Somalia Drought - Cholera Preparedness - CRCS 2017

September 2017 - The Somaliland and Puntland regions of northern Somalia while not facing the same political and security challenges as the rest of the country have been heavily impacted by a Horn of Africa-wide drought. Acute food insecurity the proliferation of water-borne disease and widespread livestock deaths have forced more than 300 000 people in these regions to leave their homes in search of food and water and pushed many areas to the brink of famine. Overall in Somalia some 6.2 million people (roughly half of the population) now require humanitarian assistance. With GAC support the Canadian Red Cross Society (CRCS) is handing over a currently deployed Canadian Red Cross Cholera treatment centre (CTC) to the Somalia Red Crescent Society (SRCS). This transition enables the SRCS to be in a better position to effectively respond to future cholera outbreaks. To ensure the future management and sustainability of the CTC the handover focuses on: (1) providing training on logistics and necessary material to improve the capacity of the SRCS to maintain and deploy the CTC; and (2) providing SRCS staff with necessary skills and knowledge to deploy and run the CTC.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) improved logistics capacity of the SRCS to support CTC maintenance and deployment; and (2) improved skill and knowledge of SRCS to deploy and run the CTC. The expected ultimate outcome is lives saved suffering alleviated and human dignity maintained in countries experiencing humanitarian crises or acute food insecurity.