Strengthening Humanitarian Coordination Capacity of the Somali Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Bureau The humanitarian situation in Ethiopia Somali Regional State (ESRS) is not showing signs of improvement and putting the lives and livelihood of men, women, girls and boys at peril. The impacts of the current Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) induced drought in the Somali Region for 2017-18 are expected to be further exacerbated by climatic changes. As the humanitarian situation continues to worsen, there is a critical need for strong humanitarian leadership by the regional government and a coordinated and effective multi-sectoral, multi-agency humanitarian response. In light of the recurrence of droughts and thee onslaught of climate change, there is also need to adopt a recovery and long-term resilience building approach to mitigate their impacts and avoid disasters. 

The leadership and coordination capacity of the Regional Disaster Preparedness and Prevention Bureau (DPPB), and the newly established Humanitarian Coordination Unit (HCU) within the president’s office will therefore be critical to meet and manage the current and future humanitarian needs and resilience building. Despite strong commitment of the regional government to respond to the drought induced crisis and link it with long term development, its capacity to do so needs considerable strengthening, given the extent of the ongoing humanitarian response and the demand for scaled resilience programming due to drought and conflict Specifically, the technical capacity of the government regional humanitarian bureaus to lead and coordinate humanitarian response by development partners and NGOs so that it’s well aligned with government priorities and the specific humanitarian needs of different social groups, including women, men, boys and girls but also different ethnic groups is limited. This is further exacerbated by lack of consistent data and limited communication to guide humanitarian response and to ensure that those most in needs are prioritized. Taking into account the multiple risks faced in in the Somali Regional State, including recurrent droughts, climate change, poverty and conflict, which will continue to erode and overwhelm coping capacities of communities, there is also need to strengthen the regional government capacity to bridge the humanitarian-development gap linking ongoing programmes for crises response with disaster preparedness planning and long-term recovery and resilience building.

In response to the issues above, this project will strengthen the institutional capacity of the DPPB and the HCU to lead, coordinate, implement, and monitor the performance and delivery of ongoing and future multi-sectoral emergency responses, but also to plan and prepare for future climatic impacts. The project also aspires to contribute to developing the institutional capacity of DPPB and other concerned Regional Bureaus to prevent and prepare for future crises and reduce the need for future humanitarian life-saving measures. Further to this, the project will also strengthen regional humanitarian institutions in collecting, using, analyzing and managing disaster data to inform disaster preparedness, humanitarian response and lesson learning for resilience building. In this regard, UNDP will directly add human capacity to reinforce regional government leadership and coordination of the humanitarian response and maximize the government’s proactive engagement with humanitarian and development organizations to ensure sustainable recovery and durable solutions.