WASH and nutrition in central Somalia and Gedo of urgent humanitarian concern

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Issue

Gedo and Central regions are facing a crisis of severe malnutrition, exacerbated by lack of funding and a shortage of water. Currently, vital activities are relying entirely on carry-over from 2008 due to lack of funding in 2009. Without an immediate injection of funding for emergency nutrition and WASH programming, more people will become acutely malnourished and vulnerable to water-borne diseases especially women and children.

Background

The nutrition situation in Gedo and Central regions is critical with both areas recording Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM), rates exceeding the 15% emergency threshold. Sudden and extreme lack of food have had severe impacts on people's nutritional status. In Gedo the rate of acute malnutrition is above 20%. In the Central areas of Hawd and Addun the rates are 20.8% and 18.4% respectively. There are more than 200,000 acutely malnourished children in Somalia, some 60,000 of them suffer from severe malnutrition and are in need of immediate treatment in order to survive. One quarter of all the malnourished, both acute and severe, are in the Gedo and Central regions. The water-related disease burden is especially high in children, accounting for 20% of < 5 years' mortality in Somalia. The crisis in Gedo and Central regions has been created by several factors. Consecutive seasons of poor rains have lead to crop failure and a depletion of assets. This, along with the depreciated Somali Shilling, has forced families to respond by reducing the number and quality of their meals and has restricted their ability to buy water. Security threats against specific agencies in these areas have hampered activities of the few agencies that are present resulting in a gap in emergency nutrition programmes.

Blanket supplementary feeding is needed as an urgent stop-gap measure to prevent further deterioration and more children falling into the 'acute' category. Targeted supplementary feeding centres (which require 2-3 months to set up) and therapeutic programmes are needed in crisis areas to deal with existing malnutrition. Effective intervention to the malnutrition crisis in Gedo and Central regions require an immediate integrated response that includes health, water and sanitation activities. Lack of safe water, sanitation and hygiene promotion contribute to the high incidences of diarrhea, further increasing the already critical levels of malnutrition. The following key WASH interventions are now required. These include: constructing shallow wells, rehabilitation of existing water systems, support to sustainable operations and maintenance, continued hygiene education activities, short-term water trucking; and construction of latrines in IDP areas.

Funding

Critical WASH activities are not taking place due to the lack of immediate funding. So far, only US$300,000 out of a US$36 million requirement for WASH activities has been met. Nutrition activities which need to expand have similarly suffered from funding shortfalls. The Nutrition Cluster has received US$10.7 million against US$66 million required. There is still an urgent need in the coming four months to sustain and continue emergency nutrition programmes and expand response. Lack of immediate funding for nutrition supplies will delay delivery and affect the timeliness of nutrition response as delivery lead times are up to six months.

At the end of January, the Somalia IASC has concluded prioritization of projects from the 2009 CAP that require immediate funding. The Nutrition Cluster is in need of approximately US$22.6 million for the upcoming four months to provide blanket and targeted feeding interventions to address acute malnutrition among under-five children in the most critical areas, in order to stabilize the global malnutrition rates and reduce risk for mortality. Meanwhile, the WASH Cluster requires US$6 million to improve access to emergency water and sanitation services for drought and conflict-affected areas in Gedo and Central regions.

For further details, contact:

OCHA Somalia Kiki Gbeho, Head of Office (gbehok@un.org) and/or the relevant cluster WASH - Erik Toft Cluster Chair (etoft@unicef.org), Nutrition - James Kingori Cluster Chair (jkingori@unicef.org), Grainne Moloney Cluster Co-Chair (grainne.moloney@fsau.or.ke), Food Aid - Keith Ursel Cluster Chair (keith.ursel@wfp.org).