Humanitarian crisis still rife in Somalia

8 July 2010 - Hajir Maalim is Programme Co-ordinator in one of the world’s most vulnerable and insecure countries: Somalia. A trained civil engineer, and a specialist in water, sanitation and hygiene, Hajir has been coordinating Action Against Hunger’s relief effort in Somalia for three years.

 
We catch up with Hajir to discover more about the humanitarian situation in Somalia, and how Action Against Hunger is overcoming the challenges of working in such a complex context.

What is the humanitarian situation in Somalia?

Somalia is, arguably, one of the largest humanitarian crises we are currently facing, with high rates of severe malnutrition and child mortality. For example, all basic and life-saving services that are available to the Somali population are provided by humanitarian organisations, such as Action Against Hunger, and all structures inherited from before Somalia’s independence have subsequently been destroyed by the ongoing conflict. There are over 3.6 million people in dire need of life-saving humanitarian assistance, lacking access to health care, food, safe water and sanitation. The humanitarian situation is highly complex, frequently compounded by ongoing conflict and often difficult to manage. However, we currently have over 150 national staff working on life-saving programmes in two of the most vulnerable regions in Somalia.

What are the challenges that face an organisation working in Somalia?

One of the numerous challenges we are facing is access to the people we are trying to assist. Due to ongoing conflict it is, for example, often very difficult to move from one location to another, not just for us, but also for the civilian population. Sometimes it is very difficult to deliver equipment and nutritional products to the regions where we are working. Environmental factors can affect this, such as rains and droughts; since most roads have not been maintained for over 20 years it makes them frequently impassable. 

What is Action Against Hunger doing?

Our programmes focus entirely on life-saving activities such as the treatment of severe acute malnutrition, basic health services, access to safe water and sanitation, as well as food security activities. For example, we are currently treating over 5,000 acutely malnourished children and providing life-saving humanitarian assistance to up to 100,000 people per year.
 
Action Against Hunger is conducting its activities in Somalia in a very unique way in the sense that everything is co-ordinated from our office based in Nairobi, Kenya. We only have Somali staff operating within the country due to insecurity and the inability to deploy foreign staff to Somalia, but also in order to build the sustainability of our programmes. Our colleagues in Somalia are supported and supervised by international staff members and a team of Kenyan staff based in Nairobi. Through regular and very frequent meetings, and by using state-of-the-art communications equipment, such as video conferencing, we have permanent contact with our staff in Somalia and work in close co-operation.

A key advantage to our strategy in Somalia is that we remain apolitical and neutral. Our first commitment is to the people we assist.

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