Somalia: Drought Needs Impact Assessment

Recurrent drought and subsequent famine risk have become a devastating and increasingly unsustainable cycle in Somalia in recent decades. These trends will be compounded by a changing climate and increased variation in the amount and distribution of rainfall. While a range of humanitarian assistance efforts have averted famine to date, only long-term development gains will lift the country out of poverty and insecurity. The Federal Government of Somalia initiated a Drought Impact and Needs Assessment to develop cross-sectoral recovery strategies. Read more about the story below, or view the story map created in the free MapX story map engine.

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Resilience and Recovery in a Changing Climate

Two young boys carrying water walk down a road next to a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) near the town of Jowhar, Somalia.

In Somalia, the traditional calendar is based on the solar year and seasonal weather.

The peak months of rainfall occur from April to June during Gu, meaning sufficient rainfall, and also from October to December during Deyr, meaning less rainfall.

Traditionally, farmers and herders have used these seasonal names to guide their activities throughout the year. While rainfall in Somalia has historically been low and consistent, planting rains in recent years have dropped well below averages and become erratic in nature. For the third season in a row since the beginning of 2016, the rains performed poorly in Somalia and the 2017 Deyr season rainfall was also well below average.

The Drought Impact and Needs Assessment (DINA)

In response to the rising uncertainty, the Federal Government of Somalia requested a Drought Impact and Needs Assessment and subsequent Resilience and Recovery Framework to identify the root causes of recurrent drought and develop a strategy for medium-term recovery and long-term resilience. MapX created a data catalog to manage the findings.

From October to November 2017, more than 180 sector experts from Government, the UN, the European Union and the World Bank collected, validated and analysed data and developed recovery strategies across 18 sectors and cross-cutting areas.

With damages amounting to USD 1.02 billion and losses estimated at USD 2.23 billion, the total effect of the Somali drought is expected to exceed USD 3.25 billion. The two most affected sectors are Livestock and Environment & Natural Resource Management.

Story Map: Drought Impact and Needs Assessment

The findings of the DINA assessment inform the Recovery and Resilience Framework, which will serve as an implementation platform for the impact assessment and for resilience-building interventions. A multi-sectoral approach is vital to identifying key development and investment priorities. The framework will prioritize and finance recovery interventions while developing government capacity for management of a drought recovery program.

MapX Support

At the invitation of the UN Country team in Somalia, MapX provided information management support to the Post Drought Impact Needs Assessment to help consolidate the diverse range of data into a single platform, enabling the sharing of data across the community of governmental and non-governmental stakeholders as well as international actors. By consolidating available data into a single interface, MapX helped visualize core data sets informing the assessment and provided tools to summarize complex content in a visually appealing way using the story map engine. MapX supported the drought impact needs assessment (DINA) process by:

Hosting an online spatial data catalog where all supporting institutions can share and publish their spatial data
Publishing a dynamic story map of the main findings of the drought impact needs assessment
Allow all maps to be shared through seamless embedding in external websites and on social media channels

Project Profile

Collaborators

Somalia Ministry of Energy and Water Resources
Somalia Ministry of Environment
UNDP
Somalia UN Country Team
World Bank
European Union

Scope

National

Status

The MapX spatial data catalogue and story map were successfully launched on 30 January 2018.