NEWS

KIGALI — Legislators from Eastern African parliaments have called on regional governments to allocate more funding to agriculture and livestock farming in order to address food insecurity. Members of the Eastern Africa Parliamentary Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition (EAPA) made the call at the opening of their three-day meeting, …

MOGADISHU — The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) said Thursday it has scaled up emergency cash transfers to respond to the drought emergency in the most drought-affected rural areas of Somalia. Etienne Peterschmitt, FAO Representative in Somalia however said the UN food agency’s famine prevention plan …

MOGADISHU — Abdifatah Hared can often be found on Somalia’s beaches leading groups of young volunteers in green T-shirts emblazoned with the words “Greenwatch Trust’. They spend hours picking up the rubbish scattered all over the sand, polluting the Indian Ocean and ruining the beauty of Somalia’s coastline, which at …

CAIRO — The UN Humanitarian coordinator for Somalia warned on Tuesday of a “catastrophic emergency” in the country due to the ongoing drought. Speaking on Tuesday at a joint meeting between the UN and the League of Arab States, the coordinator said Somalia was suffering from its fifth consecutive failed rainy season. “The end to the emergency is nowhere in sight. …

DUBAI — Abdul Rahman Abdul Shakour, Somalia’s special envoy for the President for Humanitarian Affairs and Drought, praised the UAE on Wednesday for its relief efforts in the drought-stricken country. “The UAE is a pioneer in providing the necessary support to Somalia in this crisis, as it was the first …

GENEVA — The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on Monday launched a one-billion-U.S.-dollar emergency funding appeal to reach millions of children in the Horn of Africa region in 2023. UNICEF said it revised its emergency life-saving appeal across Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia from 879 million dollars in September to one billion …

GENEVA — The U.N. refugee agency warns humanitarian conditions are deteriorating for tens of thousands of Somalis in Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camps as unrelenting drought grips the Horn of Africa and funding dries up. More than 80,000 Somalis fleeing conflict and drought have arrived in Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camps over …

MOGADISHU — Somalia’s pool of academic skills deepened recently with the conferring of a range of postgraduate degrees to 166 students – including the country’s president. The event brought together 29 women and 137 men to a venue in the Somali capital of Mogadishu for a graduation ceremony from the …

For most of 17-year-old Katra’s* life, school has been a distant dream. Born with a physical disability that impacted her legs, Katra wasn’t allowed to leave her family home in Burao, Somaliland because of the stigma around disability in her community. That meant no trips to the market, no visits …

GENEVA — The Special envoy of drought relief for Somalia, Abdirahman Abdishakur has met with American officials in Switzerland that have attended the 113th session of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Council. The Deputy Assistant Secretary for the humanitarian affairs of the US foreign affairs ministry, Elizabeth H. Campbell, …