♪♪ -Our warming planet is triggering more extreme weather with cataclysmic consequences.

A worldwide rise in natural disasters.

-Today we are seeing many more people incredibly vulnerable.

Each disaster that puts people in such dire straits is getting worse.

It's getting more complex.

It's getting wider spread.

Countries are overwhelmed.

-When disaster strikes, anywhere in the world, a tried and tested operation swings into action.

-You have emergency telecommunications.

Here you have the air ops.

-Bringing order to chaos, hope from despair.

This series follows the mechanics of disaster relief, from the inside.

-In any emergency, there are four critical clusters -- health, food, WASH, and shelter.

-Specialist relief workers team up with local people on the ground.

-[ Speaking native language ] I'm working, but my heart is very sick because I don't like to see my people at this time.

-Can survivors recover before disaster strikes again?

-It will be years before we get this done.

But we're all here together working hand in hand.

-And how will the world cope with more frequent and ferocious disasters?

-We learn lessons, and we build on it.

It's a global phenomenon.

No one is immune from this.

-In 2019, Somalia is reeling from the worst series of droughts on record.

A slow-motion disaster with far-reaching consequences.

-Local communities and aid workers find new solutions to tackle the crisis.

-This is Moseh.

He will be helping us throughout the process.

-But if the drought cycles continue, it could mean the end of a 5,000-year-old nomadic existence.

-This drought is destroying a way of life.

This is bigger than just us as aid organizations.

♪♪ -Across the world, more than two billion people survive on Earth's driest lands.

Searing temperatures are common, and rainfall is scarce.

But, today, worsening environmental pressures are pushing some countries past a tipping point.

-Drought is fairly easy to understand in sort of common parlance.

Drought is when rain stops and you don't have enough water.

The impact of a drought is what can create a crisis in almost every facet of society and people's lives.

-One country at severe risk is Somalia.

It lies on the eastern Horn of Africa.

Two-thirds of its population live as nomads, herding goats and camels across vast open pastures.

-"Livestock is life" is a Somali saying.

It's their food.

It's their bank account.

-Animals, it's everything from culture, from livelihoods, from the economy.

Animals are the air the people in Somalia breathe.

It's more than just a way of life.

It is survival.

♪♪ -Yet, today, their survival hangs in the balance.

♪♪ In the past few years, rains have regularly failed, wells and watering holes have dried up, and many of the country's animals have died.

Recurring droughts are now forcing millions of people to abandon the lands that once sustained them.

And this has repercussions that threaten Somali society.

-This drought is destroying a social structure.

And we have to find a solution because droughts are not going away.

♪♪ -A self-governed region in the north of Somalia, called Somaliland, is one of the worst-affected areas.

Outside the small rural town of Salaxley, a cluster of nomadic families who've lost their livestock have banded together into a makeshift camp.

Now international aid agencies are here to assess how they can help.

-Let's start because I feel like we've kept people waiting for us, okay?

[ Indistinct conversations ] -Sarah is leading the team from the UN's refugee agency, UNHCR.

-How are you?

Good morning.

-I'm fine.

-This is one of the drought hot spots across Somaliland.

We have an estimated 500 households, and the purpose of the team is going to be, today, they're really going to check how are they actually in need.

That's really the issue to see here.

Salaam alaikum.

Can I join you?

I've just come to listen, that's all, okay?

-The families have moved here, as there's access to a nearby well.

-[ Speaking native language ] -Okay, you carry it like that?

You are strong!

-It's a lifeline for these nomadic communities.

-I was asking them, what is it that you really need?

It's as basic as it gets.

I mean, I've worked in so many other places and this is probably the most basic answer I have heard, where they just said, "Well, we just need enough food to give us maybe three meals a day because right now we do two meals or one meal.

And just a little more covering."

They are resilient.

They're resilient in the face of incredible odds.

I think with the right kind of involvement from, not just us, but from everyone, I think they'd be able to get back to it.

