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.
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