Somalia Appeal
Humanitarian Action for Children
UNICEF’s Humanitarian Action for Children appeal helps support the agency’s work as it provides conflict- and disaster-affected children with access to water, sanitation, nutrition, education, health and protection services. Return to main appeal page.
Somalia snapshot
Appeal highlights
- In addition to climatic shocks, people in Somalia continue to experience conflict, disease outbreaks and poverty. In 2024, humanitarian assistance is required for 6.9 million people, including 4.3 million children.
- The nutritional status of 1.5 million children under the age of 5 remains concerning, with acute wasting projected until July 2024. About 6.6 million people face water shortages, causing a spike in cholera cases.
- As part of its commitment to address emerging and ongoing humanitarian needs, UNICEF will channel efforts towards emergency preparedness, foster localization, enhance programme integration and ensure accountability to the affected population.
- In 2024, UNICEF will continue to take concrete action towards aid diversion prevention and response, focusing on the inclusion of minority and marginalized groups, enhancement of equitable beneficiary selection and targeting procedures, strengthening of supply chain management, fortified community engagement, improved field presence, and multi-tiered monitoring systems.
- UNICEF is appealing for $189.2 million to support 2.1 million people, including 1.3 million children, with integrated health, nutrition, WASH, education, and child protection interventions.
Key planned targets
1.2 million children and women accessing primary health care
280,421 children with severe wasting admitted for treatment
297,000 children accessing formal or non-formal education, including early learning
2.1 million people people reached with hygiene promotion activities and hygiene kits
Funding requirements for 2024
Country needs and strategy
Humanitarian needs
Ongoing conflict, instability, droughts, floods and disease outbreaks have led to about 6.9 million Somalis, including 3.5 million women and girls and 310,000 people with disabilities, needing immediate humanitarian assistance in 2024. This is a 17 per cent reduction from 2023, due to reduced food insecurity and malnutrition. Nonetheless, 4.3 million people continue to suffer from food insecurity while 1.5 million children under five are acutely wasted, a reduction from 1.8 million in early 2023. However, wasting rates remain above 15 per cent in many areas.
Drought, the worst in forty years, and subsequent floods strained Somalia's recovery, already challenged by aid efforts. The drought resulted in about 43,000 deaths, half being children under five. In the same year, climate shocks displaced 2.3 million people, 75 per cent of total displacements. Flooding accounted for 1.7 million displacements, while drought caused 531,000.
Moreover, access to water and sanitation has become increasingly critical, worsening with urban migration that has stressed existing sanitation services. Existing WASH services were burdened by urban migrations, leaving 47 per cent of the population without access to safe water. Late-2023 floods exacerbated the situation by contaminating water sources and displacing people in areas lacking sanitation. By the end of 2023, cholera had increased across 21 districts, with 2024 projections estimated to rise by 30-40 per cent.
In Somalia, such factors as clan conflicts, political instability, military operations against Al-Shabaab, and the withdrawal of the African Union Transition Mission contribute to heightened insecurity and instability. The increased insecurity might amplify difficulties with humanitarian access while heightening the risk of grave violations against children. Al-Shabaab is also anticipated to intensify targeted attacks. This could result in civilian displacements and further deteriorate the humanitarian situation. Out of the 2.9 million people displaced in 2023, a record high of 653,000 were displaced due to security issues.
Children in Somalia suffer the most from the country's ongoing drought, floods, instability, and conflict. Recruitment by armed groups, physical violence, sexual abuse and abduction are the prevailing risks to children. Between January and September 2023, 1,742 grave violations were officially recorded, impacting 1,369 children (1,023 boys 346 girls). According to the Education Cluster, 4.9 million children aged 5–17 are currently out of school. School attendance rates for newly displaced children are as low as 21 per cent, compared with 39 per cent for children who are not displaced. Children with disabilities face additional educational barriers, including lack of awareness, specialized teachers, supportive classroom assistance and suitable infrastructure.
UNICEF’s strategy
UNICEF works with the government, civil society organizations, United Nations agencies, and the private sector at the federal and subnational levels to ensure risk-informed essential social service provisions.
A key partner in coordinating the humanitarian response in Somalia, UNICEF leads the Nutrition Cluster in partnership with the World Food Programme, the WASH Cluster with Polish Humanitarian Action, the Child Protection Area of Responsibility, and the Education Cluster with Save the Children International. Following the inter-cluster coordination guidance, UNICEF supports cluster coordination at all levels, including area-based coordination approaches.
In 2024, UNICEF will focus on improving decentralized service provision through its three field offices and five remote hubs. In addition, UNICEF aims to expand the delivery of an integrated package of services, emphasizing high-impact, low-cost interventions.
Furthermore, UNICEF will implement a detailed eight-pillar work plan to mitigate, prevent, and respond to aid diversion, including digitalizing beneficiary registration and supply management systems. There will also be a focus on geographical prioritization and refining the process of beneficiary targeting and selection to ensure humanitarian services reach the appropriate demographics, preventing aid diversion. UNICEF will also fully utilize GeoSight, an advanced geospatial information system that has been piloted. The platform enhances data readiness for improved risk and humanitarian response monitoring.
UNICEF will continue to expand its programmatic engagement with local organizations in 2024.UNICEF will also enhance its humanitarian programming quality, mainstream protection against sexual exploitation and abuse, and prioritize vulnerable groups, including those with disabilities. A systematic gender lens will be applied to all analyses and programme design. UNICEF aims to support conflict-sensitive services in priority and inaccessible regions while emphasizing climate resilience through community-based solutions and capacity development.
UNICEF plans to continue delivering health, nutrition, and WASH interventions against strained public services. The planned interventions include nutritional support for children, pregnant women, and lactating mothers; improving water and sanitation access, and providing humanitarian cash transfers.
UNICEF plans to strengthen child protection interventions such as case management, psychosocial support, gender-based violence response, and reintegration support for children released or fleeing from armed groups. A sustained focus will be on providing education in emergencies, creating opportunities for children to access education (including establishing safe learning spaces), providing teaching and learning materials and employing cash-based interventions.
UNICEF aims to make U-Report a standard platform for community engagement. UNICEF adheres to its accountability to affected populations principles by involving people in decision-making, providing information and a safe avenue for complaints, and using people's feedback in programme designs. The dissemination of messages for social and behavioral change will continue in 2024.
Programme targets
Find out more about UNICEF's work
Highlights
Humanitarian Action is at the core of UNICEF’s mandate to realize the rights of every child. This edition of Humanitarian Action for Children – UNICEF’s annual humanitarian fundraising appeal – describes the ongoing crises affecting children in Somalia; the strategies that we are using to respond to these situations; and the donor support that is essential in this response.