Concern Worldwide is intensifying its support for drought-affected communities in Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia, as the Horn of Africa faces worsening conditions that could leave 6.5 million people food insecure and over 2.5 million children malnourished. The organization’s response comes amid deteriorating weather forecasts and widespread crop failures due to prolonged dry spells and inadequate rainfall across the region.
In Kenya, drought has deepened due to the failure of seasonal rains since late 2024, with 20 of 23 arid and semi-arid counties experiencing severe shortages of food, water, and pasture. The situation has resulted in significant livestock losses and “high likelihoods of crop failure,” according to regional climate authorities. Malnutrition rates are rising sharply, especially in Turkana, Marsabit, Wajir, Garissa, and Mandera, where nearly 742,000 children under five and over 109,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women require urgent nutrition support.
Somalia faces compounding crises driven by poor rainfall, flooding, and ongoing conflict. Around 3.4 million people are already in acute food insecurity, with 624,000 at emergency levels. Projections show this number could climb to 4.4 million people—nearly a quarter of the population—as the crucial Deyr rains are expected to fail. Food insecurity is worsening in displaced urban areas like Bay and Bakool, where conditions are expected to deteriorate from crisis to emergency levels.
In Ethiopia’s Somali Region, years of poor rainfall have decimated pasture and water sources, leaving livestock in poor condition and pushing child malnutrition rates above emergency thresholds. The failure of the main pastoral rains in 2025, combined with funding cuts for essential health and nutrition services, has intensified the humanitarian crisis.
Recurring droughts have become a devastating cycle in the Horn of Africa. The 2011 famine in Somalia killed over 260,000 people, and the 2021–2023 drought—the worst in 60 years—affected 23.5 million people and killed 13.2 million livestock. While humanitarian aid and resilience strategies have since improved response capacity, climate change has made droughts around 100 times more likely, according to scientific analysis.
Concern Worldwide’s response focuses on both emergency relief and long-term resilience. In Somalia, through the Somali Cash Consortium, Concern provides cash assistance that enables families to meet essential needs and sustain livelihoods. In Kenya’s Turkana and Marsabit counties, the organization is supporting farmers with emergency livestock feed to preserve animal health and milk supply for malnourished children and mothers. It is also leading nutrition interventions, hygiene promotion, water system rehabilitation, and cash transfers to stabilize food access.
Concern’s Hanaano programme, operating in the Mandera triangle (where Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia meet), takes an integrated approach to tackling child malnutrition. Funded by Irish Aid, it supports the emergency transport of nutrition supplies, delivers cash aid to families, and sustains local markets amid growing hardship.
However, funding cuts are threatening life-saving operations. Concern’s Somalia Country Director, Richard Nunn, warned that by October only 21% of needed humanitarian funding had been received. Critical health services have already been disrupted, with the UN reporting 170 health facilities affected. Nunn emphasized that reduced funding could worsen the impacts of future droughts and emergencies, urging the international community to maintain financial support to sustain essential humanitarian and recovery efforts in the region.
