Drought is regarded as the period of lack of rain in particular period of time, it was meant to rain and the people do not have the enough water to survive. This leads them to move from one place to another.
Reasons of Re-occurrence
• No policy: The government does not adopt the necessary policies to tackle the re-occurrence of drought due to the lack of skills and knowledge required. This has caused the lost of large number of livestock and plants. That has been Anti drought committee assigned by the president but it didn’t create policy but just collect money from the Somaliland people and diasporas. For how long will this method last? will it prevent the drought from occurring again? We should create boreholes in the rural areas to reduce the water shortages.
• Lack of professionals: Tribalism has caused the election of people not fit for their position, this caused harm to the people because the decisions that made is not the result of research or planning on the negative impact it have. Till now there has been two droughts that occurred in Somaliland in 2015 and 2016 still nothing have been done.
• Poor water systems: The budget of Somaliland increases every year, (although unemployment is high) but they haven’t built dams to store water which can hel in the production of electricity and can be used as a reserved. It’s a shame that we never get to see no difference 35-40% families are facing acute water crisis for human and livestock consumption. Additional 50% families will no longer have access water from sources in respective village. As on date, the food security situation is grim. 89% families do not have food stock. Among the families who do have food stock, 74% are coping by buying food from the markets and others families are receiving support from the community. While most of them do not have income to buy food, price of staple food has almost doubled. 35-40% of livestock died due to scarcity of fodder, pastures and water. The livestock is also facing drought health problems like diarrhea; Work pressure on children has increased. 48% of children are malnourished and 46% of them are exposed to various health risks. The research is carried out by Action Aid Somaliland.
Socio-economy impact
The water shortage and rapidly drying pasture has led to an estimated 35 to 40 percent loss of livestock including camels, goats, sheep and cattle. This is according to a rapid assessment report on the situation that was conducted by a Drought Response Committee appointed by the Somaliland Government in collaboration with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), and the Humanitarian Coordination Office in August, 2015. According to Save the Children, malnutrition rates – especially for children under the age of five – are currently at alarming rates and are likely to increase further.
The drought causes the death of animals and the plants that are consumed by humans, then the foods exported from the rural areas to the urban areas are reduces. This causes in hike of the prices which leads in inflation in the long run.
The current inflation is the highest ever in Somaliland, where $1 dollar is 8000SL , this caused the purchasing power of the customers to reduces, which in turn makes it difficult to in paying the bills for people special the poor, This in turn causes economic descending.
Government role
The government of Somaliland is appealing to governments and organizations to support with food items, water and health services to cater for the affected people. To date, the government has provided US$150,000 that can only cater for 3200 households out of the 40,000 requiring assistance. It has created Anti drought committee to help the people stricken by drought by still no success the drought and it’s a way to appease the people in order to overlook to their faults.
Wake up, this is not working and wont work!!!! WE NEED A POLICY!!!
Who needs to be blamed?
The government haven’t taken the steps required to prevent the re-occurrence of drought, unfortunately due to the lack of skill and knowledge required for the particular profession. The lack of strategic policy to prelude droughts in the future. This has caused inflation because its hard to foods , so they become expensive.To reduce the exported goods and service and start exporting to avoid being destitute to foreign goods and services. To give the power to central bank of Somaliland from the giant business to have control on the Monetary Policy and to provide finance budgeting system for the Minister of Finance.
Solutions
• Somaliland Government to streamline the response coordination mechanisms and to adopt a coherent approach to drought t management.
• To widen the area coverage of the emergency response and to draw up an effective strategy to save the people and to plan for their longer term rehabilitation.
• improvement of the capacity of water supply infrastructure.
• Create strategic policy by working with Minister of Water and Energy resources.
• For the Ministry of Water and Energy to create platform to mobilize and harmonize resources to tackle drought with the aid of professionals, university graduates, companies etc.
Written by: Yasmeen Hassan
