Horn Relief: What we do
Emergency Response
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Horn Relief recognizes that our partner communities are facing recurrent humanitarian crises that are linked to sustained environmental degradation, lack of education, absence of social services and the pressing need for diversification of livelihoods.
In response, Horn Relief has expanded its operations to include emergency response through program designed to address the organization’s guiding principles, namely the respect of stakeholders’ dignity, transparency, community empowerment and participation and link relief to development:
- Cash-based programs
- Rehabilitation of water sources
- Water trucking
- Non-food items distributions
Cash-based programs, in particular, have enabled Horn Relief to transfer cash to various households needs while undertaking targeted micro-projects that address the root causes of the emergencies. Such micro-projects have included road repairs, water sources development and rehabilitation and environmental rehabilitation initiatives for rangeland repairs and water harvesting.
In response to an increase in immediate humanitarian need in Somalia in recent years, Horn Relief has expanded its operations to include emergency cash-based interventions, water trucking, and rehabilitation of water sources. Labour-intensive cash-based programmes, such as swale construction (below), have enabled Horn Relief to undertake targeted projects that address the root causes of environmental degradation while providing immediate relief to households in need. Emergency cash relief has also been used in times of acute humanitarian emergency.
Horn Relief has actively promoted the empowerment of communities through flexible resource transfer in times of emergencies and livelihood recovery through a cash-based response. As a result, Horn Relief has spearheaded the development of cash relief and cash for work operational methodologies and trained other international NGOs such as Oxfam Great Britain and Norwegian People's Aid in the use of tools and strategies for cash-based programming.
Using this holistic methodology, Horn Relief has designed its emergency response to have a longer-term impact, as cash for work projects are used to implement infrastructure and environmental interventions that will have lasting impacts. Horn Relief recognizes that the region's problems are not limited to the crisis of one year or one season, but that the issues facing our partner communities have deep roots in environmental degradation, neglect for education and other social services, and the pressing need for diversification of livelihoods that will provide alternatives to pastoralism for those who face destitution as a result of on-going emergencies.
For more information on Horn Relief’s Emergency Cash for Work Programme (ECRP) carried out in 2004/2005, click on the following link to read an article on the project by Horn Relief’s Deputy Director, Degan Ali, Program Assistant Fanta Toure, and Tilleke Kiwied of Novib (Oxfam Netherlands) recently published in the Overseas Development Institute’s Humanitarian Policy Network paper:
