Somalia

Durable Solutions for Returnees and IDPs in Somalia (DSRIS) Project Final Report

The Durable Solutions for Refugees and IDPs in Somalia (DSRIS) was a three-year that was implemented in Somalia between 10 January 2017 to 9 January 2020 under the consortium of CARE International (Lead agency), Save the Children (SCI), Agency for Technical Cooperation and Development (ACTED), IMPACT Initiatives and Save Somali Women and Children (SSWC). The project was funded by the European Union (EU). The aim of the project was to contribute to the integration of internally displaced persons, returnees and refugees in Somalia by improving access to basic quality services such as education, health, hygiene and sanitation, Child Protection and Gender-Based Violence (GBV) intervention. Additionally, the project aimed at enhancing relevant and sustainable livelihood opportunities for youth at risk of illegal migrations, radicalization, as well as other vulnerable displaced people, returnees and host communities to enhance integration and social cohesion. The project was being implemented in Puntland, Bari, and Mudug (Bossaso and Galkacyo north districts), Galmudug, Mudug, and Galgaduud (Dhusamareb, Adaado, and Galkacyo south). The sectors targeted by the project include Education, Health, WASH, Child Protection/GBV, women and youth empowerment and integration. Read More...

TVET and Higher Education for Boosting Road Infrastructure Development and Growth of Energy Services (THE BRIDGES) Project Final Report

CARE Somalia/Somaliland was funded by the European Union (EU) to improve the technical skills of the youth in roads and energy service sectors. The Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) and Higher Education for Boosting Road Infrastructure Development and Growth of Energy Services (THE BRIDGES) project aim to support the Government of Somalia/Somaliland plans to enhance inclusive economic growth and reduce poverty. The project aims to assist in the development of high-quality skills both for gainful employment and sustainable economic development. To meet labor demands in road infrastructure and energy sectors, the project further aims to strengthen TVET and Higher Education (HE) to offer high-quality solutions responsive to the changing market situations in the selected priority sectors of the economy. Given the increasingly dynamic employment market in Somalia/Somaliland, there is a need for high-quality competency-based skills development. The BRIDGES project sought to enhance the development of national and local capacities of TVET, and Higher Education linked to the road infrastructure and energy sector services. This is intended to be accomplished through the strengthening of institutional capacities in addition to aligning skills training to standardized international frameworks. Read More...

CARE Rapid Gender Analysis for COVID 19 East, Central and Southern Africa

The impacts – direct and indirect – of public health emergencies fall disproportionally on the most vulnerable and marginalized groups in society. Interconnected social, economic, and political factors pose complex challenges for the ECSA region’s ability to respond to COVID-19. The region already faces significant health challenges that would exacerbate the severity of COVID-19, such as high levels of malnutrition, malaria, anemia, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis. Access to healthcare in the region is the lowest in the world, thus there is limited capacity to absorb the pandemic1. Gender-based inequality is extensive in the region. Women are at a higher risk for exposure to infection due to the fact that they are often the primary caregivers in the family and constitute 70% of frontline healthcare responders.2 Most women already face limited access to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) services, and the region struggles with high levels of maternal mortality. For example, mother mortality rates recorded in South Sudan were 1150 per 100 000 live births3. COVID-19 will only increase women’s safety risks and care burdens as health services become stretched and resources shift to COVID-19 responses.
Women and girls are at increased risk of violence during the COVID-19 period. Current rates of violence against women and girls combined with the prevalence of harmful traditional practices leads to increased vulnerability. Income loss and limited mobility, compounded with existing gender role expectations, may contribute to increases in intimate partner violence and other forms of gender-based violence. Read More...

Adversity and Opportunity: Gender Relations, Emergencies and Resilience in the Horn of Africa

The Gender in Emergencies (GiE) study contributes to this strategy development by examining how the HES can be implemented in the specific context of the Horn of Africa (HoA).2 Commissioned in early 2014 by CARE Australia, the study’s purpose is to ‘contribute to CARE International’s Gender in Emergencies learning and research agenda providing a comparative analysis of the opportunities and challenges in gender equality and women’s empowerment in emergency contexts, and provide lessons for future humanitarian responses.’ Read More...

EMERGENCY FOOD SECURITY PROGRAM: FINAL EVALUATION REPORT

This report provides the results of the final evaluation of the Emergency Food Security Program (EFSP) implemented in twelve districts within the four regions of Sool, Sanaag, Galgaduud and Mudug that was conducted during July and August 2019.

