Foundations laid for peace and stability in Somalia

by Hamish Wilson/

In 2012 Somalia lay at a crossroads. Two decades of war had left the region devastated, bereft of a functional government and without even the most basic services such as schools or clinics, a society shattered by violent extremism and conflict between rival clans and warlords.

The year heralded great change. African Union forces regained control of the capital Mogadishu, driving out insurgents from strongholds across the south, laying the groundwork for a fragile transition to the country’s first democratically elected administration.

Yet, in one of the most volatile and dangerous regions on earth, progress remained precarious and expectations low. In a context such as this, how do you establish even the most basic conditions essential to peace and stability?

Wasafiri’s Director and lead of our Stabilisation & Conflict Practice Area, Hamish Wilson was deployed to the British Embassy in the newly created post of Senior Stabilisation Adviser in early 2012. His most pressing requirement was to help bolster the precious political and security gains being made in newly recaptured cities across Southern Somalia. The challenge was made even more daunting by severe constraints on access and with few partners willing to work in the most dangerous areas.

In response, Hamish established a dedicated cross-departmental Stabilisation Team supported by a flexible funding mechanism – an innovation in the British Government’s stabilisation efforts worldwide. The team built a portfolio that grew rapidly to USD17m worth of projects delivered across seven of the hardest to reach and most strategically important locations in the region, playing a key role in:

  • Reconstructing offices and community centres in each of Mogadishu’s 16 districts
  • Rebuilding bridges, roads, stadiums and street lighting in 5 newly ‘liberated’ cities
  • Recovering over 1000 bombs and explosives in Baidoa
  • Restoring five community radio stations
  • Training 500 women and young men in vocational skills
  • Rebuilding over 10 markets supporting hundreds of new jobs
  • Tackling conflicts between the 6 major clans of the Central Regions
  • Building the capacity of the Ministry of Interior, President & Prime Minister’s Offices

Few organisations have been able to move as quickly or as responsively to the ever-changing situation in Somalia. As a result, the British Government has helped lay the foundations for the effective delivery of longer-term recovery efforts vital to eventual peace and stability.

Boosting Rwanda’s capacity to implement environmental policy

by Hamish Wilson/

The Rwandan Ministry of Natural Resources (MINIRENA) has a remit to coordinate, formulate policy and provide guidance on policy implementation to the environment and natural resources (ENR) sector. The latter is made up of a number of sub-sectors (environment, lands, water resources management, mines and forestry) that provide critical inputs towards poverty reduction efforts within the country, including in rural areas.

Policy implementation in particular is often a daunting task and calls for a dynamic, iterative process that unfolds differently in varying contexts.  One of the key considerations in this regard is the need for sustained capacity at individual, institutional and organisational levels. MINIRENA is a relative newcomer, having only been created in 2011 following a merger between the former Ministry of Lands and Environment and the Ministry of Forestry and Mines. As such, it is still in the process of rebuilding itself.

To assist with this process, UNDP Rwanda commissioned Wasafiri to assess the gaps in MINIRENA’s capacity to effectively deliver on its mandate within the ENR sector. The recommendations which resulted have highlighted specific areas that need strengthening within MINIRENA, which has in turn helped inform UNDP Rwanda programming with respect to capacity building interventions for the next 5 years.

Integrating gender into Burundi’s transitional justice mechanisms

by Hamish Wilson/

Women in Burundi have faced structural inequalities and systemic discrimination due to attitudes deeply embedded in the collective psyche of Burundians. These inequalities were exacerbated by cycles of political violence (and impunity) that shook the country. Yet despite bearing this heavy burden, women have played a crucial role in the search for peace and in reconciling warring communities.

In 2011, the Government of Burundi established a Technical Committee (which submitted its report in October 2011) with a view to paving the way for the creation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Women’s groups led advocacy and awareness campaigns for the inclusion of gender equality issues within the terms of reference of these transitional justice mechanisms.

In late 2012, UN Women contracted Wasafiri precisely to develop a strategy for mainstreaming gender into the country’s nascent transitional justice mechanisms, and specifically as a crucial contribution towards the establishment of the TRC, which was anticipated to take place in 2013. The strategy was used by UN Women to lobby and advocate for a gender-sensitive TRC. In early December 2013, the Burundian Minister of Gender and National Solidarity drew on the strategy in his defence of the government’s proposal on the TRC before the country’s parliament.

Although the parliamentary debate on some TRC issues remains heated, a large consensus has been built around the need to integrate gender into the TRC, based firmly on the benchmarks highlighted in the Wasafiri-produced strategy.

