News & Media

Read about Ilene’s family-feeding and income-generating success, through a little hand-up from the FSA and Oxfam.

Written by Dominique Doss and Glen Pakoa

Ilene Kiel, 38, is a successful female farmer in Lounapkalangis village who has seen firsthand the benefits of FSA’s support. Ilene and her husband, Kiel, have been farmers for many years; they make a living by cultivating local root crops such as taro, cassava, yams, sweet potato, banana, island cabbage, and peanuts. The family consumes most of the harvest and when they need money for school fees or basic necessities for their home, they sell some of their crops.

“Everyone around Tanna is selling the same crops, so it’s hard to stand out from them and make a decent income. Many times the crops just don’t sell; it’s difficult to make money because we are all selling the same items.”

Through FSA’s 2016 recovery program, the organization sent vegetable seeds to Lounapkalangis village, for Ilene to distribute. “I was responsible for selling the seeds around the community. They sold for very low prices, so when people heard about the seeds from FSA, they rushed to buy them. I would run out of the seeds quickly and people would always request them because they saw the high purchasing demand for the harvest.”

Ilene now has a vegetable garden where she grows broccoli, ball cabbage, carrots, lettuce, cauliflower, beans, onions, capsicum, tomato and peanuts. “FSA gave us broccoli and cauliflower seeds, which people in other villages don’t have, so we are able to sell most if not all of our harvests.”

Seeing how well FSA has benefited their family, her husband Kiel began helping Ilene more by clearing the bush and ploughing the soil, as well as helping her harvest the crops when they are ready.

“The support that FSA has given us has not only helped us build better lives but it has also allowed my husband to work closer with me. I like the fact that he is willing to help and support me, we are now working as a team. It has made us a stronger family and it has been a good influence for our children to see.”

Although this has been a great success for her and her family, IIene has dealt with some challenges.

“We live close to the volcano and this is a major problem because when the ashes fall on the crops, it kills them and I’m unable to sell the harvest. It is disheartening when this happens, but I know the benefits of harvesting the vegetables, so I don’t hesitate to start over.”

Ilene is dedicated to taking care of her family’s vegetable garden and is committed to selling the harvests every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at the Lenakel Market.

“There are very few ways for us to earn money here in the village, we have grown up in the garden but I found that it’s not just about growing root crops and selling them at the market. We needed a way to differentiate ourselves and FSA came with the right kind of tools to help us do that.”

Jama Abdi Abdile, a doctor in Gawsawayne, Somaliland, makes do with what he can to treat his patients, many whom are suffering from malnutrition. Allan Gigichi/Oxfam

Jama Abdi Abdile is a roving physician in a small village in Somaliland, who does not allow limited access to medication and inadequate facilities to hinder his patient care.

Small-town doctors have the unenviable task of making house calls at odd hours to treat patients with all sorts of maladies, often operating as one-person medical teams. It’s a tough job no matter where you live, but even more complicated when there are no clinical facilities for miles and your access to medication is limited. These are the conditions under which Jama Abdi Abdile, 43, a roving doctor in Gawsawayne, Somaliland, practices.

Somaliland is suffering from a massive food crisis, part of a humanitarian emergency that is touching nearly 30 million lives in Somalia, Nigeria, Yemen, and South Sudan. Across the Somaliland region, water levels have rapidly declined and widespread loss of livestock is devastating communities that depend upon them for milk, meat, and to earn a livelihood.

Gawsawayne lacks a health center and essential health services. Abdile is the only trained medical professional in his village, so his home doubles as his office. “This is a family home,” he says. “There is no dedicated health center with all its facilities and separated care rooms.”

Mainly, he travels from house to house visiting patients and treating them with medications he has stockpiled in his home. Currently, there are 177 malnutrition cases, including pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers, in his village. Every month, he reports, the number of cases has increased. In March, there were 84 people suffering from malnutrition in his town, mostly children.

“We have never been this busy,” he says. “There is constant pressure now and we have no transportation to go around and visit patients. There are so many difficulties, but I try to do what I can.”

The first week of April brought some relief. Oxfam began trucking clean water to households in the Sanaag region, including Gawsawayne. Now his village receives just over 4,000 gallons of water every day. The clean water has enabled Abdile to do his job more effectively.

Follow along as he walks us through a day in his life, gathering water, mixing medications, and visiting with patients.

Photo: Allan Gichigi / Oxfam

Abdile collects clean water from an Oxfam-supplied water truck. Before Oxfam arrived, Abdile’s community sourced their water from a shallow spring that had grown filthy. An Oxfam Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) engineer called it the most contaminated water supply he has seen in 20 years of working for Oxfam.

Photo: Allan Gichigi / Oxfam

Abdile mixes water with oral rehydration salts (ORS) syrup, which is used to fight dehydration.

