Germany commits €50m for Banaadir and Gedo regions
The German government will fund resilience building projects in Gedo and Banaadir regions to the tune of €50 million for the next three years.
The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) said Tuesday it is committing the amount for the next three years in a joint WFP-UNICEF programme to tackle women and children’s nutrition in nine districts in Banadir and six districts in Gedo region in the south of Somalia.
“The three-year grant (€24.5 million for UNICEF and €25.5 million for WFP) will be managed by the German Development Bank (KfW),” a joint statement from the two UN bodies, the government of Somalia and BMZ read. “This will help put families and communities in a better position to cope with shocks and crises that often hit Somalia.”
In the first year (2018), the programme will target nearly 206,000 children under the age of five, along with over 109,000 pregnant and nursing mothers who will receive health and nutrition support for the treatment and prevention of various forms of malnutrition at the facility and community levels. In addition, over 8,000 children in Gedo will benefit from water and sanitation facilities in their schools.
The Federal Ministries of Health and Human Services, Education, Energy and Water Resources will be directly involved in the implementation of the programme in close collaboration with the local, federal and state levels.
Coordination and oversight of this programme will be conducted by the Ministry of Planning, Investment and Economic Development (MOPIED).
“The Ministry of Planning, Investment and Economic Development recognizes the importance of this initiative by WFP and UNICEF which contributes to the overall resilience agenda of the National Development Plan by putting an urgent focus on improving the resilience of women, children and their communities to recurrent shocks, and we look forward working and engaging with you all,” planning state minister Abdalla Ali said.
LONG TERM SOLUTIONS
Coming amid calls for sustainable solutions to Somalia’s fragility to vagaries of weather, the German ambassador to Somalia Jutta Frasch emphasized his government’s commitment to developing long term solutions
“We must look to long-term community solutions to break the cycle of persistent droughts and humanitarian crisis in Somalia,” said Frasch German. “We are confident that, through the collaboration between the German Government, UNICEF, WFP, the Federal Government, the Government of Jubaland, the Banadir Regional Administration and other key authorities, we can make this happen.”
UNICEF Somalia Representative Steven Lauwerier noted it was critical to build resilience to cushion communities from weather shocks in the future.
“While we continue our scaled up operations to combat the drought, we need to plan ahead and ensure that communities are resilient and able to withstand future droughts, floods and other extreme events.”
“WFP is proud to be part of this programme with UNICEF and the Government of Germany that allows us to bring our expertise together and work closely with the Government of Somalia and the people of Banadir and Gedo regions,” said WFP Deputy Country Director Edith Heines.
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