For the next three years, World Renew and its local partner World Concern are combating food insecurity by helping 2,000 families (14,000 individuals) through a variety of programs.
In 2011, World Renew began responding to severe drought in East Africa. This large-scale response lasted three years and helped thousands of people feed their families, restore their farm fields, and build new infrastructure to mitigate the impact of future droughts. This response recently concluded and we’re very grateful to God to be able to say that there has not been another large-scale drought since that time in East Africa.
This project is specifically designed to ensure that men and women benefit equally.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said in the Northern part of Africa. In the region known as the “Horn of Africa” there is a severe drought. This has caused severe food shortages for the pastoralist/herding families in Somaliland. World Renew is partnering with World Concern to respond.
Somaliland is a self-declared independent state that is internationally recognized as an autonomous region of Somalia. It is bordered by Ethiopia the south and west, Djibouti in the northwest, the Gulf of Aden in the north, and the autonomous Puntland region of Somalia to the east.
The seasons of drought in Somaliland have led to water scarcity, depleted grazing land for animals, the death of numerous livestock and widespread hunger. Drought is especially damaging to the pastoralist way of life as the lack of water and grazing land endangers the health of animals becomes. These sickly animals sell for a low-price in the markets, which means lower incomes for families and less opportunity to purchase food and overcome the food crisis that they are in.
For the next three years, World Renew and its local partner World Concern are combating this food insecurity by helping 2,000 families (14,000 individuals) through a variety of programs including:
- mobile money transfers for food
- Cash-for-Work projects
- improving livestock health
- providing new livestock to herders who have lost their animals
- and improving grazing land for animals through fodder and medicinal-tree planting.
In addition, a network of trained, community-based animal health workers will be created to sustain the overall well-being of livestock populations. Management of rangelands will also be improved to provide more grazing land for livestock. This project has been made possible, in part, through World Renew’s membership in the Canadian Foodgrains Bank.
For the cash-for-work program, men and women from target communities will work in groups of fifty people on community projects that improve grazing land for livestock. Households that provide labor on these projects for 15 days per month will receive cash in exchange for their work.
This project is specifically designed to ensure that men and women benefit equally. Participant registration lists will contain the names of men and women in the household so that both can collect the wages from the Cash-for-Work activities. Women will make up 40% of the village committees. The Cash-for-Work program will work around women’s schedules and there will be special provisions at the work sites to ensure that women with children are included.
Please surround all of this outreach with your prayers. Pray for the families that have been affected by the drought, that they may soon have enough to eat. Pray for World Renew and World Concern that they will have safety and wisdom as they work to respond to the needs of these herding families while also helping them improve their livelihoods forthe long-term.
Please also consider supporting this effort with your financial gifts. Funding is needed to enable World Renew to implement this livelihoods program to improve the lives of people so strongly affected by successive droughts.