“The Oxfam water has helped the whole community,” he says. “The health service takes a big chunk of this water. The mineral water we were using was from a faraway place and cost us a lot of money. It was difficult to mix with the syrup. The water provided by Oxfam is given to us free of charge. We are mixing up the ORS and everyone is drinking it.”

Photo: Allan Gichigi / Oxfam

Abdile sorts through the medications he stores at home. He notes that the water has made it easier for patients to swallow their medications. With villagers now drinking and cooking with clean water, he hopes that they are less likely to become ill.

Photo: Allan Gichigi / Oxfam

Abdile checks on Zaymid Mohammad, 25. She is seven months pregnant with her ninth child and has been feeling tired and weak. The majority of Abdile’s patients are women and children. “Mothers and children are most vulnerable to diseases,” he says. “When people have immune deficiency, which is related to a lack of food and nutrition, they are vulnerable to all sorts of diseases.”

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In addition to water, we have launched programs to provide at least 20,000 people with sanitation services and cash assistance for food in Somaliland. We need your support to expand our reach to even more people.

Donate to our Four Famines appeal

Group photo of G7 leaders at the 43rd G7 summit: Donald Tusk, Justin Trudeau, Angela Merkel, Donald Trump, Paolo Gentiloni, Emmanuel Macron, Shinzō Abe, Theresa May, Jean-Claude Juncker. (Photo: Creative Commons)

Blog written by Courtney Hinkle, Campaigns Advisor for Climate at Oxfam America.

Last week, the global climate community was awaiting with bated breath the final decision from the Trump administration about the fate of the United States and the Paris climate agreement. At the G7 meeting, a last ditch effort was staged by world leaders to persuade President Trump to agree to language in the final G7 Communique in support of the agreement.

President Trump, in a rebuke of those efforts, declined to endorse any language on climate change, and instead tweeted: “I will announce my decision about Paris next week!”

And just today, even as White House officials confirmed that he is likely to announce his withdrawal from the agreement, he tweeted: “I will be making my decision on Paris over the next few days!”

Once again, he keeps the world waiting – the ultimate suspense story. Will the US finally withdraw? Who from his inner circle will make it happen? Will it be the isolationist Steve Bannon, or the “globalist” Jared Kushner? We will all have to tune in to find out!

Trump’s approach to foreign policy seems more that of a reality TV star than reflective of serious policy deliberation. It’s like this Administration is producing an episode of the Bachelor, and we are all left to guess who will get the rose.

And this story has certainly had all the makings of a juicy episode. Anyone who has watched the show knows that the show’s producers know just how to weave a tantalizing storyline – striking the right balance of authentic and absurd. There are inner-house rivalries between factions of contestants. A dedicated following of loyal bloggers has been built up to push out pre-emptive and post-mortem analysis of each episode, spinning the latest drama. Each week, it’s a power play to see who has moved up in the rankings toward receiving that elusive rose.

This should not come as a surprise to anyone that a former reality star would run his Administration like a ratings-focused enterprise.  Naturally, President Trump has played-up his openness to being persuaded on the Paris agreement as an invite for everyone interested to plead their case – and so leading CEOs, heads of state, and other interest groups have all showed up to the cocktail party and tried to put their best-selves forward so that they may be judged worthy of a rose.

And at this point in the Paris drama, we are all watching the classic episode on The Bachelor where the one absurd character – a favorite tactic of the producers to ensure maximum drama (like, could s/he really be so clueless to pick that person??) – is finally being exposed by the “good” faction of contestants. And yet, the Bachelor seems impervious to their warnings and remains blind to any flaws this person may have.

The parallels are striking. President Trump, despite every warning and every plea from rational actors, including heads of state, CEOs, military leaders, and even the Pope, is still unconvinced that he shouldn’t give the fossil fuel industry the final rose.

But of course, this isn’t about roses. And the withdrawal of the Paris agreement shouldn’t be a dramatic saga played out for maximum TV ratings.

Climate change is a global challenge of historic proportions, and the stakes couldn’t be higher. Never before have the impacts of a changing climate felt so acute. Every year, NASA reports that it’s – yet again – the hottest year on record.  We’re seeing severe droughts around the world that were likely made more extreme by climate change, and epic floods have devastated entire communities, straining local resources, displacing thousands, and hitting the most vulnerable the hardest.

If we get it right, maybe we get to keep a habitable planet. If we don’t, billions of people will suffer unnecessarily.  Here’s hoping that President Trump does the right thing and hands the rose to future generations, not the fossil fuel industry.