This is not the first drought they're seeing.

She said, "We've seen this before."

She said just the last one was really bad.

♪♪ -As global temperatures rise to new heights, droughts are hitting Somalia more and more.

Throughout this century there's been a drought almost every year.

-Drought and Somalia have become synonymous nowadays.

It's more than just lack of rain.

It is a silent disaster because no one talks about their struggles until it's too late for them.

-One of the issues with drought has always been that it's slow onset, and yet you can see it coming.

Disaster preparedness has improved so much that we're able to see things in advance.

Drought conditions, rainfall conditions, the impact of those on agriculture and the impact of agriculture on nutrition.

The question then becomes, are you able to respond?

♪♪ -A slow response to another drought in 2011 brought Somalia to the brink of catastrophe.

Reports were predicting high levels of mortality.

-This is the face of the human tragedy unfolding in Somalia.

-Unless we have immediate support, international support, definitely there will be a catastrophic situation.

-But large-scale international support didn't come.

[ Gunfire ] In 2011, al-Shabab, a jihadist group with links to al-Qaeda, were at war with the government.

[ Gunfire ] The conflict stopped some agencies from being able to access the worst-hit areas.

And international funding for aid was too low.

-Currently our resources are woefully inadequate to deal with the problems.

We have an appeal that is only, at the moment, 40% met.

-On the ground, the crisis was escalating.

-Large numbers of children are dying on a daily basis.

-We really need to put politics aside, and we are in a humanitarian emergency.

We really need to save lives.

-Only when the death toll began to soar did international governments scale up the relief efforts.

But for many, it was too late.

A toxic combination of conflict, politics, and failure to act fast enough turned the 2011 drought into a famine.

It was one of the deadliest disasters of the 21st century.

Where storms like Idai, Katrina, and Haiyan killed thousands, earthquakes in Kashmir and Haiti, tens to hundreds of thousands, in Somalia's drought over a quarter-of-a-million people lost their lives.

-These are pretty staggering numbers, yeah.

In 2011, the international community, even the government authorities, everyone was criticized for not being able to respond very quickly.

-If you want to respond earlier and prevent famine, you need you need to be able to respond when there is no famine, right?

Well before it.

It is a political failing when famine occurs like that.

Nations all over the planet just said, "That's not good enough.

We saw it coming, and we let it come."

♪♪ -Since 2011, al-Shabab has been forced out from its major strongholds in the south.

But now drought is returning once again.

To the north, in Somaliland, years of failed rains are destroying people's ability to survive.

This time, aid workers are ready.

-Really there was still the memory of what had happened in 2011.

You know, agency after agency said, "We can't have 2011 again."

-Today, over 25 local and international agencies work with the government to help people in need.

Somaliland's capital city, Hargeisa, is the coordination hub.

♪♪ Their leaders must agree on the best way to respond to the drought.

-I was pretty shocked by the Salaxley site.

What was really shocking was to see... -When you have a disaster or a crisis, there needs to be a basic coordination.

Coordination can be a heavy bureaucratic process where you're sitting around meetings and talking endlessly.

And yet we've learned that just running around a little bit like a headless chicken and distributing things and doing things doesn't work.

-They've learned that the best way to achieve a coordinated response is to carve up the emergency needs into key subgroups... ...then assign who does what in the areas most in need.

♪♪ -A disaster on this scale is overwhelming the system here, and the first priority for any humanitarian response is keeping people alive.

There's been a recent report.

The report predicts that 6.3 million people cannot guarantee access to food, regular food.

That is troubling.

♪♪ ♪♪ -The report shows northern Somaliland is facing a food emergency where people could begin to starve.

Now teams must intervene to avoid another famine.

One village in danger is Gadhka.

The UN's World Food Programme dispatches a team with urgently needed supplies.

-We are in one of the very rural areas, very rural communities.

If you look around, basically there's nothing around.

There are no markets.

You don't see any crops or plantation.

Most of the communities here have lost their livestock.

