What Oxfam is Doing
In Somalia, a country a little smaller than Texas, conflict, drought and floods have created a chronic humanitarian crisis for many of its estimated 8 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.
Excessive rains in the fall of 2006 brought some of the worst flooding in years to parts of Somalia, where the Shabelle and Jubba rivers cut across the country from their sources in the Ethiopian highlands. By mid-December, flooding had forced more than 450,000 people from their homes along the rivers. The water swamped towns and villages, destroying houses, blanketing newly planted fields with mud, and clogging irrigation canals with debris. Then, that same month, the Transitional Federal Government, or TFG, backed by the Ethiopian government, launched an offensive against the Islamic Courts Union in south and central Somalia. The TFG is recognized internationally as Somlia’s legitimate authority. Close to 400,000 people fled the fighting in Mogadishu, the country’s capital. Many of them left behind homes that were looted or destroyed.
Through its partner organizations, Oxfam has been providing assistance to waves of displaced people. As of the spring of 2007, the agency was helping about 100,000 Somalians. With the Center for Education and Development, or CED, the agency has provided water to about 30,000 people displaced by the fighting. CED arranged to treat the water and truck it to people in need up to three times a day in round trips of 35 miles. Additionally, the organization was repairing 12 wells which could probide safe water to more than 100,000 people.
In the Hiran region in the southwest section of the country, another Oxfam partner, HARDO, helped close to 20,000 families with food rations, shelter, household utensils, and essential medical supplies shortly after the floods. It is now working with people in economic rehabilitation and emergency preparedness. Other Oxfam partners have been working to improve the opportunities for women to earn a living and lobbying on human rights.
Parts of Somalia are also recovering from the devastation left by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Through SHILCON, one of its local partners, Oxfam has helped to dig six shallow wells and install a pipe system. The goal was to serve more than 3,000 people and their animals with clean water in Hafun, a district that the tsunami hit particularly hard.