Over and above the program performance parameters, the beneficiaries overwhelmingly indicated that the program had had significant positive impacts. The program was considered timely as it was delivered when beneficiaries were getting into months of food insecurity. When asked whether the cash transfer had improved their livelihoods, 93% of the household survey respondents reported that their livelihoods had improved, mainly in terms of improved purchasing power (93%), ease of meeting their basic needs (78%), better social status (22%), better and more recognition (17%), taking children to school (14%), access to healthcare (9%) and in other (non-described) areas (7%). In the household survey, 94% of the respondents received three cycles of the correct amount, whilst 5% who were targeted under the Rapid Response Fund (RRF) received two cycles enabling households to purchase their preferred foods, at least 25Kg of rice, 25Kg of sugar, 25kg wheat flour, 3kg of cooking oil, 10kg of pasta and some vegetables.

The program had a positive impact on the 52,299 households enrolled. The programme resulted in a reduction of distress coping strategies, with an average rCSI of 12.8 reducing from 20.4 at the program baseline. This supports the effectiveness of the program in enabling the beneficiaries to reduce the number of negative coping strategies that they were previously employing in order to meet basic household needs. In addition, as planned, all the households used the cash transfer to meet their basic needs, with 97% of them using the cash transfer to purchase food for the household, indicating that the cash intervention has directly contributed to the enhancement of the household food security during the drought. Trend analysis shows that throughout the program there was a downward trend of the rCSI scores, while there was an increase of household dietary diversity index to 20.4 compared to the baseline of 12.8. Similarly, an analysis of household hunger shows that in general the beneficiaries were experiencing little to no hunger, with only 13% experiencing moderate hunger and 86% of households experiencing little to no hunger. This again indicates that the programme has achieved positive outcomes.

While the evidence suggests that the program generated a number of positive impacts, across many domains, demonstrating effective and efficient implementation, and that the beneficiaries used the cash as per the original objectives of the program, households continue to faces challenges in their capacity to fully recover from the impacts of conflict and drought. Increasing the scale of interventions and developing additional holistic livelihood strategies for the target areas, creating linkages with market-based interventions and improvement in access to water, education and healthcare, experimenting with graduation models combined with local savings (VSLAs) were among some of the areas identified for improving future programming. A more detailed description of these recommendations is provided towards the tail end of the report. Read More...

Somalia Resilience Program Third Party Monitoring: Midline Assessment

The Somalia Resilience Program (SomReP) is a consortium of seven international non-governmental organisations (INGOs). The aim of the consortium is to enhance the resilience of vulnerable households and communities in Southern Somalia against cyclical shocks and stressors. The program’s activities focus on securing livelihoods and increasing adaptive capacities of communities and households in Somalia.

Overall, positive developments from the baseline was noted for most of the indicators analyzed in this report. Most of these positive developments could be attributed to different programme interventions. The attribution was tested through statistical correlation analysis and by synthesizing programme documents and the data collected at various stages throughout the project. The food security status of the respondents had improved, both in terms of food consumption and coping strategies. For example, the proportion of the respondents categorized as having an acceptable level of the Food Consumption Score (FCS) had increased from 48.5% in the baseline to 80.4% in the midline. The income of the respondents had also improved with both a significantly higher average income as well as more diversified income being reported. Those respondents that were part of a savings scheme as well as those that had received cash distributions through Cash for Work (CfW) or Unconditional Cash Transfers (UCT) reported higher FCS than those who had not. Respondents that had received cash distributions were also positively associated with higher incomes. As such, it is recommended that both VSLA and cash programming interventions should be sustained and if possible scaled-up. It is worth noting that livelihoods were still largely climate sensitive, with day labour in agriculture being the most common and important livelihood strategy, especially for male respondents. This implies that most people are still highly vulnerable to climatic shocks, such as drought. Read More...

Somalia Resilience Program Third Party Monitoring: Baseline Study

The Somalia Resilience Program (SomReP) is a consortium of seven Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO), the activities of which aim to enhance the resilience of vulnerable households and communities in Southern Somalia against cyclical shocks and stressors. This report serves as the baseline for the Third Party Monitoring (TPM) of SomReP in two districts in South and Central Somalia: Afgooye and Baidoa. The TPM study is undertaken by Forcier Consulting on behalf of SomReP, with the aim to rigorously monitor the progress and outcomes of the program.

The data indicates that resilience differed among livelihood groups (agro-pastoralist, pastoralists, and peri-urban), between women and men, and across seasons. This means that program approaches should take these differences into account when targeting groups for various interventions. For instance, people in peri-urban areas tended to have less diverse diets, while pastoralists tend to engage in more severe and frequent coping strategies. Out of the different livelihood types, pastoralists were also the most likely to report no access to risk transfer or sharing. Further, women tended to have less diverse incomes than men and incomes tend to be lowest in the dry season of Jilaal, the season in which most agriculture-related work was replaced with unskilled work. These findings indicate that women should be more frequently targeted for income diversity interventions, and pastoralists should be targeted with interventions that aim to increase social safety nets, such as risk sharing.