That's why they don't have any other sources of income or sources of food.

We have around 13.1 tons of food available in the store now to be distributed.

[ People speaking in native language ] -The team gives each family 100 pounds of a cereal called sorghum, 20 pounds of dried peas, and 12 pounds of vegetable oil.

A family of six must survive on these rations for a month.

-This cereal is sorghum.

The community are fairly familiar with this food type.

This has been specifically grown.

It is fortified, and it has all the nutrients that is needed to help them cope with the drought.

-Each month, trucks deliver over 5,000 tons of emergency food aid across the country.

-We have around 900 villages that we give food to each and every month.

So we have to plan accordingly.

The overall scale is huge.

-From warehouses in major cities, the World Food Programme delivers vital supplies over a vast road network to hundreds of sites across Somalia, preventing the food crisis from getting worse.

But it's not just access to food that people need to survive.

♪♪ -People who live in the countryside move far places in search of water.

But now the drought is recurrent.

It's everywhere.

What is happening is not something that they're used to.

♪♪ -In Fuguho, northern Somaliland, even reliable groundwater sources have become dry.

For families that have already moved here, there is nowhere else to go.

-In this parched landscape, villages now rely on tankers to deliver emergency water pumped from deep underground.

The Islamic Relief aid agency has set up a network of trucking routes to carry out regular deliveries.

[ People speaking in native language ] -There's no near, surrounding village water facilities.

Islamic Relief has providing emergency water trucking.

If we don't intervene, people will start dying.

-Every day, the trucks supply nearly 2,000 households in remote areas.

But trucking water can't continue forever.

-The real fear in a place like Somalia is that you get high levels of starvation that can even amount to famine.

And the F-word -- famine -- you know, was evident in 2011 in Somalia.

And over 260,000 people dying, over half of that number are children under five.

That's where the vulnerability is.

♪♪ ♪♪ -In isolated places like Biyooley, medical teams from the Somali Red Crescent Society run mobile clinics.

-Now the mobile team has arrived in the village where they will serve the community.

This tent is supposed to be served by the pregnant mothers that require privacy.

And here our special department for children under five.

-To check for malnutrition, the team use a graded tape to measure each child's upper arm.

When the arm band is amber or red, it alerts them that the child is malnourished.

This simple test reliably predicts the risk of mortality.

The team leader, Faisal, is monitoring the process.

The treatment for malnutrition is a fortified peanut-butter-like paste that should help the child gain weight.

But for one family at the clinic, this treatment might not be enough.

-This child is severely malnourished.

His age is seven months.

He is wasting.

Very thin.

And when you check mid-upper-arm circumference, you can see the red.

-When the child has severely malnourished with complications, that child is supposed to be referred to the nearest stabilization center.

-The child can't be treated by the mobile team.

He needs an ambulance.

-Now, for five hours this patient cannot wait.

We can transport with our car, with SRCS car.

[ Engine starts ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -They take him to the city of Berbera, where there's a specialist unit for malnourished children.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Salaam alaikum.

♪♪ ♪♪ The condition of the child is now improving.

The child now is getting better and now he is smiling with happiness.

And the mother also and his grandmother also, they are all happy.

We are very happy also because this child has come from the hard-to-reach area.

It's very difficult to cover, but at least we are doing something that most of the people are appreciating.

-Aid agencies face a massive challenge to keep malnutrition under control.

In a long and complex disaster like this, society itself is being damaged.

But perhaps there's a better way to provide support that can be found within the country.

-It always surprises people to learn that often in places where there is severe malnutrition or even famine, that you would find ample food stocks.

It is very often the inability of people to purchase that food that is the bigger problem.

♪♪ -Outside the village of Mandheera, the World Food Programme has a new solution to tackle the crisis.

Instead of shipping in food, they're helping people to buy what's already there.

[ People speaking in native language ] The team has asked local shop owners to sell their goods in a specially created mobile market.

-Salaam alaikum.

