Please refer to the attached file. Executive Summary The humanitarian community is increasingly scaling up Anticipatory Action (AA) to enable proactive responses to predictable climate-related shocks. By combining robust forecasting systems, pre-agreed activities, and pre-arranged financing, anticipatory action enables humanitarian actors to act before disasters occur, reducing human suffering, protecting livelihoods, preserving development gains, and delivering assistance in a more dignified, timely, and cost-effective manner. Somalia faces recurrent and increasingly severe flooding, particularly along the Juba and Shabelle river basins, where riverine floods are driven by above-average rainfall in the Ethiopian highlands and within Somalia. These floods regularly affect communities during the Gu (April-June) and Deyr (October-December) rainy seasons, causing displacement, destruction of livelihoods, and disruption of essential services. The 2023 Deyr floods underscored the devastating humanitarian consequences of recurrent flooding in Somalia. Approximately 2 million people were affected, including 1. 2 million people displaced, with widespread destruction of homes, livelihoods, and critical infrastructure. The floods damaged an estimated 691 water sources and 17, 900 latrines, significantly disrupting access to safe water and sanitation services, while 28 health facilities were severely affected, reducing access to essential healthcare. In Baidoa, flash floods impacted approximately 247, 000 people across 384 informal settlements and damaged more than 1, 000 communal latrines, exacerbating already precarious living conditions for displaced communities. Floodwaters also inundated agricultural land, destroyed livestock assets, damaged roads and schools, and disrupted local markets and public services, further deepening existing vulnerabilities and humanitarian needs across affected areas. Beyond physical destruction, flooding serves as a major protection risk multiplier. Women, children, older persons, persons with disabilities, minority groups, and internally displaced persons (IDPs) face heightened risks of displacement, family separation, gender-based violence (GBV), child labour, exploitation, loss of civil documentation, and increased competition over scarce land and natural resources. This Implementation Plan presents a collective approach to anticipatory action for riverine flooding, under the National Anticipatory Action Roadmap for Floods led by the Government of Somalia. It focuses on districts situated along the Juba and Shabelle river basins, particularly in Hiiraan, Middle Shabelle, Gedo, Middle Juba, Lower Juba, and Lower Shabelle, where communities face recurrent flood risks. The AA Implementation Plan was developed through a participatory process involving clusters and key UN agencies through a task team coordinated by OCHA, under the leadership of the Humanitarian Coordinator (HC). The implementation plan outlines coordinated, multi-sectoral packages of assistance designed to be implemented ahead of forecasted flooding. These interventions aim to protect lives and livelihoods, safeguard essential services, strengthen community preparedness, and reduce humanitarian needs before flooding reaches emergency levels. The Implementation Plan targets populations identified as being at highest risk from severe riverine flooding and prioritizes vulnerable households, including displaced populations and flood-prone communities. To ensure rapid implementation, the plan is supported by pre-arranged financing that will automatically activated when agreed trigger thresholds are reached. Funding will be released based on scientifically validated forecasts indicating a high probability of severe riverine flooding, enabling humanitarian partners to implement pre-agreed actions before the shock occurs. The Implementation Plan’s trigger mechanism is based on forecasting and monitoring systems that track rainfall, river discharge, and water levels in the Juba and Shabelle rivers. When predefined thresholds are reached, funding is released, and anticipatory actions are activated in designated high-risk districts. This ensures that assistance reaches communities before flood impacts peak, helping families protect assets, preserve livelihoods, and reduce displacement. By linking early warning systems, coordinated preparedness activities, and pre-arranged financing, this anticipatory action Implementation Plan represents a major step forward in reducing the humanitarian impacts of recurrent flooding in Somalia. It demonstrates a collective commitment by humanitarian partners and government institutions to shift from reactive crisis response toward proactive risk management, strengthening resilience and protecting vulnerable communities from predictable climate-related shocks. This Implementation Plan is aligned with Somalia’s National Transformation Plan (NTP) 2025-2029, which prioritizes strengthening resilience to climate shocks. The Plan directly supports the objectives of the Somalia National Anticipatory Action Roadmap 2025-2028, developed under the leadership of the Somali Disaster Management Agency (SoDMA), and builds on the national flood anticipatory action framework that guided anticipatory action activations in 2023 and 2024.
Anticipatory Action Implementation Plan Somalia – Floods
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