Social Accountability on Durable Solutions: Perception Survey in Baidoa and Bossaso

Context

Somalia is facing a protracted displacement crisis. Since the new wave of displacement as a result of the 2016/2017 drought, 2.6 million people - one in six Somalis - have been forced to flee their homes.  Displaced groups in Somalia are extremely vulnerable - lacking in sustainable livelihoods, permanent housing and access to basic services. Their arrival and continued presence in cities and towns, such as Mogadishu, Baidoa and Bossaso, are straining services and infrastructure in municipalities that already struggle to deliver for the host community.

In January 2019 the Internally Displaced Population in Baidoa reached an estimated 329,1912, outnumbering the local resident population3. Two successive droughts since early 2017 have resulted in several waves of displacement, with many IDPs travelling to Baidoa from the surrounding districts in Bay Region to access services. There are an estimated 391 IDP sites in Baidoa district, an increase of 321 since the start of the 2017 drought. Most sites are clustered around the periphery of the city, resulting in increased pressure on infrastructure and resources. Whilst some steps have been taken to relocate IDPs to government-owned land, the vast majority of the displaced population resides on private land and remain at risk of rapid forced evictions.

Since 1991 the population in Bossaso has doubled, with an estimated 2,000 people migrating to the city every year. In early 2019 the total IDP population was estimated to be 59,266 people, spread across 18 sites around the city. Although ongoing conflict across Somalia is identified as a push factor, the majority of IDPs indicate that their displacement is driven by livelihood needs, with many relocating to Bossaso in order to access services8. Water, hygiene and sanitation (WASH) and protection services are particularly limited in the IDP sites on the periphery of the city, and the rapidly growing urban population is putting increasingly strain on the already stressed city infrastructure. Within this, environmental degradation is one of the most visible problems.

In response to this crisis, international actors in Somalia, together with all levels of government, have invested large amounts of funding to support durable solutions for displacement-affected communities (DAC). Despite this, concerns remain that durable solutions programming has not yet been able to show how it is adequately meeting the needs of DAC. In this context, the United Nations Integrated Office of the UN Resident Coordinator for Somalia (UN RCO) is supporting a shift to area-based approaches, in which localised and measurable collective outcomes shape and integrate durable solutions programming to maximise efficiency and effectiveness. However, crucial to the relevance and success of this process, is that the development of collective outcomes is grounded in the realities of displacement-affected communities. If they are to guide durable solutions programming effectively, collective outcomes need to be set in collaboration with DACs.

The Durable Solutions subchapter in the Resilience Pillar of the National Development Plan 8 of the Federal Government of Somalia highlights the following strategic objective: “to create opportunities for IDPs and refugee returnees to participate in public affairs and most importantly, in decision-making pertaining to their own future, such as local and urban development processes, and remove obstacles to such participation.“The draft National Development Plan 2020-2024, considers Durable Solutions as a “cross-cutting imperative”.

Yet meaningful engagement of displaced groups in decision-making is challenging to achieve in the Somali context where the state structures and processes are weak and where clan and gender identity heavily determine dynamics of social and political inclusion and exclusion. Moreover, engaging communities at sufficient scale can be costly and difficult to duplicate across geographies. Long-term on-the-ground approaches can support the growth of the accountability ecosystems, but rarely in timeframes to quickly inform decision-making. Existing large-scale methods to hear from citizens such as perception surveys often miss crucial qualitative detail, risk being one-way and extractive, and are rarely representative in the Somali context.

This report has been produced in partnership with local authorities, MOPIED team of the National Statistics Commission and AVF, and follows two other exercises on social accountability for DACs undertaken by REDSS and the EU