Rooting for resilience

by Hamish Wilson/

In keeping with the global shift towards recognising resilience as a vital component of humanitarian and development work, Christian Aid has embraced resilience-building as key to achieving its overall vision of eradicating worldwide poverty.

Enshrined in its 2012 Partnership for Change strategy as the power of individuals and communities to live with dignity, responding successfully to disasters, opportunities and risks they face, Christian Aid realised that significant changes were needed at an operational level to translate this concept of resilience into effective programming.

Wasafiri was called on to support Christian Aid in meeting this challenge by helping to plan and deliver a workshop in April 2013, bringing together programme staff from over 25 countries to share learning and best practice on resilience. Key lessons and actions were generated in the areas of integration, empowering analysis and planning, adapting Christian Aid’s Resilient Livelihoods Framework to context-specific risks, and measuring the effective performance of the Framework.

Armed with these invaluable insights, participants left the workshop committed and empowered to pioneer Christian Aid’s resilient livelihoods work in their day-to-day efforts to combat poverty around the world.

Click here for blogs, photos and videos from the workshop.

Coordinating donors behind Africa’s plan for agriculture

by Ian Randall/

At the L’Aquila G8 Summit in 2009, African leaders called upon the international community to coordinate support for agriculture on the continent through the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) as the leading African-owned initiative. They also called upon donors to do this in a manner embodying principles of aid effectiveness such as coordination, harmonisation, alignment and respect for country leadership.

At HQ level, this was to be achieved by donor agencies through CAADP’s Development Partners Task Team, which would provide a single point of contact for the AUC, NPCA and other African partners to communicate with the international community, and for donors to communicate in a consistent way with their field offices regarding how to advance support for CAADP.

Wasafiri was hired by 4 successive chairs of the task team to coordinate and support its activities, and over the course of 3 years, Wasafiri consultants provided much-valued continuity in managing the engagement of development partners with CAADP. Wasafiri was additionally charged with achieving the following key priorities for multi-stakeholder agreement in the context of CAADP:

  • Facilitating the Addis Consensus on Guidelines for Donor Support to CAADP at a country-level;Producing the Guidelines for Non-State Actor participation in CAADP;
  • Developing a CAADP Mutual Accountability Framework; and
  • Catalysing Grow Africa as the CAADP vehicle for generating private-sector investment.

The on-going alignment and commitment of donors has been key to enabling CAADP’s unprecedented progress in driving agricultural transformation on the continent, with CAADP held up as an international example of best practice for improved donor coordination. With Wasafiri’s support, the CAADP Development Partners Task Team has been the linchpin of working relationships between donors and African partners in advancing this historic progress.

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Taking a systemic approach to address health and HIV challenges

by Hamish Wilson/

Christian Aid’s recently launched global strategy, Partnership for Change, emphasizes that in order for Community Health and HIV programmes supported by the organisation to be more effective, they must move away from an exclusive focus on service delivery and directly address the systems and structures keeping people in poverty, a major barrier to accessing healthcare.

To assist in realising this goal, Wasafiri supported Christian Aid in designing and delivering a ‘Community Health for All’ workshop in Nairobi for relevant partner and programme staff, held in January 2013. The workshop agenda was framed around the three pillars of Christian Aid’s Community Health and HIV work, namely: ensuring sound health development approaches, equitable institutions and equitable social norms, which if addressed systematically, create an improved enabling environment for people to access health services.

The gathering provided those participating with an opportunity to explore what the shift in focus entailed by the new strategy means in practice for their current work, and what active steps to take to boost the performance of their programmes.

Partner and programme staff were equipped with concrete learnings and recommendations to help them apply the strategy in their own specific working contexts, so as to enable entire communities to exercise and claim their rights to essential health services.

Click here to visit blogs, photos, and videos from the workshop

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Strategic partnership forged to unlock finance for smallholders

by Hamish Wilson/

The Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) recognises the importance of strengthening finance services for African agricultural transformation. This is even more the case as CAADP enters a new phase of supporting countries with implementation of their respective agricultural investment plans. However, the CAADP partnership currently lacks the expertise, resources and networks now required to adequately support countries in strengthening agri-finance.

Wasafiri Directors, Ian and Liberal worked together on linking MFW4A and CAADP

The Making Finance Work for Africa (MFW4A) partnership is an initiative that is very well-positioned to respond to this need. In 2008, MFW4A defined agricultural finance as a priority, going on in 2011 to produce a policy brief on agricultural finance in Africa and the Kampala Principles, constituting a set of policy actions that are urgently needed to unlock agri-finance in Africa.

