Goal

The Somalia Food Security Cluster (FSC) aims to be the primary source of information on the humanitarian response by addressing food insecurity, and by providing its members with a strategic vision and guidance in their response to the acute and underlying causes of crisis.

This challenges the cluster to provide guidance from a multi-year perspective on how responses must address the acute seasonal needs for improved access to food and livelihood support. It also needs to provide guidance on addressing livelihood vulnerability through resilience-building, and on providing regular and dependable safety nets to prevent the seasonal teeter-tottering between Famine/Emergency/Crisis and Stressed conditions that have plagued rural and urban livelihoods in Somalia over the past two decades.

Purpose

As per the rationale of the Global Food Security Cluster, the FSC aims to promote responses that are:

• Proportionate. The FSC will promote proportionate needs-based responses and advocate adequate resources and support.
   
• Appropriate. The FSC will promote appropriate, and therefore more effective, emergency food-security interventions that incorporate food assistance, emergency agricultural support, cash and voucher transfers, and time-critical and urgent support for the protection and rapid restoration of agricultural pastoral and fishing livelihoods.
   
• Timely. Despite the investments and improvements in early warning systems, there is a gap between early warning and early response. The appropriate timing of phasing down or phasing out responses is also important. In Somalia in particular, the FSC will aim to improve the timeliness of responses in order to provide a more effective and cost-efficient response.