases: Phase 1 – minimal; Phase 2 – stress; Phase 3 – crisis; Phase 4 – emergency; and Phase 5 – famine.

1. Minimal. Up to 20 per cent of households must take drastic steps to meet basic needs, for example, selling assets to pay for food or shelter.

2. Stressed. Households cannot get enough food without meeting other non-food needs through unsustainable means.

3. Crisis. Households either experience stretches of acute malnutrition or must deplete assets to meet food needs, leading to gaps in food consumption.

4. Emergency. Households experience long stretches of acute malnutrition and excess mortality or see the extreme loss of assets.

5. Catastrophe/Famine. Households experience an extreme lack of food, leading to starvation and death. When at least 20 per cent of households in an area are affected, this phase represents the minimum threshold for famine. There are degrees of famine characterised by an increasing death rate and more rampant starvation.

Member/Member-agency: Unless otherwise specified, throughout this document, these phrases, used interchangeably, refer to a DEC member.

Somali terms: Deyr, Jilaal, Hagaa and Gu: Somalia experiences four distinct seasons each year. The dry season, known as Jilaal, lasts from January to March and is followed by Gu, the season of long rains. This typically lasts between April and June. Both Hagaa, lasting from July to September, and Deyr, which takes place between October and December, are known as the seasons of short rains.

Currency and exchange rates: Depending on the original currency of the donors, or as cited in the documents referenced, three main currency symbols are used in the report: £, $ and €. The exchange rate in pound sterling is shown in the first instance when a different currency symbol appears in the text.

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Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study

Content Section 1: Introduction, purpose and methodology of the review ............................................ 1 1.1 Background and introduction .................................................................................................... 1 1.2 The review purpose, scope and methodology ........................................................................... 1 1.3 Organisation of the review and declaration of conflict of interest ............................................... 2 1.4 Ethical considerations ............................................................................................................... 2 1.5 Challenges and limitations ........................................................................................................ 3 Section 2: Response context and content .................................................................................. 4 2.1 Overall crisis context in Somalia ............................................................................................... 4 2.2 Members’ response, key activities and resources ..................................................................... 5 Section 3: Findings of the review ................................................................................................ 7 3.1 Overall approach and timeliness of response............................................................................ 7 3.2 Food security ............................................................................................................................ 8 3.3 WASH, AWD and cholera ....................................................................................................... 10 3.5 Health and nutrition ................................................................................................................. 12 3.5 Gender and protection in the response ................................................................................... 14 3.6 Cross-cutting issues................................................................................................................ 15 Section 4: Conclusions – Assessment against Review Criteria .............................................. 19 4.1 Relevance and appropriateness.............................................................................................. 19 4.2 Coverage ................................................................................................................................ 20 4.3 Effectiveness .......................................................................................................................... 20 4.4 Efficiency – operational management and coordination .......................................................... 22 4.5 Coherence and connectedness .............................................................................................. 22 Section 5: Conclusions, Lessons and Recommendations ...................................................... 24 Conclusions .................................................................................................................................. 24 Lessons ........................................................................................................................................ 25 Recommendations ........................................................................................................................ 25

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List of Figures Figure 1: Map of Somalia showing IPC classification and DEC members’ priority areas .................... xi Figure 2: Phase 1 budget (£) for individual member agencies and countries ...................................... 1 Figure 3: Sector allocation - DEC funds, Somalia ............................................................................... 6 Figure 4: Admissions into treatment and therapeutic centres……………………………………………12

Annexes Annex 1: Disaster Emergency Committee East Africa Crisis Appeal (2017) Response Review - Terms of Reference Annex 2: DEC East Africa Crisis Response Review Inception Report Annex 3: List of Key informants and focus groups Annex 4: Itinerary of the DEC Review team Annex 5: List of documents consulted Annex 6: Consolidated activity plan of DEC members, Somalia

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Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study

Executive Summary The Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) commissioned a review of response by its members to the East Africa crisis since the appeal’s launch on 15 March 2017. The purpose of this review was to provide an overview of the DEC members’ response so far, and to draw initial lessons and identify priority areas for Phase 2 that will commence from October 2017. The review covered Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan where funds raised by the appeal were being spent. Of the thirteen members, nine have utilised DEC funds in their response in Somalia. This report covers the Somalia country study, data collection for which was carried out during June-July.

The review utilised a mixed-method approach using quantitative and qualitative data gathered from a carefully selected range of sources. The following criteria were used to assess overall performance: Relevance and appropriateness, Coverage, Effectiveness, Efficiency, Connectedness and coherence.

Key findings Extensive use of unconditional cash transfer to affected households has been a hallmark of this response, and several DEC members played a pivotal role in this. The fact that the donor community and humanitarian system worked together to launch a major response as early warnings began to emerge may have been instrumental in averting a famine-like situation like the one in 2011-12. As the early warning of a serious drought-related food insecurity and large scale migration started emerging through interagency assessments, supplemented by localised assessments conducted by members and other agencies around late-2016, members were able to begin scaling up their response, leveraging ongoing partnerships and donor relationships. Most of the members built their response based on their ongoing presence and long-term resilience programmes in the country. Taking lessons from previous droughts, members have invested significantly in developing partnership with local NGOs, who played a strong role in aid delivery to inaccessible areas and mobilisation of local communities during this response. At field/sub-regional level, several NGOs are now cluster focal points in nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), and health.

A major gap in humanitarian response in general has been in the failure to consider the needs of newly arriving internally displaced persons (IDPs), especially those who moved to IDP settlements during late-April – June. Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) remains rampant and pervasive in Somalia, affecting mostly women and girls, and is particularly high in IDP settlements. A few DEC members have attempted to address this, along with meeting protection needs of children, but the work is severely under-resourced in the humanitarian response. Overall, hygiene promotion remained a neglected area in the first few months of the response. The outbreak of cholera could have been foreseen well before it became pronounced in February, but the humanitarian system lacked adequate preparedness.

The current level of need is likely to remain unchanged for the next 6-8 months, and any reduction in funding for ongoing emergency response will have grievous consequences for nearly half of the country’s population, who are still in the grip of acute food insecurity, with at least 3.4 million in Integrated Food Security Classification phases (IPC) 3 and 4. Even if the deyr rains were good, the likely scenario in Somaliland which is predominantly pastoral and where people have lost, according to some account, over 80 per cent of their livestock, is that the IDPs will mostly remain where they are, and will require continued emergency assistance. In South-Central and Puntland - which have a large agro-pastoral livelihoods system - good deyr rains will open up opportunities for some recovery activities to start, though a sizeable number of people will continue to need emergency assistance, at least till the next harvest in late January. If, however, the deyr rains were to fail again, without a drastic increase in humanitarian assistance, one would be faced with the prospect of a famine. To avert a vii

Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study

famine or near-famine situation, Somalia will require at a minimum either the same level of humanitarian assistance for the next six months, or a substantial increase in assistance for another nine months. Recovery in either scenario will take a few years, and much longer in Somaliland.

Conclusions Relevance and appropriateness Building on existing partnerships and based on systematic needs assessments, DEC members’ response rightly concentrated on food security and WASH which emerged as the most critical needs, followed by health. On food security, both distribution of food and market-based response was used, depending on members’ capacity. Extensive use of cash transfers and some food vouchers was appropriate, as well-functioning local markets exist in and around areas where most of the displaced and affected moved. DEC members have well developed criteria to target the most vulnerable communities, including some in remote areas. Members’ ability to respond to changes in context and scale of need, however, was crippled by lack of resources and preparedness – as experienced in dealing with the cholera epidemic and in meeting the needs of newly arriving IDPs. Protection of unaccompanied children and SGBV remained under-resourced in the response. WASH response by members – with some exception – needed more contextualisation in order to ensure their appropriateness.

Coverage Though this drought has been more severe than that experienced in 2011-12, mortality has been far lower, thanks to the donor response that enabled early action as warnings were sounded. Humanitarian response still falls far short of the continuously increasing need, and the gap is widening as more and more people are affected by sustained food insecurity. DEC members emphasised targeting the most vulnerable, though better coordination at the point of delivery among agencies on the ground would have reduced chances of duplicated effort that sometimes occurred when clan and sub-clan dynamics influenced the selection process.

Effectiveness The massive humanitarian scale-up has been instrumental in averting famine thus far. DEC members have been at the forefront of this response and have worked with other humanitarian agencies, donors, local NGOs and local authorities. Besides donor response, partially improved humanitarian access and the large-scale multi-purpose cash and vouchers programme implemented by about 40 organisations contributed to this outcome. Better context-specific response on WASH, and better coordination among members/humanitarian agencies on the approach to planning and delivery of response, would have led to a more successful outcome.

Efficiency All members providing cash and vouchers followed a common cash transfer protocol which did provide an efficient and timely scale-up. Members also have robust due diligence in selection of partners and cash transfer providers to ensure that there were no leakages in the transfer system. Members have ensured development of appropriate security protocols to ensure safety and security of staff, partners and beneficiaries. However, within partner organisations, the standard of security and safety procedures as practiced still require continuous follow up and monitoring by member agencies.

Coordination which is led by the United Nations and government has been generally weak in most sectors in Somalia, complicated by a hierarchy of coordination at multiple levels. Some of the DECfunded interventions missed opportunities for complementing each other’s programmes due to weak coordination and cooperation among humanitarian agencies at operational level. Inter-sectoral linkages and joined up approach were also weak. viii

Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study

Coherence and connectedness Members have done well in incorporating key aspects of some of the global standards and commitments in humanitarian response, namely Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS) and Grand Bargain. On Accountability-to-Affected-Population (AAP), while information sharing, complaints mechanism and consultation with beneficiary groups were prioritised, consultation with wider affected communities did not receive adequate attention. Some of the members could improve their utilisation of real-time learning in their response, which would require efforts to create a more adaptive management culture.

