Somalia continues to face drought and acute food insecurity in some areas, the security situation remains tense as government has stepped up its military advances against Al-Shabab. Despite these significant challenges, authorities remain committed reform effort. Program performance is broadly satisfactory HIPC Completion Point (CP) appears achievable by 2023Q4.

Few data on iodine status in Somalia are available, but it is assumed that deficiency is a public health problem due to the limited access to iodized salt. We aimed to describe the iodine status of the population of Somalia and to investigate possible determinants of iodine status. A national 2-stage, stratified household cluster survey was conducted in 2009 in the Northwest, Northeast, and Sou...

In April 2013, a case of wild polio virus (WPV) was detected in the Somalia capital Mogadishu. This inaugurated what is now referred to as the 2013-2014 Horn of Africa Polio outbreak with cases reported in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia. By the notification of the last polio case in August 2014, 223 cases of WPV had been reported in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia of which 199 in Somalia alone. The ou...

BACKGROUND Famine early warning systems clearly identified the risk of famine in South Central Somalia in 2010-2011 but timely action to prevent the onset of famine was not taken. The result was large scale mortality, morbidity, and population displacement. DISCUSSION The main factor that turned a drought-related food crisis into a famine was the war that afflicted southern Somalia and the ta...

Somalia has the highest global prevalence (98%) of female circumcision (FC), and, despite a long history of abandonment efforts, it is not clear as to whether or not these programmes have changed people's positive attitudes toward the practice. Against this background, this paper explores the attitudes of Somalis living in Hargeisa and Galkayo districts to the practice of FC. Methods. A purposi...

In a recent case, the FBI investigated what had become of a group of young SomaliAmerican men who lived in the Minneapolis area and disappeared. Relatives said they had abruptly left the country to join a suspected terrorist organization in Somalia. If that is true, the men might train with terrorists and then join local operations in Somalia or return to the United States on their American pas...

Since 1991, Somalia has been afflicted by conflict involving factions within the country, regional powers, and international actors. Following a year of failed rains the current humanitarian situation in Somalia is extremely serious. Early warning alerts have been issued and the UN has launched an appeal aiming to prevent the onset of famine and its defining features of extreme food insecurity,...

BACKGROUND For more than a decade, most parts of Somalia have not been under the control of any type of government. This "failure of state" is complete in the central and southern regions and most apparent in Mogadishu, which had been for a long period in the hands of warlords deploying their private militias in a battle for resources. In contrast, the northern part of Somalia has had relativel...

Few data on iodine status in Somalia are available, but it is assumed that deficiency is a public health problem due to the limited access to iodized salt. We aimed to describe the iodine status of the population of Somalia and to investigate possible determinants of iodine status. A national 2-stage, stratified household cluster survey was conducted in 2009 in the Northwest, Northeast, and Sou...

This case study reviews the experience of the Somalia Food Security Assessment Unit (FSAU) of operating a food security information system in the context of a complex emergency. In particular, it explores the linkages between selected features of the protracted crisis environment in Somalia and conceptual and operational aspects of food security information work. The paper specifically examines...