Drought in the Horn of Africa

Hi everyone,

The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS-NET) - www.fews.net and the (Nairobi-based) Food Security Nutrition Analysis Unit (FSNAU) - www.fsnau.org have together recently (22nd July) brought out their first joint Somalia Food Security Report. They will be repeating this every 10 days or so. The link to this is given below:

http://www.fews.net/docs/publications/so_dekadal1_230711.pdf

This is the best up-to-date food security information around on the Somali situation! Could you please circulate this around your various networks, and ask your contacts to share this information with colleagues working in the Horn of Africa.

Other global agencies involved in food security issues can be accessed from the third section (International organisations) of the enclosed AARTG (eg CGIAR, FAO, IFPRI, IFAD etc). Again, please feel free to share this with colleagues

Latest Australian Aid Resource & Training Guide (AARTG) - July 2011
[urlhttp://www.torqaid.com/images/stories/aartglatestedition.pdf[/url]

cheers

Chris Piper

The focus of the international response in the Horn so far has been very much on children under 5 years. They are without doubt an extremely vulnerable group. But if the response is to be genuinely principled and impartial, it needs to assist all vulnerable groups. HelpAge Intl has compiled some data on the numbers of older people affected by the drought in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya - attached.

Frances

Attached file: horn-drought-overview.doc

To echo others, thank you Chris for starting this topic.

Its been 5 years since ALNAP and ProVention published the Drought lessons learned paper, and we've learned much (at least on paper) since then with the evaluations of the Sahel and Horn crises (2005-2010). Its time to update that paper. Kim and Josh will follow this message with a request for evaluations and lessons learned to inform a review of the 2006 paper. What has already been posted on this page will also help.

In the meantime, there are other documents worth reading from previous droughts. They are crossing my desk daily now. Is ALNAP thinking of doing a page like for Haiti, on resources relevant for the Horn?

More importantly, as I sit at my desk in my house far far away from the Horn, I wonder what else can those of us not there, do to help those operating on the ground? Is anyone there reading this? What do you need? (Other than staff, money, time, sleep, etc)

Kerren

The saddening element of all of that is that it is a mere repetition of the 2005-2006 situations which we evaluated in length in 2006 for the IASC: Early warning, no reaction leading to highly visible crisis inducing all kinds of costly emergency responses

See on Groupe URD web site the page http://www.urd.org/Alert-in-the-Horn-of-Africa

François Grünewald

G'day again everyone,

The Horn of Africa drought/famine situation will become increasingly complex, and the following agencies will all play complementary roles in the weeks and months ahead. All these can be accessed from the AARTG (see link below). The occasional reference can be found on the selected DRM Bibliography link (also below) - both references can also be accessed directly from the TorqAid website - www.torqaid.com The numbers in brackets eg (4) link to the AARTG page numbers
Latest Australian Aid Resource & Training Guide (AARTG) - August 2011
[urlhttp://www.torqaid.com/images/stories/aartglatestedition.pdf[/url]

Disaster Risk Management (DRM) Selected Bibliography (this includes Francois Grunewald's
RTE of the 2006 drought which he mentioned last week)
http://www.torqaid.com/images/stories/DRMBibliographyMaster.pdf

Overall
- The best site to track any global disaster is ReliefWeb (20). This includes the latest OCHA Sitreps; the latest FEWs-NET/FSNAU Dekadel Food Security Monitoring (this is actually included in the DRM Selected Bibliography above) ; plus a mass of other material
- The best site to access previous humanitarian evaluations is ALNAP (11). it would be terrific if they could develop a Learning & Accountability Portal similar to the Haiti one...
- The HPG/HPN (16) also include useful papers on drought-related issues in this part of Africa

General Background Info
- The major new services both report the situation, and sometimes give surprisingly in-depth analyses - eg BBC (12); al-Jazaeera (11); Australian SBS (10); Guardian Weekly (15)
- The following give more ion-depth studies: ICG (17); Chatham House (12); Feinstein Centre (14)

Drought/Nutrition/Famine
- FSNAU (14); FEWS-NET (14); ENN (14); GAIN (15); SCN (22)

Food Production/Animal Husbandry/iLogistics
- FAO (14); WFP (23); IFPRI (17); IFAD (19); CCAFS (12); CAADP (13); CGIAR (13); OIE (23); LEGS (18); Oxfam-GROW (19), ACIAR (5)

Refugees/IDP's
- RSC (20)/FMR (14); USCR (22); UNHCR (22)

Vulnerable groups (such as young, old, disabled, women etc)
- Many agencies focus on children. For others see HelpAge (13); GAN (14); CBM-Nossal Institute (6); HI (15)

Standards
- The main agencies involved in this include Sphere Project (21); HAPI (16); People in aid (20); GHD (15). Note link to summary on latest Sphere project Handbook:
http://www.torqaid.com/images/stories/SphereProjectSummary.pdf