Lessons Several potential lessons emerged from DEC members’ response that need to be tested for their validity and replicability in different situations. Some of the key ones were: i.

Though this drought has been more severe than the last drought and famine of 2011-12, the fact that it has not led to a catastrophic famine is evidence that early action in response to early warnings is critical for saving lives. ii.

In contexts of protracted and chronic vulnerability, long-term work towards resilience is needed not only to strengthen people’s capabilities but also create foundations for scaling up humanitarian response in times of acute crises. iii.

Water trucking is always expensive, more so when undertaken by humanitarian agencies, and hence need to be undertaken only as a last resort. In areas where people are used to buying water from private water suppliers, providing cash by humanitarian agencies for water may be a more appropriate intervention, giving better value for money.

Recommendations The following specific recommendations are made within this context. Recommendations are targeted at DEC members which will require facilitation by the DEC Secretariat.

Overall approach and thrust of response R1: Using updated assessment data, members need to develop strong advocacy strategy for increased funding for the continuing emergency and likely famine.

R2: Given the scale of the need, DEC may shorten the duration of the phase 2 support from 18 months to 9 months at the most, as stretching the remaining allocation for 18 months in the face of a possible famine in the next 6 months or so would be counter-productive.

R3: In any scenario, food security response, public health promotion, prevention of cholera, SGBV and nutrition programming on a substantial scale will need to continue; recovery opportunities, where they arise, need to be utilised, bearing in mind that the entire response will still continue to be one of saving and protecting lives.

Sectoral interventions R4: While cholera outbreak has stabilised for now, the coming rainy season may see a spike in new cases. Members need to maintain their level of preparedness (CTC facilities, hygiene promoters) and increase PHP activities.

R5: Water trucking is not a viable proposition in the medium to long-term, especially in areas where surface water is available after the rains. Members need to, instead, ramp up hygiene promotion ix

Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study

and educate people about household-water treatment in a significant way, or where appropriate, provide cash for people to access water from private providers.

R6: Having established a good community consultation process for selecting beneficiaries for cash transfer, vouchers and food distribution, members need to continuously reassess their validation and verification processes to ensure that avoidable inclusion errors and duplication due to political and clan influences on community-managed processes are minimised.

R7: There is need for robust commitment and adequate funding for enhanced SGBV integration in IDP site management and increased SGBV awareness, strengthened coordination of the SGBV response and safe referral pathways including psychosocial support and livelihood. More efforts should be put on child protection (CP) issues, prevention and adequate response and referral of identified CP cases.

AAP R8: Members need to shift their emphasis from accountability-to-beneficiaries to accountability-toaffected communities, as the current approach which excludes non-beneficiaries risks members turning a blind eye to needs of the latter, even if only to gather information, assess needs and bring these to the attention of the humanitarian system.

Management and coordination R9: While overall coordination through sectoral/cluster leadership needs strengthening, members need to coordinate better at operational level within areas/communities they are working in to ensure a coherent approach to delivery of assistance that enables avoiding duplication and overlap.

R10: Within member-agencies, capacity of staff for inter-sectoral approach to programming needs to be strengthened.

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Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study

Figure 1: Map of Somalia showing IPC classification and DEC members’ priority areas xi

Section 1: Introduction, purpose and methodology of the review 1.1 Background and introduction Introduction to the response review 1. In line with the Disasters Emergency Committee’s (DEC) Accountability Framework, 1 DEC undertook a review of response to the East Africa crisis by its members since the appeal’s launch on 15 March 2017. The scope of the review covered Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan where funds raised by the appeal are being spent. This report covers the Somalia country study.

2.

The Terms of Reference (Annex 1) provide a detailed background to the appeal and response. All the thirteen DEC member agencies are responding to the crisis in East Africa during the first 6months response phase. Of these, seven are responding in Ethiopia; seven in Kenya; nine in Somalia; and ten in South Sudan. Data provided by DEC show that of the £26.5 million budget for Phase 1 (March to September, 2017), the largest share (36 per cent) has been budgeted for Somalia, 25 per cent for Kenya, 25 and 15 per cent for South Sudan and Ethiopia respectively.

Figure 2 below provides details of budget by member agency and country based on phase 1 workplans.

Confirmed phase 1 budgets by member agency & country £8,000,000 £7,000,000 £6,000,000 £5,000,000 £4,000,000 £3,000,000 £2,000,000 £1,000,000 £0

South Sudan

Somalia

Kenya

Ethiopia

Figure 2: Phase 1 budget (£) for individual member agencies and countries (Source: Terms of Reference, DEC Response Review, East Africa Crisis Appeal)

1.2 The review purpose, scope and methodology 3.

1 2

The overarching purpose of this review was to provide an overview of the DEC Members’ response so far, and to draw initial lessons and identify priority areas for Phase 2 that will commence from October 2017. As a review of the collective response of DEC member agencies, the exercise covered the period from March 2017 to the date of data collection.2 Detailed methodology and approach used for drawing review conclusions are provided in the inception report in Annex 2. The

Disasters Emergency Committee (undated). DEC Operations Manual, Chapter 5 – Accountability and Learning End of July, 2017.

Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study

review used mixed-methods using quantitative and qualitative data gathered from a range of carefully selected sources. The data collection for this review was mainly done through documentary research, purposively selected key informant interviews (KIIs) with stakeholders, semi-structured interviews, site visits and observations, and structured focus group discussions (FGD) and individual interviews with affected-communities, including local authorities in southcentral Somalia and Somaliland.

4.

The review used the following criteria which are adapted for the purpose of this review from the OECD/DAC criteria for evaluating humanitarian action. The review matrix at the end of the Annex 2 provides detailed questions under each criteria assessed, as well as methods of assessment and potential sources of data/evidence. ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖

Relevance and appropriateness Coverage Effectiveness Efficiency Connectedness and coherence.

1.3 Organisation of the review and declaration of conflict of interest 5.

The review was commissioned by the DEC Secretariat and managed by its Director of Programmes. Through an international tendering process, Results Matter Consulting (UK) was awarded the contract to conduct the review. Some of the team members had worked for several DEC members in the past as staff or consultant; however, during and preceding a year before the review, no consultant had any ongoing association with any of the DEC members, or was being considered for any engagement as staff or consultant at the time of the review.

6.

Prior to the field visits, the inception report was drafted and finalised (Annex 2) in consultation with DEC Secretariat and members. The field visits to Somalia /Somaliland for the review was undertaken by three consultants3 which took place from July 2 to July 14, 2017. A breakdown of key informant interviews and focus group discussions undertaken during data gathering is provided in Annex 3. A full itinerary of the review team and key documents consulted are attached as Annex 4 and 5 respectively. At the end of the field visit, exit debriefing was conducted in Nairobi which was attended by staff from DEC Secretariat and member agencies, and findings, conclusions and draft recommendations were presented to DEC members at a meeting in London.

This provided feedback on preliminary findings which have been taken into account in the present report.

1.4 Ethical considerations 7.

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The following protocol was adhered to by the review team in all interactions with stakeholders: ❖ Informed consent - all participants gave their consent to participate in any activity related to the review, and the review team was mindful of not pushing any member/participant to engage in the process, if they were not prepared to; ❖ Respect of rights of those involved in any review process or activity; participants were duly informed of the purpose so that they participated freely and equitably; ❖ Respect dignity - interviews and data-gathering were conducted in a way that respected individual’s dignity;

Abhijit Bhattacharjee, Annelies Thiele, Badra Yusuf Ali.

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Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study ❖ Ensuring inclusivity – all voices were heard, ensuring respect to privacy and confidentiality.

1.5 Challenges and limitations 8.

As access is severely restricted in south-central Somalia, and security protocol requires travel only at certain times, the team could undertake only a limited amount of primary data-collection during field visits and interviews with communities. Secondary data in the form of quarterly reports or members’ own evaluation/review reports were also not ready at the time of this review, thus further limiting verifiable and triangulated data to draw on. The review team has attempted to fill this gap partly through interviews (including phone interviews) with relevant staff and consultants of some of the members.

9.

Given the limited time and resources for the review, it has not been possible to visit activities of all member agencies, nor visit all regions where members are working in with DEC Appeal funds.

Most agencies engaged fully with the review process, despite short notice; a couple of agencies were not available in the field for discussions, interviews, briefings and debriefings, though the review team made attempts to contact them. However, as this review focuses on collective response by members and not individual member’s performance, it is expected that findings and lessons emerging from the sample of major activities reviewed by the team will find resonance among a large majority of the members and external stakeholders.

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Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study

Section 2: Response context and content 2.1 Overall crisis context in Somalia 10. Failure of three consecutive rainy seasons during 2015-2016, followed by a prolonged dry season Hagaa (July-September 2016) and significantly below-average Deyr rainfall (October-December 2016), led to near total crop failure, severe shortage of water and pasture, and continued increase in local cereal prices, resulting in limited household food access in most parts of Somalia. At the end of 2016, drought conditions exacerbated in Puntland and Somaliland, but also expanded to other regions in southern and central Somalia. This was compounded by insecurity in Al Shabaab controlled areas leading to rising internal displacement and high rates of malnutrition, especially among children and lactating mothers. Besides the Al Shabaab, across the country, there are zones of shifting allegiances where extremists, clan militias and government forces are engaged in violent competition for power, making humanitarian access difficult. By April this year, over half a million people had been displaced since November 2016 - this number had increased to 766,000 at the time of the review.4 Most of the displaced headed to Mogadishu and Baidoa, adding to the existing caseload of nearly 1.1 million internally displaced persons (IDP) from previous disasters.

11. The geographical area affected by the current drought is significantly larger than in previous years, expanding from the northern areas of Somaliland and Puntland to the central and southern regions. The Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) for 2017 (prepared in November 2016) estimated that the country required $864 million 5 to reach 3.9 million people with life-saving assistance, with more than one million of these in ‘crisis’ and ‘emergency’ phase. In February,6 the World Food Programme (WFP) noted that the food security situation had deteriorated significantly, with an increasing number of people facing IPC levels 3 (Crisis) and 4 (Emergency).

