By: Lutfi Sheriff Mohammed

In the course of this section I will face and present the central part of the thesis which is the findings of the survey and its analysis. As the survey will point up and give attention to indisputable action of the NGOs in Somalia- being Somalia’s NGOs infant and their growing stage it is not possible to expect more and comprehensive activity on the ground-also this chapter enlighten the level of NGO’s performance in the field of development and also other important sectors in South Somalia.
One must take into account that NGOs have come to play a significant role in Somalia recent years. During 1980's there was a relatively small NGOs sector in Somalia, dominated mainly by the humanitarian organizations. Other NGOs such as Women's Organizations, social clubs, professional organizations were organized along interests of their parts after the downfall of military regime. Until recently NGOs were not looked upon as significant alternative providers of services to the pubic sector or as representing alternative policy framework to the state or private sector. All of the donor states felt that the Somali NGOs needed to be better organized in order to find their voice and to co-operate more directly with donor countries and organization. Local NGOs should overcome their individual interest and sometimes narrow agendas in order to promote the peaceful development of all Somalia. On one hand, NGOs do have advantages in entering areas of development fields where no state structures exist or to which donors or international organizations do not have easy access. Yet, for NGOs the reach of their activities is limited due to their frequently low capacity, their specific objectives and their often-isolated target group. To really assist NGOs in their own institution-building a range of supportive measures must be undertaken:
 Long term supervision to assist in the building of capacity,
 A combination of short term project financing and longer term institution-building
 Financial adaptation to the slow growth of capacities (no over-funding)
 Support for integration into regional networks in order to facilitate exchange of information and to encourage wider perspective.
Locations of the NGOs
According to the survey a large number of the NGOs are presently established in Banadir region or they have headquarter in the capital which is more than a third of interviewed NGOs 40% as in the table 1 shows. Most of respondents lease, rather than own their location. Unlike the case in most other Eastern and Southern African countries where up to 30% of NGOs located within the city. To the extent that the site location of an organization is an important determinant to its performance, it comes into sight that the majority of the sampled organizations are not likely to find their spot location a major constraint to their performance.
The outstanding organizations are equally disseminated and scattered to diverse regions within Somali territory as the table 1 notifies. But the trouble is there is no tangible evidence which give emphasis to accurate dispersion of NGOs in nation wide.

Locations of the NGOs 1
Locations of the NGOs Number of organization Percent
Lower Shabelle (Merca) 1 10%
Banadir 4 40%
Mudug 1 10%
Galgadud 1 10%
Galkayo 1 10%
Afgoye district 1 10%
Dinsor district 1 10%
Total 10 100%

The strategic plan of the NGOs in Somalia
One of the most remarkable outcomes of the collapse centralized state and the ensuing civil war has been the birth of independent social and economic grouping. To better address the needs of a country where there is no functioning government since long time is quite complicated, so as a result, NGOs have room to maneuver to play pivotal role of conducting many development activities and strategies to implement on the basis of that gab. On the interior of the questionnaire majority of organizations probably projected quite good plans for upsurging the development in the mainstay parts in which participating transformation of the people from the lack of resources to provision of minim living standard. For instance, 30% of these strategies deliberately committed for education according to the questionnaire. While health and environmental development were ranked the second order of the projects in the significance for cited NGOs as demonstrated in table 2. The remaining issues were considered equal.


Table strategic plan 2
Strategic plan Number of NGOs Percent
Education development 3 30%
small finance 1 10%
Health 2 20%
Training 2 20%
Environmental development 1 10%
Rehabilitation 1 10%
Total 10 100%
Project objectives
The overall goal of the projects is to support the development of permanent respect for human rights, educational improvement, and rehabilitation in Somalia. There was a situation of social, economic and political hopelessness and more alarming amongst the people of Somalia and there had been a social insecurity running during the absence of powerful central state. It was not uncommon for people to "disappear" at the hands of violence. Freedom of association was highly restricted. Associational groups were held suspect by the society because of the prioritizing of the tribism.

