Climate Change, Drought, and the Role of Local Governments in Building Community Resilience in Somalia

Abstract

This article examined the critical nexus between climate-induced drought and the role of local governments in building community resilience in Somalia, a nation that faced a "climate whiplash" ofextreme droughts and flash floods in early 2026. Data indicated that over 64% of the population in affected regions had faced internal displacement, which pushed the nation's carrying capacity to its limits. Utilizing a descriptive research design with a mixed-methods approach, data was collected from 384 respondents through structured questionnaires and semi-structured interview guides. Quantitative data was analyzed using SPSS Version 25, where descriptive statistics and Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient (r) were employed to determine the relationship between institutional intervention and resilience. The findings revealed a high severity of asset erosion, with mean scores of 4.74 for water scarcity and 4.62 for livestockmortality. Notably, the study identified a strong positive correlation (r=.642, p<.001) between local government intervention and community resilience levels, suggesting that decentralized governance served as a significant predictor of stability. However, qualitative interviews with key informants highlighted apersistent "capacity gap," where local councils remained stuck in reactive crisis management due to limited fiscal space. The study concluded that building resilience in Somalia was an institutional challenge that required moving beyond emergency relief toward sustainable, locally-led infrastructure. To bridge thevulnerability gap, the study recommended that local governments should be granted greater fiscal authority to manage climate-related revenues and that international donors should shift funding toward multi-year capacity-building grants. Based on the findings, local governments should be granted greater "fiscal space" and legislative authority to collect and manage local revenues specifically earmarked for climate-resilient infrastructure. Furthermore, the Federal Government of Somalia should formalize the role of district councils as the primary coordinators of international climate finance. Local authorities should also integrate traditional "Xeer" customary laws with modern administrative policies to create more robust, community-led mediation frameworks for resolving inter-clan conflicts. To ensure sustainability, international donors and NGOs should shift their funding models from short-term "emergency relief"toward multi-year "capacity-building" grants that allow local governments to hire technical experts. Finally, district administrations should invest in digital "Early Warning Systems" that translate meteorological data into local dialects to ensure that pastoralists and farmers receive actionable advice in time to protect their assets from approaching drought cycles.