12. The 2017 Gu (main rainy season, April-June) began in most parts of Somalia on April 24 and temporarily replenished water sources in parts of central, northern, and southern Somalia; however, the late-April flash floods in parts of Bari, Bay, Mudug, and Nugal regions prevented lateseason re-planting and damaged or destroyed some crops planted prior to the gu rains. The rains were late and short, with total rainfall more than 50 per cent below average in the worst-affected areas.7 The upcoming gu harvest will likely be 40–60 per cent below average across the main rainfed agricultural production areas; populations in these areas will likely require multiple agricultural seasons to recover.8 Additionally, households in northern and central areas have lost up to 60 per cent of their livestock since late-2016, according to the Famine and Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) and the Somalia Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit (FSNAU) which estimated that 3.2 million people in Somalia were experiencing crisis or emergency levels of acute food insecurity by May this year, up from a million estimated in December. In other words, almost one quarter of Somalia’s population are experiencing acute food shortages at crisis or emergency levels.

13. In early May, the UN revised 2017 HRP for Somalia, raising the appeal to $1.5 billion in order to respond to humanitarian needs through December 2016, to support 5.5 million of the estimated 6.7 million people in need of emergency assistance, including 3.2 million people facing life-

4

UNHCR Somalia: UNHCR PRMN Interim statistics package for Somalia drought related displacements to 30 June 2017 (published 17 July 2017).

5 Exchange rate: $1.28=£1 6 WFP East & Central Africa Horn of Africa Drought Crisis, Situation Report #02, 20 February, 2017 7 OCHA Somalia: Humanitarian Dashboard - June 2017 (issued on 18 July 2017) 8 USAID. Horn Of Africa–Complex Emergency Fact Sheet #5, Fiscal Year (FY) 2017 May 24, 2017

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Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study

threatening (IPC phase 3 and 4) food insecurity. International donors had provided approximately $767 million as of 18 July.9 14. While the rains have provided respite in some areas resulting in seed germination, recharge of water points, regeneration of pasture and improvement of livestock body conditions, reduced crop yields are expected and the high level of asset loss cannot be easily offset. Severe acute malnutrition (SAM) admissions have increased by more than 50 per cent compared to 2016 data for the same period. The post-Jilaal 2017 survey by the FSNAU indicates that the prevalence of global acute malnutrition (GAM) in the livelihood zones of Bakool, Bari, Bay, Nugal, Sanaag and Sool regions, as well as in the Baidoa and Mogadishu IDP camps, is critical (15-30 per cent).

15. UNICEF’s situation report released on 30 June10 noted a deteriorating humanitarian situation, with an estimated 4 million children in urgent need of assistance. Despite the large-scale humanitarian assistance delivered, the FSNAU-FEWS NET post-Jilaal assessment indicates an elevated risk of famine (IPC 5), due to a combination of severe food insecurity, high acute malnutrition and high disease burden. Scaled up support through the rest of 2017 will be necessary to prevent worsening food insecurity and protect livelihoods. However, some clusters such as Food Security, Health, GBV sub-cluster and WASH have already scaled back activities due to lack of adequate funding.11 2.2 Members’ response, key activities and resources 16. DEC members began their response from around late 2016 when early warnings of the crisis started to emerge, initially in a modest way, and scaling up later as donor funds began coming in.

Compared to the 2011-12 drought, donor response during this drought was relatively faster and substantial. The UK government’s Department for International Development (DFID) was at the forefront of global response – by February and March, it pledged £110 million for Somalia (£11.5 million for Ethiopia and a matching grant of £10 million towards DEC Appeal).12 The European Commission Humanitarian Aid Department (ECHO) has provided so far €120 million,13 up from €48 million during the year 2016, and the US Government has provided so far about $121 million to Somalia – additionally, the latter announced on 8 July nearly $126 million in new humanitarian assistance for conflict and drought-affected people in Somalia.14 In May, the World Bank approved a grant of $50 million towards Somalia Emergency Drought Response and Recovery Project (SEDRP) to scale up the drought response and recovery effort in Somalia, to be implemented by the ICRC and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

17. DEC funds helped members scale up further from April-May when it became evident that, despite rains, the effect of drought would continue to be felt for some months, if not throughout the current year. Based on needs assessments, members focused on unconditional cash transfers (UCT), food and WASH which took up nearly 75 per cent of Phase 1 allocations, followed by health interventions (11 per cent), as the Figure 3 below shows.

9

OCHA. Somalia: Humanitarian Dashboard - June 2017 (issued on 18 July 2017).

UNICEF. UNICEF Somalia Humanitarian Situation Report #9: 16 - 30 June 2017 (http://reliefweb.int/report/somalia/unicef-somalia-humanitarian-situation-report-9-16-30-june-2017) 11 OCHA. Somalia: Humanitarian Dashboard - June 2017 (issued on 18 July 2017).

12 Subsequently in June, DFID pledged an additional £60 million for Somalia and £30 million for Ethiopia.

13 Exchange rate: €1.1=£1 14 https://www.usaid.gov/crisis/somalia 10

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Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study

Somalia WASH Health Shelter Nutrition Camp Management and Coordination Education Protection Livelihoods NFI Food Unconditional Cash-transfer & Vouchers Disaster Risk Reduction Multi-sector; integrated programmes Accountability to Affected Populations Capacity Building Other

Figure 3: Sector allocation - DEC funds, Somalia (Source: DEC East Africa Crisis Appeal – signed off figures as per work plans)

18. The consolidated activity-plan of DEC members for the phase 1 period (Annex 6) shows that members worked in different regions in the south-central, Puntland and Somaliland.

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Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study

Section 3: Findings of the review 3.1 Overall approach and timeliness of response 19. It is now widely recognised that East Africa has some of the finest and sophisticated early warning systems for drought and famine. During the current drought, as early warnings began to emerge in the last quarter of 2016, DEC members began to respond in different areas. Taking lessons from the 2011 drought when early warnings were not matched by early action, some of the members had put in place crisis modifiers or risk financing mechanisms using whatever internal resources they had. The donor community had also stepped up its engagement in Somalia since 2012-13, through several major resilience programmes which included involvement of a few DEC members. Prominent resilience programmes include: the Somalia Resilience Programme (SomReP) that involves Oxfam, CARE and World Vision; and Building Resilience in Central Somalia (BRCiS), involving Save the Children and Concern Worldwide. Besides these large programmes, DEC members also had recast their ongoing programmes in the country, taking into account lessons from the 2011-12 drought. These ongoing programmes had enabled agencies to establish a footprint in various parts of the country, especially in IPC 3 and IPC 4 areas (Figure 1), over the past five years that helped members to scale up the response rapidly as they were able to leverage ongoing partnerships and donor relationships.

20. The security environment and humanitarian access have partly improved since 2012-13 as Al Shabaab controlled areas have now shrunk - though it still limits humanitarian access in large parts of south-central and Puntland - and the Government of Somalia (GoS) extended its reach to several regions. Local NGOs have also developed better capacity and presence in the country in the past few years. Added to this, relaxation of US Government’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions on humanitarian funding that previously paralysed large part of the humanitarian system in Somalia in 2011-12 also contributed to a positive humanitarian environment during the current response.

21. Members made extensive use of interagency alerts and needs assessments to develop their response since late-2016. First formal early warnings of serious food insecurity, rapidly declining livestock body conditions and large-scale migration in search of better pastures came from FEWS NET in early November. 15 Prior to this, localised studies and needs assessments were also conducted in different regions. A study by Action Against Hunger (ACF) in south-central Somalia in October 2016 on household food security showed rising levels of food insecurity. In Somaliland, an interagency needs assessment (October-November 2016) co-led by one of the DEC members, ActionAid, observed severe water shortages and declining body conditions of livestock, besides drought-induced health problems. Some of the localised needs assessments DEC members undertook and/or were involved in are listed in Box 1 below. On January 16, 2017, FEWS NET, for the first time in this drought alerted16 to the possibility of famine in Somalia. A similar warning by the UN on 2 February soon followed.17

15

FEWS NET. Alert - East Africa October rainfall fails; Vegetation conditions worst on record in many areas. November 11, 2016 16 FEWS NET. Alert - Severe drought, rising prices, continued access limitations, and dry forecasts suggest Famine is possible in 2017 January 16, 2017 17 UN. Urgent scale-up in funding needed to stave off famine in Somalia, UN warns. 2 February 2017 http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=56094#.WXbNNMaZOuU

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Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study

Box 1: Examples of needs assessments DEC members were involved in Somalia ActionAid, Save the Children and CARE International were involved in an interagency assessment undertaken in October-November 2016 in Somaliland, with participation of OCHA and the Government.

CARE International undertook a multi-sectoral rapid assessment in Puntland in October 2017 which found declining household food consumption, shortage of water and rapidly falling goat prices.

Concern Worldwide carried out a rapid needs assessment in south-central Somalia in October 2016 using household food consumption score and dietary diversity score.

Oxfam undertook an integrated WASH and food security field assessment in Somaliland in February 2017, as well as a logistics capacity assessment of its field office and local partners.

Save the Children conducted a child protection needs assessment across seven regions in Somalia in April, as well as drought needs assessment in various locations.

