This current month, March of 2024, will be the last month of a project started in December of 2022 supporting drought relief in Somalia. Though the beginning of this year saw some rain, it did not do much to ameliorate the persistent drought conditions in the East-African nation. A stunning 7.7 million people, almost half the Somalian population, rely on humanitarian aid and protection to survive. This has been the second extension of the project, and has seen support extended to previously unreached families, including in the state of Puntland.

The families participating in the project receive monthly direct monetary transfers to their mobile phones, around 80 Swiss Francs (CHF – the project is implemented by our partners ADRA Switzerland and Swiss Solidarity). Through this partnership and these transfers, you have enabled families living through the drought to buy otherwise inaccessible food from local markets. Each month of this project, you have helped us provide enough food to sustain a family of six people. The project has been especially targeting and helping shepherds and pastoralist families who have lost all their animals to the drought – and therefore their livelihoods.

Fatima (not her real name), a mother of six children, is one of countless families so affected by the loss of livestock. As conditions worsened, she moved her family to the coastal town of Eyl in search of better prospects. What she found, instead, was a disappointing lack of fertile land or readily available water.

Our partners at ADRA Somalia identified her vulnerable situation and included her in the cash transfers. The assistance you helped provide through ADRA relieved Fatima of the seemingly impossible burden of providing for her children during the continuous drought. Today, they have food and clean drinking water thanks in part to donors like you.

Fatima’s own words are brimming with gratitude: “I had the feeling that a heavy burden had been lifted from me. My children can now enjoy their childhood without constantly worrying about whether they will get something to eat. They experience a stability that they could only dream of in the past.”