Abidjan — The United States, through USAID, is providing nearly $29 million in additional assistance to build resilience and improve food security for Somalia’s most vulnerable people.

In Somalia, an estimated 6.9 million people require humanitarian assistance in 2024 due to the combined impacts of severe weather events, insecurity, disease outbreaks, and widespread poverty. Excessive rains and flooding, which were particularly destructive in 2023 due to the El Niño phenomenon, resulted in the destruction of property, loss of livelihoods and access to basic services, further population displacement, and an increase in cholera and other water-borne diseases, particularly affecting the most vulnerable.

This additional assistance, representing the first year of two new five-year resilience and food security projects, will help our partners reach approximately 80,000 vulnerable households of internally displaced persons and host community members in South Central Somalia. With this assistance, USAID partners World Vision and Save the Children will support marginalized households to build sustainable livelihoods. It will also support households to access existing health, nutrition, and water, sanitation, and hygiene services, and bolster households' capacity to withstand future shocks and stresses.

This support builds on USAID’s long standing humanitarian programs in Somalia to respond to recurrent disasters like droughts and flooding that have exacerbated conflict-related needs and increased hunger and food insecurity. It also strengthens efforts to increase resilience in the face of these disasters. The United States has provided nearly $2.3 billion for humanitarian assistance in Somalia since Fiscal Year 2022 and remains committed to supporting the people of Somalia through crises and helping them build resilience to future shocks.