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​As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rattle the world, I would like to take a moment to re-affirm our commitment to the safety and wellbeing of our staff, clients, families, and the communities in which we live and work.
 
Our team is closely monitoring advice issued from both the World Health Organization and local authorities daily. We will continue to take all necessary actions to protect our employees and their families, and we will continue working with our clients to minimize the impact on their operations.
 
Experience has shown that when affected people have been an integral part of planning and decision-making on humanitarian and development activities, and when they know what to expect in terms of assistance, they tend to provide feedback if they are aware of interference. Diversion by armed groups, local authorities or by those linked to them is far more difficult when communities know what assistance, they should be expecting and when there are channels that allow them to provide feedback safely and reliably.
 
In these strange times, when simply being outside is considered a risk, knowing that frontline  staff are there in the field, day and night, is an enormous source of pride for us all. It serves as a testament to the levels of courage, resolve and resilience within our ISIR Consulting family.
 
We're in this together and we stand ready to help during COVID-19.
 
Thank you!
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Abdirashid Salah

​On 19th August 2019, we celebrate the World Humanitarian Day by saluting the Somali women working in the humanitarian sector, and we also honor the humanitarian workers who risk, and sometimes lose, their lives to help. 

​This World Humanitarian Day, the UN and partners are launching the #WomenHumanitarians global campaign to pay special tribute to and raise support for the work women do to save lives and alleviate human suffering.

About the World Humanitarian Day
 
In 2008, the United Nations General Assembly designated 19 August as World Humanitarian Day to raise awareness about humanitarian assistance worldwide and to pay tribute to the people who risk their lives to provide it. This was in honor of the 22 people, seven of whom were women, who lost their lives in the 2013 attack on the Canal hotel in Baghdad, Iraq, including the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello.

Key issues
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Below-average rains across most of Somalia during the 2018 Deyr (October-December), followed by harsh weather conditions during the dry Jilaal (January–March 2019) season and the poor performance of the Gu’ (January-June 2019) rains in April, has led to worsening drought conditions in many parts of the country, according to the latest update by FAO-led Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit (FSNAU) and FEWSNET.
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This has caused deterioration in pasture availability and widespread water shortages in most pastoral and agropastoral livelihood zones, leading to earlier-than-normal water trucking, atypical livestock movements to watering points, and declines in livestock body conditions and milk production.
 
The worst-affected areas include Northern Inland Pastoral (NIP), East Golis Pastoral, Addun Pastoral and Hawd Pastoral livelihood zones. In these areas, severe pasture and water deficits and early water trucking have been reported. The harsh Jilaal has also affected rural livelihoods in southern Somalia including Bay/Bakool Agropastoral and Southern Agropastoral of Hiraan, although the impact is less severe compared to central and northern regions.
 
Limited saleable livestock assets, poor livestock body conditions, reduced access to milk, increased household expenditures on the rising cost of food and water, and overstretched social support networks have led to reduced food access. ​

Become familiar with a range of processes and tools for mitigating the environmental impact of reconstruction project or program.

Good resource governance can protect people’s property rights, provide basic services, help establish reliable state security, and boost sustainable economic.
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Courtesy of the United Nations Environment programme.

Somalia is situated in the most eastern tip of Africa known as the “Horn of Africa. “It has been the Gateway to Africa for business and trade for millennia. Somalia’s unique geographic location makes it a dynamic meeting place, where East meets West and North melts into South. Somalia is bordered by its historic trading partners; Kenya in the South-west, Ethiopia in the North-west and Djibouti and the Red Sea to the North. The vast Indian Ocean waves meet Somalia’s long coastline to the East and South.

Somalia’s wondrous equatorial forest is seamlessly joined by the white sand beaches of the Indian Ocean as one travels toward the South of the country. With a landmass of 637,000 Sq km and the longest coastline in all of Africa, Somalia is more than twice the size of Italy, but with less than one-third of the latter’s population.  
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Somalia has turned the corner from recent turmoil and is ready to resume its historical role as the Gateway and Business Centre of Africa and the Indian Ocean, and the Red Sea corridor.  

Somalia has nearly 2,000 miles of coastland, giving it an ideal vantage point of all trade that passes from the Western Hemisphere to the Eastern Hemisphere through the Indian Ocean. Shipping cargo goes from the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea, where it must then pass through the Strait of Bab-el-Man-deb before it can enter the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.   

The people   

Somalia’s population of over 12.3 million people and two million Diaspora living across the globe are a homogeneous society that shares a common ethnicity, religion, and language. The Somalis traditional way of life is mainly nomadic pastoralism, although there are sedentary communities in the riverine and inter-riverine. The Somali have systematically stretched their mercantile culture to their neighbors. Today’s multilingual descendants of their pastoralist and farmer forefathers have continued the business tradition and are now Telecom Operators, Logistics and Supply siders, Multi-Lingual and Multiculturalists, and Farmers and Livestock traders. Over 70 per cent of the Somali population is under 35, with most of them having attained advanced academic and vocational education and training. They are multi-skilled and ready for all manner of employment opportunities. Somalia is now ready to share its abundant opportunities with your investment dollars.  

Over 2 million global citizens

Somalia is a country of entrepreneurs with over 2 million Diaspora members living across the world. The active Diaspora, in partnership with local firms, communities and individuals, are spearheading the economic recovery of the country with the expertise, skills, experience and capital they acquired in their time abroad. International research shows that a majority in this group intend to return to Somalia to invest. For this, they require modern banking, housing, education, infrastructure, technological and professional service support to make long-term investments more profitable. This is a great opportunity for Investors to enter into partnership with this influential and successful group driving forward change and prosperity in Somalia.  