Catherine Nabulon of Abulon, Kenya, uses an e-wallet card distributed by the Hunger Safety Net Programme to cope with the effects of ongoing drought. The e–wallet gives her more flexibility, dignity, and the ability to make her own choices to address immediate needs. Photo: Joy Obuya/Oxfam

Why digital cash is the future of emergency aid

Written by Nigel Tricks, regional director of Oxfam in the Horn, East, and Central Africa.

Two weeks ago, I visited Oxfam’s drought response in eastern Somaliland. We drove across a stark landscape; what should be a pastoralist heartland is now completely devoid of water and almost empty of livestock. Not a blade of grass and barely a green leaf to be seen. The carcasses of camels, always the last to succumb to drought, littered the landscape and we soon lost count of their number. The drought is severe and it is taking a similar toll across Somalia’s borders and into neighboring Ethiopia and Kenya.

Most people we met had settled near dwindling water sources that were either just enough to sustain a handful of families or unfit for human consumption altogether. Clustered around every town was a growing camp of internally displaced families, now dependent on the delivery of essential relief from government and aid agencies.

What I saw this time in Somaliland convinced me, if it were needed, that aid is changing. Telephone masts delivering 3G and 4G phone signals stand sentinel on hilltops across the country, and access to a signal and a registered SIM card means access to a wonder of modern Africa: digital cash.  Any family—regardless of where they live—with access to a phone, can receive money sent at the touch of a computer button from the nation’s capital.

Through a contracted telephone company, money is transferred to a registered SIM card-based account and can be withdrawn from local traders. People are free to decide what to use the money for and when, enabling them to play a more active role in meeting their own needs. One man I met in Somaliland told me, “We can decide and buy what food and how much water we need or whether to invest in hay for a lamb or education for a child. The market will deliver; we know the traders and the main roads are good.”

Moving to a new model

It is clear – humanitarian agencies now have the absolute obligation to accelerate the transition from direct relief to unconditional cash transfers as the first and the default response. Indeed Oxfam has significantly boosted its current drought response with an increased proportion of cash. In early May, 1,750 families in Somaliland each received $140, expected to meet their most immediate needs for three months.

The traditional model of humanitarian response where food, water, and other essentials arrive on the back of a truck has always played a vital role as it is immediate. Cash transfers are a more efficient and cost effective way of getting help directly where it is needed and are equally accountable to tax payer’s money.
Direct distributions also run the risk of duplication as different actors may end up delivering different types of aid on different days, locking families in winding queues in distribution centers, unable to focus on other activities. Worse still, they may bypass fragile local markets, providing basics that would otherwise be locally sourced.

Empowering individuals to make their own choices

Though less visible, digital cash transfers can be significantly more effective. They enable communities to organize their own water trucks and food deliveries, or buy essential medical supplies in local health centres, thereby reinforcing local businesses and institutions, rather than replacing them. Communities can even band together to repair water harvesting infrastructure, in hopeful anticipation of the rains.

Emergency responses in pastoral areas tend to end with some form of restocking exercise where families are provided with a number of livestock to help restore their traditional livelihoods. Witnessing the growing fragility of that same livelihood for some pastoralists, we must consider that restocking is not for everyone.

Pastoralists resettling in Garadag district, Somaliland, after a 37-mile journey on a truck with their animals. Photo: Petterik Wiggers/Oxfam

If the same livestock is monetized, families can either buy the very animals they seek at choice markets, or opt to inject the cash as restart capital for a small business. Others may prefer to use this money to migrate to urban areas in search of paid employment or save some of the allocation for a rainy day.

The benefits cut across. By combining digital cash transfers with market stimulation, aid agencies can avoid cumbersome logistical scale ups, and deliver assistance more quickly, accountably, and efficiently, particularly in hard-to-reach areas. A 2015 study by the Cash Learning Partnership on the value of cash transfers in emergencies suggests that cash assistance is up to 30 percent cheaper to deliver compared to its in-kind equivalent. As we get better at cash distribution and it becomes more mainstream, this difference will only increase.

In addition, aid agencies can build on established social protection programs, such as Kenya’s Hunger Safety Net Programme, that are proving themselves in helping vulnerable families take early action and cushion themselves against the worst of a crisis. Through this mechanism, Oxfam is currently providing cash assistance to drought-affected families in Turkana and Wajir Counties, simply by topping up the money on cards already allocated to registered households.

Saving lives is the ultimate goal in any surge response, but as crises like the one in Somaliland worsen against a back drop of advancing technology and improving infrastructure, aid must keep pace. Aid has to be smarter.

Severe drought, climate change, conflict, and poor governance have pushed millions of people across South Sudan, Nigeria, Somalia, and Yemen to the brink of starvation. Oxfam and its local partners are striving to ensure families have access to clean water, food, sanitation services, and are also providing cash, so families can buy what they need. Help us expand our response.

Donate to our Four Famines appeal