HAP in Somalia
Somalia in crisis
Somalia’s recent history is marked by disasters – both man-made and natural. Since 1991, Somalia has been without a permanent central government. Battles for power between different clans, together with devastating droughts and floods, led to the destruction of infrastructure, the disintegration of basic health and social services, widespread human rights abuses.
As a result, Somalia has some of the worst human development indicators in the world. According to a press release from FAO’s Food Security Assessment Unit (FSAU) from April 2008, the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance in Somalia now stands at 2.6 million (35% of the total population). This rapid increase is due rocketing food prices resulting in an additional 600,000 urban poor facing acute food and livelihood crisis, on-going drought impacting increasing numbers of pastoralists, and continued fighting in Mogadishu forcing more people to flee.
12 HAP member agencies are responding to the humanitarian crisis in Somalia either through partners or direct operations - CARE, CAFOD, Christian Aid, Concern Worldwide, the Danish Refugee Council, Muslim Aid, Medair, Norwegian Refugee Council, Oxfam GB, Save the Children UK, Tearfund and World Vision.
HAP has facilitated a series of meetings and discussion with member agencies to explore opportunities both for agencies to strengthen accountability within the current context and for HAP support:
Challenges in running quality and accountable programmes in Somalia
In July 2007, a number of HAP member and non-member agencies met in Nairobi to discuss challenges and opportunities of humanitarian accountability within the Somali context. Given the complexity of the situation, and the nature of the humanitarian crisis in different parts of the country, agencies identified a number of challenges some of which are summarised below. More details can be found in the meeting summary from 25th July 2007.
Clan politics – clan inter-relationships are extremely complex and often present hidden power dynamics that are difficult for external agencies to comprehend. Within the Somali context, aid is a valuable resource and, as a result, often becomes politicised and intertwined in clan disputes.
Understanding of existing lines of accountability within communities – while traditional structures have been weakened by fragmentation of communities, the strength of the clans suggests there may be strong accountability lines within them. Humanitarian agencies tend not to understand how Somalis themselves define accountability, and if they see any value in the community committees commonly set up by aid agencies.
Protracted intervention in highly fragile environment – varied emergencies in quick succession (from flooding to drought to conflict) present rapidly changing needs. As a result, needs assessments are soon out of date, and funding constraints mean programmes are not always easily adapted. Many communities have become habituated to the presence of aid agencies, viewing them as continuous providers and ‘jumping through hoops’ to receive aid.
Staff skills and competencies – the on-going emergency has caused a skill shortage among national staff, and security issues as well as expectations to deliver places existing national staff under large pressures. Circumstances have caused an erosion of the humanitarian principles that normally guide action as many practices generally deemed unacceptable, such as driving with armed guards, have become the default way of operating. Clan issues influences staff employment as there is a need to ensure clan balance in the workforce, and staff redundancies are often being interpreted as linked to clan issues presenting real security threats.
Monitoring and impact measurement – both access to programme areas and staff skills present a challenge to measuring the impact of programmes.
Transparency and trust – while the importance of both transparency and trust were highlighted as vital when working in the Somali context aid agencies often give out mixed messages. On one hand wanting to work with communities and build trust, on the other hand travelling with armed escorts.
Despite the challenges highlighted there was much interest in strengthening accountability of programmes in Somalia and engaging with HAP further. It was recognised that there is a need to focus on field staff and local partner NGOs to build lasting commitment, enthusiasm and understanding of accountability, and action needs to focus on small simple steps to avoid overwhelming staff. In addition HAP member’s work to strengthen accountability should feed into existing initiatives for Somalia such as the Joint Operating Principles (JOPs) being developed by OCHA.
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Proposed HAP support in Somalia
In August and October 2007, discussions were held with HAP member agencies to identify potential areas for action and for HAP support (more details can be found in the meeting summary from the 17th August 2007). While a HAP field team deployment was tentatively planned for the summer of 2008, this deployment was cancelled due to increasing security concerns in Somalia and staff capacity; the latter was linked to staff deployment to Bangladesh and Myanmar at the request of member agencies.
Building on the 2007 series of consultations, one of the HAP members - the Danish Refugee Council - applied for US$ 218,000 under the 2009 Somali Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP) for a project focused on promoting accountability and quality of humanitarian action in Somali region. This one-year project running from January to December 2009 has three main objectives:
- To raise awareness of quality and accountability issues amongst humanitarian agencies and other stakeholders.
- To develop and test mechanisms for improving accountability to beneficiaries at project level.
- To build capacity of humanitarian staff to address quality and accountability deficit.
Proposed activities include capacity building for participating agencies, humanitarian accountability audits in four areas of Somali region, regular lessons learned workshops, and development of collective information and complaints management systems. HAP will remain engaged in this work, both through the provision of remote guidance and direct support in a consulting role, where possible.
For more information contact Zia Choudhury, Danish Refugee Council Deputy Regional Director (zia.choudhury@drc.dk)
Updated April 2009