A growing economy  

According to the World Bank.  As of September 13, 2018 - Somalia’s economy is projected to grow at an annual rate of 3–4 percent, according to the third Somalia Economic Update (SEU) published by the World Bank. Titled “Rapid Growth in Mobile Money: Stability or Vulnerability?” the SEU assesses Somalia’s vibrant mobile money market, and provides concrete recommendations for introducing mobile money regulation that can boost a secure system for widespread financial inclusion.

The social impact of investment
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Investing in a country recovering from conflict will reduce the chances of it returning to war, so any funds placed in the country can have a huge social and political impact. Early investors in a post conflict country will encounter fewer competitors and will gain the so called first mover advantage. A small amount of finance can go a long way in Somalia, thanks to relatively low costs and the country’s relative poverty.

​Prolonged conflict and instability have impacted on the mental and psychological well-being of the Somali people. It is estimated that one in three Somalis has been affected by some kind of mental illness, a prevalence which is higher than in other low-income and war-torn countries.
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According to the Word Health Organization, as of 2017 there were only five mental health centers in the whole of Somalia, with just three psychiatrists working at those facilities. Mental health has been an underfunded and neglected sector in Somalia with lack of funds due to poor allocation of resources by the donor community as well as by the public health local authorities. The entire burden of the mentally ill is left to the family and thus to the local communities, causing a cost to the whole society in terms of development and resources.

Cultural Stigma Related to Mental Illnesses
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Many Somalis with mental illness are socially isolated. The pain of this isolation is felt intensely because Somali culture is traditionally communal and family oriented. While a person with mental illness may be ostracized from the community, their fear of stigma may be even more powerful. Whether the ostracism is created by the community or self-imposed due to anticipated negative responses, the social isolation creates a profound worsening of the mental illness. This social isolation can be very disorienting and can make the process of healing very difficult. In fact, even without prior mental health problems, isolation from the community alone can contribute to the development of depression. The situation of the mentally ill people is worsened by the fact that Somalis believe that once a person becomes mentally ill, he/she will never recover. A Somali proverb says that a mentally challenged person can only improve but never recover (nin waashay wuu ladnaaday mooyee wuu bogsaday maleh).
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 ISIR Consulting works to achieve specific results for our clients - results that ultimately improve people's lives.

ISIR Consulting recognizes a shared responsibility to protect and maintain our planet. We are committed to reducing our ecological footprints on the globe by engaging our communities and clients through preservation, conservation, and waste reduction practices. 

Eight million tons of plastic dumped into oceans each year, killing marine life and entering the human food chain.
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Discarded plastic is one of the biggest environmental threats facing the planet, the UN said in a report on Tuesday to mark World Environment Day.

​The UN report, Single-Use Plastics: A Roadmap for Sustainability, said rules limiting the use of plastic bags have helped in places such as Morocco, Rwanda and parts of China - sometimes significantly.
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"Our world is swamped by harmful plastic waste," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a speech. "Micro-plastics in the seas now outnumber stars in our galaxy. "If present trends continue, by 2050 our oceans will have more plastic than fish." Globally, eight million tons of plastic is dumped into the ocean every year, killing marine life and entering the human food chain, according to the UN Environment Program.

The use of children in hostilities is not a new phenomenon. Nearly 20 years ago, the report of the expert of the Secretary-General on the impact of armed conflict on children, known as the Machel Report brought to international attention the extent and consequences of recruitment and use of children by armed forces and armed groups. Even today, the recruitment of children largely takes place in situations of conflict, though terrorist and violent extremist groups are by no means the only ones perpetrating such grave violations against children.
 
The involvement of terrorist and violent extremist groups entails numerous new challenges for States. First, prevention has become particularly complex, as evidenced by the innovative methods of propaganda and recruitment employed specifically by such groups.

​This is a primary concern to efforts to effectively tackle a security threat while, at the same time, limiting the victimization of such children. Secondly, because of their association with terrorism-related activities, which are classified in international and national law as serious offences, an increasing number of children come into contact with national authorities, in particular with justice authorities. In this context, the questions range from the applicable international legal framework to the legal status of the children and the competent authorities and procedures to deal with them. Such children are commonly regarded as a security risk and subsequently exposed to further violations of their rights.

​Courtesy of UNODC

Download full report: ​http://bit.ly/2FjmVj5​

Somalia’s poor national health was exacerbated by state collapse; health security has long eluded the vast majority of Somalis. Many parts of the country’s health system collapsed or never existed before to state dissolution in 1991. Public health and the standard of healthcare services in Somalia are among the worst in Sub-Saharan Africa.
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In a country where around three-quarters of the population lives under US$2 per day, financial hardship is one of the key reasons why Somalis do not access or seek health services. Somalia also falls far below the minimum global expectation of the doctor/patient ratio. Currently, there are only four doctors, nurses or midwives for every 10 000 people in Somalia. In addition, one out of every 12 women dies due to causes related to pregnancy, and 1 out of every 7 Somali children dies under the age of 5.
 
A total of three 20ft containers filled with medical supplies and equipment was distributed to several community clinics in Mogadishu by the World Mobilization Somalia and Action Medeor in partnership with ISIR Consulting and SOFORD, a non-governmental organization in Mogadishu.
 
Medina hospital is one of the two largest referral hospitals in the city that treats several hundred war-wounded patients and expectant mothers every month and is focused more on trauma and emergency services. To ensure the safety of patients, renowned physicians provided free health exams to patients in an exam site set up at the hospital.
 
Our support for Somalia’s health system will continue. Partnership agreements with local authorities and non-governmental organizations are the primary way health services are supported in Somalia.