Somalilandsun – The Swedish International Development Agency-SIDA the government in Stockholm has contributed towards Drought relief in the Horn of Africa
This was revealed by the Swedish minister of international development Isabella Lovin during an answer to parliament posed by legislator Hans Linde
Read Below verbatim replies by minister Lovin, translated from original Swedish language
MINISTRY FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Government Lövin to parliament
Answer to question 2015/16 : 913 by Hans Linde ( V) Drought and famine in Somaliland
Hans Linde has asked me what initiatives I intend to take to Sweden , both as individual countries and as a member of the EU and the UN, to assist people hit by drought in Somaliland.
Quote- “Let me begin by confirming the dark image that Hans Linde paints. This year’s El Niño is the lack of rain and changing weather patterns led to dramatically increased humanitarian needs. Horn of Africa, including Somalia, is among the areas worst hit. Sweden is following the situation closely, both from the MFA and Sida in Stockholm, which is in place through our embassies. Sweden has provided significant assistance both before and during the current crisis. Sweden gave in 2015 humanitarian assistance to Somalia Crisis of SEK 191 million, including support to the Somali refugees in neighboring countries. Through partners such as the Red Cross, UNICEF, WFP and UNHCR, Sweden has contributed to hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable in Somalia have received food aid and other types of humanitarian assistance. Page has now decided on 100 million as an initial support needs as they look at the beginning of the year in Somalia.
This assistance will go to the kind of distress that we now see in Somaliland. This support may be raised during the course of the year as the page continues to assess needs. As a concrete example of Swedish support to Somaliland include that we, in cooperation with the WFP has provided direct assistance to 60,000 of the most distressed by electronic cash transfers. Additional 46,000 distressed individuals in other parts of Somalia have been helped through the same operation. Cash Transfers gives distressed opportunity to prioritize the items they are most in need in their daily lives. Cash transfers also have the advantage that they help to support the local economy. Furthermore, Sida during its Rapid Response Mechanism recently approved support through the Norwegian Refugee Council, which will go to efforts in response to the drought in Somaliland and Puntland.
Sweden is also one of the world’s largest donor of non-earmarked core support to UN humanitarian agencies active in Somaliland (WFP, UNICEF, UNHCR).
With the significant core supports Sweden provides humanitarian actors to act quickly and effectively to humanitarian crises like the one in Somaliland. Core Support also provides humanitarian actors the opportunity to allocate resources where the need is greatest. Among Swedish core support in 2016 include, inter alia, WFP 600 million, UNICEF 525 million, CERF (UN global emergency fund), 520 million and 125 million, OCHA. Sweden’s large core support for the CERF contributed among other things to the Fund could allocate over $ 25 million (SEK 212 million) to Somalia Crisis in 2015, CERF has 2016 developed special procedures to quickly allocate funds specifically to drought in Somaliland and Puntland.
I would also like to mention our commitment through EU humanitarian organization, ECHO. ECHO has earmarked 17 MEURO from EDF specifically to be used to the effects of El Niño in Somalia. At least 7 MEURO of these will go to northern Somalia to partners Save the Children, the Red Cross, Norwegian and Danish Refugee Councils, FAO and WFP. Sweden is continuing to invest considerable resources in peace-building and state-building in Somalia. 
This work will take, inter alia, aimed at strengthening the Somali institutional capacity, which helps to create structures that can respond to large-scale challenges in the form of, inter alia, natural disasters. Sweden also has more than doubled its assistance to Somalia in recent years and linked this to the cooperation framework developed by the Somali government and international partners. On my visit to Mogadishu in November, I had, as co-chair of the International Dialogue for peace-building and state-building, the opportunity to hold talks with Somalia’s government on how we will jointly take this important work forward. Sweden also works to strengthen the link between humanitarian aid and development assistance in Somalia. Concretely this means that Sweden helps to households in Somalia build up a greater resistance to the front-future crises. Stockholm March 15, 2016” Unquote
Isabella Lövin
Read the original transcript in Swedish