Later than, when people recognized the destitution of the disintegration and fragmentation they had evolved creating social and economical associations and came with the idea that they were free to organise themselves. Its deliberate efforts to form NGOs signaled that the ordinary people were free to discuss and form opinions of their own.

This development activity gained momentum in the Somali civil society (SCSs) especially NGOs who majority of them prioritize the development issues such as education, small finance, health, training, as well as environmental issues. If you glance at table 3 you could observe that how NGOs categorized their strategies based on the ability of the NGOs members.

In subsequent years, we can expect to see continued development of NGO partnerships in Somalia through developed organizations.
Table 1 summarizes the objectives of short terms.


Short term strategic 3
Strategic plan Short term strategic Percent
Reduction of widespread vulnerability 3 30%
small finance 1 10%
Enhancement of good governance 1 10%
Training 2 20%
Environmental development 2 20%
Rehabilitation 1 10%
Total 10 100%
Levels of international assistance
International assistance can be differentiated into two levels: first, the diplomatic level of negotiations and agreements; and secondly, the level of concrete development, assistance activities. With the aim of promoting peace and development, the states of the world have developed many agreements (international law), rules and organizations. It is important for Somali civil society and administrative bodies to comprehend the complex interaction of the international community in order to better to understand the possibilities and limitations of external actors supporting Somalia internal peace and development. It is also important for Somali civil society and administrative bodies to reflect upon ways to better influence and play a stronger role in international decision-making and in the reconciliation and peace process. The most significant agreement and actors for Somalia are described below. Cooperation with NGOs: in order to involve civil society in economic and politically relevant decision, the European Union (EU) supports NGOs activities, mainly through co-funding project of European or international NGOs.
The circumstance of ongoing conflict and the breakdown of any central state authority require the international community to provide an approach appropriate to this situation. This approach includes:
1. Provision of humanitarian aid
2. Provision of basic assistance to the social sector through United Nations agencies, international organizations and Non-governmental organizations;
3. Provision of aid on a political and economic level to neighboring countries where there is a breakdown that threatens regional security
As part of the responsibility of undertaking the role of NAO the EC Delegation has formulated a Strategy for the implementation of Special Aid in Somalia (2002-2007), which includes the following aims:
1. To contribute to the alleviation of poverty and to the promotion of more peaceful equitable and democratic society in Somalia as a long-time objective ;
2. To support sustainable improvement of the livelihood of the Somali people – by enhancing food security and economic growth—and their improved access to basic public and social services as well as the establishment of good governance
This table 4 illustrates how these projected aid distributed to the different areas of development.
Aid effect 4
Aid effect Number of organizations Percent
Economical impact 2 20%
Socio-economic impact 1 10%
Environmental impact 2 20%
Educational impact 2 20%
Woman development 1 10%
Emergence situation 2 20%
Total 10 100%