We have around six retailers present today with their different food commodities that they are providing.

They have different cereals like rice, wheat flour, pastas.

And they also have fresh vegetables.

They also have different beans.

-For families who've lost their income, the World Food Programme gives $70 a month, which they can spend as they choose.

The team load the cash onto a card via a new electronic system.

-The card is inserted into the machine, and they're verifying it with her fingerprint.

And once they verify, she will be able to tell them what she wants to purchase.

So, for her, this is her choice of items she wanted.

She has rice, pasta, vegetable oil, dates, sugar, and wheat flour.

-Cash transfers are faster, cheaper, and more efficient than shipping food into the country.

But the cash plays an even bigger role.

It supports the fragile local economy that's been devastated by the drought.

-We are empowering the local farmers to produce more.

We are helping the market, and we are circulating the money within the economy.

And both the local farmers and the retailers will benefit as well.

While they know the current situation, they are in drought, they know that, but then they're trying to make the best out of it.

-Electronic cash transfers are a new humanitarian solution to help the whole of society recover.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Cash is a really useful as a form of humanitarian aid in a place like Somalia.

It gives them the flexibility to respond to the crisis in terms of whatever the impact is.

If they need to buy food with it, they can do that.

If they need to buy water with it, they can do that.

If they need to pay for transport to get to an urban center to find a job, they can do that.

-It is allowing people to make the choices that they need to make to survive.

And if the food is actually there, allowing people to buy it is a great idea.

-Keeping the markets afloat has stopped widespread food shortages.

-But a new challenge is emerging.

Having lost their animals to drought, many families are now migrating in huge numbers.

They have become what the aid agencies call IDPs -- internally displaced people.

-IDPs are people who are forced -- I think that's really the key.

They're forced to leave their homes and move to another location within the borders of their country.

-By that time, they tend to be so impoverished that they move the shortest possible distance they can to find a place that can sustain them.

And so, typically, that means the nearest town or the nearest city.

♪♪ -Reports show there are now over 2,000 camps across Somalia and Somaliland.

2.6 million internally displaced people face the reality of life in these camps.

-I remember when I was living in the refugee camp.

It is beyond imagination.

Living away from your home and from the people that you knew, from the livelihoods, from your dreams.

Becoming a "displaced person," it really takes away your dignity, your sense of belonging.

You become a number.

You become statistics.

Being a refugee was attached to how you want to survive, was attached to you getting fed, you getting schooled.

That is what happens when people flee.

♪♪ -Those arriving at the camp outside the town of Salaxley are greeted by aid agencies offering help.

They will distribute household and shelter kits to the newly arrived migrants.

-We're giving basic survival items.

It includes a kitchen set.

It includes a sleeping mat.

You get a small jerrican.

You get a tarpaulin and blankets because in these kind of places it does get cold at night.

If you've moved, you're able to give some basic shelter to your family and have a place to sleep.

[ People speaking in native language ] So the process here really is that they're being checked.

They will come here.

They will sign off.

They will go, and then they will collect their items.

Distributions have to be very well organized.

You can't have everybody rushing up to grab their stuff.

Everyone sits here.

Everyone knows that they've gotten their stuff.

It's the same as everyone else.

They're literally sitting on what they have.

And they'll leave at the same time.

-For those who have lost their livestock, the aid provides some relief.

But it's not a long-term solution to the continuing crisis.

-It's a very tough situation they're in.

I mean, assistance can't continue forever.

They're also aware of that.

And I think what is really important is they find a means to live.

♪♪ It feels like all you get is, "Great, at least we're averting famine," or, "Great, at least where we've responded to the drought."

But that's not enough because people's coping mechanisms have really been destroyed.

So it's quite a frustrating cycle sometimes because these droughts are just going to keep coming along.

-When you see people who have moved into displaced camps, at that point, in a sense, the failure has already happened.

So the failure of their own personal livelihoods has already taken place.

