Nutrition Analysis Post Gu ‘12

With the exception of the coastal strip of West Golis/Guban, the Coastal Deeh of North and Central, Cowpea Belt livelihood zones, Bay and parts of Juba regions where the food security situation is of concern, increased purchasing power and improved livestock productivity, and sustained humanitarian support enhanced household access to food and nutrition through the Gu (April-July) 2012 season, and mitigated the nutrition situation across the country. Humanitarian support in terms of cash, food and non-food items strengthened the communities’ purchasing power; while health care and nutrition support enabled control and management of endemic diseases, seasonal outbreaks, and malnutrition, thereby saving lives in these areas. Consequently across the country, levels of acute malnutrition have declined to below the Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) famine threshold of 30%, while crude death rates (CDR) are below the UNICEF emergency threshold of 2/10,000/day.

From April-July 2012, FSNAU in collaboration with partner agencies conducted 46 representative nutrition surveys in Somalia, assessing rural, urban and internally displaced populations (Table 1). Of these, 16 were done in the south; 4 in central rural livelihood zones; 10 in northwest and northeast rural pastoral and agro-pastoral livelihood zones; 8 in IDPs in the north and central regions; and 8 in the urban livelihood zones in the north. Due to security restrictions, updated nutrition and mortality data was not collected in Shabelle regions and the southern parts of Gedo, Bakool and Hiran regions. However, indirect information on nutrition trends from health centers and feeding programmes was analysed.

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