Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is in London to co-host the Global Food Security Summit with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the United Arab Emirates, and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF).
The conference, which is set for Monday in London, will include representatives from governments, humanitarian organizations, scientists working on international projects, and specialists in food and climate change. The summit will include a number of sessions centered around climate-resilient farming, creative agricultural methods, international collaboration in resource distribution and aiding nations such as Somalia, which because of socio-political and geographical circumstances, are at the forefront of the fight for food security.
In order to address the fundamental and frequently hidden causes of global food insecurity, Prime Minister Sunak underlined the necessity of taking global action. The United Nations reports that the most recent analysis shows that between April and June 2023, about 6.6 million people in Somalia were acutely food insecure.Â
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said that up to £100 million in humanitarian aid is being made available to nations affected by climate-related weather events, like Malawi, as well as to those most severely hit by food insecurity, such as Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, and Afghanistan. The national disaster agency of Somalia reported that floods brought on by intense rains that started in early October killed 50 people and forced over half a million more to flee their homes. According to the Somalia Disaster Management Agency (SoDMA), the intense rains also caused flash floods and landslides in other areas of Somalia, resulting in the destruction of livestock and crops.