H2H Network: Strengthening the humanitarian response in the Horn of Africa

Following the alarming drought in the Horn of Africa, the H2H Network has activated its fund mechanism to strengthen the humanitarian response in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya. H2H funding will enable seven specialised network members to support the wider humanitarian response through their technical expertise and services. This funded support package is now fully operational, and project activities will be completed by the beginning of next year. The services are freely available to all responders as part of the funded package. The H2H Network’s Executive Director Kim Scriven said,

The Horn of Africa is facing unprecedented drought, placing over 20 million people at risk of starvation. To support humanitarian responders in meeting the needs of the affected people, the H2H Network is providing highly needed services through our members. These broad-ranging services include increasing the accessibility and quality of information and communication, providing remote sensing and anticipatory analysis, and building community engagement and accountability.

The seven funded H2H Members will provide the following services to the humanitarian response in the Horn of Africa:

• Insecurity Insight will build NGO capacity to mitigate challenges in food delivery.
• IMPACT Initiative will improve the accessibility and quality of information on the drought’s impact and provide remote sensing and regional analysis.
• Groundwater Relief will support drought alert systems by monitoring groundwater levels.
• RedR UK will support in areas such as drought management & resilience planning, gender-sensitive responses, and community engagement. ‘
• CDAC Network will provide additional technical support to strengthen collective solutions to communication, community engagement, and accountability challenges.
• ACAPS will provide analyses of the drought and its consequences, including anticipatory analyses of future impacts.
• CLEAR Global will work to make language and communication data available to inform the targeting of humanitarian assistance and engagement of marginalized language communities.

An estimated 20 million people in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya need humanitarian assistance due to years of insufficient rainfall, causing the region’s worst drought in 40 years. Consequences such as crop failures, lack of water, and significant livestock deaths are exacerbating the already dire situation in the region driven by armed conflict and rising food prices. 20.9 million people are highly food insecure (IPC Phase 3+), including 3.4 million people in Emergency (IPC Phase 4) in Kenya and Somalia and 300,560 people in Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5) in Somalia.

To better assist the affected population with an efficient, impactful, and accountable humanitarian response, there is a need for increased data on the measurements of groundwater levels, sufficient information management and analyses, and a stronger common service to the affected communities. There is also a need for an improved understanding of the connections between conflict and hunger as well as prediction and mitigation strategies. The H2H Members’ independent, cross-cutting services are ideally placed to address these gaps.

The H2H Network supports its members with a variety of services, including the H2H Fund, a funding mechanism for network members to activate service packages to improve humanitarian assistance efficiently. Past service packages have been funded for Cyclone Idai in Mozambique, the Ebola epidemic in DR Congo, the security crisis in Burkina Faso, conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, Covid-19, the earthquake in Haiti, and the humanitarian crisis in Tigray, Ethiopia.

The network and its fund are supported by UK aid - from the British people and the U.S. Agency for International Development - from the American people, and hosted by the Danish Refugee Council.

For more information: https://h2hnetwork.org/activations/