Somalia
Drought in Somalia
Somalia is facing a catastrophic drought emergency that is pushing 4.4 million people into severe food insecurity, and the next rains are not expected until April. Our teams are providing emergency water and malnutrition treatment to keep families alive, but the humanitarian response is critically underfunded.
Quick Facts
- Population: 19 million
- People in Need: 6 million
- People Facing Hunger: 9.8 million
Our Impact
- People Helped Last Year: 3,201,516
- Our Team: 116 employees
- Program Start: 1992
Crisis Update
5 January 2026
Somalia is facing its worst drought in years, with extremely dry conditions putting over 4.4 million people into severe acute food insecurity and 5.2 million people in need of urgent water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) assistance. Families are being forced to adopt negative coping mechanisms, like rationing water and skipping meals.
Action Against Hunger teams are urgently responding to this crisis, delivering emergency water and distributing hygiene kits with clean water containers, soap, menstrual supplies, and more. We are also supporting health facilities to treat severe malnutrition and provide essential care. As leader of the Caafimaad Plus Consortium, we are coordinating with government partners and peer organizations to facilitate logistics and responses.
The State of Hunger in Somalia
Somalia faces overlapping crises driven by conflict and climate change, affecting 9.1 million people —47% of the population. According to the INFORM index, the country has the highest humanitarian crisis risk. Alternating floods and droughts have devastated fragile communities and worsened food insecurity and malnutrition. By December 2024, 4.4 million people were facing crisis levels of food insecurity, and malnutrition rates rose 21% compared to the year before.
How We're Helping in Somalia
We deliver lifesaving assistance across 29 districts. Our emergency response programs reach over 3.1 million people with health, nutrition, and water, sanitation, and hygiene assistance. We support 112 health facilities, 10 nutrition stabilization centers, 23 mobile teams, and 561 community health workers, leading to significant reductions in malnutrition and cholera.
Our second pillar focused on resilience and prevention, including integrated food security, livelihoods, and protection initiatives benefiting over 50,000 people. Key outcomes include surplus harvests for farmers and high increases in fodder production for livestock management. Additionally, we run programs to improve health service uptake for over 1.2 million people and to digitize health services to enhance data and inventory management. We also play a key advocacy role in updating national malnutrition guidelines and supporting legislation on humanitarian aid governance.
Health Facilities Supported By Our Teams
People Benefited From Food Security And Livelihoods Programs
People Reached To Improve Health Service Uptake
Saving Halima's Life
Our female community influencers go from home to home, meeting with mothers, and discussing behavior changes to improve health, including breastfeeding, birth spacing, and delivering their babies at a health facility.
Women Saving Lives in SomaliaIn drought-prone areas, we're using solar power to fuel everything from water pumps to portable irrigation systems.
Explore the Impact of Solar PowerIt is always my joy to see women and their children living a healthy lifestyle because of the information we provide...It is not an easy job, but we do it for our community.”
— Action Against Hunger Community Health Volunteer
How women are filling Somalia’s health gapWhen she grows up, I want [my daughter] to go to school. I want her to have a better life than the one we live in now...[For now,] I am just so happy to see my daughter in her best state again.”
— Fatuma, mother to Halima
Saving Halima’s LifeJoin us to end hunger in Somalia
Keep up with the action in Somalia
Where we fight hunger
More than 95% of our staff come from the communities we serve.