This massive challenge that we now see is to try to intervene with people who still remain in rural areas to stop that slide into destitution.

-To stem this unfolding crisis, there are now efforts to prevent people from being displaced in the first place.

The key is to protect their livelihoods.

♪♪ -Livelihoods and jobs are a key factor in understanding what it is that keeps people alive and also what it is that gives people a sense of purpose.

One of the things that's interesting about the drought response in Somalia is that you have to think about livestock, right?

You wouldn't do that in most places.

-Somalia's lands are dominated by pastoralists, people who rear and sell animals to make a living.

Surprisingly, this traditional livelihood generates nearly half of the country's income.

But when the drought killed off most of the animals, it decimated the entire economy.

♪♪ In Somaliland, in the pastoral community of Bali-Jiilaal, some animals have survived.

The priority now is to protect them.

♪♪ The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization employs Somali vets to work closely with the local community.

-[ Speaking in native language ] ♪♪ We always say that animals are the backbone of the Somali community.

If the community has water and healthy animals, they are happy, very happy.

This is Moseh.

He is the community elder here.

So he will be helping us throughout the process.

Helping the community to bring their animals here.

A lot of animals are waiting us, so let's go and treat animals.

Yeah.

♪♪ ♪♪ [ People speaking in native language ] This animal just produced.

[ Goat bleating ] When animals give birth, they can get diseases, like brucellosis, that go from animals to humans.

So I'll be going to give this animal some drugs that are going to help uterine infections.

So we are protecting the health of the animals but also humans because they are interlinked.

In 2014, nearly four million animals were exported from Somaliland.

And you know how much they contribute?

They contribute more than $300 million in this country.

So the biggest sector that contribute to the lives of Somaliland is livestock.

So hopefully this animal will gain more weight and produce more milk.

[ People speaking in native language ] [ Woman singing in native language ] ♪♪ ♪♪ So if you come with your animals, we will write your name, your number, the number of animals you have, the number of animals we treat, and you sign.

We use fingerprints like a signature.

♪♪ [ Woman singing in native language ] ♪♪ -As well as treatment, some agencies give out new animals to help the most vulnerable families recover.

To replace a goat costs around $40, compared to veterinary costs of 40 cents per animal -- a hundred times cheaper.

Treatment and vaccination is a cost-effective way to save the livelihoods of the pastoralists that remain.

-Each animal counts.

Each animal contributes to the life of a kid who is going to school, each helps a mother.

So each animal is very important.

[ Woman singing in native language ] ♪♪ -Some people have said that pastoralism has seen its day.

I don't think that's the case.

I just think it's going through some significant changes.

It is changing in the way that people rely on it as a source of income and livelihood.

But I don't think its days are over.

[ Woman singing in native language ] -For now, preserving this way of life is critical to the country's economic recovery.

But the drought is also threatening another traditional livelihood.

Farmers attempting to grow crops in Somalia's fertile regions are also struggling.

Drought has hit this season's cereal harvest.

It's 68% below average, the worst on record.

-People mention that the land is getting looser in parts because of this kind of very quick succession of droughts.

So it's actually becoming very difficult to plant again.

-They're caught in a vicious cycle.

Lands that have become damaged and degraded cannot retain water.

This leads to another destructive force that you might not expect in a drought.

Flooding.

-One of the really unfortunate aspects of drought is that they tend to be accompanied by floods.

As droughts become more frequent, floods also become more frequent and it becomes, in some ways, more destructive.

-The river overflows.

The crops are destroyed.

So the farmers, they're in a state of confusion.

They don't know why when it rains, it's flooding, and when there's no rain, it totally becomes dry.

-To address these challenges, the Somaliland government is experimenting with schemes that have worked in other parts of the world.

-There are a range of steps that can be taken to try to either return land to its productive capacity or to slow down the impact of increasing desertification.

-One method is to dig half-moon shaped trenches.

These slow down flash flooding, retain water, and help to grow crops in dry conditions.

