CHANGING THE HUMANITARIAN AID DELIVERY PACKAGE IN SWS.

Few days back; I had been among a group of Humanitarian actors who had happened to meet with his excellence Mr. Abdiaziz Hassan Laftagarren the regional state president for South West State Somalia (SWS) and part of his brief appreciation and encouragement speech, I was impressed how well articulate he is and giving us all the stats of the need on ground and that the SWS fully supports the facilitation and support of the Humanitarian partners in SWS.

What touched me most is a typical scenario that he had shared with and he says “There had been a case of young 17 years old pregnant girl from Barawe district who had been under labor pain for hours and he case was complicated and yet there are no local flights, nor sea route and above all poor road, I had to personally pay $ 800.00 to make sure that young lady and her kid is saved and was taken to Mogadishu where she gave birth and doing ok now”. Then it was follow by his emphasized on SWS most needs being Education and Health access where only Baidoa the temporary HQ of SWS government has a regional Hospital while the rest 17 districts across SWS doesn’t have a single main hospital.

This and more other triggering take aways from the president Laftagareen’s talk got me thinking and looking into all the concerns / needs on ground and looking into the current aid model and the immense service delivery including both Emergency responses and development scale project being implemented in the regions of SWS. If we might ask ourselves, are we really listening and empowering the regional state government and of course yes; it’s the sole responsibility of the regional state government and the federal government to work in the essential services of Health, Education and Clean water access for all the population but again the vast challenges faced by the SWS doesn’t allow it to sole take that responsibility to delivering the highlighted services.

There is some open and dynamic ministries in SWS which more than open and ready to support in the service delivery to the community especially the leadership of the SWS MOPIED is amazing and collaborative.

Donors and partners work.

The services and supported by the big donors and humanitarian actors in SWS is no doubt making a significant lifesaving incorporated with development packages like investing in regional government institutional building, Infrastructural development which improved the roads some which are extended to serving the major IDP settlement for better and quick access; These are all an undeniable support which much appreciated by the local community, IDP, Returnee and refugees in the main town of Baidoa.

Millions are invested in SWS and the channels in which these funds come though is of different modes with different purposes based the design of every projects and its relevance and yes the donors and humanitarian partners are doing a good job and making sure lives are saved in the mid of recurrent circles of drought and displacement in the regions.

What to change in service delivery model.

Over the years, we had made an improvement in terms of the gradual change and adaptation of the Humanitarian Aid package in Somalia and this was party driven by the changing context of the country in general but focusing on SWS in this case, I believe changes needs to made to our approaches and further improve in our service delivery especially for reaching out and beyond Baidoa main town which became the hub and most concentrated city in SWS in terms presence of Humanitarian actors and this good humble efforts in service delivery is on the flip-side becoming a pool factor for further displacement from the rural areas of regions (Bay and Bakool) mostly.

The SWS government alongside other key actors in Baidoa have tried their best capacity to mitigate the immense displacement in establishing a huge designated settlement for IDPs, Returnees and Refugees in Baidoa where each HH is entitled to get 10m by 20m square piece of land; This is best approach for the short term solution and again its create an imaginable displacement in return which is a long term crisis and as of now an estimated 400,000 IDPs are in Baidoa and these are some of the most energetic youth that had been based in the rural villages across the regions. On top of the displacement crisis; there a potential longer term risk of food insecurity trends as the farming community from the rural and outlying villages ending up as IDPs and adding weight to the already numbers of IDPs/Returnees that the humanitarian actors in Baidoa were struggling with.  In a simple comparison, the 2011 drought almost every displaced HHs was destined to reaching Mogadishu where there was service delivery but now the huge number in Baidoa itself is a kind of positive indication that these IDP HHs do to some extend need to go back to their villages and revive their livelihoods.

To be pragmatic, extending service to the community far and beyond Baidoa of course calls for access issue which is where the SWS role comes in creating a conducive environment where the Humanitarian actors can work and serve the community to minimize the wide spreading displacement within SWS.

Recommendations.

-        -   Humanitarian actors in SWS to think of service extension to the other districts in the regions of SWS especially the ones with access and can be reached via local flights, have some footprint in those districts and design district level programmes to at least take services close to local community to avoid routine displacement in search for access to services.

-        -  Engagement of SWS in designing priority based projects in line with the regional state strategic plans while invest the SWS government institution capacity invest too.

-          - Promoting Aid localization in the region, the limitation of Humanitarian aid service to Baidoa main town is partially contributed by the limited number of NNGOs working in the region thus there should a true partnership with the NNGOs that can reach further and wider than INGO restricted in main towns.

-   -  Donor flexible, its time donors and INGOs to have a sense of risk appetite and start expanding geographical programming to other districts of SWS and in no way compromising their compliance with the donors.

-         - Funds shouldn’t be restricted to the donor interest in the region but rather the needs of the community who are the fast hand victims of the droughts and conflict effects in the region.

-          Development project extended to the district too, having the right infrastructure i.e. airstrip in all SWS districts could have facilitate easy movement and access of the Humanitarian actors in the region.