Somalia (S/PV.7191)

Valerie Amos, the Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, briefed the Council on 4 June 2014 (S/PV.7191) on the delivery of humanitarian assistance in Somalia and the impediments to such delivery, building upon the recent report on the same topic, S/2014/177.

The USG made two references to women, peace and security in her briefing. She first acknowledged that Somalia continues to have some of the worst development indicators in the world, where one in eighteen women die in childbirth; and second, recognized that decades of conflict have displaced more than one million people inside Somalia, leaving them particularly vulnerable to food insecurity and human rights violations including rape.

Although a relatively short meeting, and one that included two references to women peace and security, this briefing missed opportunities to press for the inclusion of a broader gender lens to accompany the delivery of humanitarian assistance, and to acknowledge the ways that women are particularly vulnerable within the ongoing military offensive beyond the sole instance of rape.

The most recent MAP on the situation in Somalia, March 2014, was specific to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM), and so the recommendations were not applicable to the more specific subject of humanitarian assistance delivery.

During the previous meeting on the situation in Somalia, S/PV.7181, the Council was briefed on the broader situation in Somalia and the activities of UNSOM, and so is not easily comparable. This was the first briefing from Valerie Amos since S/RES/2111 (2013), wherein the Council requested the Emergency Relief Coordinator to report on the delivery of humanitarian assistance in Somalia and on any impediments to that delivery (para.23).