Somalia Crisis Cannot Wait, Never Again: End the Funding Exclusion, Save Lives Now

Country: Somalia Sources: ChildFund Alliance, Plan International, Save the Children, SOS Children's Villages International, Terre des hommes, World Vision Please refer to the attached file. Joint Statement by Joining Forces Alliance, East and Southern Africa Region ChildFund Alliance, Plan International, Save the Children International, SOS Children’s Villages International, Terre des Hommes International Federation, and World Vision International The Joining Forces Alliance expresses deep alarm at the rapidly worsening humanitarian crisis in Somalia. The latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) findings show that nearly 6.5 million people across Somalia are experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity, while more than 1.8 million children are suffering from acute malnutrition. Among them, hundreds of thousands face severe acute malnutrition requiring urgent treatment. These are not simply numbers. They represent children going to bed hungry, families forced from their homes by repeated drought and conflict, and mothers struggling to make impossible trade-offs to keep their children alive. Somalia is once again approaching the brink of catastrophe. Unlike previous crises, this emergency unfolds as humanitarian resources shrink, and Somalia is excluded from key pooled funding mechanisms within the international humanitarian system. Alarming data confirm a sharp reduction in humanitarian resources. Figures show that funding requirements dropped from approximately $1.42 billion in the 2025 Humanitarian Response Plan to $852 million in 2026—nearly a 40 per cent reduction, not due to declining needs, but tough funding decisions. Exclusion from Pooled Funds is Deepening the Crisis At the very moment Somalia requires rapid and flexible financing, the country has been excluded from major pooled funding allocations. This exclusion comes at a time when there is clear evidence of escalating need, despite repeated warnings from humanitarian actors operating across the country. Although the Somalia Humanitarian Fund continue to provide important support, the scale of available funding remains far below growing humanitarian needs. This funding gap is severely constraining humanitarian organisations, from expanding critical life-saving interventions. Programmes providing food, nutrition, water, health, child protection, and gender-based violence support are being reduced or incapacitated. Frontline Somali organisations must do more with less, even as needs continue to rise. This is not only a funding gap. It is a failure of prioritisation and a blow to humanitarian action. Somalia has demonstrated before that famine is preventable when the international community acts early and decisively. In 2022, coordinated support from donors helped avert a far greater tragedy. Today, however, delayed decisions and shrinking resources are placing millions of lives at risk of unnecessary and preventable tragedy. Women and Children are Bearing the Heaviest Burden Children are at the centre of this crisis. Hunger, displacement, and the collapse of basic services are exposing children to disease, exploitation, child labour, family separation and loss of education. Women and girls are facing heightened risks of violence and abuse as they travel longer distances in search of water, food and firewood, or live in overcrowded and unsafe displacement sites. Without urgent investment in protection and essential services, the consequences for children and families will be devastating and long-lasting. Our Call to Donors The Joining Forces Alliance, East and Southern Africa, urgently calls on bilateral and multilateral donors, including OCHA-managed funding mechanisms, to: Reverse Somalia’s exclusion from key pooled funds and immediately allocate additional emergency resources to Somalia. Provide early, flexible and predictable funding that enables humanitarian actors to respond before conditions deteriorate further. Prioritise support to national and local organisations that have access, community trust and the capacity to deliver humanitarian assistance quickly. Increase multi-year investments that link humanitarian response with resilience, drought preparedness and recovery. Reduce administrative barriers that delay the release of life-saving funds. We join the Somali NGO Consortium, which recently submitted an open letter to Donors, to assert that the cost of inaction will be measured in lives lost, communities destabilised, and a generation of Somali children permanently affected by hunger and deprivation. The world pledged “Never Again” after the 2011 famine in Somalia claimed more than a quarter of a million lives, many of them children. That promise is now being tested. Somalia does not need sympathy alone. It needs urgent action, political attention, and immediate financing. The humanitarian warning signs are clear. The solutions are known. What is needed now is the courage and commitment to act before it is too late. The Joining Forces Alliance stands in solidarity with the people of Somalia and urges all partners to respond now.
2026-05-20 10:13:24