Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths – Remarks at Member States Briefing on the Humanitarian Situation in Somalia (13 September 2022)

UN Headquarters, New York, 13 September 2022

As delivered

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thank you for joining us for this briefing.

Thank you everyone for being on the call. Special thanks to Mr Abdirahman for being here. It is good to see you and of course we met recently in Mogadishu, but it is very important to have you here with us.

Two weeks ago, as you said Sofie, I travelled to Somalia. My first visit to Somalia in fact - I spent a week in Mogadishu and went to Baidoa in the South West, which is the epicentre of the drought crisis; and the level of suffering that we had the unfortunate privilege of witnessing was deeply shocking.

In Baidoa and in Mogadishu, we visited stabilization centers in the regional hospitals, where severely malnourished children received therapeutic feeding. And as I said to the media, I saw children who were so malnourished they could barely cry - and most did not - and in fact was told by a doctor that when children cry, in these circumstances it is a good sign as it shows they have the level of energy to do at least that.

In Baidoa, the sheer number of displaced people, and with more arriving on a daily basis, means available resources are very overstretched to cater for their basic needs. I talked to people who have lost hope – in getting the next meal, hope in making it to the next day, hope in the survival of their children, hope in returning home. In one IDP site which we visited, again Abdirahman knows all this much better than we do, that site has been there for more than nine years. Many of the people who have been there up to that period of time, were very clear about how difficult it was indeed or how unlikely are their prospects of returning home. So, they have been in those makeshift circumstances for many years.

In the Banadir hospital in Mogadishu, medical staff are struggling to keep up with the numbers of emaciated children seeking treatment daily. We all heard harrowing stories from parents who had carried their children for weeks or more from home so they could get some medical care, some food and some support. One mother told me that she carried her four-year old child for one month before reaching Mogadishu. We have heard it from so many places, but it still has the power to shock us. These are among the lucky ones – with their children in hospitals, having made the move. Lucky for now but not necessarily lucky for the future.

My mission to Somalia was focused on listening to people and communities impacted by this climate crisis. I also wanted to learn about the extremely complex operating environment on the ground, and what needs to be done to scale up our humanitarian response.

My trip as you may know coincided with the Famine Review Committee’s warning – a final warning as they put it – that we have arrived at, arguably, the most dangerous period in this crisis. Famine is now projected to take place in two districts in the South West State between October and December unless significant humanitarian assistance reaches people most in need.

To be clear, and it is very important in the whole assessment of famine, which is done with such expertise and technical rigor, we have not met the technical thresholds for declaring [famine] yet – but we are very, very close and as Adam Abdelmoula said to us, we have a very narrow window to save lives. We know from past experience -which sadly there is much of in Somalia and elsewhere- that by the time a famine is declared, tens of thousands of people will have died. In 2011, it is estimated that about half of the 250,000 deaths took place before the official famine declaration. So, there is no reason for complacency in terms of the final warning. People are dying today and indeed we witnessed that. One two-year old child died during the period of my visit.

For the past year at least, my humanitarian colleagues have warned of the looming catastrophe and hunger crisis in the Horn of Africa. I briefed this group six months ago when funding levels were extremely low, and we knew then that the worst was yet to come. Now we are approaching a projected fifth failed rainy season, and there is talk about the possibility of a sixth failed rainy season. The consequences will be devastating in Somalia, Ethiopia and parts of northern Kenya. At least 36 million people are at risk every day across the Horn of Africa, of grave food insecurity.

We are grateful for the generous donor contributions received so far, particular to you Matthew here, for the generosity of USAID. I had the privilege of meeting Matthew’s colleagues in Pakistan a few days ago, Sarah Charles and Samantha Power. A huge testimony for your generosity and also for the advocacy that went with it. Thank you very much indeed. The reality is that we still need to sustain the level of humanitarian aid needed if that final warning which I referred to has got any urgency for us. I have said publicly that we need another 1 billion dollars to save lives and get us through the first months of 2023. The other reason we are talking about getting through the first months of 2023 is the possibility of a sixth rainy season – so we are still shaking the trees for more financial support. We need your support.

Excellencies,

During my engagements in Somalia, I was reminded that the role of NGOs is absolutely critical. We need to provide funding for international and national NGOs, through different funding mechanisms. Many of those I met, particularly Somalia organisations, were urging us to look into and increase the amount of money reaching local organisations as part of the localisation agenda and the Grand Bargain. I am glad that the Somalia Humanitarian Fund has a good record in this connection. I have asked colleagues and agencies in Somalia to tell us more about how much money and the percentage of funding that reaches those frontline partners.

One of the biggest impediments to humanitarian actors operating in Somalia is insecurity. In all the meetings I had in Somalia with humanitarian agencies and the government, we discussed access challenges and how to expand operations in hard-to-reach areas – and I do not want to avoid the fact that this is a very difficult issue. It is going to be very difficult but the government, and Abdirahman next to me here also emphasised, how important it is that we do this with care, and that we do this in a way that does not make security worse. So, we are looking very carefully at how to do this and how to target communities in those hard-to-reach areas including those areas controlled by al-Shabaab. We need to get to people where they are rather than where they walk to. We know anecdotally how much worse the situation is in those places. We know that there are many places we haven’t been able to reach for some time and we know that the final warning of the famine review committee urges us to redouble our efforts to reach them. There is no doubt about the primary role in that connection as in so many other places of national and local partners – the frontline workers who go to the furthest places in the field.

I want to remind us, because it is germane to what is happening in Somalia, and I saw the same issues later in the week in Pakistan. Saving lives, obviously in situations like Somalia is precisely the priority for humanitarian partners and the government and there is no doubt about it. We are working on an integrated response, combining four clusters: food security, nutrition, health and water and sanitation initiatives. I was encouraged by the way in which the UN system, with partners, are working to ensure that the delivery of those services is integrated and that it is delivered as one, and it also benefits a common approach to reaching hard-to-reach areas. It was stressed by all I met, that that is what you need to do particularly in situations with considerable food insecurity and a potential famine. You need to deliver on those four all at once. There was a lot of discussion among the agencies, as to whether that prioritisation which had been arrived at with the Humanitarian Country Team might also omit adequate investment in the support for activities with regards to other issues. Clearly gender-based violence being one and protection issues more generally. Clearly, this is a dilemma that all humanitarian agencies face particularly in a situation of scarce resources and urgent priorities. I believe, however, that the issue of protection and gender-based violence is not one that should continue to be orphaned and it must be addressed and frankly, funded and as usual, it is underfunded.

One of my key take-aways from the visit is that parallel to those lifesaving efforts, we all must focus on strengthening the resilience of the communities. Somalia is facing a climate crisis that is not going to relent much in the years to come. In fact all the signs are that it will get worse. The cycles of droughts and floods are intensifying – and statistics back this up. I don’t think there is any basis for denying it. And that means that pastoralism as a way of life is under existential threat throughout the region. I saw the same in Turkana, Kenya some weeks before. This is what makes it so impressive and important. One of the first acts of the government of Somalia was indeed to create the position of Special Envoy for drought to focus on advocacy. Issues that need to be focussed on go beyond lifesaving, we need to address resilience and the need to leverage climate financing and adaptation funds to support the Somali government, which I believe at the moment has received none of those funds but needs it, deserves it and will use it well. We had the same experience in Pakistan with the Secretary-General who I was there in support of, saying very clearly that there is a need for the world to fulfil its responsibilities on the COP26 to move with adaptation, and we see in Somalia the opportunity for very important use of those funds. It is a major advocacy priority and I want Abdirahman to know that OCHA will do all it can to help you and your government to make that a reality.

Thank you.