Trusted by the Institutions That Fund the Response.

Concern Worldwide has been our principal international partner since 2009. Together we have implemented development and emergency programmes reaching more than 200,000 people across Gedo, spanning every sector we work in. Concern has channelled funding to us from FCDO (formerly DFID), ECHO, USAID, Irish Aid, the World Bank, QFFD and Trócaire, as well as from Concern's own CEO Fund, GD Fund and Start Fund allocations.

The partnership has grown from single-season emergency water trucking into multi-year resilience and health consortium programming — and, in 2026, into full membership of the BRCiS consortium in our own right.

Sectors delivered together

Selected joint programmes

• 2009–2013 — Emergency water trucking, then the GABAAD, HADAF and HOPE emergency response projects, and humanitarian assistance for populations in crisis across Gedo.
• 2014–2017 — BRCiS I, our entry into multi-year resilience programming, alongside emergency assistance for IDPs, returnees and host communities.
• 2017–2018 — The drought response years: HARSAD, REACH, IRF4 and IRF5, and the BRCiS SHARP Uplift project.
• 2018–2022 — BRCiS II, Durable Solutions under the EU Trust Fund, and the Somali Humanitarian and Resilience Programme.
• 2020–2023 — Caafimaad Plus across Banadir, Gedo and Lower Shabelle, and the Somalia Crisis Recovery Response with the World Bank.
• 2022–2023 — BRCiS HARBS drought response, multi-purpose cash assistance, mobile health and nutrition clinics in Belet Xaawo, and emergency WASH in Bardhere.
• Currently — BRCiS III, Durable Solutions in Bardhere, and the Hanaano project.

Our partnership with Action Against Hunger focuses on health and nutrition in Elwak district — one of the hardest-to-reach parts of Gedo, where the absence of a stabilisation centre once forced families to seek treatment across the Kenyan border. With funding from the German Federal Foreign Office and the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, we have strengthened primary health care delivery, treated acute malnutrition, and improved community-level health outcomes.

Action Against Hunger has also provided the technical support behind two of our published assessments, strengthening our own evidence-gathering capacity in the process.

Sectors delivered together

Selected joint programmes

• 2021–2024 — Multi-sectoral humanitarian response to the deteriorating nutrition situation in severely affected crisis contexts, funded by GFFO.
• 2023–2024 — Cross-border emergency relief: integrated health, water, sanitation and hygiene support for drought-affected populations in Somalia and Kenya.
• Evidence — Technical support for our Elwak Multi-Sectoral Needs Assessment (2020) and Rapid Nutrition Assessment (2021), both published in full.

Our partnership with WFP covers both ends of the food security response: lifesaving emergency assistance for communities hit by conflict, disaster and displacement, and the predictable transfers that reduce the need for emergency aid in the first place. We implement the Baxnaano social safety net programme in collaboration with the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs.

Our cash-based transfers let families buy food in their own local markets — supporting Somali traders and preserving household dignity and choice rather than displacing both.

Sectors delivered together

What we implement

• Relief assistance — Emergency food support for communities affected by conflict, disasters and displacement.
• Nutrition — Targeted prevention and treatment of malnutrition among children under five, pregnant and breastfeeding women, and other at-risk groups.
• Baxnaano — The national social safety net programme, delivered with the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs.

The Somalia Humanitarian Fund is a pooled, UN-managed funding mechanism — and one that allocates directly to us rather than through an international intermediary. Receiving SHF funding requires meeting rigorous accountability, reporting and due diligence standards, which makes it one of the clearest external validations of our systems.

Our SHF work began in Gedo and has since extended into complex urban displacement settings in Banadir, where we deliver lifesaving assistance while strengthening local service delivery systems.

Sectors delivered together

Selected programmes

• 2021–2022 — Increasing access to safe WASH promotion for displaced people in IDP settlements, Bardhere district.
• 2024 onwards — Targeted lifesaving assistance in the Benadir region, strengthening local service delivery systems.

The International Rescue Committee funded our response to the floods that struck Bardhere and Buurdhuubo districts — an emergency that arrived directly on the heels of prolonged drought, hitting communities that had not yet recovered.

Selected joint programmes

• 2024 — Emergency response for flood-affected populations in Bardhere and Buurdhuubo, Gedo region.

Oxfam GB was the first international organisation to fund Lifeline Gedo, three years after our founding. That early support — for water trucking and permanent water facilities — established the WASH capability that remains one of our strongest technical areas today.

Selected joint programmes

• 2008 — Emergency water trucking scheme and public health promotion, in coordination with Devcon.
• 2008 — Provision of water facilities at Damasa, Elwak district.
• 2008–2009 — Rehabilitation of water facilities at Khadija Haji, Belet Xaawo district.

With Pact, and DFID funding, we worked on the governance side of our mandate — strengthening the local district peace committee in Gherille as a functioning mechanism for managing conflict within the community.

Selected joint programmes

• 2013 — Enhancing peacebuilding by strengthening the role of the local district peace committee in conflict management, Gherille, Gedo region.

Medici per la Pace is among our partner organisations. We are preparing a full account of this partnership — the sectors covered, the districts reached and the programmes delivered together.

Detail to be added.