(Source: Member-agency narrative plans submitted to DEC for Phase 1 response and key informant interviews)

22. By the time the Somalia Government declared national drought (28 February), member agencies had already begun scaling up their response since January. The DEC appeal, launched on 15 March, following good amount of media interest after the UN warnings in early February through to March, gave members additional resources to either launch new activities, or continue /extend many of the life-saving interventions they had begun earlier, beyond what their limited funds would have allowed. According to key informants of member agencies, the flexibility offered by DEC funds gave some of them opportunities to leverage other assistance as well – for instance, some donors provided relief materials, but members were short of funds to cover distribution costs. By around 25 March, DEC members knew roughly the allocation each member would receive and could plan their response accordingly. Though actual release of funds, according to key informants at country level, came in late May, some members were able to pre-finance their activities in anticipation of DEC funds 23. A major gap in humanitarian response has been in failure to take into account the needs of newly arriving IDPs, especially those who moved to IDP settlements during late-April – June, having lost all their assets and hopes of any recovery after the Gu rains failed. In all the settlements visited by the review team, there were large number – in some cases, several hundreds – of newly arriving IDPs who had walked for several days, especially from Al Shabaab controlled areas in Bay and Bakol regions, to the nearest IDP settlements or towns in search of assistance. However, there has been no assistance provided to these people by most of the agencies, except for common services like water trucking. Members stated that as their plans were based on assessments and beneficiary selection undertaken in March-April, they had no resource to take additional caseloads.

In some areas in Somaliland and south-central (Baidoa), WFP provided food distributions from the emergency stockpile to the new arrivals for 2-3 weeks while they processed cash payments.

However, that has now stopped due to lack of funds.

3.2 Food security 24. The current food insecurity has worsened in the north-eastern and southern agro-pastoralist zones, with the nutrition status stated to be worse compared to the 2011 droughts and famine.18 The humanitarian response to the crisis has therefore focused on increasing people’s access and 18

The FSNAU SOMALIA Food Security Outlook February to September 2017 reports

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Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study

entitlement to food through, mainly, food vouchers or cash transfers. Some of the members provided food vouchers to meet the food needs of the target beneficiaries. The food provided was based on the minimum agreed food baskets by the Food Security Cluster. The beneficiaries were given either food vouchers or cards that would allow them access at the distribution sites or from the local traders. By far the most popular mode has been food vouchers using World Food Programme’s SCOPE system19 which entitles recipients to exchange the vouchers for food at preselected end of point sales outlets in their areas. One DEC member distributed food packages comprising all essential food items to last a family of six for a month.

25. DEC members have mostly undertaken cash transfer programmes using mobile technology or direct cash handouts (cash in hand). The cash transfer system in Somalia that evolved during 2011-12 drought, using hawala system, has now come of age, with use of biometric and mobile transfer technology on a large scale. Large donor agencies such as the Department of International Development (DFID), European Commission Humanitarian Aid Departments (ECHO) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) have extensively supported cash transfers in Somalia for the past several years.

26. The size of transfers and number of distribution cycles varied - beneficiaries received cash from 1 month to 4 months (in one instance 5 months) depending on available funding. In south-central, the amounts received by some beneficiaries in IDP camps ranged from US$70-100, while in Somaliland, size of cash and range was larger and varied from US$120-200, on the ground that people in Somaliland received very little assistance otherwise from the humanitarian system. For food vouchers and cash transfers to be effective, availability of food in the markets and market accessibility for the beneficiaries is crucial. In Somalia, local markets for key commodities for household consumption are fully functional. Wheat and rice imports were well-above average and addressed domestic staple food supply gaps. The amount provided was based on the FSNAU/FEWS NET calculation of the Minimum Expenditure Basket (MEB) or Minimum Food Basket (MFB) which carried out market studies on a regular basis in different zones in Somalia.

27. Beneficiary selection by DEC members was done through community-based targeting process with Village /Camp Relief Committees involving men and women, which were set up in all locations visited by the review team. The criteria for selection usually comprised multiple indicators of vulnerability, namely, IDPs, women-headed households, elderly, pregnant and lactating women and families with children under-five. While this has worked in favour of generating community involvement, as can be expected in such selection process, inclusion errors in particular were common, especially where members left the entire selection process in the hands of the committees. In a few cases, members did have a triangulation and validation process to check each household’s status before accepting the committee’s list, but some members went by lists prepared by village committees/chiefs. In some areas, especially in Somaliland, local government representatives tried to either influence or play a role in the selection process. The review team, in all its focus group discussions in Somaliland, came across several cases of influential members of the community who were chairpersons of committees either self-selected themselves or their family members as beneficiaries. Some of these were host community leaders or land owners who let IDPs settle on their private lands – usually most of the IDP camps were on private lands at the invitation of their owners.

19

It allows for biometric registration of beneficiaries, intervention setup, distribution planning, entitlement transfers and distribution reporting.

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Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study

28. FGDs in Somaliland and key informant interviews later confirmed that there were instances of overlap and duplication in the lists, especially where several agencies/members were supporting cash transfer programmes (CTP), as was seen in some IDP settlements. In Somaliland, there is no system of sharing beneficiary lists among NGOs working in the same target areas – supposedly to ensure data confidentiality, according to some members – relying on communities to ensure avoidance of duplication, instead. Key informants in the south-central stated that there were some duplication and now there is move towards a harmonised database 20 for all cash transfer beneficiaries, building on work done on resilience programmes, though this is still in early stages.

29. Members have undertaken post-distribution monitoring (PDM) studies after each round of cash distribution, the first of these having been carried out in May and June. However, at the time of the review, reports were still not ready and hence the review team had no access to their findings.

Interviews with households and focus group discussions in both south-central and Somaliland indicated that, controlled by women, most of the cash received was used to access food, milk, clothes, goods and medicines, mostly from their local markets; some expenditure went towards celebration of Ramadaan and repayment of debts incurred in the past several months of hardship.

The provision of cash also improved relationship between retailers and local communities who obtained provisions on credit from retailers as the latter gained confidence in households’ ability to make payments at a later date.

30. As mentioned before, the newly arriving IDPs, however, had little access to either cash or food.

Several focus groups, especially with women members, expressed concern at the situation of the former. When asked how they survived, the new IDPs mentioned ‘beg and borrow’ – perhaps referring to the extensive sharing system prevalent in Somali society. The review team did not have time and expertise to analyse the clan dynamics playing out in the IDP camps, but as one knows, clan and sub-clan structure in Somalia is a key determinant in household welfare through access to power and support from diaspora which constitutes an important survival mechanism, especially in times of crises. Minority groups which do not enjoy the patronage of powerful clans and sub-clans are often marginalised in decision-making, be it in the Government or in aid delivery.

IDP camps are mostly controlled by members from the big clans who, while providing private land for IDP settlements, often act as gatekeepers.21 Some of the dynamics the review team saw in terms of inclusion and exclusion do point towards this phenomenon.

3.3 WASH, AWD and cholera 31. Along with food, water was the most important humanitarian need identified in all assessments.

Water trucking is common in most parts of Somalia even in normal times, the price of which multiply several-fold during severe drought, like the current one. This makes potable water inaccessible for the poor and vulnerable, forcing them to use water from any source they can access, such as water from rivers, ponds and the limited functional water points. The water is often contaminated and untreated, increasing the risk of contracting waterborne diseases. DEC members undertook water trucking operations, often transporting water from as far away as 300400 kilometres in Somaliland. Most agencies provided anything between 2.5-5 litres of water per head per day. One member agency demonstrated a range of good practices in its work on WASH by way of ensuring regular monitoring of the situation before and after the rains, education and training on hygiene promotion, periodic testing of drinking water for its quality, and ensuring adequate training of its partners on technical aspects of WASH. While some members 20

This initiative is led by the Norwegian Refugee Council, with participation of several DEC members.

For a detailed analysis of this phenomenon and how it affects humanitarian assistance, readers may refer to an extensive research carried out by the Norwegian Refugee Council, available at: https://www.nrc.no/globalassets/pdf/reports/somaliahousing-land-and-property-rights-for-somalias-urban-displaced-women-2016.pdf 21

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Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study

demonstrated good expertise in design of WASH interventions based on local context, the following instances of poor response were noted: •

In two IDP locations, one DEC member had stopped water trucking when the surface water sources available in the area (streams and springs) were replenished following rains in April; the member-agency conducted water quality tests and found it of potable standard, and gave communities basic hygiene training on use of surface water and household water treatment for drinking purposes. About eight weeks later – at the time of the review mission – another member started water trucking in the same location, though plenty of water was available and people were using the surface water in the intervening period.

•

In a few locations, the review team saw lack of proper water stands with adequate drainage, causing people to stand in mud to collect water. Though members informed the review team that for each water point, community based water management committees had been trained for management and maintenance, these committees were reported not to be active anywhere during the review team’s visits. In another instance, a member provided water tanks but these were not properly installed on a raised platform to provide space for containers to be placed below the taps for collecting water. The result was that people had to climb on top of the tanks and collect water through the inlet opening by dipping containers, a practice that increases the risk of water contamination.

•

Toilets have been constructed in several locations, but without adequate quantity of water provisions being made for the purpose of hand-washing and cleaning. While open defecation must be discouraged, constructing toilets in camps without adequate provision of water could lead to their non-use and hardly contribute to any change in current practices.

32. By and large, hygiene promotion across the overall response by humanitarian agencies remained a neglected area in the first few months of the response, and it is only since May that this is being prioritised by members. The outbreak of cholera could have been foreseen well before it became pronounced in February, but there was a lack of preparedness on part of the humanitarian system, according to key informants. Interviews with staff of one member-agency which is presently undertaking significant interventions in partnership with health authorities on cholera treatment, hygiene promotion and prevention, revealed that it took them nearly two months to mobilise and train staff and partners before they could launch an appropriate response to cholera by late March.

One explanation for this delay was that usually there is a spike in cholera cases during April-May with onset of Gu rains, but this year it started early, taking most agencies unaware. This was further compounded by the fact that some of the outbreaks began in Al Shabaab areas inaccessible to international NGOs and the UN. By the end of June, cholera cases had stabilised in south-central and no new cases were reported. However, in Somaliland, new cases continued to be reported in early July, according to government sources and DEC members in Hargeisa.

