From Africa Recovery, Vol.15#4 (December 2001), Watch page

Somalia on the precipice

Somalia is a "forgotten emergency," says UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Randolph Kent. In 2001, donors contributed barely a fifth of needed emergency assistance. UN agencies acknowledge that although the humanitarian situation will worsen in 2002, their overall request for relief aid has been scaled back from $130 mn to $83.7 mn, "in recognition that the political environment is not yet conducive for a significant injection of transitional and recovery funding," notes a press release from Mr. Kent's office.

Somalia's current tragedy has in fact been worsened by the political fallout of the Afghanistan crisis. The US government has maintained that companies involved in transferring remittances to Somalia from Somalis living abroad may have links to "terror networks," and has sought to shut them down. Such remittances may have brought in between $500 mn and $700 mn a year, a sum which has now been cut in half.

Mr. Kent, at a briefing at UN headquarters in New York, noted that this hardship has come on top of several others: a serious drought that has left nearly 800,000 Somalis in desperate need of food relief, the onset of hyper-inflation over the past year, and a ban on livestock exports to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states because of fear of infection from Rift Valley Fever, cutting off another $300-400 mn in export earnings.

Previously, Somalia had been slowly recovering from a decade of civil war, with the establishment of a fragile transitional government in Mogadishu and clear signs of economic recovery, financed largely by remittances and investments by Somalis in the diaspora. Now, however, because of its combined difficulties, "Somalia is on the precipice of potential and total economic collapse," Mr. Kent emphasized. Even though UN officials in Somalia have not so far detected any significant signs of "radicalism," such a collapse could provide conditions in which it may emerge.

In addition to urging donors to respond favourably to the UN's emergency aid appeal, Mr. Kent recommended relatively simple and inexpensive steps to strengthen Somali banking institutions, in order to improve transparency and the ability to monitor cash transfers. The resumption of remittances could go a long way toward helping many Somalis survive.

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