This year, the challenges will continue in full force, according to an annual report from UNOCHA, the U.N. humanitarian agency, called World Humanitarian Data and Trends 2018.
That’s because the root causes are increasingly a messy mix of conflict, climate shocks, poverty and social inequalities.
Humanitarian resources must be stretched even further for more and longer-lasting crises.
More than 80 percent of the funding required that year was for just eight "mega-crises," as the report calls them, that have lasted five years or more, in Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
Traditional disaster response isn’t cut out for long crises.
In many cases, people lost their supply of water.
And in some conflicts, cutting off access to water was used as a weapon.
For example, the report found that in Yemen there were 28 conflict events in 2017 in which water set off fighting or was a casualty of hostilities.
Even though the cost of humanitarian assistance has increased, people are getting higher quality and better aid, she notes.
Internal displacement is notoriously under-reported, leaving many without the aid they need.

This year, the challenges will continue in full force, according to an annual report from UNOCHA, the U.N. humanitarian agency, called World Humanitarian Data and Trends 2018.
That’s because the root causes are increasingly a messy mix of conflict, climate shocks, poverty and social inequalities.
Humanitarian resources must be stretched even further for more and longer-lasting crises.
More than 80 percent of the funding required that year was for just eight "mega-crises," as the report calls them, that have lasted five years or more, in Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
Traditional disaster response isn’t cut out for long crises.
In many cases, people lost their supply of water.
And in some conflicts, cutting off access to water was used as a weapon.
For example, the report found that in Yemen there were 28 conflict events in 2017 in which water set off fighting or was a casualty of hostilities.
Even though the cost of humanitarian assistance has increased, people are getting higher quality and better aid, she notes.
Internal displacement is notoriously under-reported, leaving many without the aid they need.

This year, the challenges will continue in full force, according to an annual report from UNOCHA, the U.N. humanitarian agency, called World Humanitarian Data and Trends 2018.
That’s because the root causes are increasingly a messy mix of conflict, climate shocks, poverty and social inequalities.
Humanitarian resources must be stretched even further for more and longer-lasting crises.
More than 80 percent of the funding required that year was for just eight "mega-crises," as the report calls them, that have lasted five years or more, in Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
Traditional disaster response isn’t cut out for long crises.
In many cases, people lost their supply of water.
And in some conflicts, cutting off access to water was used as a weapon.
For example, the report found that in Yemen there were 28 conflict events in 2017 in which water set off fighting or was a casualty of hostilities.
Even though the cost of humanitarian assistance has increased, people are getting higher quality and better aid, she notes.
Internal displacement is notoriously under-reported, leaving many without the aid they need.

This year, the challenges will continue in full force, according to an annual report from UNOCHA, the U.N. humanitarian agency, called World Humanitarian Data and Trends 2018.
That’s because the root causes are increasingly a messy mix of conflict, climate shocks, poverty and social inequalities.
Humanitarian resources must be stretched even further for more and longer-lasting crises.
More than 80 percent of the funding required that year was for just eight "mega-crises," as the report calls them, that have lasted five years or more, in Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
Traditional disaster response isn’t cut out for long crises.
The report calls for increased coordination and cooperation between humanitarian and development agencies.
In many cases, people lost their supply of water.
And in some conflicts, cutting off access to water was used as a weapon.
For example, the report found that in Yemen there were 28 conflict events in 2017 in which water set off fighting or was a casualty of hostilities.
Internal displacement is notoriously under-reported, leaving many without the aid they need.

FILE – In this May 9, 2015 file photo, boys carry relief supplies to their families who fled fighting in the southern city of Aden, in Taiz, Yemen.
It comes as aid groups say coalition airstrikes are destroying critical infrastructure and that the coalition needs to do more to facilitate the delivery of fuel, food and medicine at Yemeni ports.
(Abdulnasser Alseddik, File/Associated Press) DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Yemen was already the poorest country in the Arab world before a Saudi-led coalition went to war with Iran-allied rebels in March 2015 in a failed bid to drive them from the capital and much of the country’s north.
On Monday, Saudi Arabia announced $1.5 billion in new humanitarian aid for Yemen and vowed to expand the capacity of Yemen’s ports to receive fuel, food and medicine, as well as establish “safe passage corridors” to ensure transportation of aid to non-governmental organizations inside Yemen.
The amount pledged represents about half that demanded by the U.N. in its latest humanitarian appeal.
— More than 22 million people, including 11 million children, are in need of humanitarian assistance, according to U.N. officials and the International Committee of the Red Cross — More than 8 million people are totally dependent on food assistance and considered a “step away from famine”, according to the U.N. — An estimated 17.8 million Yemenis are considered “food insecure,” meaning they do not know where their next meal will come from, according to the U.N. — More than 400,000 children are suffering from acute malnutrition, according to the World Food Program — Some 15.7 million Yemenis lack access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation services, according to the ICRC — Some 16.4 million Yemenis lack access to adequate health care, according to the U.N. — Another 24.3 million lack access to public electricity, according to the ICRC — Yemen, a country of 27 million people, imports about 90 percent of its staple food and nearly all of its fuel and medicine, according to the U.N. — Since the start of the war, Human Rights Watch has documented 87 apparently unlawful attacks by the Saudi-led coalition, some of which may amount to war crimes, killing nearly 1,000 civilians and hitting homes, markets, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
— The price of petrol, diesel and cooking gas increased in December by more than 200 percent from its pre-war cost, according to the World Food Program.
— There were more than 1 million suspected cholera cases reported last year and more than 2,230 associated deaths, according to the World Health Organization — As of late December, there were 381 suspected diphtheria cases in Yemen and 38 associated deaths, nearly all of them children under 15, according to the World Health Organization.
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All rights reserved.