Human Rights/Advocacy/Corruption
- AVAAZ (12); Amnesty (11); HRW (16); TI (21)

Security
- I find Van Brabant's book (latest edition) on Security Management (see selected Bibliography) is still the best one around. Also look at RedR training (28); Aid Workers Security Database (11)

Hope this is useful. Please feel free to share around..
Cheers

Chris

In an effort to support your communications work with communities affected by the famine in the Horn of Africa, we would like to share what we believe are some useful resources:

Attached is a Matrix of Communications Activities in the Horn of Africa which represents a first step in trying to determine who's doing what in terms of communications activities across the region. It is a very basic who's doing what, where, with some key contacts. We would be delighted to continue to build and update this matrix, and if you would like to contribute your agency's information please be in touch with Craig Tucker at the CDAC Network: craig.tucker@cdacnetwork.org However, ideally this will be taken on in-region.

Media Landscape Guides and Country Research Reports
Media Landscape Guides are being developed by the infoasaid project for 22 countries. See [ur]http://www.infoasaid.org[/url]. They contain practical information about media consumption habits and news and information flows in each country.

You can find the Media Landscape Guide for Kenya here. In addition, infoasaid is also producing two Guides for Ethiopia and Somalia. The one for Ethiopia should be written, edited and ready for distribution by the end of August; that for Somalia by end September (though a provisional guide will be ready at the end of August too).

BBC World Service Trust country reports
In the meantime you might be interested in the BBC World Service Trust's Somalia Report as part of its African Development Initiative. You can find this report here. There's also one for Ethiopia here.

Infoasaid's Message Library
For those of you who may not be aware, infoasaid is collaborating with global cluster leads to develop a library of generic messages for key sector areas including WASH, Nutrition, Health, Protection (Child Protection, Mine Action and SGBV), Food Security, Education and Shelter. The aim of the message library is to develop a set of generic, multi-sectoral messages on the main threats affecting populations in crisis according to type of emergency. The messages are focused on risk mitigation (for the first phase immediately following a disaster) and programmatic interventions (information on service delivery). Examples from past emergencies, such as posters, banners, drawings etc will also be available on the library.

An accompanying guide will explain how to use the library and the importance of contextualisation. Few, if any of the messages can be rolled out verbatim. Each message will need to adapted to the situation, the culture, the political and social context etc. They will then need to be translated and piloted before roll out to avoid any misunderstanding. Thus, any preparedness work done around messaging before an emergency can greatly reduce the time spent in a response.

The messages are currently in draft form on a spreadsheet. Over the next few weeks, once the content is signed off at global level, the messages will be migrated to a web-based tool for easy access and use. If any agencies are interested to see a particular sector or to learn more about the message library, please contact Miranda Eeles at miranda.eeles@infoasaid.org

Infoasaid Animation 'Communication is Aid'
The Communication is Aid animation is designed to demonstrate the positive impact of two way communication with crisis affected populations. Please disseminate this widely with colleagues.

Report from the Listening Project
The Listening Project - http://www.cdainc.com/cdawww/project_profile.php?pid=LISTEN&pname=Listening%20Project - has just published a new and enlightening report on Feedback Mechanisms in International Assistance Organizations.

Attached file: communications-activity-matrix-horn-of-africa-10-august-2011.pdf

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has just released a very useful, but sobering, human rights assessment of the current situation in Somalia. Details are given on the link below:
Human Rights Watch, 2011, You don't know who to blame. War Crimes in Somalia, http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/somalia0811webwcover.pdf

Cheers

Chris Piper

G'day again, ,

Our friends across the Tasman, Global Focus Aotearoa, no doubt smarting a little over this last weekend's international rugby match, have produced an excellent two pager on Somalia. Please feel free to share this with interested parties.

Global Focus Aotearoa, 2011, The Politics of Somalia, http://www.globalfocus.org.nz/uploaded/documents/SomaliaOnePager%20.pdf

Cheers & best wishes

Chris

ALNAP has just published a new lessons paper particularly relevant to the Horn of Africa Crisis. The paper 'Humanitarian action in drought-related emergencies' identifies 17 key lessons for humanitarian agencies responding to droughts. Featured are topics such as early warning, targeting, working with government, food aid, water interventions and nutrition.

The paper is especially aimed at people working in relief and recovery operations in drought-affected areas, those who have to decide if, when and how to intervene. It is also designed to assist agencies in designing evaluations and advocacy messages.

Download here.

We're looking forward to your comments on any of the issues addressed (or missed) by the report.

G'day everyone,
I'm sure most of you would have seen news about the Joint Agency Briefing Paper, produced by OXFAM and Save the Children, entitle 'A dangerous Delay. The cost of late response to early warnings'. The link is: Joint Agency Briefing Paper, 2012, A Dangerous Delay: The cost of late response to early warnings in the 2011 drought in the Horn of Africa, https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/bp-dangerous-delay-horn-africa-drought-180112-en.pdf

This relates to the recent/ongoing drought situation in the Horn of Africa, in which around 13 million people have been affected, and possibly between 50,000-100,000 have died, many of these in Somalia.

