Irrigation project pour forth for displaced Somalis in Baidoa

Baidoa – Aden Sheikh Issack has a small allotment on an eight-acre communal farm in Barwaqo, a small settlement of internally displaced people (IDPs) on the outskirts of Baidoa in Somalia’s Bay region. 

He fled there when the conflict and hunger in his former residential area became too much to bear.

At first, it was not easy surviving as a displaced person with large family but – with some external assistance – the farm has become productive and allows him to look after his wife and 11 children, as well as sell extra produce to local markets.

The 50-year-old was proud to show off his farm recently to visit from the Somalia Joint Fund (SJF) – a multi-donor fund supporting Somalia’s development priorities. 

The visitors included representatives of the Somali government and the United Nations, and they had come to see firsthand the impact of the irrigation project which has ramped up the farmer’s output of maize, sugarcane and vegetables.

“The irrigation project has been very beneficial, and we are already seeing its positive impact. I have been a beneficiary of this project since 2019 and I see better days ahead,” said Mr. Issack during the delegation’s recent visit to Barwaqo.

Like Mr. Issack’s family, many local households have benefitted from the SJF’s Saameynta (transl.: ‘impact’) Programme – an eight-acre solar-powered, micro-irrigation drip serviced by a communal borehole, and set up to assist IDPs on land provided by the government.

“This farm supports 57 families, with the smallest family having six members. This means we are talking about a minimum of 340 people. The total number is around 400 to 500 people and, out of the 57 families, 43 are led by women, including single mothers,” said the Director of Coordination and Monitoring in the federal government of Somalia’s Ministry of Planning, Mahamud Sicid Nur, told the visiting delegation.

The four-year project will directly support 25,000 households and indirectly assist 150,000 people in South West State and Puntland, in the country’s north, by the end of 2025.  

International support

The Saameynta Programme aims to provide durable solutions and scale up investments in mixed-use land development packages through drip irrigation, infrastructure improvement and small-scale business expansion. 

It is jointly implemented by the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), with funding provided through the SJF.

According to the SJF’s manager, Peter Nordstrom, Saameynta has made important contributions to improving the economic status of displaced families. 

“The benefits of drip irrigation in arid or semi-arid environments are evident and its potential for creating sustainable livelihoods for communities is significant,” Mr. Nordstrom said.

“At the same time,” he added, “access to land is at the heart of durable solutions for Somalia’s displacement crisis. Here in Barwaqo, the municipality has generously provided the land used for this communal farm but it is only serving a small portion of the IDP population.” 

Local authorities are keen to expand the project after having experienced its benefits.

“In the past, we used to space the crops by about two metres when planting, but now we only space by 10 centimetres due to drip irrigation. This approach is new to us, and we are really impressed by the increased production,” Mr. Isaack told the visiting delegation.

“Drip irrigation has also reduced our harvest times,” he continued. “We used to wait three months to harvest, but now we can harvest in just 15 days.”

The trip was the SJF’s first joint UN-government monitoring mission, giving participants a firsthand look at the progress of ongoing programmes in the region. It was designed to explore synergies and to strengthen linkages within the SJF portfolio on the ground so as to facilitate more effective monitoring, foster learning and maximize impact through strategic collaboration and coordination between among the Federal Government of Somalia, local authorities and the United Nations.

The visit also served as a platform for engaging directly with local authorities and community members.

“Previously, displaced persons used to depend on aid, but now they have transitioned into farmers, producing their own food,” said the South West State’s Minister of Planning, Economic Development and International Cooperation, Hussein Mohamud Sheikh Hussein. 

“They are now food secure and sell any surplus to earn income,” he added. “This shows that we are gradually shifting from food dependency to self-sufficient farmers.”

Critical funds 

Launched in 2023, the SJF is a multi-donor trust fund backed by Canada, Norway, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and the European Union. 

It aims to strengthen partnership between the Somali Government, the United Nations and international partners in support of Somalia’s national development priorities and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. 

Country-level pooled funds like the SJF are critical for the United Nations’ ability to better support development aspirations of the countries it operates in through the provision of the necessary flexibility to respond to complex challenges facing Somalia and to maximize synergies across the UN system through joint action.

Originally established in 2014 and formerly known as Somalia Multi-Partner Trust Fund, the SJF is also one of the largest country-level development funds globally with more than $500 million in contributions since inception.