Over the last year, 800,000 people in Somalia have been displaced due to drought and famine according to Refugees International.
Part of the cause: climate change, says Mark Yarnell, Refugees International’s United Nations liaison.
"It’s devastating that a country that barely contributes anything to greenhouse gases is the most effected by that," he said.
The Minnesota organization has been working to combat the drought and famine in Somalia since 2016.
Idris spent a month there last year, visiting camps where displaced people and refugees have gathered to seek assistance.
It’s so dry in some areas that Idris didn’t see a single human, plant or animal.
"It’s just soil and sky," he said.
Refugee camps are filled with makeshift tents and lack clean water or bathrooms.
Women are raped at night.
Idris said that the focus of the relief effort should be in helping communities before they’re displaced.

Here in Carro-Yaambo, 20 miles west of Somaliland’s capital, desert gives way to more arable land, and communities both farm and keep livestock.
The drought has killed 80 percent of the livestock that nomadic rural communities depend on in Somaliland alone, and forced 739,000 to move in search of water and food throughout Somalia.
Pastoralists “have no other means of making a living.
UNICEF has projected that 1.4 million Somali children are or will become malnourished this year – a 50 percent increase since the start of 2017.
“I have never, ever heard of a drought that claims the lives of the livestock and the lives of the people,” says Ibrahim, whose herd of 100 goats and sheep was decimated to six.
“I’ve seen parents scooping up water for their kids and drinking it themselves.” ‘Water is life’ West of Hargeisa, however, aid agencies have seen success with water programs.
Today, in places like Carro-Yaambo, there has been more resilience, and less displacement of people.
“I don’t think anyone can live here anymore.
I don’t think there is a future for nomadism.” “If we want to keep camels, and sheep and goats, then we must change the way we raise them,” he says.
“Whenever people lose their livestock, they start farming.” That process, too, is helped by aid agencies.

The People Will Be Next."
There was a drought in parts of the country last year, and what we’re seeing this year is far, far worse.
Somalis have traditionally been incredibly resilient at coping in a harsh environment where there’s maybe only a few inches of rainfall each year.
We met Somalis all over the country who were impacted, where this is transforming people’s lives right now.
So this project has focused on how climate change and environmental degradation are fueling migration.
And you know there’s very little understanding of how the environment plays into the [high] levels of migration that we see in Somalia.
But as I was getting closer to Mareero I started seeing people walking through this really dry, stark landscape.
That’s really telling because you know Yemen is not a place that I view as secure or where I would want to go.
I want to ask about your own security doing this reporting.
For you as an American who’s spent quite a bit of time there, what comes to mind when you think about Somalia?

‘A humanitarian crisis’: Local group raising money to ward off famine in drought-stricken Somalia.
In April, the Somali Community Development of North Dakota in Fargo formed an 11-member drought committee and raised $21,000 for famine and drought relief in Somalia.
When the Islamic holy month of Ramadan was approaching, the drought in Somalia remained deadly, and members of the local Somali community knew it was time to step up again.
Adbullahi, a drought committee member, said when Ramadan began on May 26, the committee added three more members and set into motion a second wave of fundraising.
Adbullahi said the Somali community wanted to raise money to help the people in Somalia who couldn’t afford food for iftar.
Each week, Hashim and Hassan send the money to the Somali National Drought Committee in Mogadishu, Somalia.
Hassan, translated by local drought committee member Abdiwalli Sharif, explained that there is a high need for donations during this drought.
Fowzia Adde, a drought committee member, shared the story of her uncle, who already struggled through a drought that claimed the lives of three of his four children in 2011.
Adde said the drought committee’s goal is to raise more money than in April.
After raising money throughout Ramadan, the drought committee plans to continue fighting for a solution to the droughts in Somalia.

Under the Radar: Sri Lanka’s drought threatens credit downgrade.
With around half of national rice paddy acreage affected (1.5 million acres), the cost of this effort will account for between 0.1 and 0.2% of GDP; this does not include relief efforts for other crops.
In order to combat food shortages, the government has accepted food and water aid from India, Indonesia, Pakistan and Thailand as well as increased food imports.
To encourage imports Sri Lanka has cut import taxes on rice from 15 to 5 rupees per kilo.
Another issue are the government price controls on rice which, while fixing prices between Rs 70 and Rs 80 per kilo of various types of rice, risks unrest.
Having purchased rice at higher wholesale prices prior to pricing limits, millers are now being forced to sell at a loss.
On February 13th, some 120 leading millers refused to sell at government prices, calling for between Rs 80 to Rs 90 per kilo, and demanding to meet with President Maithripala Sirisena.
The drought has also led to an energy crisis in Sri Lanka, as reservoirs are only at 29% capacity.
The effects of the drought have derailed Sri Lanka’s efforts to tackle systemic overspending, with the government projecting a 17% increase in spending, versus a 0.6% increase in 2016.
As a result the drought is hampering Sri Lanka’s efforts to reduce the budget deficit to 4.6% – a key goal of the country’s $1.5 billion IMF loan.