♪♪ Another way Somalia can combat drought is to use solar energy.

-Solar power is incredibly valuable, and incredibly abundant, of course, in Somali.

It's sunny just about all year round.

So it's a really untapped resource.

-Solar power can drive drip-irrigation systems that help increase water efficiency and reduce soil erosion.

It can also power technology like desalination units, which can produce fresh water from deep underground or from the sea.

Technology will help protect some livelihoods from the impact of drought.

But for many, the financial investment is beyond their reach.

Now, in Somaliland, a local agency has a plan to help even the poorest farmers get back on their feet.

-Here at the farm, the drought has affected them a lot.

What we are doing is we are helping them grow some crops.

-Crops must be planted quickly to take advantage of any new rain.

But, first, the land needs to be prepared.

To boost the farmer's yield and support local business, aid agencies are subsidizing local tractor rental.

[ Woman singing in native language ] Rental makes engine power more affordable to millions of small-scale farmers, enabling rapid tilling of the land.

[ Woman singing in native language ] -If they are preparing one hectare just by hand, you know, it's gonna to take two-and-a-half days, three days.

The tractor will take almost one hour.

-Rental businesses are helping to boost the economy and crop yields across rural Africa.

But the crops still depend on rain, which is needed more than ever.

-The problem is that people's livelihoods mainly depend on water, and when there is lack of rain, they basically don't have other mechanisms where they can turn to.

So their only hope is to get more rain.

-In a future where rain is less and less certain, the key will be finding new ways of making a living.

-Diversification of livelihoods is absolutely central.

One of the key challenges for humanitarian action is to understand how important diversified livelihoods are, not to see people as just farmers or just pastoralists or just urban dwellers, but that they're probably dependent on a variety of things.

-Along the coast, the government's encouraging the growth of the fishing industry to help diversify livelihoods.

Whilst in rural villages, like Gabiley, there's a sweeter source of income.

♪♪ [ Woman singing in native language ] -Beekeeping is just one way for families to diversify their income and adapt to the increasing number of droughts.

But can the whole population adapt fast enough?

-Climate change is having a huge impact on the region.

It's not a future scenario.

People are becoming increasingly destitute and impoverished as a result of their inability to support themselves on their land.

-Across Somalia, people are abandoning rural areas and moving into towns and cities to survive.

This creates a different problem.

-They become, in some ways, completely part of the urban-poor landscape, and that's quite devastating.

-The populations in the cities are overflowing, the camps are crowded.

Life, even in the cities, is another terrible situation that they find themselves in.

I feel I'm very lucky, very privileged to have escaped the life of the camp.

And it saddens me to know that there are still many people who are living in that kind of situation.

-In Somalia and Somaliland, 2.6 million people are displaced, almost 20% of the population.

♪♪ The impact of drought and climate change is a challenge the world must face.

♪♪ The UN predicts, by 2050, the number of environmental migrants worldwide could reach nearly one billion people.

How should the world respond?

-I don't think anyone wants a dependency on others.

So I do think that there is still an opportunity to bring the prevention of mass migration.

And it really has got to be an investing in the root causes, whether it is climate change or it is a conflict situation.

Planning for drought, this is something that we can do.

This is something we can invest in.

And that we don't do it as often as we should perhaps is a wake-up call to us.

-When you start to ask these really important questions about the future, you need more than humanitarians around the table.

You need the local government.

You need local communities.

You need people who are experts in development and livelihoods and all of those other things because, you know, this is a whole-of-society problem, and you need a whole-of-society response.

-Can the humanitarian community cover everyone?

No.

I think the humanitarians do a Band-Aid job.

There's so much more that needs to be done.

This is bigger than just us as aid organizations.

-Today, Somalia is rebuilding from years of traumatic conflict and adapting to the challenges of a changing environment.

But for millions of nomadic people it's their ancient way of life that may have already changed forever.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -"When Disaster Strikes" is available on Amazon Prime Video.

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