However, the 2011 drought and famine helped galvanize a sustained commitment to Somalia’s future by regional and global actors which has led, among other developments, to agenda of building resilience. In September 2011, the Inter-Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD) helped launch a regional platform for a 15-yearDrought Disaster Resilience and Sustainability Initiative (IDDRSI) and corresponding Country Programme Papers (CPPs) linked to the national development strategies and other sustainable development initiatives
The Somalia Resilience Programme, or SomReP, is an ambitious approach to tackle the challenge of recurrent droughts—and the chronic vulnerability that results—among pastoralists, agro-pastoralists, and peri-urban households across Somalia. Seven international NGOs ACF, ADRA, CARE, COOPI, Oxfam and World Vision.with deep experience in Somalia have joined as a long-term consortium to build and field test a resilience model based on the latest global resilience thinking, innovative livelihood approaches for the Somalia context, and bridging the relief to development continuum.
With support from several donors, SomReP has implemented several projects which aim at enhancing the resilience of vulnerable populations by increasing the adaptive and absorptive capacities of communities, through community participatory planning, the use of financial instruments such as savings groups and the management of rangelands and eco-system health.
The SomReP programme targets two traditional livelihood sectors that are particularly vulnerable and central to Somali household survival—pastoral and agro-pastoral. A third focus group, the peri-urban poor, is a sub-strata of Somalia’s growing urban population, and these households face particular livelihood vulnerability given their high propensity to be internally displaced households, female-headed households, or youth with few employment prospects. By building resilience in livestock and farm related livelihoods, SomReP also aims to keep more households—particularly female-headed households who tend to be most vulnerable—engaged in their productive livelihoods during dry seasons and periods of drought, and reduce the numbers migrating to peri-urban areas to seek alternative livelihoods.
In contexts of repeated shocks, people’s livelihoods and productive assets are constantly being eroded. In order to build resilience, first a stable foundation of productive livelihood activities and assets needs to be established from which improvements can be made. SomReP endeavours to strengthen existing livelihoods and also improve livelihood assets and outcomes in the course of normal seasonal cycles
SomReP seeks to enhance the risk awareness, mitigation, and management of the target HHs and communities through community based disaster risk reduction activities, and linking these to the creation or strengthening of existing informal safety nets. Informal safety nets include self-help groups, Village Savings and Loans, and the use of remittances for community projects and vulnerable household needs
Good, responsive, and accountable governance is essential for ensuring basic services and infrastructure are in place to allow for the development of resilient productive capacities, as well as support systems to allow people to cope during times of stress and crisis. It is also vital for ensuring information flows to support people to be agents of change in their own lives, rather than passive victims of drought and instability