NRC has led consortium arrangements under which we delivered resilience and durable solutions programming, alongside Concern Worldwide.

Selected joint programmes

• 2018–2019 — BRCiS SHARP Uplift project.
• 2018–2020 — Durable Solutions under the EU Trust Fund.
• 2018–2022 — BRCiS II, Building Resilient Communities in Somalia.

IOM Somalia funded one of our largest single water interventions, reaching eighteen villages during the 2017 drought.

Selected joint programmes

• 2017 — Emergency supply of clean water to 6,156 households (36,936 people) across 18 villages, with borehole rehabilitation in Gedo.

BRCiS is one of Somalia's most significant resilience initiatives, and our involvement stretches back to its first phase in 2013. For most of that time we participated through Concern Worldwide. In 2026 we joined as a full member in our own right — a recognition of our systems, compliance and delivery capacity that we regard as one of our most important institutional milestones.

What we deliver within BRCiS

Phases

• BRCiS I (2014–2017) — Our entry into multi-year resilience programming.
• BRCiS II (2018–2022) — Expanded delivery, including the SHARP Uplift project and nutrition-sensitive resilience building.
• Drought scale-ups (2021–2023) — The IRF drought scale-up and the HARBS drought response.
• BRCiS III (2023–2028) — Currently active, funded by FCDO.

Through the Caafimaad Plus consortium we deliver integrated, life-saving health and nutrition services with ECHO funding — combining fixed health facilities, mobile teams that reach villages with no clinic of their own, and community outreach that identifies malnourished children before they reach crisis point.

Where we deliver

Programme history

• 2020–2023 — Caafimaad Plus across Banadir, Gedo and Lower Shabelle.
• 2022 — Drought response action through the consortium.
• 2023 — Integrated emergency life-saving health, nutrition and WASH support for populations affected by conflict, displacement, floods, drought and disease outbreaks in Bardhere.
• Currently active — Continuing health and nutrition delivery across our operational districts.

Membership of the Somali Cash Consortium demonstrates our capacity to deliver cash programming at scale and in line with international best practice. Through direct ECHO funding channelled via the consortium, we provide unconditional cash transfers that let households meet their own most urgent needs — preserving dignity and choice during crisis.

What this involves

Hanaano — Preventing Wasting in the Mandera Triangle — is our flagship programme against child wasting, funded by Irish Aid through Concern Worldwide. Rather than treating malnutrition alone, Hanaano works on its causes together: nutrition services, safe water, climate-smart livelihoods and women's economic empowerment across the Somalia–Kenya–Ethiopia border area.

Hanaano is also the programme we take to the international stage. Our Executive Director presented the model at the Africa Climate Summit II in Addis Ababa, and our Project Coordinator represented it at COP30 in Belém.

What the programme covers

Timeline

• April 2024 – December 2026 — Current phase, funded by Irish Aid.
• 2025 — Presented at the Welthungerhilfe and World Vision panel, Africa Climate Summit II, and at COP30. See our advocacy work →

ECHO has funded our emergency response work for more than fifteen years, from the GABAAD and HOPE projects in 2010–2011 through to today's Caafimaad Plus health programming and multi-purpose cash assistance via the Somali Cash Consortium. It is the donor behind the greatest number of our emergency interventions.

Funded through

FCDO, formerly DFID, is the donor behind our longest-running resilience programming. Every phase of BRCiS has been FCDO-funded, as is our current Durable Solutions work in Bardhere, which runs to 2028. FCDO also funded our integrated El Niño response across South Central Somalia.

Currently funding

Irish Aid funds the Hanaano programme — Preventing Wasting in the Mandera Triangle — which is our flagship work on child wasting and the model we present internationally. Irish Aid also supported our Emergency Response Fund Scheme in 2022.

Currently funding

The German Federal Foreign Office funded our multi-year nutrition response with Action Against Hunger, addressing the deteriorating nutrition situation in severely affected crisis contexts between 2021 and 2024.

GIZ funds our hydroponics project directly — an innovation introducing soil-free, water-efficient growing systems in communities where drought has made conventional farming unreliable. This is one of our first directly funded bilateral donor relationships, and it grew out of engagement at the European Humanitarian Forum and the Africa Climate Summit.

Currently funding

World Bank funding has supported our drought response and resilience work, including the Somalia Crisis Recovery Response in 2022 — among the largest programmes we have delivered.

USAID funding supported nutrition-sensitive resilience building within the BRCiS programme, strengthening the link between resilience work and child nutrition outcomes.

Sida is among the institutional donors supporting humanitarian and resilience programming that reaches communities in Gedo.

Programme detail to be added.

GiveWell directs funding based on rigorous evidence of cost-effectiveness, making it a distinctive addition to our donor base and a strong external signal about the measurable impact of the work it supports.

Programme detail to be added.

QFFD funding has reached our programmes in Gedo through our partnership with Concern Worldwide, supporting humanitarian and development delivery across the region.

Trócaire supported humanitarian assistance for populations in crisis across Gedo in 2012. The Start Fund enabled our rapid response to families displaced by armed clashes in Belet Xaawo in 2021 — the kind of fast, flexible funding that matters most in the first days of a displacement emergency.