Somalia’s DRIVE program targets safer food and trusted markets

By: Abdiaziz Khalif and Sonia PlazaSunday June 7, 2026

Outside Baidoa, in a camp for displaced families in Somalia, Fadumo Maxamed Ahmed begins her day by feeding the last surviving camel in her household with the dregs of her morning tea leaves.

In Mogadishu, a woman selling milk may think of food safety in simpler terms: a spotless container, the right storage and the assurance that her product will arrive in good condition. For a livestock exporter, the stakes look different — reliable certification, healthy animals and fewer hold-ups at the border.

Yet for both, the core issue is the same: trust and compliance with standards.        

That principle is central to World Food Safety Day 2026 and its theme, “From burden to solutions – safe food everywhere.” Unsafe food remains a drain on public health, livelihoods and economic development across the globe. Food safety is not just about avoiding illness; it is also about building systems that allow consumers, businesses and trading partners to trust what they buy, sell and eat.

In Somalia, that trust is especially important.

Livestock and animal products are a backbone of the Somali economy, sustaining millions of livelihoods. As domestic and international buyers increasingly demand standards, traceability and certification, food safety is becoming a key requirement for market access, competitiveness and growth.

Through the World Bank-financed Horn of Africa De-risking, Inclusion and Value Enhancement of Pastoral Economies Project (HOA DRIVE), Somalia is laying the groundwork needed to deepen that trust and meet those standards.

One major focus is improving the policy and regulatory environment. Project support for food safety, quality infrastructure and sanitary and phytosanitary reforms is helping create a more coordinated framework for managing risks, enforcing standards and protecting consumers. Clear rules matter because they set responsibilities, define expectations and give businesses greater confidence as they move through the value chain.

Food safety systems only work when they are grounded in evidence. Regulators, producers and buyers all need dependable information about hazards, compliance and product quality. With support to the National Reference Laboratory and wider quality infrastructure, the project is expanding Somalia’s ability to test, verify and generate the data needed for informed decisions.credible testing help move food safety from assumption to evidence, giving both regulators and markets greater confidence in the products being traded.

Equally important are the people who make these systems work.

HOA DRIVE has supported training for technical staff from public institutions, veterinary services, quarantine facilities, livestock associations and other actors across Somalia’s livestock trade corridors. The instruction has covered food safety, standards, quality assurance, animal health verification, biosecurity, inspection procedures and export certification. Policies are also being developed to address antimicrobial resistance (AMR), alongside training for pastoralists on avoiding the overuse of antibiotics.

These investments help turn policies, standards and technology into practical services where animals are inspected, certified and moved through the market system. They also strengthen the ability to detect and manage risks early, supporting safer food, more credible certification and better access to regional and international markets.

Trust also hinges on transparency. Buyers want to know where products come from, how they move through supply chains and whether certifications can be checked. Through investments in the Somalia Livestock Information and Traceability System (SOMLITS), electronic veterinary certification and QR-based verification tools, laboratories’ staff trained on AMR, HOA DRIVE is helping strengthen traceability, food safety standards, and veterinary drug maximum limits  across livestock value chains .

The gains go beyond compliance; stronger traceability supports disease control, reinforces certification systems and gives trading partners greater confidence. It also helps cut avoidable delays and transaction costs by making information easier to access and verify as well as reducing health impacts.

Food safety, however, starts much closer to home than the export market.

Across Somalia, women are central to supplying milk and other foods to local communities. Support through HOA DRIVE including improved milk containers, solar-powered cooling solutions, and practical hygiene measures helps reduce spoilage, improve quality and protect incomes.

Businesses, meanwhile, can tap financing through the HoA DRIVE supported Livestock Value Chain Fund to invest in better facilities, cold-chain systems and other upgrades that make it easier to meet food safety and quality requirements.

By backing both domestic food systems and export-focused value chains, HOA DRIVE is helping shape a food safety framework that serves consumers, traders, processors and exporters alike.

Somalia’s efforts also closely reflect the global direction outlined in the WHO Global Strategy for Food Safety 2022–2030, which calls for stronger food control systems, broader use of scientific evidence and tighter collaboration across sectors.

That approach fits squarely within the One Health framework, which recognizes the deep links between human health, animal health, environmental management and trade. Safer food and stronger markets depend on progress in all of them.

World Food Safety Day is a reminder that unsafe food is largely preventable, but prevention requires institutions, trained professionals, reliable data, effective rules and systems that people can trust.

Through HOA DRIVE, Somalia is building those systems. The payoff is more than safer food: it means stronger livelihoods, more competitive value chains and greater confidence in Somali products at home and abroad. That is what it means to move from burden to solutions, and from risk to trust.

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Abdiaziz Khalif is a Liaison Officer with the PIU at HOA DRIVE Project in Somalia. Sonia Plaza is a Senior Economist at the World Bank and Task Team Leader for the HOA DRIVE Project