Aid in Action

Michael Hess, AA/DCHA visits

Facing the Challenges of Helping Vulnerable Communities in Somalia

Nairobi, Kenya  | Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Michael Hess, Assistant Administrator for DCHA Bureau, visited Kenya from January 16 - 20. The focus of the visit was the current crisis in Somalia. While in Nairobi Mr. Hess met with the donor community, NGOs and the U.N. on Somalia and was briefed on the current situation and the challenges to providing humanitarian aid in such a difficult environment. Foremost in his discussions was the issue of security and the need for unfettered access to the vulnerable communities that USAID and its partners are supporting.

Over the last month, the 15 year old complex emergency in Somalia has catapulted to the top of our agenda. The severe Horn of Africa drought of last year morphed into floods, and in December conflict broke out. Because of the major drought response, WFP and CARE, FFP’s major partners in Somalia, had sufficient food stocks to deal with the crisis. The major issue has been access, due to the floods and then due to conflict. WFP established air operations to deliver food and non-food items, both inside Somalia and at the Dadaab refugee camp. CARE completed some two month distributions in December. WFP has been able to proceed with small-scale distributions across southern Somalia. The Kismayo airstrip is closed because of security concerns, hampering WFP air operations, and delivery of humanitarian assistance. CARE and WFP both have substantial food aid stocks in Mogadishu and are trying to move them out to distribute where possible in rural areas. As a result of the multiple crises in Somalia, in January DCHA established a Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART), based in Nairobi, and has produced a number of reporting cables as a result of extensive information gathering and coordination meetings.

Mr. Hess visited the Dadaab refugee camp on the day of a food distribution, observed the distribution and pitched in scooping maize for beneficiaries (see photo). He met with the refugee leaders and visited the supplementary and therapeutic feeding center at the camp. The camp has a high malnutrition rate of 22% in spite of the refugees receiving on an average 2,000 kilocalories of daily rations in their food basket. WFP attributed this to cultural practices and absence of non-food items and complementary foods. Mr. Hess expressed concern over the high malnutrition rates and urged partners to address this problem. In FY 2006 and to date in 2007, FFP has provided 43,800 MT of food valued at $25 million for refugee programs in Kenya and is the largest donor to the operation.