The challenge became how to mainstream the Kampala Principles and the policy brief recommendations into the CAADP framework. Wasafiri Consulting was contracted to provide an answer to this question, while building momentum between the two initiatives to combine CAADP’s political strength with MFW4A’s technical expertise to help solve the puzzle of African agri-finance.

The report produced by Wasafiri offered invaluable strategic and operational recommendations, and importantly facilitated mutual understanding and the establishment of an on-going symbiotic relationship between the two partnerships, a pivotal step forward in the quest to meet the financing demands of Africa’s agricultural transformation.

Strengthening the fight against HIV in Southern Africa

by Hamish Wilson/

With dramatic changes taking place in the nature of the HIV epidemic since the introduction of antiretroviral therapy, and consequent shifts in the global response to HIV (together with the onset of donor fatigue), Catholic aid agency CAFOD recognised the need to strengthen its HIV response in the global HIV hub of Southern Africa through a dedicated regional strategy.

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Wasafiri has been instrumental in developing that strategy with CAFOD and its partners. As an initial step in this process, Wasafiri undertook a review in 2013 of CAFOD-funded HIV programmes run by 13 partners in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, formulating recommendations for ways to strengthen CAFOD’s HIV work in the region. Wasafiri also designed and facilitated a partner workshop in Zambia to validate the findings of the review, and was tasked with compiling the outcomes of the workshop and developing the regional strategy.

The strategy produced provides guidance to CAFOD staff and partners in their efforts to address the evolving challenge of HIV in Southern Africa by shaping CAFOD’s organisational and programmatic response to HIV in the region for the next three to five years.

Taking into account the intervening changes in the epidemic and the local contexts of the countries identified, the strategy outlines appropriate adaptations to programming and partner support to ensure the gains already made in Southern Africa in the fight against HIV are maintained and further advanced.

An historic time for Somalia

by Hamish Wilson/

This is an historic time for the war ravaged country of Somalia. The comparatively smooth transition to a new government headed by ex-peace activist and educational campaigner turned president – the 57 year old Hasan Sheikh Mohamad – has generated a new wave of optimism for the region’s future. This buoyant mood builds upon the rapid progress being made in the fight against radical Islamic group Al Shabaab, who until late last year, held much of southern Somalia under its sway. Now, thanks to unprecedented regional military cooperation bringing together Ugandan, Burundian, Kenyan forces, with Ethiopian troops, Somalia’s iconic capital of Mogadishu has been reclaimed, and the prized southern port city of Kismayo has all but been recaptured. Al Shabaab are well and truly on the back foot, and their future looks bleak.

And Somalis are seizing the moment for themselves. Members of the diaspora are flooding back to the country from as far afield as Australia, Norway and the United States, bringing with them a spirited entrepreneurialism and cash. Capitalising on the growing stability, new enterprises are springing up across the battle scarred streets of Mogadishu. Freshly painted coffee shops, newly constructed hotels, and electronics stores laden with the newest appliances from Dubai all are materialising from the rubble that has defined the past 20 years.

Of course, much remains to be done to ensure this brief moment in time heralds a sustained recovery from a history bleached by entrenched conflict, crippling corruption, and oppressive regimes. Somalia has often been described as ‘the world’s most failed state’, a label which rightly angers many Somali’s nowdays. Yet there is no denying that the region remains dangerously fragile. The biggest risk is that this volatile time of political transition sparks more fracturing rather than unification, incites new conflict rather than peaceful settlement over timeworn issues.

The balance hangs in the hands of the Somalis themselves. Yet the regional powers have a critical role to play in ensuring their support is not driven by self-interest at the expense of wider stability. And the international community, in Somalia’s case a growing range of actors with increasingly diverse interests, must remain consistent and coherent in its support of the country’s rebirth.

My role as Senior Stabilisation Adviser for the British Office for Somalia, sees me heading a team at the sharp end of the international community’s assistance to the region. We are charged with working in areas newly ‘liberated’ by military forces, helping to restore stability, and create the conditions for longer term recovery.  It is certainly no easy task, yet the early signs of progress are appearing – we are supporting Somalis to establish local administrations, implement community security programmes and rebuild basic infrastructure like roads and markets.

Yet one-off stabilisation projects will only go part way to solve the problem. The real challenge in such a fragmented, fractured landscape, to Somalis and internationals alike, is to find new ways of forging concerted action. Action that brings together the Somali businessman from London keen to invest in his old neighbourhood, with the newly appointed District Governor, with a group of young unemployed men, with the women from the local market, with the head of the African Union military unit, alongside the police commissioner… to decide for themselves what the real problems are, and how they are going to solve them together.

Crack that, and the rubble of Somalia’s history may just be swept aside once and for all.