33. Some members have now developed remote management system to provide hygiene education and preventive action in Al Shabaab areas through recruitment of temporary local staff based in these areas who were given training, orientation and basic materials to promote hygiene education. Besides occasional visits by monitoring teams, these staff receive safety and security training and regular support through Skype calls. In addition to hygiene promotion, they are trained to identity cases for referral to nearest cholera treatment centres (CTC).

34. Overall, WASH response was patchy. A few organisations had adequate capacity to ensure a coherent and integrated response, taking into account the nuances and complexities of the situation. Others rolled out a standard stock-in-trade in the form of water trucking and toilet construction, without adequate analysis of the evolving context (Box 2 above). WASH is complex and requires deeper understanding of local context and practices; partners need continuous 11

Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study

technical support, but not many members have experienced WASH experts available for such intensive support to partners. The declining availability of funding for WASH activities, as confirmed by the WASH cluster coordination in Hargeisa, may also have contributed to this. While some clusters have sustained current levels of response, others such as WASH, had to scale back due to lack of funding.22 3.5 Health and nutrition 35. Malnutrition and severe water scarcity, coupled with a weak health system, has seen an exacerbation of disease outbreaks, especially acute watery diarrhea (AWD)/cholera and measles.

KIIs with the WASH cluster focal person in Baidoa confirmed a weak preparedness for cholera outbreak in early 2017. More AWD/cholera cases were recorded among people living in IDP camps due to worsening drought in Baidoa, Banadir and other districts. A cumulative 58,624 suspected AWD/cholera cases and 812 deaths have been recorded from 37 districts across 13 regions since the beginning of 2017. Of the 54 cholera treatment units that were established in the beginning of the outbreak, 34 are now closed.23 36. According to the latest update from World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Ministry of Health (MOH), the overall trend shows that the AWD/cholera outbreak is slowing down, but that there are still AWD/cholera alerts being reported. 24 Key informant interview with the health cluster focal person in Baidoa indicated that there were concerns about inadequate preparedness for new AWD outbreaks in the region since the threat still remains because of the anticipated Deyr rains and poor hygiene situation in congested IDP camps. The sanitation situation in these settlements is very poor, with communities primarily practicing open defecation - faeces could be observed around settlements and common spaces. Few hand-washing facilities were found in the community, but no adequate water. Recently, more efforts have been made to upscale preventive measures such hygiene promotion and latrine construction.

37. The nutrition situation in Somalia remains critical, with an increased number of new admissions to feeding programmes. Results of nutrition surveys conducted by FSNAU indicate a critical nutrition situation (Global Acute Malnutrition prevalence 15 per cent or higher) in 9 out of 12 IDP settlements. The persistence of critical levels of acute malnutrition in many IDP settlements and the current nutrition situation among Mogadishu and Baidoa IDPs indicate a deepening of the humanitarian crisis. 25 Recent FSNAU data showed that GAM among IDPs in Baidoa nearly doubled (from 15.9 per cent in April 2017 to 29.4 per cent in June 2017) and Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) cases has also increased significantly from 3.0 per cent in post-Deyr to 10.4 per cent in post-Gu 2017, after a slight reduction to 2.8 per cent post-Jilaal in April 2017.

38. One of the DEC members in south-central the review team visited was working on outpatient therapeutic programme (OTP), therapeutic and supplementary feeding centres, community awareness and mobilisation, stabilisation centres, mother-to-mother support and group counseling. Community Nutrition Volunteers (CNV) identified and selected by their own communities have been trained to do outreach screening / early detection of malnourished children

22

OCHA Somalia: Humanitarian Dashboard - June 2017 (issued on 18 July 2017). Available at: http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/18072017_humanitarian_dashboard.pdf 23 Ministry of Health of the Somali Federal State and the WHO: Situation report for Acute Watery Diarrhea/Cholera Epidemiological week 28 (10th to 16th Jul 2017). Available at: http://www.emro.who.int/images/stories/Week_28_20170713_AWD_Cholera_Weekly_Sitrep_-Final_1.pdf?ua=1 24 Ibid 25 FSNAU Quarterly Brief - Focus on Post Gu 2017 Season Early Warning (issued 17 July, 2017)

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Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study and defaulter tracing.26 FGDs and KIIs indicated that the high defaulter rates were often due to the fact that mothers were too busy with surviving and taking care of the whole family, instead of caring for only one malnourished child. There is usually a long recovery process for malnourished children owing to the fact that supplementary and therapeutic feeding is often shared with the whole family as acute food insecurity affected the entire family. This gets worse in situations where a household is not included in food security programmes (cash/food) of humanitarian agencies.

39. FGDs with member staff involved in health, nutrition and protection sectors indicated that integration of health, nutrition and protection in food security response was a key challenge. The food security & livelihoods (FSL) sector appeared to work in isolation from the other sectors, taking the lead in need assessments and determination of beneficiary selection criteria. The nutrition status of targeted households clearly was not well linked with FSL programming, often resulting in most vulnerable households with malnourished children under-5 being overlooked.

40. Data obtained from the Nutrition Cluster focal person in Baidoa and UNICEF in Hargeisa showed a substantial increase in new admissions of acutely malnourished children to treatment and feeding centres since the beginning of the year (Figure 4).

Admissions There have been sharp 100000 increases in May in several regions, including in Banadir, 80000 Mogadishu, Bay, Mudug, 60000 Galgadud, Bari and Hiran, in part reflecting the deteriorating 40000 nutrition situation in these Admissions 20000 regions. KII with the MoH focal person for health and nutrition in 0 Hargeisa indicated that an integrated approach was in Somaliland.

41. OCHA warned in its humanitarian sit-rep of 27 June 2017 that Figure 4: Admissions into treatment & therapeutic centres supply gaps were anticipated for Moderate Acute Malnutrition (MAM) products and encouraged strengthening multi-sectoral/multi-stakeholder approaches to ensure a comprehensive package at service delivery level.27 Spread of measles is also a major concern, with almost 14,000 suspected cases of measles reported this year alone (as of 23 July), compared to between 5,000 to 10,000 total cases per year since 2014. More than half of the cases are children under 5. On 25 July 2017, the WHO reported that Somalia is experiencing its worst outbreak of measles in four years. Drought and a real threat of famine, coupled with low vaccination rates, have left millions of children in Somalia weak, hungry, and particularly susceptible to contracting measles and other life-threatening diseases.28 Measles cases are on the rise due to mass displacement and overcrowding in temporary settlements as a result of drought and conflict, combined with the overall low vaccination coverage prior to the current crises and low population immunity due to high prevalence of malnutrition.

26

Defaulter rate and recovery time of the admitted malnourished child are important performance indicators in nutrition programmes.

27 OCHA Somalia Drought Humanitarian Sitrep report no. 14 (issued on 27 th of June, 2017 http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/ocha_somalia_drought_response_humanitarian_sitrep_report_no._14_ 27_june_2017.pdf 28 http://www.who.int/hac/crises/som/releases/en/

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Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study

42. One innovative nutrition related approach from a DEC member was the idea of establishing school clubs in five schools targeting 1,500 adolescent girls and training them on nutrition, hygiene, blood testing on anemia and health education. However, implementation of this intervention was delayed due to school holidays.

43. A major gap in health programming was the lack of support towards maternal health. The most recently published UNFPA Situation Report29 confirms that the drought situation continues to pose a huge threat to women during pregnancy or delivery. Somalia already has one of the highest maternal mortality ratios in the world: one out of every 22 women is likely to die due to pregnancy or childbirth-related causes. Only a few maternal health (mobile) services – one by a DEC member who runs mobile health services including maternal and neonatal care (through funding by another donor) - were observed in the visited IDP camps in Baidoa, and key informant interviews confirmed that overall services in this area was inadequate.

3.5 Gender and protection in the response 44. Gender-based violence (GBV) remains rampant and pervasive in Somalia, affecting mostly women and girls, and is particularly high in IDP settlements. According to Gender-based Violence Information Management System (GBVIMS) data for the first half of 2016, 76 per cent of GBV survivors were IDPs, while 99 per cent were female.30 IDPs face elevated protection risk exposure as the settlements that they reside in are often ungoverned, or governed by arbitrary gatekeepers, overcrowded, and have limited access to protective shelter, safe water and sanitation facilities as well as other basic amenities. In some members’ response, they have created safe spaces in the camps for women and trained some of them to take leadership during food distributions and simultaneously disseminate hygiene promotion, health and nutrition education messages at the distribution sites.

45. FGDs with women groups in visited IDP camps in south-central indicated that that there were regular cases of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) reported, the perpetrators being often from the host communities and military. Most FGD beneficiaries of UCT were without their husbands;31 hence their dependence on community was high, which made them more vulnerable to GBV. In Somaliland, the predominantly pastoralist women indicated that they faced increased domestic violence and fewer cases of SGBV. The high prevalence of domestic violence appears to have been exacerbated by stress, loss of livelihoods and displacement-induced changes in gender roles. Key findings from a recent rapid gender analysis in IDP settlements in Somaliland conducted by a DEC member32 confirmed that the effect of household food insecurity has caused intermittent household tensions and conflict resulting in domestic violence, though the cash support has contributed to a reduction in incidences due to improved food access.

46. In Baidoa, one DEC member had protection activities included in its emergency response with emphasis on child protection. Community-based child protection (CP) committees were set up and trained in child rights, child abuse, unaccompanied children and SGBV. FGDs with several of these 29

UNFPA Situation Report Somalia. SitRep #: 011 - 26th May to 16th June 2017. Available at: http://somalia.unfpa.org/en/publications/unfpa-somalia-situation-report-011-%E2%80%93-26th-may-16th-june-2017 30 UNICEF Somalia Humanitarian Needs Overview 2017. Available at: http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/161124_som_hno_2017.pdf 31 Men have either migrated to towns and nearby areas in search of work, or taken the surviving livestock to faraway pastures 32 Oxfam. Rapid Gender Analysis for Oxfam Drought Response in Somaliland, June 2017

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Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study

mainly female committee members in different IDP settings and KIIs with responsible staff revealed that the committee members report identified CP cases to the member’s social workers who then visit the child, start with case management, and decide on appropriate support. For unaccompanied children, the member agency looks for foster parents.

