Towards Sustainable Urban Development in Somalia and IDP Durable Solutions at Scale

This report reviews Somalia’s current patterns of urbanization and displacement, and provides tailored recommendations to local, State and Federal State authorities, as well as to UN and stakeholders working in Somalia. Rapid, spontaneous patterns of urbanization in Somalia, driven in part by interests of land-owners and needs of displaced communities, entrenches the dynamics of clan and conflict in the evolving form of cities, with the risk of perpetuating and increasing instability.

As Somalia’s population is expected to become predominantly urban after 2026, the coming years provide a critical opportunity to set a new course of well-planned and man-aged urbanization, yielding economic diversification, improved social equality, stabilization and resilience, through national and federal state level policies, implemented in cities by inclusive urban planning processes and inclusive, representational governance.

The report, serves to stimulate discussion on urbanization, and while recognizing the need for additional studies to explore viable solutions to enable return to rural areas, provides recommendations to address the pertinent challenge of achieving durable solutions at scale for internally displaced people in cities – particularly those for whom the option of rural return is unlikely in the foreseeable future.