In 2011 over 11 million people in the Horn of Africa were hit by the worst famine in 60 years. In response SOS Children’s Villages set up emergency relief programmes in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia.
The focus was first to save lives and then to reduce vulnerability to further drought. Many of those affected were pastoralists who had lost their livestock and thus their only means of subsistence. Those who benefited from the programmes were selected using vulnerability criteria (pregnant and breatsfeeding women, children, people living with AIDS and disabled and elderly persons) and a community based targeting approach – when community members, local government representatives and other stakeholders participate in selecting the neediest households as beneficiaries.
In Somalia, SOS Children’s Villages, in partnership with ECHO (EU humanitarian aid), has been running an emergency programme in Mogadishu for many years, focusing on mother and child health. (SOS Children’s Villages has had a children’s village, school and hospital in Mogadishu since the late 1980s. Despite the war, all still function, although for safety reasons premises have temporarily relocated.)
The drought emergency relief programme (ERP) focused on internally displaced people and agro-pastoralist vulnerable households in the Bay and Banadir regions of central Somalia. Overall, the SOS emergency response in Somalia supported over 178,000 people.
The town of Marsabit, in northern Kenya, was the focus of another ERP. While many humanitarian organisations gave assistance to pastoralists in the rural parts of Marsabit region, to avoid duplication SOS Children’s Villages chose to concentrate on villages and schools located around the town. It was here that we successfully pioneered our ‘smartcard’ food relief system. Over 21,000 people were beneficiaries of this ERP.
Meanwhile, in Gode Zone, located in southeast Ethiopia, where SOS Children’s Villages already runs a children’s village, school and medical centre, the organization reached out to over 21,000 people who had lost their livelihoods, first with food relief, and then with long-term interventions.