Capacities to deal with stressors in both the short and long-term were low across the targeted areas. Natural resource management (NRM) was poor in both districts and in and across communities. Sustainable access to natural resources is an important factor in ensuring long-term resilience and should therefore receive more attention across the communities. Response capacities were also absent across the communities. Only 9.7 of all respondents said their community had a community-based early warning system in place. Further, only 5.7% of the respondents said community initiatives existed that aimed to access support from sub-national and national institutions and authorities to respond to and cope with the recurrent shocks and stressors. Hence, moving forward, the program should ensure a focus of combined approaches to achieve improvements in system-wide resilience. Read More...

Gender, Cash Assistance, and Conflict: Gendered Protection Implications of Cash and Voucher Assistance in Somalia/Somaliland

Protection issues are multi-dimensional in Somalia and Somaliland. Vulnerability is as much about physical violence as it is about drought and chronic food insecurity. The challenges that Somalia, Somaliland, and Puntland face can be roughly categorized into (a) environmental, or climate related, and (b) human-made crises. The recurring droughts of 2016 and 2017 left 5.4 million people in need of assistance and protection. Climate-related emergencies and increased violence with the rise of al-Shabaab and other violent non-state actors has led to migration internally and externally. Conflict shapes gender and protection issues across the region, increasing vulnerability, particularly for already marginalized groups like women, the disabled, and minority clans. The effects of conflict are not homogenous nor evenly distributed. Those living in the central and southern areas of Somalia have been particularly affected by the consequences of war, whereas those in the northeast (Somaliland) have experienced relative peace for almost a decade.

This study followed a five-phase empirical strategy that relied heavily on a multi-method approach. This empirical strategy involved the collection of original qualitative and quantitative data collected in Somaliland, Puntland, and Nairobi. Supplementing this primary data was a rigorous review of project data, ACLED violence datasets, and academic and practitioner literature. Issues which may not have strongly impacted the selected data collection locations— communities in Sool and Mudug—may in fact be some of the most prominent and challenging protection issues throughout Somalia and Somaliland as a whole. A structured review of primary data against the background of secondary data mitigates selection bias, whereby research findings are merely an artifact of the sample chosen to study. In a place like Somalia/land where there are high numbers internally displaced communities, the impact of violence—including gendered violence—is mobile, following survivors as they move from less secure areas to those that are more secure. Read More...

Dutch Relief Alliance Horn of Africa Joint Response in Ethiopia and Somalia/Somaliland

This evaluation assesses the impact of the Dutch Relief Alliance’s (DRA) multi-sectoral Horn of Africa (HoA) joint response implemented in Somaliland and Ethiopia from April to December 2018. The five project components, i.e. Food security and livelihood (FSL); Livestock and agriculture; Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH); Health; and Nutrition, were assessed against a set of key evaluation criteria including relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, sustainability, impact, localization, accountability, gender mainstreaming, and coordination.
In addition to an in-depth desk review of the DRA HoA joint response documentation to examine quantifiable targets and progress, the evaluation was conducted through qualitative and quantitative data collection in four different project locations in four different regions. In order to provide variety of geography, context, implementing partners, and project components, Bulale (Jarar), Kabri Dahar (Korahe), Ainabo (Sool), and Lughaya (Awdal) were selected. A total of 29 key informant interviews and eight focus group discussions targeting 72 beneficiaries were conducted. A quantitative
household survey collected data from 428 beneficiaries across all four locations.
Based on findings in this report, the DRA’s greatest strength lies in its coordination and flexibility between implementing partners and ability to adapt to changing local contexts. This was seen across multiple project locations when dealing with insecurity in the Somali region of Ethiopia and Sanaag region of Somaliland or changing project activities in Awdal region after the cyclone in May severely impacted the local situation. Partners also felt the CARE focal point was extremely communicative and responsive and that decisions could be approved at higher levels within a few hours, which was particularly relevant for an emergency response program when response time is crucial. The DRA was
effective in incorporating localization measures into their program designs as well. While many of the partners have had established field offices in the target locations for many years, in some cases program activities were implemented through local NGOs who have an in-depth understand of the local context and well-established relationship with the communities they work in.
Read More...

Horumarinta Elmiga II (Education for Empowerment through Cohesive and Harmonized System

Horumarinta Elmiga II (Education for Empowerment through Cohesive and Harmonized System) was a three-year (September 2015 – August 2018) education program funded by the European Union (EU), and implemented in all the six administrative regions by a consortium of Save the Children (lead agency), CARE International and Norwegian Refugees Council (NRC), in partnership with the MOEHS of Somaliland. The specific objective of the program was ‘education and training services, responsive to the priorities, needs and requirements of the population of Somaliland, efficiently and equitably delivered.’ [49 pages] Read More...

Filter Evaluations

Clear all