What Oxfam is doing
Conflict, drought and floods have created a chronic humanitarian crisis for many of Somalia's estimated eight million people. While Oxfam has been working in the country since the mid-1960s, the agency now offers assistance through a network of local organizations that understand both the needs of the people there and the dynamics of working in a country plagued by instability.
Since the start of 2008, Oxfam has invested more than $11 million into emergency activities for people displaced by conflict and living in desperate need across Somalia. As of July 2009, our programs were helping 700,000 people across the country. Here are some examples of our work:
Providing basic goods and water
By July, 2009, renewed fighting in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, had forced more than 200,000 people from their homes. Many of them fled west to the Afgooye corridor, a road that stretches west from the city. With few basic services along this stretch, Oxfam and it partners are providing shelter and mosquito nets to families there. In recent months, Oxfam has flown nine tons of aid into the capital including blankets, plastic sheeting for shelters, buckets for storing and carrying clean water, and medical supplies including syringes and antibiotics.
The Afgooye corridor is home to the largest gathering of displaced people anywhere in the world. More than 400,000 people now live along this road. Oxfam and its partners are providing water to more than 230,000 people in the area through a network of taps, pipes, and tanks that have been specially built over the past two years.
We’re also providing water to 24,000 people and 80,000 cattle who are struggling in the midst of water shortages in the Puntland region of northeast Somalia.
Rebuilding livelihoods
In central and southern Somalia, we are helping 86,000 people improve their means of earning a living. Working with two local partners, we have been providing people with tools and seeds to support agricultural work. Additionally, we have been working with community members on clearing roads, building toilets, and preparing land for agricultural use while providing the most vulnerable of those villagers with cash.
Care for mothers and children
In a new program in Somalia’s capital, Oxfam is working through a partner to provide special care and food to 9,500 severely malnourished children and mothers who have little access to basic services. The initiative identifies those who are most vulnerable and refers those with medical needs to inpatient programs. The project will also help to rehabilitate local health centers across the city and work to improve local sanitation.
Helping herders
Focusing on drought affected areas in Somaliland, Oxfam is working with 120,000 pastoralists, or herders, in 30 pastoral communities to address poverty in their region and alleviate some of the practical problems they face such as a lack of water, healthcare and education.
