The pastoral heartland of Ethiopia’s Somali Region stands once again at a delicate intersection where climate memory, climate science, and lived reality converge into a single message of caution. The land, vast and wind-scoured, is entering a slow dehydration that feels both familiar and unsettling. Each passing week, the winds rise with a drier voice, water points grow thinner, and the clouds drift higher as if reconsidering their promise. Across the landscape, the faint trembling of shrinking ponds signals an approaching ordeal that may test pastoral families, livestock systems, and regional institutions with renewed severity.
In the midst of this growing concern, walks MAHAD Gutaale, a widely respected voice of the pastoral communities, whose presence at key water points has become symbolic of vigilance, truth-telling, and calm urgency. He moves slowly along the edges of a retreating water pool in a rural district, stepping across fractured earth that once glistened with seasonal abundance. His careful gaze studies the water that has shrunk into a shallow, uncertain sheet. The silence around him mirrors the anxiety etched across the faces of the families he represents. The landscape seems to speak clearly. The water is withdrawing, and with it the margin of survival.
To understand this moment, one must recall the fragile reprieve of recent years. For the past three rainy seasons, the Somali Region has benefited from comparatively favorable rainfall, sparing communities from the crushing grip of the long, multi-year drought that devastated the Horn of Africa between 2021 and 2023. That drought, described as the worst in four decades, caused catastrophic livestock losses across neighboring Somalia, Kenya, and parts of Ethiopia, driving millions into emergency needs. Tens of thousands of children were pushed to the brink of hunger, and mortality levels rose sharply. In Somalia alone, 2022 recorded an estimated forty-three thousand excess deaths, half of them young children, according to joint studies by global agencies.
The Somali Region escaped the worst of that tragedy. Rains in 2023 and 2024 allowed pastoral households to rebuild, rangelands to recover in patches, and water points to fill at least modestly. It was a gift for which gratitude remains necessary. Yet gratitude cannot erase the trauma of 2022, when the region itself lost millions of livestock, endured widespread displacement, and saw families plunge into destitution as the foundations of pastoral life trembled under climatic pressure. That year forced a rapid scaling of emergency coordination, tightened surveillance systems, and strengthened the operational instincts of the regional and humanitarian institutions working in the field.
Today, the early signals of stress have returned. Indicators from across the Somali Region point towards a disappointing Deyr season, with rainfall that has been uneven, late, and insufficient for sustaining the long dry stretch ahead. The IGAD Climate Prediction and Applications Centre projects a heightened likelihood of below normal rainfall across large parts of the eastern Horn. Agronomists and hydrologists warn that the combination of delayed onset, shortened rainfall duration, and above-average temperatures may deepen heat stress, accelerate evaporation, and weaken pasture regeneration across wide corridors. Similar projections are echoed by climate bulletins from FAO, FEWS NET, and other global monitors, all cautioning that the months ahead may become more difficult than anticipated unless early action is taken.
The signs on the ground are aligning with these forecasts. Pastures in several grazing belts are thinning earlier than usual. Livestock mobility patterns are tightening as herds seek water across longer distances. Seasonal rivers show signs of premature exhaustion. Many communal water catchments that were expected to hold firm into mid-season have already receded to worrying levels. For the pastoral communities of the Somali Region, these are not minor fluctuations. They are signals of a potentially severe dry season.
This is the moment when international partners, federal institutions, and the regional government must assume a unified posture of readiness. Anticipatory action is not a luxury in the Somali Region. It is an essential strategy of survival. Critical water infrastructure must be repaired immediately. Boreholes that have fallen into dysfunction should be restored. Shallow wells must be reinforced. Reservoirs and earthen dams that suffer leakage or structural weakness require urgent maintenance. Emergency fodder reserves must be pre-positioned in strategic zones. Veterinary services must prepare for potential disease outbreaks associated with drought-driven livestock stress. These are not long-term projects. They are early life-saving measures.
The international community has a central role in this moment. Donors who helped strengthen early warning systems over the past decade must now complement that investment by financing anticipatory interventions before conditions deteriorate. Agencies specializing in water management should accelerate the rehabilitation of rural water points. Organizations that supported drought responses in 2022 should re-activate contingency partnerships with fewer delays and stronger coordination. Globally, drought-related hunger has reached alarming levels, with tens of millions in eastern and southern Africa facing rising food insecurity according to recent humanitarian reports. The Somali Region must not be overlooked in this broader climate emergency.
Federal authorities also carry a constitutional and moral obligation to support the region during climatic shocks of this scale. Contingency funds must be released early rather than after pastoral economies have already absorbed irreversible losses. Strategic reserves of fodder, water-trucking capacity and veterinary inputs should be deployed in advance. National early warning systems should work in active synchrony with regional drought committees, ensuring that early indicators trigger early interventions rather than delayed responses.
The regional government, now armed with lessons from the 2022 crisis, must lead with coherence, precision and urgency. District drought committees should be fully activated. Continuous surveillance and rapid assessment teams must provide real time data. Community communication must be consistent, grounded and practical. Communities need clear guidance on recommended actions, early migration planning, water rationing and herd management. Preparedness cannot remain on paper. It must translate into action at community level.
At the same time, the indigenous knowledge of pastoral families must be respected and leveraged. They have developed drought survival strategies over centuries, reading the sky, the winds, the soil and the behaviour of livestock with intuitive precision. What they require now is partnership not paternalism. Warning messages must be delivered through trusted elders, religious leaders and established pastoral networks. Early migration must be supported rather than hindered. Local agreements for water sharing must be strengthened. Pastoral resilience must be reinforced.
This is where MAHAD Gutaale’s presence becomes profoundly important. His walk along the shrinking water point is more than a photograph. It is a reflection of a region watching the horizon with concern and clarity. His voice carries the anxieties of pastoral families who depend on fragile hydrological rhythms. His image standing at the edge of receding water encapsulates the truth that drought is not a sudden catastrophe but a slow tightening of life’s essential boundaries. His perspective reminds leaders, humanitarian actors, and donors that action must be driven not by abstraction but by the lived realities of the communities who stand first in line of impact.
The Somali Region now stands before a narrowing window of opportunity. Drought rarely arrives in a single moment. It is a gradual erosion of water, pasture, and hope. When met early, it is softened. When ignored, it becomes a silent tragedy. The months ahead demand unity, foresight, and decisive action. International partners must mobilise support. The federal government must coordinate and deploy resources. The regional administration must act quickly and strategically. Communities must organize and prepare. And voices like MAHAD Gutaale’s must continue to guide the narrative with truth and urgency.
The region does not enter this moment empty-handed. It carries within it a hard-earned memory of past crises, especially the devastation of 2022, which reshaped its understanding of vulnerability and resilience. Over the years, the Somali Region has gained deep experience in anticipating severe droughts. It has built an anticipatory action capacity grounded in early warning systems, community mobilization, and multi-sector coordination. These tools now stand ready. What is required is not new wisdom but renewed will, not new institutions but early activation of the frameworks refined through previous hardships.
If preparedness prevails, the Somali Region can enter the coming dry season with resilience rather than despair. Once again, it can transform early warning into early protection and shield its pastoral heartland from the worst of what lies ahead. The choice now rests with all levels of leadership, all partners, and all communities. The window is narrow but still open, and it must be used before the sky completely withholds its mercy.
Mohamud A. Ahmed Mohamud A. Ahmed (Prof.) is a political and security analyst, and a researcher. He is also the board chairman of OWS Development Fund.
Contributed by Mohamud A. Ahmed
