FSNWG Drought Special Report July 2022
Extremely high levels of food insecurity observed across Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia and further deteriorations likely with between 23 – 26 million people becoming highly food insecure due to drought by February 2023
KEY MESSAGES
• The 2022 March to June Gu/long rains season was extremely poor, with rainfall amounts across much of the region being amongst the lowest in the past 70 years. This has resulted in a fourth consecutive below-average rainy season, an occurrence not seen in at least the last 40 years.
• Crop and livestock production have been severely impacted. In cropping areas, harvests are expected to be well below average. In pastoral areas, poor conditions have driven reduced milk production and the death of over 9.2 million livestock. Food prices continued to soar in the second quarter of the year which, along with below-average household incomes, is limiting food access.
• Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to leave their homes in search of life-saving assistance. Resource-based conflicts, and risks for gender-based violence (GBV) and sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA), have also increased.
• 16.2 million people face daily household water insecurity, and WASH partners are responding to cholera outbreaks across Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia. Unfortunately, however, access to, availability and quality of health services have been negatively affected by the drought.
• Though updates are ongoing, estimates indicate that about 18.6 – 21.1 million people face high levels of acute food insecurity1 due to the drought in the three countries. This includes 3.2 million people in Emergency (IPC Phase 4) in Kenya and Somalia, and 213,180 people in Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5) in Somalia. Parts of southern and central Somalia face a Risk of Famine through September.
• About 568,000 children were admitted for Severe Acute Malnutrition treatment in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia from January to June, up significantly from recent years. About 6.5 million children are projected to suffer from acute malnutrition, of which close to 1.8 million face severe wasting.
• 23 – 26 million people are projected to face high levels of acute food insecurity by February 2023 in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, due primarily to the drought, if the October to December rains fail.
However, within already food insecure populations, the severity of their food insecurity is expected to increase. Therefore, in the absence of a scale up of humanitarian assistance, significant increases in the number of people in Emergency (IPC Phase 4) and Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5) are expected.
• To enable humanitarian partners to ramp-up their response to the drought, US$1.8 billion is required over the next months. However, at this time, the drought response remains severely underfunded.
To respond to the rapidly escalating humanitarian needs across the region, funding for the multisectoral drought response needs to be scaled up immediately across the region in order to save lives.
Source: Food Security and Nutrition Working Group