Somalia is consistently among one of the most challenging environments for aid agencies and government entities to provide social assistance due to the ongoing conflict and limited government control. Aid providers struggle to reach people in areas not under government control, which exacerbates urgent needs for assistance amid droughts, floods, and chronic poverty. Somalia has also been in the news recently because of renewed focus on aid diversion, particularly of cash assistance. However, this is nothing new for Somali communities as aid has been problematically embedded in exploitative political economies for decades.
This new BASIC research paper examines systems for the accountability of social assistance in Somalia, exploring why and how accountability outcomes and pathways are not working for local communities in the Baidoa, Mogadishu and Gedo regions of Somalia, particularly for marginalised groups. The research is based on interviews with people receiving social assistance, community leaders and organisations, aid agencies and donors, local authorities and the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs.
Whilst conversations centred a lot around a lack of transparency and weak accountability, people also offered concrete solutions. In this tense environment, the local communities suggested four areas of improvement for assistance to be fairer and more accountable in Somalia. Many of their priorities are considered core concepts for accountable aid – which underscores a need to return to basics as Somalia’s social protection systems evolve.
1. Involve communities, local authorities and government in design
The community members and government representatives consulted often referred to the idea of “pre-cooked programmes” – social assistance that’s already designed and decided by the time communities learn about what’s available and who can receive it. They felt this made aid design and delivery less transparent, leaving space for confusion and diversion. There was a clear desire for greater involvement from communities, local authorities, and government at earlier stages in the design of assistance programmes.
“The government’s priorities are youth employment and a productive safety net while the current social assistance is more humanitarian-related and short-term. Because the government is not engaged meaningfully and donors just do what they think and find easy for them, they fund unconditional and non-universal targeting projects which are prone to excessive diversion and exclusion.” (Int 4, MoLSA, Mogadishu)
2. Prioritise public information sharing on social assistance
Accountability and anti-corruption reporting channels continue to be programme-specific, which makes sense for donors and implementers who see themselves as responsible for their own projects and outputs. Yet these programme “blinders” also apply to how organisations share information and do community engagement, which runs counter to what communities need and want – especially when multiple programmes provide social assistance in the same area, like in Baidoa. People want to see more public forums, not just invite-only spaces like focus groups or relief committee meetings, where they can hear about social assistance plans in their area and give feedback directly to aid providers.
“We prefer community gathering and all project information including caseload and entitlement made public. Why do they hide such information and tell the committees they set up if there are no issues? For accountability purposes, they should make it public.” (Int 25, community leader and elder, Dolow)
3. Ensure existing accountability mechanisms can escalate feedback to decision-makers
Communication channels like hotlines and committee meetings are supposed to collect feedback so that decision makers can listen and improve social assistance. In Somalia, many people don’t see this happening in reality. The mechanisms used to share information and collect feedback are those owned and managed by aid providers. Independent researchers and aid providers interviewed saw competition for funding and “control of aid” as driving forces behind a lack of transparency and a disconnection between programme-specific accountability data and public information sharing.
“[Organisations] only work with the committees they set [up] in the villages. They don’t talk to community leaders, they are accountable to the communities, and they don’t ask us for feedback. To whom do we complain? The same people we complain about.” (Int 25, community leader, Dolow).
When talking about ways to address this lack of transparency, people highlighted the need for greater appetite from aid providers to address corruption and diversion. The current emphasis on community-level investigations and donors’ “zero tolerance” policies on corruption can often discourage aid providers from investigating problems and reporting issues, for fear of losing funding under these policies. Interviewees also called for a bigger role for the government, at local and federal levels, in the design of social assistance programmes and taking action on community feedback. They felt that if government representatives are more involved, they can be held to account. Opinions were mixed on whether the government would truly represent the interests of all groups, but there was a general sense that including local authorities in aid decision-making was an important starting point.
4. Expand the concept of representation
In Somalia, the clan system – large kinship groups that play important roles across society and governance – strongly influences people’s access to social assistance because some clans / sub-clans are more involved in governance, business, and the aid sector. This often leads to the exclusion of some groups like minorities from programme consultations or receiving social assistance. International aid actors are paying more attention to clan dynamics and making greater efforts to include marginalised groups in their programmes and staffing, but people felt more could still be done to extend accountability efforts to marginalised clans.
A community representative in Dolow told us that “every social group in this town has leaders and representatives” across Somalia. Leveraging the networks of local organisations such as women and youth groups as allies and community mobilisers coupled with a renewed focus on minority and marginalised groups could improve the inclusivity of social assistance.
It makes sense to think of the accountability of social assistance as one part of the broader push for better governance in Somalia, led by Somalis. The Somali Dialogue Platform and Somali Public Agenda outlined growing avenues for citizens to influence political decision-making which included the growing use of social media as a forum for the discussion of contentious political topics, examples of public outcry and demonstrations which have led to policy changes and moments of interactions between people and politicians around elections. Aid accountability efforts need to do more to link with these emerging political processes.
Communities don’t see how social assistance can become more accountable without going back to the basics of transparency and inclusion. Government and community representatives, especially at the local and regional levels, want to be involved in the design of social assistance so they can shape how they will be held to account. Even if the programmes end up looking similar to their current design, in Somalia, as in many places, the process of designing social assistance – and who’s involved – is as important as the outcome.
