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Foreword
Pushing back famine, hunger, diseases and deaths and rebuilding the health system
Somalia is on the edge of a catastrophic humanitarian situation, never seen before. About 7.1 million people or half of the population in the country are in need of humanitarian assistance and nearly 1 million people have been internally displaced. Though the recent projection of the Famine Review Group, which is responsible for Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, showed that famine might have been pushed back from its earlier projected period of October–December 2022 to April-June 2023, the situation remains dire and alarming.
The country’s fragile health system has not yet fully recovered from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic which severely disrupted essential health services in the country. Yet, the country faces food insecurity and severe acute malnutrition amongst 1.8 million children under 5 between now and the middle of 2023. Half of these children may die if we do not provide rapid treatment for them. Many of them will need urgent medical attention.
WHO continues to work with its partners and the national and local health authorities to avoid excess deaths and morbidities from preventable causes by scaling up its emergency health response operations and life-saving interventions amongst the marginalized and displaced communities. The World Health Organization (WHO) has clearly stated that the drought is a health crisis as much as it is a food and climate crisis. We have clearly stated that we are on the brink of an unprecedented health crisis if we don’t act now to prevent famine. We will see more people dying from the disease than from hunger and malnutrition combined if we do not act now.
The cost of our inaction will mean that children, women and other vulnerable people will pay with their lives while we hopelessly, helplessly witness the tragedy unfold.
Our strong advocacy to improve access to health care for those affected by the drought and those already vulnerable has gained strong momentum. There has been increased attention to the integration of health with other life-saving interventions such as food, nutrition and WASH and coordinated delivery of these interventions. We are providing health care close to people in hard- to- reach communities despite security concerns and a broken and fragile health system.
As we continue to push back hunger, diseases and deaths, we also strive to help the country rebuild its health systems and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, WHO has stepped up its life-saving interventions and at the same time, our efforts continue to help the country build resilience of the health systems, mitigate climatic shocks on the health system and put the country on track towards achieving sustainable development goals. Amidst all these challenges,
WHO’s normative and technical works continue and we thank our partners and donors for their trust, confidence and continued support to our ongoing work to better serve the Somali people. We also thank our dedicated staff whose determination to protect health in a difficult and operationally challenging environment is exemplary.
We wish all our colleagues, patrons and partners a happy and prosperous new year 2023.