Somalilandsun: Women and girls are negatively and disproportionately impacted by disasters and conflict. These crises affect their life expectancy, education, maternal health, livelihoods, nutrition, and the levels of violence they experience. At the same time, women are also often first responders and leaders in humanitarian response, though they are often portrayed only as victims and passive beneficiaries of aid.
To ensure that the specific needs and rights of crisis-affected women and girls are met, and to achieve effective—as well as rights-based—humanitarian outcomes, it is essential that we have clarity on existing levels of funding for women and girls in humanitarian programming and to what extent that funding meets the requested needs.
To this end, UN Women and UNFPA conducted a research study on “Funding for gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls [GEEWG] in humanitarian programming”. The study is based on global desk research and case study focus on Bangladesh, Jordan, Nigeria, and Somalia (including field visits to Somalia and Bangladesh), and ascertains existing funding flows—and the impact of any shortfall—to GEEWG in humanitarian action, including the levels of funding requested, funding received, and the consequences of the funding gap.
Somalia Overview of the Case Study
For decades, conflict, insecurity and natural disasters such as droughts, cyclones and floods have made Somalia a difficult and volatile humanitarian crisis. It has one of the largest populations of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the world, with displacement driven by the conflict with alShabab, fear of violence, drought, lack of livelihood opportunities and evictions.
Life for women and girls in Somalia is challenging. Somalia ranks fourth lowers for gender equality globally, maternal and infant mortality rates are
some of the highest in the world, and early marriage is prevalent. An estimated 91% of women aged 15-49 have undergone Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)1, which has both short term and long term physiological, sexual and psychological repercussions. Gender Based Violence (GBV) is pervasive, dominated by physical assault and Intimate
Partner Violence (IPV).
Three out of five children are 1 UNFPA. “Somali Demographic Health Survey (SDHS).”
Unpublished. out of school and boys are often favored over girls.
Illiteracy rates among women in IDP communities is 76% and 59% for the non-displaced, compared with 60% for IDP men and 39% for non-displaced men.
This case study reviews the current context for funding for Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women and Girls (GEEWG) in Somalia, including the levels of funding requested, funding received, and the consequences of the funding gap.
The study relies on funding reported to UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ (UNOCHA) Financial Tracking System (FTS), which includes the Inter Agency
Standing Committee (IASC) Gender Marker, as well as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee (OECD DAC) data on funding flows using their Gender Equality Marker (GEM). The study specifically focuses on funding for women and girls, though the findings are very applicable for GEEWG writ large, as there was little programming that explicitly targeted gender equality more broadly.
Read UN Women report on case studies undertaken in Somalia, Jordan, Nigeria and Bangladesh
