Somaliland

Agenda for Change Members working on systems approaches

Please note this is a summary of information. You can learn more on the CARE, Concern, and Welthungerhilfe websites.

CARE’s Haraad Reeb project from 2013 -2016 aimed to build the resilience of target communities against drought-related shocks. The project focused on rural semi-sedentary populations living in small villages spread across the eastern regions – Togdheer, Sool, and Sanag. CARE and the Ministry of Water Resources Development (MoWRD) had a robust working relationship throughout—outlined in a joint memorandum of understanding (MoU) and applied at national, regional, district and village levels.

Concern Worldwide has been working in Somaliland since 2010, implementing programming in community resilience and emergency response in the Marodijeh and Awdal regions. Concern works to increase water access to rural, displaced, natural disaster (drought and floods) affected communities facing water scarcity. This is through rehabilitation and repairs of existing water sources, construction of new water sources and emergency water trucking. Concern complements these interventions with activities in hygiene and sanitation promotion. Concern has developed a very strong collaborative working relationship with the Ministry of Water Resources Development.

Welthungerhilfe’s Sustainable Services Initiative has contributed to WASH systems strengthening in Somaliland, alongside other actors, over the past year.  Recent progress has included the active participation of UNICEF, the MoWRD, and the MOH.

Systems strengthening activities

CARE integrates an indicator of gender and equity into their system strengthening criteria. In Somaliland, and other similar contexts, CARE addresses men’s initial resistance to female inclusion, and develops the capacity and confidence of women to participate in decision-making and governance of water supplies. In Somalia, CARE built on the relationship it initially developed with the Government in constructing and managing water systems and is now working within two departments (Department of Water and Department of Regulation) to write and implement the manual to effectively decentralize the management of water systems to utilities or companies across the region.

Concern has constructed & rehabilitated over 160 water points since 2011, providing access to improved drinking water for the population and livestock. Concern’s systems approach involves working collaboratively with Ministry of Water Resources Development, Local Authorities, traditional and local leaders, community groups, and private sector. Concern’s technical support to the Ministry of Water Resources Development included the re design of underground water storage structure and contribution to stakeholders’ workshop to develop water harvesting strategy for Somaliland. Concern is an active member of the WASH Cluster, becoming a member of the Strategic Advisory Group in 2021, and works closely with other actors to improve coordination and quality of WASH approaches. Concern works with targeted communities to support their active participation in the planning, implementation, monitoring and management of water sources. Concern trains water and sanitation committees on the maintenance of water sources, including rainwater catchments.

Welthungerhilfe’s activities in Somaliland include reasonable tariff setting and collection, establishment, training and legal registration of Water Service Providers such as Water Management Committees and Public-Private Partnerships, establishment of WASH regional coordination meetings, water sector asset data establishment and regular updating, and creation of district WASH monitoring plans. Welthungerhilfe convened a series of stakeholder workshops in Somaliland, both at the sector and regional levels, whereby government and non-state actors collaboratively analyzed the strength of the WASH system and identified and prioritized key actions to address these. In an attempt to ensure the agreed outcomes of these workshops were operationalized and institutionalized, a sector task force on systems strengthening was established to oversee the implementation of agreed actions. This taskforce is chaired by the Director of Planning from the Ministry of Water. To increase mobile agro-pastoralist communities’ access to clean drinking water in the Adwaal region, Welthungerhilfe and its partners are working with communities and local government to plan and build water infrastructure that suits their needs, provide training to committees to support the new infrastructure and increase awareness about health and sanitation issues in communities and schools. Welthungerhilfe co-leads this process with the Ministry of Water Resources, with strong collaboration with partners including CARE and UNICEF.