Emergency Food Security and Livelihood support to the most vulnerable drought-affected groups in Baidoa and Bardale Districts The project is designed to support a total of 1822 drought-affected households. which are comprised of 1345 IDP and vulnerable host community households severely affected by the drought with unconditional cash transfers, and 477 households with supplementary feeds/fodder and water trucking for their weak livestock and emergence cash + livelihood inputs to enable agro-pastoral households to get back into production to secure a harvest/sustain animal health to improve household access to food in the Baidoa and Bardale districts of the Bay region. The project will deliver emergency lifesaving and life-sustaining consumption and livelihood support. Project activities include:

Provision of Unconditional Cash Transfers (UCT) to 1345 drought-affected households to improve access to food in the Baidoa and Bardale districts of the Bay region. the vulnerable IDPs in drought-affected sites and households with malnourished under-five children (SAM and MAM) based on the admission records.
 Provision of livestock feed/fodder or supplementary feed to 477 households to prevent drought-related fatalities in the most drought-affected sites with the highest vulnerability
 Provision of water to livestock to 477 households to prevent drought-related fatalities to communities’ sites that are in severe water shortages
 Provision of emergence cash + livelihood inputs to enable 477 drought-affected households to get back into production to secure a harvest/sustain animal health to improve household access to food in the Baidoa and Bardale districts of the Bay region

Mercy Corps will ensure community participation in targeting. Overall, Mercy Corps will ensure that as food security and livelihood activities are implemented, the contextual issues of different needs of men, women, boys, and girls, considering age, gender, and diversity (AGD) factors, including social background and/marginalized community members are considered. To ensure that the elderly and people living with disabilities (PwD) have access to food and livelihood services, Mercy Corps will make a deliberate effort during its design and implementation to reach them. This will include discussions with the community during targeting and direct delivery of these services to their households. Mercy Corps will also undertake post-distribution monitoring to help understand how communities benefited from the support and recommendations on how to improve future programs. PDMs may also help in redesigning subsequent activities before the project.

Mercy Corps is one of the main actors present in the Bay region and specifically in Baidoa and Bardale districts implementing emergency response and resilience activities and has consistent access to the drought-affected locations. Mercy Corps is already responding to the drought crisis in Baidoa District by providing life-saving multipurpose cash assistance to 300 households (1800 people), water trucking, and vocational skills training to IDP youth, to address basic household needs. Since 2013, Mercy Corps has been addressing population needs in Bay Region in food security and other sectors such as WASH and economic recovery. However, the increasing vulnerabilities spurred by the stresses of drought require an immediate scale-up of humanitarian support to avert further displacement and possible loss of lives and livelihoods due to the stresses of the drought. Mercy Corps will create synergies for improved coordination among food security and livelihood stakeholders in the area, including local authorities, cluster coordination mechanisms, and other NGOs present in the areas. Equally, Mercy Corps will ensure that this intervention is integrated with other investments in the two districts. Currently, Mercy Corps is implementing the BHA-Funded Somalia Emergency and Early Market Recovery (SEAM) Program in the Baidoa district. This program targets livelihood activities, WASH, Agriculture, and Livestock.