Another humanitarian crisis in Somalia?

Author(s)
Maxwell, D. and Majid, N.
Publication language
English
Pages
14 pp
Date published
14 Aug 2014
Type
Research, reports and studies
Keywords
Disaster preparedness, resilience and risk reduction, Early warning, Food and nutrition, Food security, Response and recovery
Countries
Somalia
Organisations
Tufts University

This paper quickly summarises several of the key areas of learning from the 2011-12 famine, growing out of the research of a group at the Feinstein International Center from 2013 to date. This brief paper highlights just a few of the findings in four areas: causes of the famine, early warning and response, addressing divisions within the humanitarian community, and the on-going role of Al-Shabaab. The paper suggests four policy considerations: First, now is the time to scale up mitigation efforts aimed at protecting the progress made during several years of fragile recovery. Second, humanitarian actors need to build a stronger socio-political analysis related to programs. Third, going forward, means must be found for having an honest discussion about risk and risk-sharing mechanisms. And fourth, preparedness measures need to reconsider means of negotiated access.