Food Security Cluster

HARGEISA (SoOHA) — If she was to meet someone from her past life, Halima Dahir Mahmoud is not sure they would recognize her. She’s lost weight and is constantly stressed. She was once a nomadic herder who would roam the Ethiopian countryside with her 200 sheep and goats, and 50 …

HARGEISA (SoOHA) – Agriculture students from universities in Somaliland have been helping local farmers to master improved farming methods in order to strengthen their production.  Twenty-five students from Hargeisa, Golis and Beder universities in Hargeisa have been volunteering their knowledge and introducing skills to 500 farmers across Somaliland, including in Gebiley, Arabasiyo, Abarso, Adadley, and Dacadr-budhuq.  Mubarik Mohamed Iman, a …

HARGEISA (SoOHA) – In this week’s report from Somalia’s IDP camps, Radio Ergo visits Nasa-Hablood camp near Hargeisa, where destitute former pastoralist families face a lost past, an empty future, and constant threats of eviction from landowners. Fear and anxiety haunt the displaced pastoralist families in Nasa-Hablood camp, on the outskirts of the …

Conflict and disaster have shaped the lives of the Somali people for the last 30 years. Now, a new initiative is helping women to develop their own businesses – making them and their families more resilient to any future upheaval. The security situation in Somalia is still unstable after years …

JOWHAR (SoOHA) – Farmers in five villages in southern Somalia’s Middle Shabelle region have raised community funds to construct an irrigation canal to reduce their reliance on unpredictable rainfall.  Adan Omar in Qafow village, near Jowhar, told Radio Ergo he was irrigating his two-hectare farm for the first time with water channeled from the river Shabelle.  …

ADAADO (SoOHA) – Hassan Aabi is carrying the weight of a huge burden on his shoulders as he counts off the days before the debt collectors come for him again.   With his pitifully depleted herd of 23 feeble goats, Hassan is struggling to support his three wives and 23 children in Benyo-ad village, 25 km south of Guriel in Galgadud.   Earlier this month, his creditors had him arrested and they …

MARKA (SoOHA) – Fadumo Mohamed Adan’s hope of a good harvest has been dashed after all the seeds she planted were eaten by birds. She planted maize on her farm in Tulo-sagal village outside Afgoye town, Lower Shabelle region, in early June. “I invested $450 in the farm. I hired …

TELEH (SoOHA) – Pastoralists and farmers in Teleh, in northern Somalia’s Sool region, are increasingly worried about an invasive parasite tree that is threatening their livelihoods. Prosopis juliflora tree, locally know as Ali-Garoob, is an invasive and drought-resistant weed that been spreading uncontrollably for the past three years. It has …

HARGEISA (SoOHA) – The Somaliland government is urging farmers to plough their fields using oxen or donkeys to avoid missing the rainy season by waiting too long to hire one of the few available tractors for ploughing. Farmers in Awdal and Maroodi Jeex regions in the northwest are being encouraged …

NEW YORK (SoOHA) – Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Mark Lowcock today allocated US$45 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to immediately scale up food and nutrition assistance, safe water provision, livelihoods protection, and other urgent humanitarian support to drought-affected people across parts of Somalia, Ethiopia …