Work to improve access to water in Puntland continues during drought
13 March 2008

A serious drought in Puntland, north-east Somalia, is causing significant livestock losses for pastoral communities across the region.

Livestock are the main source of food and income for many communities in the region. It is estimated that 70% of young calves, kids and lambs have died as a result of the drought.

VETAID is already working in Sool, Sanag, Bari and Nugal provinces of Puntland - all of which are affected by the current drought - to improve food security for pastoralist communities. Pastoralists are people living in dry or very dry areas who depend mainly or entirely on livestock for their survival.

Ahmed Artan Mohamed, VETAID’s Sool Plateau Project Manager in Garowe, Puntland, states: “Pastoralists in Puntland’s Sool Plateau, particularly in the districts where VETAID works, are among the poorest and most vulnerable in the country. Their poverty is rooted in the recent decades of more frequent and protracted drought cycles and other ongoing processes of political, economic and environmental marginalisation.”

“The droughts during 2001 to 2004 were the worst in memory,” he continues, “characterized by the partial and complete rainfall failures of over seven rainy seasons in a row. However, in the period between 2004 to mid 2007, communities witnessed a reversal of the negative trend following the slightly above average rainfall which the area received and facilitated a certain degree of recovery.”

“The failure of the last secondary rainy season, which was expected around September to November 2007 is the cause of the current drought which is affecting Puntland. This has, once again, killed many of the livestock on which these people depend.”

One aim of VETAID’s project in the region is to increase access to water, helping to ensure that local people have access to drinking water as well as adequate water for their animals.

In the past two and half years, VETAID has built eight community earth dams. Each dam holds enough rainwater to support 14,000 people, providing each person with around two litres of drinking water per day.

Four of the eight dams constructed through VETAID’s project were completely full by the end of the May 2007 rains. Because a large number of pastoralists have come into these areas where they knew they would have access to water, the stored water has been consumed earlier than previously anticipated. Therefore, during this current dry season, all constructed dams and other community water storage facilities remain dry.

Those who can afford to have paid for expensive water-trucking schemes from distant wells, however poor households are not able to cope with the situation. Thus, VETAID is assisting these vulnerable families through provision of free drinkable water in order to save lives and the livelihoods of these families.

ENDS