This is both a brilliant written, yet damning, report. It highlights the fact that the Early Warning Systems (EWS) we have in place, an example being www.fews.net, work really well, and warnings about potential drought were being flagged during the second half of 2010 !! What the key stakeholders, and these include host governments, donors, NGOs and UN, have (with honourable exceptions) generally failed to do, is respond effectively in time for this..to be honest, this is feeble.

Whilst the report highlights the challenge of NGOs (for example) really needing to get to grips with issues such as DRR and risk management, what seems to be the major problem, is the inability of all the above mentioned to players to provide 'traction further up the line'..

From an observer from here 'Down Under', I wonder whether the problems for NGOs (as just one stakeholder group) are the following:
1. Do we focus too much on 'doom and gloom', and not alert our constituents to some of the really excellent risk reduction work being carried out by agencies such as FEWS-NET, and, to a lesser extent, some of the early interventions which the Ethiopian government began to put in place at a relatively early stage?

2. Alerting the general public to a slow-onset hazard (potential disaster), is much more challenging than a medium/fast onset disaster (where there is invariably a much more prominent media 'trigger'). Please note the article I've recently updated below which usefully illustrates key diagrams relating to disaster risk management (DRM), these including variants for slow-onset hazards such as drought..
Piper, C.A.H., 2011, TorqAid Diagrammatic Framework for Disaster Risk Management
http://www.torqaid.com/images/stories/TorqAidDiagrammaticFrameworkforDRM.pdf

3. Where on earth are our 'Champions' (people of the calibre & fire in their belly like Desmond Tutu), ie the leaders of our agencies, who should be in the faces of policy makers in Whitehall; Brussels/Strasbourg; New York, and banging on about these issues? Also, who are the corresponding policy-maker champions in power, whom our people can connect with, ones like (and I'm going back a few years) Clare Short or Gordon Brown (before he became PM !)...? Are there any champions in the various levels of the European Government?

Just some thoughts, and I'd appreciate receiving any responses.

Cheers

Chris

Chris Piper
Director, TorqAid
PO Box 13, Torquay,
VIC 3228, Australia
Tel: + 61 (0) 412 497 317

Latest climate forecasts predict a new drought likely to affect the Horn of Africa. In addition, plans for action are currently being drawn up to deal with the threat of drought-related livelihood insecurity in the Sahel, according to an IRIN article.

The recent ALNAP Lessons Paper on 'Humanitarian action in drought-related emergencies' suggests that 'Drought is a recurrent and natural event in many areas. Humanitarian organisations can be more effective when they take this into account in their programming' (Lesson 1).

A lot has been learnt in terms of integrating humanitarian action with longer term programming, and there will undoubtedly be more lessons coming out of the evaluations - some already published on the Horn of Africa Learning and Accountability Portal.

If forum readers have any suggestions or experiences as to how to create flexible programmes for these drought prone areas, we'd like to hear from you.

Less than a year ago DARA completed the Inter Agency Standing Committee (IASC)/Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) Evaluation of the Humanitarian Response in South Central Somalia 2005-2010.

Over the last few years the humanitarian environment in Somalia has increasingly deteriorated and concern has been raised about issues of accountability and quality of assistance to Somalia. The extent of the crises, the challenges of delivering assistance and the limited system for monitoring and feedback has further emphasised the need to review quality; impact and accountability of the assistance delivered.

The IASC/HCT for Somalia initiated an inter-agency evaluation of the collective response in South Central Somalia, to identify best practices and lessons learned from the response to date with the aim of improving continuing and future humanitarian assistance.

Objective:
The evaluation informed both strategic discussions within the IASC and between the IASC and the donors on the wider humanitarian response and future strategy for aid delivery in Somalia; as well as provided, concrete operational input and guidance to Clusters and individual agencies for their future programming.

Context:
The humanitarian response was set against the backdrop of a very complex environment as Somalia experienced one of the world's most protracted emergencies. Limited access and security have hindered the response. Nevertheless, in the period under review, the overall response was successful in key areas: food distributions, health, nutrition, water and sanitation. There were a number of innovative features in the response, especially around remote management.

Timing and funding:
The evaluation was undertaken between March and November 2011, and was commissioned by the Inter Agency Standing Committee and was funded by four bilateral donors: Danida, DFID, SDC and SIDA.

Link to the evaluation:
http://daraint.org/2011/12/14/2910/new-report-evaluation-of-humanitarian-response-in-south-central-somalia/
http://www.alnap.org/pool/files/hct-somalia-evaluation-2005-2010-dara-report.pdf
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/9/29/49335639.pdf