The International Community's Humanitarian Assistance To Somalia

The world is evolving, borders are reduced, culture is shared from one country to another, people from different continents and countries are more than ever closer to each others. Solidarity between countries is increasingly visible as the world faces different challenges. Strong countries assist weaker ones, and in the effect of a disaster, the world comes together as one to find a solution.For many decades, Africa has been the center of much attention as Africa is often seen as a continent in constant need of help and assistance as many countries in this beautiful continent tend to often face crisis added to it the weight of bad economies and poor political systems. Many African countries-some more than others-are often on the spotlight for different reasons going from conflict to natural disasters thus in need of assistance.Somalia is one of the poorest and most challenged countries in Africa; ironically it is also the country that has received the most in terms of assistance from the international community. The humanitarian assistance to Somalia represents about two third of the country’s total economy. The last two decades have been Somalia worst period and donors did not stop pouring fund into solving Somalia’s many issues. In the last decades Somalia has often ranked first in the list of receivers of humanitarian assistance. But despite all the fund and attention received by Somalia, the country’s situation did not improve and is even heading to a more disastrous outcome as the international community humanitarian funding is seen reduction since the last global financial crisis. It has become more than ever important to find new ways to help Somalia if we really want the country to go back on his feet. For this purpose this paper studies the situation in Somalia and the causes of the country’s great needs, it also studies the international community funding mechanisms in order to understand where funds come from, how the money flows and how it’s used. In addition, this paper also aims to give an understanding of the positive impact of humanitarian assistance to Somalia. At last, based on the problems and gaps we discovered in the humanitarian assistance system to Somalia, we propose solutions aiming at rendering the humanitarian assistance to Somalia more effective and helping Somalia to overcoming its many problems.