47. Rape cases identified by the CP committees are reported to the involved member’s staff who is then supposed to ensure that appropriate referral pathway for SGBV victims be followed up on.

But according to KIIs, this referral pathway is either not in place, or still weak in the IDP settlements.

Mention was made that there were some local NGOs involved in SGBV treatment but appeared to have limited (technical) capacity. A recent SGBV case was directly brought to the Baidoa regional hospital by the CP committee members, indicating that the desired protocol did not work.

In Somaliland, a DEC member and its partners formed women committees who have been trained in GBV, hygiene promotion, and nutrition. When GBV cases are identified, they are referred to the GBV centre in Hargeisa. However, transporting a SGBV victim to Hargeisa which is about 3-5 hours drive was often difficult, and so follow up on these cases by member agencies and partners was not always possible.

3.6 Cross-cutting issues 3.6.1 Coordination and linkages 48. The UN, with support and involvement of national and regional governments facilitates coordination of humanitarian response. Coordination has always been a challenge in Somalia.

Several explanations are proffered for this: (a) complex governance structure in the country, with several centres of power – GoS in Mogadishu, Government of Puntland in Garowe, and the Government of Somaliland, not counting other regions some of who also assert degree of autonomy from time to time; (b) the country offices of all international humanitarian agencies are not based in the country but in Nairobi, with some level of delegation to country-based staff. All these split structures create need for coordination at multiple levels which is not always easy. In Somaliland, several institutions or politicians vie with each other to wrest control of humanitarian coordination, sending confusing instructions to NGOs. In 2015, the Somaliland Government asked the Humanitarian Coordinator to dissolve the cluster system and put in place sector coordination instead. Now the Government is pushing for the Ministry of Planning to take over sectoral coordination responsibility.

49. According to key informants, sectoral/cluster level coordination has been weak, with the exception of health and nutrition clusters. The WASH cluster which works well in normal times struggled to provide leadership for a coordinated approach to the response. The food security sector has generally worked better in the response, but this owes more to the developments in the cash transfer programme than general sectoral coordination.

50. The weaknesses in inter-sectoral coordination were evident in all camps visited by the review team. This was partly due to not having a camp coordination structure – it is understood that the Camp Coordination and Camp Management (CCCM) cluster/sectoral group has been formed in June and this is likely to improve situation in the coming months. While agencies/members focused on specific sectors (often directed by the Government, in Somaliland), there was hardly any attempt to either develop a map of comprehensive needs or to coordinate among agencies as to who was doing what in the same camp. That needs of newly arriving IDPs were ignored because they were not on initial beneficiary lists, or that most IDPs had little or no access to even temporary shelter materials (plastic sheeting) and had to use cardboards and other waste materials they could lay their hands on, or that agencies/members did not talk to each other to compare 15

Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study

beneficiary lists for UCT, are all symptomatic of both a lack in basic coordination and an inadequate inter-sectoral approach. Several other glaring examples of this were noted during field visits, for example: ❖ In one camp where a member agency was providing food security response for registered caseloads, the needs of about 300 newly arriving IDPs were overlooked. However, another DEC member who was not working in this camp but coincidentally accompanied the review team during the latter’s visit, on seeing the plight of these IDPs, stated that they had surplus food packages in the area which they would be happy to distribute in this camp. ❖ One member who started water trucking in two settlements provided new water tanks, while in the same location, there were several perfectly-usable tanks lying idle from trucking operations previously undertaken by another DEC member who had stopped its operations some weeks ago. ❖ In another location where one member-agency was providing cash transfers, the member agency focal point for the camp was not aware of who was providing water trucking, or how frequently water was delivered, or who was responsible for health activities. Many of the new IDPs had no information about where to go in case of health issues, particularly maternal health and neonatal care.

51. The review team did not come across during field visits or in key informant interviews any example of agencies/members taking a joined up approach, for instance, in their response on food security and nutrition. Key informant interviews with field staff who were in-charge of different sectors of one member which has provided extensive response in all sectors confirm that within the team, inter-sectoral linkages were weak as each sub-team focused on their individual areas, with food security (cash transfer) sector taking the lead with their own beneficiary selection criteria. Though it should be noted that this is an untested hypothesis, a plausible reason that could be investigated further is that as attention of most agencies’ management focused on getting the cash transfer programme right and managing risks associated with it, attention on other sectoral interventions may have suffered. The review team tenders this conjecture with the caution that this could not be triangulated with a larger sample of key informants or FGDs. 3.6.2 Community participation, communication and feedback mechanism 52. All members met during the review have worked through various committees of beneficiary groups (village relief committee, women’s groups, beneficiary selection committee). For cash transfer programme (CTP), members conduct an intensive community orientation informing people about the programmes and selection criteria, and work through committees to undertake the selection of beneficiaries. Besides being involved in selection process, the committee members act as a bridge between the member/partner and communities for providing information and facilitating complaints, and participate in monitoring activities like water-trucking and cash distribution. FGDs showed that communities were aware of the activities by member-organisations and knew of their entitlements. The consultation process involved sharing information and obtaining feedback, but FGDs showed that communities were rarely aware of how decisions were made regarding the interventions meant for them.

53. Transparency boards to inform communities about project activities, budget and entitlements have also been used extensively by several members. All members met during the evaluation have some form of complaints and feedback mechanism, mostly through toll numbers and complaint desks in the registration site. One of the members used a toll-free number but the rest were using regular numbers that charged beneficiaries for the call. Community interviews and FGDs showed that people knew who to contact if they had complaints. Interviews with member-agency staff indicated that rather than written complaints, people preferred to bring their complaints in person, or raise these with village committees or leaders who passed these on to members/partners. Most 16

Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study

of the complaints related to non-inclusion, or more appropriately, petitions requesting further assistance. By and large, complaints mechanism, as well as members’ interactions with communities, remained confined to ‘project beneficiaries’ and did not include non-beneficiaries in the affected communities (newly arriving IDPs, for example). Member-agency staff stated that because of a limited budget, they had to restrict their consultations to planned target group as per the original project design as otherwise they might raise undue expectations.

3.6.3 Partnership and localisation 54. Local partners have played a strong role in aid delivery to inaccessible and remote areas and mobilisation of local communities during this response. Taking lessons from previous droughts, agencies/members have invested significantly in developing partnership with local NGOs. At field/sub-regional level, several NGOs are now cluster focal points in nutrition, WASH and health, following a conscious decision taken by OCHA in 2013-14. The Grand Bargain emphasises localisation of aid systems and the need for donor commitment to provide global humanitarian funding to local and national responders. The Somalia Humanitarian Fund (SHF) advisory board agreed in early-2017 a minimum of 25 per cent allocation to local NGOs, and so far the SHF has allocated 36 per cent (of $46.6 million allocated so far) to local NGOs during this year.33 However, there is still a long way to go to achieve the goal of 25 per cent funds for local humanitarian system – SHF allocation is still a tiny fraction (1.5 per cent) of total funds received towards the Somalia HRP so far.34 55. Some of the members had longer-term partnership with their local counterparts and were working with them directly on delivery of response and provided them technical support and capacity building. Partners’ capacity development requires continuous support and is hugely resourceintensive as turnover in local NGOs is high due to poaching by international NGOs and the UN, and hence requires continuous orientation and training. Another challenge in partnership is that as support is often project funding based, once funding is over, NGOs have to lay off staff, and wait for the next round of funding to start all over again, losing significant capacity and institutional memory in the process. Local NGOs often are sub-contracted by international organisations/members to undertake specific activities in Al Shabaab and other conflict areas.

These often require the former to take substantial risks themselves. Some members have provided training and orientation to local NGOs on safety and security and support them in monitoring the situation.

3.6.4 Due diligence 56. Working in Somalia carries multiple risks. Security and safety of staff, partners and beneficiaries is only one of the few major risks all organisations have to manage. Equally important is the risk of funds and assistance being cornered by terrorist groups. Control over food assistance and cash transfers are easy targets of such groups in all humanitarian response worldwide. Members have to be therefore extra-vigilant in this regard and ensure that risks of aid falling into wrong hands is minimised, if not eliminated all together. All agencies have developed strict vetting procedure for undertaking cash transfers. Mobile phone companies which handle transfers have to go through a strict vetting procedure involving reference checks and their background. Over the past 3-4 years, humanitarian agencies have, through the Cash Working Group, assessed a handful of mobile operators and banks which are now used by most agencies. Once the provider has passed the vetting procedure a detailed framework agreement is signed with each provider. This 33

Source: Based on analysis of SHF allocation data available on OCHA Somalia website https://docs.unocha.org/sites/dms/Somalia/2017-SA-1_projectsummary_20170609.pdf 34 As of July 26, 2017, $610.98 billion received so far. (Source: https://fts.unocha.org/appeals/528/summary)

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Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study

framework agreement includes detailed protocols for distribution, cross-checking of beneficiary identity and reporting requirements for each round of UCT. This is then followed by postdistribution monitoring after each transfer and then, in some cases, a third party monitoring after every 2 UCTs to verify adherence to the targeting criteria.

57. In selection of partners, members mostly worked with existing partners with whom they have had ongoing relationship for several years or more. Members undertake close monitoring of the activities funded through partners and carry out periodic check of their accounts.

