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Decreases in staple food prices likely due to humanitarian assistance

  • Key Message Update
  • Somalia
  • March 2017
Decreases in staple food prices likely due to humanitarian assistance

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  • Key Messages
  • Key Messages
    • Food security has further deteriorated in March, the peak of the pastoral lean season, and Hawd and Addun Pastoral livelihood zones are now in Crisis (IPC Phase 3). In most areas of Northern Inland Pastoral, Crisis (IPC Phase 3!) outcomes exist with ongoing humanitarian assistance, but Emergency (IPC Phase 4) outcomes are expected between June and September in the absence of assistance. Emergency (IPC Phase 4) outcomes are also expected to persist in Bay and Bakool agropastoral areas, but assistance is improving food security for some households. 

    • Food security is expected to improve slightly from July through September following the Gu harvest and improvement in livestock conditions. The April to June Gu rains are forecast to be slightly below average. In a worst-case scenario in which the April to June Gu season performs very poorly, purchasing capacity declines to levels seen in 2010/11, and humanitarian assistance is unable to reach populations in need, Famine (IPC Phase 5) would be likely in the worst-affected areas of Bay, Bakool, and Northern Inland Pastoral. 

    • The retail price of sorghum in Baidoa decreased 13 percent between January and March, after increasing 74 percent between October and December. The price decline is likely due in part to the influx of humanitarian assistance in recent months. In Diinsoor and Qandadheer, neighboring rural areas with limited access to humanitarian assistance, the retail price of sorghum declined approximately 15 percent over the same time period. This is primarily due to lower demand from Baidoa, the destination market. 

    • The number of cholera cases continues to rise - 4,965 cases and 119 deaths were reported between February 27 and March 12, bringing the total number of cases to 12,699. Nearly 50 percent of all cases have been reported in Bay, where the crowding of newly displaced populations is likely exacerbating the cholera outbreak. Between March 1 and 24, 50,000 newly displaced people arrived in Baidoa of Bay. Over 82,000 people have been displaced to Baidoa since November 2016.  

    • In addition to SMART surveys that will be conducted by FSNAU in early April, FEWS NET and FSNAU will conduct a post-Jilaal assessment in late March/early April in Hawd Pastoral, Addun Pastoral, and Northern Inland Pastoral livelihood zones and agropastoral areas of Bay and Bakool. The results of these assessments will be used to update the food security status of these areas. 

    This Key Message Update provides a high-level analysis of current acute food insecurity conditions and any changes to FEWS NET's latest projection of acute food insecurity outcomes in the specified geography. Learn more here.

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