Resilience in Somalia: the EU takes stock
On the 3rd of February 2020, the EU Delegation to Somalia, resilience experts along with EU Member States, and representatives from both the federal and member state levels, met in Mogadishu. The aim was to highlight major practices emerging from the EU’s Somalia Resilience Programme, and to discuss the lessons learned in an open forum with all stakeholders.
The discussions were based on a third party monitoring evaluation exercise of 5 projects implemented by the Somalia Resilience Program (SomRep), the BRCiS consortium and STREAM.
During the workshop, participants explored how EU financed actions contribute to:
- reducing vulnerability at community level;
-protecting and enhancing the livelihoods of vulnerable groups;
-strengthening prevention capacity both at community and institutional levels;
- facilitating access of vulnerable groups to basic public services.
Some notable findings from the evaluation include:
-interventions with short-term benefits are more easily adopted;
-community involvement at all stages of program cycle enhances participation, efficiency and impact;
-technical support and good relationships, with government in particular, are key for effective results.
HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE MAIN FINDINGS AND LESSONS LEARNED
The workshop participants concluded the following:
Cash based interventions are safety nets that support the most vulnerable people. Defining which cash modality benefits beneficiaries and implementing it at the right time, and in the right amounts, ensures sustainability. Evaluations from some programmes show that the targeting the most vulnerable became difficult. Important to do a conflict analysis to avoid creating conflict in the community
Access to basic services are to remain part of resilience programming, though exit strategies should be planned while the government’s role should be strengthened. The latter should be enabled to take over the service delivery implementation. Moreover, all resilience actors should work within the Resilience Recovery Framework (RRF) developed by the government.
Savings groups need further support in terms of infrastructure and systems, but also in terms of access to credit, allowing the groups to migrate from informal to formal finance. For farmers for instance, the government could create linkages with private finance or lift taxes on the technologies they need. Agencies and government on their own, do not have the capacity to respond to this important issue.
Engaging with vulnerable groups such as people with disabilities and ensuring inclusivity in the targeting of beneficiaries can be achieved when communities understand their role in selecting people at different moments of the resilience graduation pathway Government can support this process by creating norms and frameworks to professionalize the process.
