Food Insecurity Country Profile: Somalia.

 

Somalia has consistently recorded the highest levels of food insecurity globally between 2019 and 2024. These persistently high levels reflect the interaction of ecological stress, climatic extremes, conflict and chronic governance gaps. Recurrent droughts, erratic rainfall, and flooding have disrupted ecosystems and livelihoods. This has been further aggravated by ongoing conflict since the late 1980s. Dependence on rain-fed agriculture and livestock leaves the country highly vulnerable to rainfall variability. Repeated climate shocks have reduced crop yields, undermined livestock health, and depleted water sources, heightening vulnerability among farming and pastoralist households. These pressures are compounded by conflict, displacement, and disrupted markets, all of which limit access to food and humanitarian aid. Conflict in Somalia has also accelerated environmental decline. For example, the country’s mostly arid rangelands and scrub-savanna rely on hardy acacia trees, a slow-growing hardwood used for fodder, shade, and soil protection (it helps retain moisture and reduce runoff). In the context of decades of conflict, an illicit charcoal economy has flourished, with armed groups and traders financing themselves by cutting acacia for charcoal, accelerating deforestation. Even after the UN Security Council banned Somali charcoal imports in 2012, enforcement gaps and insecurity let the trade persist. The result is rapid loss of woody cover around towns and along transport corridors, thinning rangeland, more erosion and dust, and fewer drought buffers for pastoralists and agropastoralists. This has been aggravated by water and soil conservation works that have gone unmaintained, rangelands being overgrazed, and the lapse of land-degradation controls, worsening erosion and desertification. Humanitarian assessments projected that nearly 4.4 million people – around a quarter of the population – would face crisis-level food insecurity between April and June 2025.31 Displaced populations within the country, pastoralist communities, and households with exhausted reserves will be the most affected by this food insecurity. This threat has been exacerbated by below-average rainfall and flooding in key agricultural zones in late 2024, which has increased regional food prices and reduced the country’s water supply. As a result, Somalia faces severe risks of child malnutrition. An estimated 1.7 million children under five, around five per cent of the population, are projected to suffer from acute malnutrition in 2025, including 466,000 with severe acute malnutrition, mainly concentrated within southern regions.