By Gabriela Baczynska, Michelle Nichols, Aaron Ross and Emma Farge
UNITED NATIONS/NAIROBI/GENEVA (Reuters) -The&nbsp;European&nbsp;Union executive has&nbsp;temporarily&nbsp;suspended funding for the World&nbsp;Food&nbsp;Programme (WFP) in&nbsp;Somalia, two senior&nbsp;EU&nbsp;officials told Reuters on Monday,&nbsp;after&nbsp;a U.N. investigation found&nbsp;widespread&nbsp;theft&nbsp;and misuse of&nbsp;aid&nbsp;meant to avert famine.
The&nbsp;European Commission gave more than $7 million in&nbsp;aid&nbsp;to the WFP's operations in&nbsp;Somalia&nbsp;last year, a fraction of the donations of more than $1 billion it received, U.N. data shows.
EU&nbsp;member states gave much more money on a bilateral basis. It was not immediately clear whether any would also suspend&nbsp;aid.
Balazs Ujvari, a spokesman for the&nbsp;European Commission, neither confirmed nor denied specifically a temporary suspension but said: "So far, the&nbsp;EU&nbsp;has not been informed by its U.N. partners of a financial impact on&nbsp;EU-funded projects.
"Nevertheless, we will continue to monitor the situation and abide by our zero-tolerance approach to fraud, corruption or misconduct."
The WFP did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
One senior&nbsp;EU&nbsp;official said&nbsp;the decision was taken&nbsp;after&nbsp;the U.N. investigation concluded that landowners, local authorities, members of the security forces and humanitarian workers were all involved in stealing&nbsp;aid&nbsp;intended for vulnerable people.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said&nbsp;the&nbsp;aid&nbsp;would be restored&nbsp;after&nbsp;the WFP met additional conditions, such as vetting of partners on the ground in&nbsp;Somalia. The second senior&nbsp;EU&nbsp;official confirmed that.
A third source, also an&nbsp;EU&nbsp;official, said&nbsp;the Commission was "cooperating actively with WFP to resolve systemic defects" but said&nbsp;no&nbsp;aid&nbsp;was suspended at this stage.
The July 7 report, marked "strictly confidential," was commissioned by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, according to a copy reviewed by Reuters.
Its contents were first published on Monday by Devex, a media outlet focused on international development.
It 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.
Three months ago the WFP and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) suspended&nbsp;food&nbsp;aid&nbsp;to neighboring Ethiopia in response to the&nbsp;widespread&nbsp;diversion of donations.
The&nbsp;European Commission contributes 10 million&nbsp;euros ($10.69 million) to&nbsp;Somalia&nbsp;and Ethiopia via the WFP, with the suspension covering part of that, according to one of the senior&nbsp;EU&nbsp;officials.
The&nbsp;United States is by far&nbsp;Somalia's biggest humanitarian donor. Last year, it contributed more than half of the $2.2 billion of funding that went to the humanitarian response there.
USAID&nbsp;spokesperson Jessica Jennings said&nbsp;in a statement the&nbsp;United States was working to&nbsp;understand the extent of the diversion and was "already taking steps to protect beneficiaries and ensure taxpayer money is used to benefit vulnerable persons in&nbsp;Somalia, as intended."
An official of the agency, speaking on condition of anonymity, said&nbsp;the situations in Ethiopia and&nbsp;Somalia&nbsp;were different and USAID&nbsp;was not planning to pause&nbsp;food&nbsp;assistance in the latter.
A U.S. Congressional source said&nbsp;the decision to suspend&nbsp;aid&nbsp;in Ethiopia was, in part, related to the&nbsp;uniquely hands-on role of the federal government there in distributing&nbsp;food&nbsp;assistance, which has long made donors&nbsp;uneasy.
"The&nbsp;widespread&nbsp;theft&nbsp;of&nbsp;food&nbsp;assistance in Ethiopia was abhorrent, but was also an opportunity to change the way it is provided," said&nbsp;the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Somali Disaster Management Office, which coordinates the government's humanitarian response, said&nbsp;in a statement on Monday that Somali authorities were committed to investigating the U.N. report's findings, while adding that current&nbsp;aid&nbsp;delivery systems operate "outside of the government channels".
Guterres' office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
'WIDESPREAD&nbsp;AND SYSTEMIC'
Donors boosted funding to&nbsp;Somalia&nbsp;last year as humanitarian officials warned of a looming famine due to the Horn of Africa's worst drought in decades.
Famine 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.
The U.N. report did not attempt to quantify the amount of&nbsp;aid&nbsp;diverted but said&nbsp;its findings "suggest that post-delivery&nbsp;aid&nbsp;diversion in&nbsp;Somalia&nbsp;is&nbsp;widespread&nbsp;and systemic".
Investigators found&nbsp;aid&nbsp;diversion at all of the 55 IDP sites in&nbsp;Somalia&nbsp;from which they collected data, the report said. Some 3.8 million people are displaced in&nbsp;Somalia&nbsp;&ndash; one of the highest rates in the world.
Aid&nbsp;distribution has been a problem in&nbsp;Somalia&nbsp;for decades, complicated by weak government institutions,&nbsp;widespread&nbsp;insecurity stemming from an Islamist insurgency and marginalisation of minority clans.
Since revelations of&nbsp;aid&nbsp;theft&nbsp;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.
The 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 "gatekeepers," powerful individuals from dominant local clans.
These gatekeepers leverage their influence over access to camp sites and&nbsp;food&nbsp;beneficiary lists to coerce payments from IDPs, the report said.
Members 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.
While famine has been averted for now, the report warned that inadequate humanitarian funding could imperil fragile progress.
Aid&nbsp;budgets are&nbsp;under strain globally, with just 36% funded to date of the $2.6 billion the U.N. says is needed this year for&nbsp;Somalia's humanitarian response.
($1=0.9355&nbsp;euros)
(Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska and Michelle Nichols at the&nbsp;United Nations, Aaron Ross in Nairobi, Emma Farge in Geneva; Additional reporting by Daphne Psaledakis and Joe Bavier; Editing by Howard Goller)

you might like

EU temporarily holds back food aid in Somalia after UN finds widespread theft