UNITED NATIONS\/NAIROBI\/GENEVA
\nThe European Union executive has temporarily suspended funding for the World Food Programme (WFP) in Somalia, two senior EU officials said after a U.N. investigation found widespread theft and misuse of aid meant to avert famine.
\nThe European Commission gave more than $7 million in aid to the WFP\u2019s operations in Somalia last year, a fraction of the donations of more than $1 billion it received, U.N. data shows.
\nEU member states gave much more money on a bilateral basis. It was not immediately clear whether any would also suspend aid.
\nBalazs Ujvari, a spokesman for the European Commission, neither confirmed nor denied specifically a temporary suspension but said: \u201cSo far, the EU has not been informed by its U.N. partners of a financial impact on EU-funded projects.
\n\u201cNevertheless, we will continue to monitor the situation and abide by our zero-tolerance approach to fraud, corruption or misconduct.\u201d
\nThe WFP did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
\nOne senior EU official said the decision was taken after the U.N. investigation concluded that landowners, local authorities, members of the security forces and humanitarian workers were all involved in stealing aid intended for vulnerable people.
\nThe official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the aid would be restored after the WFP met additional conditions, such as vetting of partners on the ground in Somalia. The second senior EU official confirmed that.
\nA third source, also an EU official, said the Commission was \u201ccooperating actively with WFP to resolve systemic defects\u201d but said no aid was suspended at this stage.
\nThe July 7 report, marked \u201cstrictly confidential,\u201d was commissioned by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, according to a copy.
\nIts contents were first published on Monday by Devex, a media outlet focused on international development.
\nIt cited internally displaced persons (IDPs) as saying they were coerced into paying up to half of the cash assistance they received to people in positions of power in the face of threats of eviction, arrest or de-registration from beneficiary lists.
\nThree months ago the WFP and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) suspended food aid to neighboring Ethiopia in response to the widespread diversion of donations.
\nThe European Commission contributes 10 million euros ($10.69 million) to Somalia and Ethiopia via the WFP, with the suspension covering part of that, according to one of the senior EU officials. The United States is by far Somalia\u2019s biggest humanitarian donor.
\nLast year, it contributed more than half of the $2.2 billion of funding that went to the humanitarian response there.
\nUSAID spokesperson Jessica Jennings said in a statement the United States was working to understand the extent of the diversion and was \u201calready taking steps to protect beneficiaries and ensure taxpayer money is used to benefit vulnerable persons in Somalia, as intended.\u201d
\nAn official of the agency, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the situations in Ethiopia and Somalia were different and USAID was not planning to pause food assistance in the latter.
\nA U.S. Congressional source said the decision to suspend aid in Ethiopia was, in part, related to the uniquely hands-on role of the federal government there in distributing food assistance, which has long made donors uneasy.
\n\u201cThe widespread theft of food assistance in Ethiopia was abhorrent, but was also an opportunity to change the way it is provided,\u201d said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
\nThe Somali Disaster Management Office, which coordinates the government\u2019s humanitarian response, said in a statement on Monday that Somali authorities were committed to investigating the U.N. report\u2019s findings, while adding that current aid delivery systems operate \u201coutside of the government channels\u201d.
\nGuterres\u2019 office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
\nDonors boosted funding to Somalia last year as humanitarian officials warned of a looming famine due to the Horn of Africa\u2019s worst drought in decades.
\nFamine was averted, official data shows, but as many as 43,000 people, half of them children younger than five, died last year as a result of the drought, researchers estimate.
\nThe U.N. report did not attempt to quantify the amount of aid diverted but said its findings \u201csuggest that post-delivery aid diversion in Somalia is widespread and systemic\u201d.
\nInvestigators found aid diversion at all of the 55 IDP sites in Somalia from which they collected data, the report said. Some 3.8 million people are displaced in Somalia \u2013 one of the highest rates in the world.
\nAid distribution has been a problem in Somalia for decades, complicated by weak government institutions, widespread insecurity stemming from an Islamist insurgency and marginalisation of minority clans.
\nSince revelations of aid theft during a 2011 famine, humanitarian agencies have converted most of their assistance to cash-based transfers that some officials have presented as less vulnerable to corruption.
\nThe U.N. report was the latest evidence that cash-based systems can be exploited too. It identified a variety of perpetrators, led by so-called \u201cgatekeepers,\u201d powerful individuals from dominant local clans.
\nThese gatekeepers leverage their influence over access to camp sites and food beneficiary lists to coerce payments from IDPs, the report said.
\nMembers of security forces also play a role by intimidating and sometimes arresting those who refuse to pay, while some humanitarian workers collude with gatekeepers to pocket stolen funds, the report said.
\nWhile famine has been averted for now, the report warned that inadequate humanitarian funding could imperil fragile progress.
\nAid budgets are under strain globally, with just 36% funded to date of the $2.6 billion the U.N. says is needed this year for Somalia\u2019s humanitarian response.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UNITED NATIONS\/NAIROBI\/GENEVA The European Union executive has temporarily suspended funding for the World Food Programme (WFP) in Somalia, two senior EU officials said after a U.N. investigation found widespread theft and misuse of aid meant to avert famine. The European Commission gave more than $7 million in aid to the WFP\u2019s operations in Somalia last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357079,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-357058","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n