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Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study

Section 4: Conclusions – Assessment against Review Criteria 4.1 Relevance and appropriateness 58. As discussed in section 3.1, DEC members’ response was based on either systematic joint needs assessments, or localised needs assessments, carried out by members themselves. DEC members have well developed criteria to target the most vulnerable communities, including some remote communities, in IPC 3 and 4 areas. A large share of the response rightly concentrated on food security and WASH which emerged as the most critical needs in all regions of Somalia, followed by health. On food security, both distribution of food and market-based response was used, depending on members’ capacity. Food distribution is always a logistical challenge, and hence the scale of members’ response on this was smaller than cash transfers, for which several members had ongoing interventions in the country that enabled faster scaling up. The advantage with cash transfers was that it enabled recipients to meet multiple household needs.

59. Members generally focused their response in areas where they already had presence and built on existing partnerships. The operating context in Somalia is complex and ever changing. Besides security and access constraints, local political and clan dynamics play a strong mediating role in delivery of assistance by any organisation. In these circumstances, the cautious approach taken by members to avoid stepping into unknown territories was the right approach, though it meant that vulnerable communities living outside the existing areas of members’ operations had very limited or no access to assistance. Given the security and access environment in the country, particularly in south-central and Puntland, members concentrated their response in urban and periurban areas where large number of the affected communities from remote locations converged in spontaneous IDP settlements. In some instances, members did deploy remote management modality, using either local staff and/or local NGO-partners in these areas – cholera response in Al Shabaab areas, for instance (Section 3.3).

60. Members prioritised women, especially women-headed households, in selection of beneficiaries; gender issues like access to safe space for women and WASH facilities were prioritised by a few, but remained under-resourced. SGBV remains an issue in the country, but with very few agencies working on this.

61. Members’ ability to respond to changes in the context and scale of need, however, was hamstrung by lack of resources and preparedness – as happened in dealing with the cholera epidemic and meeting the needs of newly arriving IDPs, especially those arriving from late-April onwards. It was understood from key informants that the entire humanitarian system was, at the time of the review, seized of this issue and DEC members, in particular, were exploring additional funding from their donors.

62. Extensive use of cash transfer programming (CTP) and some food vouchers, instead of food distribution, was appropriate, as well-functioning local markets exist in and around population centres and areas of IDP concentration. Distribution of food, though appropriate, is fraught with challenges of logistics and security risks in Somalia, and members rightly undertook this only on a limited scale. Compared to food, cash transfers, as the experience over the past 4-5 years in Somalia has shown, carry fewer security risks for both the humanitarian agency and recipients.

Water trucking, though sometimes necessary, is not viable in the medium to long term. Suppliers always tend to hike prices when water trucking is funded by humanitarian agencies. Hence, other 19

Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study options such as the use of surface water – where available and safe - and providing cash for water35 are more appropriate. In most of Somalia, most people are used to buying water from water trucking companies in normal periods. Therefore, greater engagement with existing private water markets would be a viable strategy as part of a cash-for-water approach.

4.2 Coverage 63. With nearly half the country’s population pushed into food insecurity, the needs are immense with 3.2 million at crisis (IPC 3) and emergency (IPC 4) levels. Despite a substantial increase in humanitarian aid since early-2017, humanitarian response continues to fall short of the need.

Furthermore, the gap is increasing as more and more people continue to be affected by increasing food insecurity, overstretching the capacity of humanitarian system. This is compounded by lack of humanitarian access in several parts of south-central Somalia and Puntland due to ongoing conflict. Member agencies have tried, with the limited resources at their command, to access vulnerable communities wherever they could. Though the scale of assistance has not been able to match the growing needs, mortality in this drought which has been more severe than the 201112 drought has been far lower. This is owed to donor responses that enabled early action in response to emerging warning, as opposed to the inertia and reluctance observed during the 201112 response.

64. DEC members have used a mixture of methods to select beneficiaries using multiple criteria of vulnerability, and most of these involved community consultations at different levels. While some used multiple forums for consultation and had their independent validation mechanisms, others delegated the task of beneficiary selection to community leaders and village committees. By and large, the emphasis was on targeting the most vulnerable, though better coordination at the point of delivery among agencies would have reduced chances of duplication and overlap that sometimes occurred when clan and sub-clan dynamics were allowed to influence the beneficiary selection process.

65. As the latest rapid field assessments and households surveys36 by FSNAU show, the current level of humanitarian needs are expected to persist – or in some parts, likely to get worse - in most parts of Somalia through the end of 2017. Members are now planning to expand their coverage and explore various options, including for instance, reducing the value of cash transfer to increase coverage to more households, and negotiate with key donors additional funds for continuation of CTP for the coming period.

4.3 Effectiveness 66. Members’ phase 1 plans focused on meeting emergency needs of the population affected by drought. In broad terms, the following were the intended objectives: (a) enhanced food security and capacity to meet basic needs; (b) increased access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities; and (c) increased access to health care and nutritional services for those affected by the drought. The massive humanitarian scale-up has been instrumental in averting famine thus far 35

The general UCT in some instances include expenses on water and other essential expenses, but for those families who are not on the beneficiary list for UCT, at least cash for water (instead of water trucking provided by NGOs) could be thought of.

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Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study and human fatality has been below a thousand, caused mostly by cholera.37 DEC members have been at the forefront of delivery of the response and have worked with other humanitarian agencies, donors, local NGOs and local authorities.

67. Several factors contributed to this positive outcome so far. Donor response to the crisis has been timely and more robust than anytime in the past 5-10 years. Besides the OECD donors who funded the HRP ($612 million as of 27 July), there have been a number of other donors from Islamic countries and Somalia diaspora who have contributed significantly in cash and kind (food and medicines) throughout the response ($244 million as of 27 July). 38 Humanitarian access has improved, enabling either humanitarian agencies to deliver assistance to the communities in situ, or for communities to move relatively short distances to central locations where the former were concentrated. Improved humanitarian access was critical in enabling humanitarian agencies to work with local health authorities and NGOs in containing the cholera outbreak, though the response was delayed. Another key factor that contributed significantly to the humanitarian outcome was the large-scale multi-purpose cash and vouchers programme implemented by about 40 organisations which, according to OCHA, reached some 3 million households between March and June. According to key informants, over $200 million had gone to CTP since the beginning of the response, mostly unconditional.39 68. As discussed in section 3.3, members’ response on WASH had mixed results. Besides delayed response in cholera treatment and prevention due to a lack of preparedness, by and large, emphasis on hygiene promotion and sanitation remained a gap which is being prioritised only now.

Expertise on WASH varied across member-agencies. Better context-specific response on WASH and coordination among members/humanitarian agencies on approach to planning and delivery of response would have led to better outcome for communities.

69. All DEC members have undertaken self-assessment using Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS).

Discussions with partner-NGOs showed that members have supported the former with training and orientation to take on board accountability issues. Overall, one might say that beneficiary participation and attempt at demonstrating some form of accountability to affected people is now a standard tool in humanitarian organisations’ repertoire. However, the scope of accountability still does not extend to affected communities being able to hold duty-bearers to account for quality of services provided.

70. In a situation where needs were continuously expanding as increasing number of people became affected, while members needed to be careful not to set undue expectations they could not fulfill with their limited resources, a ‘project and logframe’ approach severely restricted field staff engagement with emerging needs outside of the project design, missing out opportunities for evidence-based advocacy with donors on an ongoing basis.

71. As the current level of needs is likely to remain for the next 6-8 months, any reduction in funding for ongoing emergency response will have serious consequences for nearly half of the country’s population who are still in the grip of acute food insecurity, with at least 3.2 million in IPC 3 and 4 phases. The latest FSNAU brief warns that if current level of humanitarian assistance is scaled back significantly and rising levels of morbidity and disease outbreaks are not controlled, famine 37

According to OCHA, there were 795 deaths due to cholera which started in January 2017. (Source: OCHA. Somalia Humanitarian Snapshot, 6 July 2017) 38 OCHA reports that total funding to Somalia during in 2017 has been $854 million, of which $612 is towards the HRP. (Source: https://fts.unocha.org/countries/206/summary/2017) 39 The review team could not find official data on this. However, OCHA cash transfer factsheet which provides monthly updates records the following cash transfers during April-June: April $34.8 million, May $48 million, June $67.2 million (Source: https://data.humdata.org/organization/ocha-somalia)

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Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study (IPC Phase 5) is possible in the worst affected areas.40 Though the outbreak of cholera is currently contained for now, the case-fatality rate of 1.6 per cent remains above the emergency threshold of 1 per cent.41 4.4 Efficiency – operational management and coordination 72. All members undertaking cash and vouchers followed a common cash transfer protocol which did enable an efficient and timely scale-up. Members also have robust due diligence in the selection of partners and cash transfer providers to ensure that there were no leakages in the transfer system. Members have ensured development of appropriate security protocols to ensure safety and security of staff, partners and beneficiaries. However, within partner organisations, the standard of security and safety procedures as practiced still require continuous follow up and monitoring by member agencies.

73. Coordination has been generally weak in most sectors, complicated by hierarchy of governmentled coordination at multiple levels. Some of the DEC-funded interventions missed opportunities for complementing each other’s programmes due to weak coordination and cooperation among humanitarian agencies at operational level. Inter-sectoral linkages and joined up approaches were also weak (section 3.6.1). Most of the DEC members have delivered their response in partnership with local NGOs and some level of support in developing capacity of partners was provided, though staff high turnover in partner-NGOs meant that capacity developed through training and coaching were often lost along with vital institutional learning.

74. Routine monitoring visits to ongoing activities were, according to key informants, undertaken regularly by staff from country offices and field offices. A few members mentioned about afteraction reviews conducted by the staff teams, but reports of these were not ready for sharing with the review team. Delay in PDM reports on cash transfers (section 3.2), which were not available even after nearly 4 weeks of undertaking the exercises, meant losing opportunity for field staff to take any corrective measures based on real time feedback.

