Cash changing lives amid Somalia’s drought crisis
By Petroc Wilton from an interview conducted by Gabrielle Menezes
“I was displaced from a place called Goho because of the devastating drought that killed all our animals,” says Halima Abdulle Samatar, a 50-year-old single mother of four.
She smiles at her daughters, sitting around her near the small shop that she’s recently started up by their new home in Dolow. “I had this business idea because I am both father and mother to my children… I began to save US$5–10 [of my monthly WFP assistance] and started this business. Now it’s going very well.”
Halima is one of over a million people driven from their homes by the catastrophic drought in Somalia, the longest the country has suffered in over 40 years. Like many others, Halima’s livelihood was destroyed by the drought; the family crops withered and their entire herd of 60 goats died. And like many others, she took her children and fled from her hometown in search of help.
Halima and her family travelled for two days to reach the Kaharey camp for internally displaced people (IDPs) in Dolow. There, she was able to register her household to receive assistance from the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).
WFP, with the support of donor partners such as the European Union, has responded to the drought crisis by scaling up its life-saving operations in Somalia to reach unprecedented numbers of people. By late 2022, WFP was able to reach over four million people with food assistance, mostly delivered in the form of cash — either through electronic vouchers, or money transfers sent via mobile phone.
Cash-based food assistance has several advantages over the traditional model of delivering physical in-kind food items. Cash benefits local economies in Somalia, creating new market opportunities for retailers and food suppliers. It also provides recipients like Halima with choice and flexibility. “It’s something that I have in my hands, and I can save some to use for other purposes,” she says.
As well as buying meat and vegetables to meet her family’s urgent food needs, Halima saved some of her WFP entitlement to start up a small shop that she built out of corrugated iron and wood. She sells groceries, sweets, batteries and pens to other families in the IDP camp. The business is going very well, with plenty of customers, and Halima is looking to expand.
For Halima and her children, cash assistance is not just a way to survive the current drought; it’s also a pathway to building a new livelihood, one that will be more resilient against future droughts, floods, and other climate shocks that are all too frequent in Somalia. “When the stock in the shop is coming to an end I get my assistance just in time, and go to the retailer to pay [off] previous credit and purchase new stock,” she says. “We really welcome mobile money… especially women who are the household custodians and the breadwinners, so that we are able to support out families.”
Find out more about what WFP is doing to respond to the Somalia emergency
