Somalia drought Emergency Response Project (SERP) The emergency intervention will provide lifesaving assistance to drought affected communities in Sanaag and Mudug regions. The project will help to address important needs related to food insecurity and livelihoods through unconditional cash transfers and assets protection. The rural and Pastoral communities will be targeted through provision of unconditional cash transfers for immediate food access while protecting their assets through water trucking for livestock. 
The priority humanitarian response on food security as highlighted by FSNAU is to assist food insecure populations as immediate life saving measures and to meet their immediate food needs, protect their livelihoods and build their resilience. With more than one 6.2 million people in need of urgent external assistance, pastoralists and agro-pastoralists are the most affected since they depend on livestock and rain fed farming as their primary livelihood. 65% of those 6.2 million in crisis and emergency situation (IPC 3 amp 4) are rural and pastoral communities who depend their livestock as key livelihood means. Possible aggravating factors in Mudug and Sanaag regions include: limited number of saleable animals amongst the poor communities, low purchasing power, insecurity (limiting migration, trade, and humanitarian access) and high debt levels (94%-Adeso assessment report). Over 424,000 people in the target regions of Mudug and Sanag, are in crisis and emergency situation (IPC 3 amp 4)
The most vulnerable groups identified by the Adeso internal assessment in Mudug and Sanaag regions are the elderly, children, women, pastoral drop outs, disabled and destitute individuals who make up about 60% of the population in need. Of this vulnerable group, 50% are children with a proportion making 20% being children under the age of 5. The immediate needs as assessed by Adeso include limited access to incomes to purchase food, clean drinking water, medicine, ability to access commercial areas such as markets, hospitals, mosquito nets, and shelter.
It is noted from the recent (December 2016) internal assessment undertaken by Adeso that in Sanaag and Mudug regions, 14.5% of the most in need community members are either pastoral drop outs or IDPs who rely on relief, handouts and remittances as their livelihood strategies. This means that there is sadly a high number of non-residents who lack stable livelihoods.

Proposed intervention action will target vulnerable households with unconditional cash, allowing them to meet basic food and non-food needs during the hard times. A total of 500HHs (3,000 people) will be selected for the cash interventions most of which are women, children and elderly. The transfer value will be based on 67% of the current MEB amount per region for 3 months consecutive. The cash transfers are expected to cover at least 67% of the 2,100 Kcal recommended daily requirement per person. 
The project will also provide water for livestock for 200 households (2,400 people) through voucher based water tracking at community level. A total of 16,000 goats and sheep, as well as 200 camels will be reached with adequate water. In addition, additional 16,000 goats and sheep, as well as 200 camels will be reached through complementary response supported by OFDA through repairs and fuel subsidy to 15 boreholes. 
The project activities of cash transfers and livestock water trucking will begin from March as this is the peak of the pre famine condition, the interventions will be for 6 months with expected end date of mid-September 2017