26/06/2023
Protecting Somalia's future from climate threats and natural degradation is very important
Since the early 1990s, the people of Somalia have been repeatedly exposed to climate hazards and multiple threats.
The negative effects of these problems have been felt throughout the country and beyond, but the Somali society living in rural and conflict-affected areas have experienced the worst consequences. Thousands of people have lost their lives in seasonal famines or armed conflicts, millions have been forced to migrate, and at the same time, important natural resources such as water, land and biodiversity have been lost or degraded to a terrible extent.
Prolonged droughts have become more severe, frequent and unpredictable.
Drought events that used to occur every eighteen years are now occurring every four to five years or more. The last major event occurred in 2011 and triggered widespread food shortages, followed by famine, which killed more than 260,000 people and led to massive internal migration.
Since then, drought has struck twice - in 2017 and the current crisis that began in early 2020. The rise in average temperatures in the medium and long term means the rainy season is unpredictable. Despite the rising number of climate risks and threats and many hard lessons learned over the past three decades, decision makers, domestically and abroad, have learned little about how to deal with these threats and risks effectively in the future.
Since October 2022, five consecutive rainy seasons have failed, creating extremely difficult weather conditions for millions of farmers and pastoralists in Somalia.
Most of the country is suffering from severe drought, the production of agricultural crops has decreased, and the production of livestock has decreased significantly during this period. Exposure to climate risk is also compounded by other risks such as the Covid-19 pandemic, lack of remittances and poor animal health. Due to the postponement of the Hajj, the exports of livestock have become zero, and the country's remittances have decreased significantly. Worse than that, in 2020 the Horn of Africa was hit by the worst disaster in 25 years, which caused the complete destruction of crops and pastures. Rural people and pastoralists are the worst affected by this loss and decline in natural capital goods and services. The biggest basis of income in rural Somalia has disappeared.
The lack of rain has pushed almost half of the country's population (7.8 million) to face severe water shortages. All these events have resulted in various humanitarian problems such as the displacement of 1.6 million people, severe food shortages for 4.3 million, and the lack of safe water for 6.4 million. cute food shortages were particularly felt in the central and southern parts of the country. Although the strong response of the international community has not yet matched the humanitarian crisis in the country, long-term climate adaptation measures are stalled or significantly delayed, due to the lack of climate finance. not enough to have a fragile state affected by conflicts like Somalia.
Due to its arid climate and arid terrain, Somalia's natural capital – particularly water, agricultural land and biodiversity – is scarce and valuable to both the country's economy and the well-being of its people. The country consists of only 1.8% of agricultural land, 10.5% of forest land and 87.9% of other land including degraded grassland. Pastoralism is the main form of land use, more than 60% of the population depends on pastoralism, and livestock exports account for more than 80% of foreign exchange earnings. Nevertheless, repeated droughts and inappropriate land use practices as well as unlawful exploitation of forest resources “charcoal production” are all accelerating the loss and degradation of Somalia's natural capital in an unprecedented way.
The situation has been exacerbated by internal strife and political instability, which has heightened unfair competition for declining resources such as forests and grasslands, and created tension and mistrust among ethnic groups, government institutions and local ones. Formal institutions are absent or ineffective in remote and conflict-affected areas, while informal institutions such as administrative structures and clan structures are also speedily lessening.
The poor and vulnerable are the most affected by these ongoing crises. Securing their sustainable future under the threat of climate and natural capital depletion should be everyone's top priority. National policy makers and international development agencies should focus on long-term adaptation that can deliver strong development benefits, including supporting farmers with drought-resistant crops and livestock breeding. improved, improved agricultural methods and crop diversification. and improving access to climate finance. In this fragile, poor and vulnerable situation, adaptation policies must also address the trade-offs between different adaptation priorities to avoid the risk of strengthening inequality and social susceptibility.
Given the growing climate threats and environmental degradation, a long-term perspective is very important. It will require a shift from a single action or approach to addressing the problem to a long-term integrated set of interventions that can transform the resilience of the poor and vulnerable.
Nature-based solutions such as water harvesting, climate-smart farming incentives and sustainable forest protection can be approaches with many near- and long-term benefits.
These are also emphasized or enlightened by the country's climate policies such as Somalia's National Action Plan, but the implementation of such measures will take a long time. Somalia needs more solutions to address this long-term problem, and must be part of the answer or reaction now, so the next generation will have much better resilience to cope with climate change and multiple threats.
By Ahmedsadik Yusuf
Somali Activist HR & Environment
