WASH

Only about half of the people in Somalia have access to a basic water supply, and just 38 percent have basic sanitation nearly 3 in 10 people still practice open defecation, according to UNICEF and the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme. The result is recurring outbreaks of cholera and acute watery diarrhea, especially among children under five, every time drought or flooding disrupts already-fragile water systems. Clean water and a working toilet are not incidental to development — they’re the precondition for a child staying healthy enough to attend school and a health facility being safe enough to treat a mother in labor. Our WASH work spans long-term infrastructure and emergency response.

Somalia cycles through drought and flood, and access to safe water and sanitation is one of the clearest predictors of whether a community can withstand the next one. Unsafe water and poor sanitation drive the disease outbreaks — cholera, acute watery diarrhea — that follow almost every displacement crisis in the region.

We invest in permanent infrastructure — boreholes, wells, latrines — wherever water tables and community demand support it, and keep emergency water trucking and treatment in reserve for when drought or displacement outpaces that infrastructure. We train local water management committees to operate and maintain what we build, so a completed project keeps functioning long after the program itself ends.