4.5 Coherence and connectedness 4.5.1 Grand Bargain 75. The findings in sections 3.6.2 and 3.6.3 show that members have done well in taking into account key aspects of some of the global standards in humanitarian response, namely Sphere and Grand Bargain. Members have generally done well on Sphere core standards. In line with Grand Bargain commitments, humanitarian agencies / members have performed well on several aspects during this response, namely: working with national and local responders, cash programming and joint needs assessments. Attention is however needed on enhancing transparency – sharing beneficiary lists, members’ plans and timely sharing of PDM reports.

4.5.2 Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS) 76. CHS 1 (appropriateness and relevance), CHS 2 (effectiveness and timeliness) and CHS 9 (resource utilisation/efficiency) are discussed above. In relation to CHS 3 which relates to 40

FSNAU. Quarterly Brief June 2017- Focus on Post Gu Season Early Warning, July 17, 2017 WHO. Weekly update: cholera in Somalia, 15 June 2017 (Source: http://www.emro.who.int/surveillance-forecasting-response/outbreaks/weekly-update-cholera-in-somalia-15-june2017.html) 41

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Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study

strengthening local capacity and do-no-harm, most of the members have worked with local partners and supported them with training and orientation on a regular basis. Protection of unaccompanied children and SGBV remain under-resourced. Some members have invested heavily in supporting their partners in specific sectoral areas by deploying international experts to work closely with partners on the ground, something the partner staff were highly appreciative of.

77. Community participation, feedback process (CHS 4) and complaints mechanism (CHS 5), which together comprise the basis of accountability to affected population, are discussed in section 3.6.2.

While information sharing, complaints mechanism and consultation with beneficiary groups were prioritised, consultation with wider affected communities and involving them in decisions that directly affected them did not receive adequate attention. Most agencies consulted ‘project beneficiaries’, and had little interaction with non-beneficiaries - newly arriving IDPs, for instance.

78. CHS 6 requires that humanitarian action is well coordinated and complementary. Coordination was weak in general, but more critically, coordination at field level among agencies was missing.

On learning (CHS 7), while the review showed number of examples of learning events like training and orientation workshops for staff and partners organised by most of the members, utilisation of real-time learning to adapt response requires more efforts in several agencies. This is linked to organisational culture that relate to management empowering field staff to initiate adaptive changes.

79. On CHS 8 which is about staff support and equitable treatment, member-agencies have well established system to support staff working in insecure environments, and the review team generally noted that most of the staff in key positions at field level have been in post for reasonable lengths of time, indicating members are able to retain staff. Staff were all well oriented on security protocols, and office premises/guest houses were equipped with basic amenities in relatively secure locations.

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Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study

Section 5: Conclusions, Lessons and Recommendations Conclusions Relevance and appropriateness 80. Building on existing partnerships and based on systematic needs assessments, members’ response rightly concentrated on food security and WASH which emerged as the most critical needs, followed by health. On food security, both distribution of food and market-based response was used, depending on members’ capacity. Extensive use of CTP and food vouchers, instead of food distribution, was appropriate, as well functioning local markets exist in and around population centres. DEC members have well developed criteria to target the most vulnerable communities, including some remote communities. Members’ ability to respond to changes in the context and scale of need, however, was hamstrung by lack of resources and preparedness – as happened in dealing with cholera epidemic and meeting the needs of newly arriving IDPs. Protection of unaccompanied children and SGBV remain under-resourced in the response. WASH response by members – with some exception that demonstrated good international standards – needed more contextualisation in order to ensure their appropriateness.

Coverage 81. Mortality in this drought which has been more severe than the 2011-12 drought has been far lower, due to donor response that enabled early action as warnings began to be sounded. Humanitarian response still falls short of the ever-increasing need, as people continue to be affected by protracted food insecurity. DEC members emphasised targeting the most vulnerable, though better coordination at the point of delivery among agencies would have reduced chances of duplication and overlap that sometimes occurred when clan and sub-clan dynamics influenced selection process.

Effectiveness 82. The massive humanitarian scale-up has been instrumental in averting famine thus far. DEC members have been at the forefront of delivery of this response and have worked with other humanitarian agencies, donors, local NGOs and local authorities. Besides donor response, partially improved humanitarian access and the large-scale multi-purpose cash and vouchers programme implemented by about 40 organisations contributed to this outcome. Improved context-specific response on WASH and coordination among members/humanitarian agencies on approach to planning and delivery of response would have led to better outcome.

Efficiency 83. All members undertaking cash and vouchers followed a common cash transfer protocol which did provide an efficient and timely scale-up. Members also have robust due diligence in selection of partners and cash transfer providers to ensure that there were no leakages in the transfer system.

Members have ensured development of appropriate security protocols to ensure safety and security of staff, partners and beneficiaries. However, within partner organisations (local NGOs), the standard of security and safety procedures as practiced require continuous follow up and monitoring.

84. Coordination has been generally weak in most sectors in Somalia, complicated by hierarchy of coordination at multiple levels. Some DEC-funded interventions missed opportunities for complementing each other’s programmes due to weak coordination and cooperation among humanitarian agencies at operational level. Inter-sectoral linkages and joined up approach were also weak.

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Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study

Coherence and connectedness 85. Members have done well in incorporating key aspects of some of the global standards in humanitarian response, namely CHS and Grand Bargain. On community feedback and participation, while information sharing, complaints mechanism and consultation with beneficiary groups were prioritised, consultation with wider affected communities did not receive adequate attention. Some of the members could do better in their utilisation of real-time learning in response which requires an adaptive management culture within organisations. In IDP situations, protection of women and unaccompanied children in particular, need to be prioritised.

Lessons 86. Several potential lessons are emerging from members’ response that need to be tested for their validity and replicability in different situations. Some of the key ones are: i.

Despite being more severe than the last drought and famine of 2011-12, the fact that this drought has not led to a catastrophic famine is evidence for the humanitarian system, governments and donors, that early action in response to early warnings is critical for saving lives. ii.

In contexts of protracted and chronic vulnerability, long-term work towards resilience is needed not only to strengthen people’s capabilities, but also to create foundations for scaled-up humanitarian response in times of acute crises. iii.

Water trucking is always expensive, more so when undertaken by humanitarian agencies, and hence needs to be undertaken only as a last resort. In areas where people are used to buying water from private water suppliers, providing cash for water may be a more appropriate intervention, giving better value for money.

Recommendations Summary of current context and scenarios 87. As the current level of needs is likely to remain for the next 6-8 months, any scale-back or reduction in funding for ongoing emergency response will have serious consequences for nearly half of the country’s population who are still in the grip of acute food insecurity, with at least 3.4 million in IPC 3 and 4 phases. Even if the deyr rains were good, the likely scenario in Somaliland is that the IDPs will mostly remain where they currently are, and will require continued emergency assistance. In south-central and Puntland which have a sizeable agro-pastoral livelihoods system, good deyr rains will open up opportunities for some recovery activities to start, though a sizeable number of people will continue to need emergency assistance, at least till the next harvest in late January. If however, the deyr rains were to fail again, one is staring at the prospect of a famine, without a dramatic increase in humanitarian assistance. In other words, to avert a famine or near-famine situation, Somalia will require either the same level of humanitarian assistance for the next six months, or a substantial increase in assistance for another nine months, at least. Recovery in either scenario is going to take a few years, and much longer in Somaliland.

88. The following specific recommendations are made within this context. Recommendations are targeted at DEC members which will require facilitation by the DEC Secretariat.

Overall approach and thrust of response R1: Using updated assessment data, members need to develop strong advocacy strategy for increased funding for the continuing emergency and likely famine.

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Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study

R2: Given the scale of the need, DEC may shorten the duration of the phase 2 support from 18 months to 9 months at the most, as stretching the remaining allocation for 18 months in the face of a possible famine in the next 6 months or so would be counter-productive.

R3: In any scenario, food security response, public health promotion, prevention of cholera, SGBV and nutrition programming on a substantial scale will need to continue; recovery opportunities, where they arise, need to be utilised, bearing in mind that the entire response will still continue to be one of saving and protecting lives.

Sectoral interventions R4: While cholera outbreak has stabilised for now, the coming rainy season may see a spike in new cases. Members need to maintain their level of preparedness (CTC facilities, hygiene promoters) and increase PHP activities.

R5: Water trucking is not a viable proposition in the medium to long-term, especially in areas where surface water is available after the rains. Members need to, instead, ramp up hygiene promotion and educate people about household-water treatment in a significant way, or where appropriate, provide cash for people to access water from private providers.

R6: Having established a good community consultation process for selecting beneficiaries for cash transfer, vouchers and food distribution, members need to continuously reassess their validation and verification processes to ensure that avoidable inclusion errors and duplication due to political and clan influences on community-managed processes are minimised.

R7: There is need for robust commitment and adequate funding for enhanced SGBV integration in IDP site management and increased SGBV awareness, strengthened coordination of the SGBV response and safe referral pathways including psychosocial support and livelihood. More efforts should be put on child protection (CP) issues, prevention and adequate response and referral of identified CP cases.

AAP R8: Members need to shift their emphasis from accountability-to-beneficiaries to accountability-toaffected communities, as the current approach which excludes non-beneficiaries risks members turning a blind eye to needs of the latter, even if only to gather information, assess needs and bring these to the attention of the humanitarian system.

Management and coordination R9: While overall coordination through sectoral/cluster leadership needs strengthening, members need to coordinate better at operational level within areas/communities they are working in to ensure a coherent approach to delivery of assistance that enables avoiding duplication and overlap.

R10: Within member-agencies, capacity of staff for inter-sectoral approach to programming needs to be strengthened.

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Review of DEC Members’ Response to the East Africa Crisis – Somalia Country Study

*****ENDS*****

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Disclaimer The report was commissioned and funded by the Disasters Emergency Committee. The UK Department for International Development has contributed to the DEC East Africa Appeal through its AidMatch scheme.

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