Forms of assistance programme
Therefore, this implies that for any NGO to gain eligibility from the donor and must present acceptable and sustainable programme. But more significant is the fact that the NGOs must acquire skills and knowledge for the management of their activity also succeed the confidence of the people and beneficiaries equally.
In my view, since NGOs are engaged more in the development oriented activities, they have to be very lively and transparent in their activity for both donor organizations and also beneficiaries. As pointed out earlier, the government seems to be over keenly concerned with "political sensitivity" that NGOs are perceived to portend. "Political sensitivity" is itself a trick. There is no evidence until now to indicate that NGOs have been engaged in acts that should cause nervousness in the state arena. Let us then examine the nature of the NGOs.
Of course, NGOs in Somalia do not have any long term and sustainable programmes so they can’t attract any fund. But, the table below gives a small number of the programmes and projects that NGOs prioritize for their activities.
Forms of assistance programmes 5
Programme and project Number of organization Percent
Local capacity building 2 10%
Integrated urban development 1 10%
Water infrastructure 1 10%
Small semi-urban project 2 20%
Reintegration and rehabilitation programme 1 10%
Peace building 3 30%
Total 10 100%
Humanitarian emergence
Support was provided to civil society and parliamentarians but what now concerns is that the grass root people currently live in Somalia. In many places, the NGO sector has been at the centre of calling for social justice in development, campaigning for debt relief for poor countries, and demanding accountability, and the World Bank on the one side and national and local governments on the other. We saw how the Seattle anti-WTO demonstrations raised the issue of trade and economic justice.
Table 5 examines the target beneficiaries of local NGOs in Somalia especially southern regions.
Targeted beneficiaries 5
Beneficiaries Number of organizations Percent
Vulnerable women 3 30%
Disabled people 2 20%
Minorities 1 10%
Orphan Children 4 40%
Total 10 100%
The identification of foreign funding as a key problem is faulty and mischievous. It is premised on the unrealized assumption that NGOs are the ones taking the money that is being denied by them. Because the absence of central government those NGOs seek to get more fund from foreign aid, even if it is not their primary purpose the promotion of human rights and governance.
The reality of NGOs in Somalia
NGOs generally have no better administrative capabilities and often have no space and facilities for conducting the programmes and projects. The absence of these prerequisite makes constraints in front the opportunity to market their administrative services and the use of their facilities.
Many less-developed NGOs have failed in recent years due to a lack of new ideas and an inability to attract donors. However, some organizations have continued to prosper and have been instrumental in furthering the democratic-transition process less developed. These NGOs possess the non-financial capacities needed to succeed.

The NGO sector itself has developed significantly during the last 15 years and now has much to offer. The economic decline resulting mainly from the ban imposed on livestock devastated the economy and left the ordinary people helpless. These extreme conditions of deficiency together with a relatively accommodative political situation set the space for creation of numerous NGOs' in the country. The World Bank, in study found that two thirds of these NGOs' had registered as development focused organizations. None of those had registered as a politically oriented organization. The bulk of NGOs registering as development organizations I explained in part by the fact that donors were willing to channel development funding through the NGOs rather than governments. In more recent years, the NGOs' have been formed out of another necessity i.e. the effects of structural adjustment programmes (SAPS). These effects include; retrenchment of civil servants leading to unemployment of previous employed people, privatization and demobilization of armed militia. This implies that the formation of NGOs' may not necessarily be out of voluntarism, but opportunism. This calls for categorization of NGOs as a specific organization in the social arena of our society.
Debates on whether NGOs' constitute a specific category in the organization of society are varied. The issues raised by this debate range from, the functions of NGOs, their membership and issues of control.
As this point, let us identify the categories that tend to be assigned to the NGOs. These categories include.
1. Human, Rights organizations
2. Women's organizations
3. Environmental organizations
4. Youth organisation
5. Cooperatives

As illustrated above, most NGOs share many qualities; therefore, the extent to which any of the above fits in a particular category or the other is a matter of degree.
But the reality is extremely far-off because: first, some NGOs completely dependent on foreign funding, some of them are actually formed not because they have a social mission but because some donor has promised them funding. This is where the case of "brief case NGOs" has arisen. "Brief case NGO" is the type of NGO which creates an office (sometimes has no office) or a single individual represents the whole organisation and at times the NGO exists only in name and not in substance.
Secondly, the issue of funding raises another management issue, the issue of democratic participation and methods of work. Most of the leaders of NGOs have turned NGOs into career offices to the extent that attempts by membership to raise the questions of elections of new leadership are hated by serving leaders. There are however, few some organisations in Somalia which though supported by foreign funding have exercised democratic changes.

Characteristics of Somali NGOs
The main problem with Somali’s NGOs is that they are numerous, small, uncoordinated or fragmented and they lack a common agenda or vision.
Ideally, a united force of NGOs would have served to strengthen NGOs ability to present common positions on issues related to their constituencies or policies. Unfortunately this has not been the case.
The absence of good umbrella system to facilitate networking, free exchange of resources and information to maintain the highest levels of self regulation among NGOs and to provide guidelines on national development policies.

The fact is the existence of rudimentary networks which are completely inefficiency. Fortunately, Novib it is not umbrella but it’s a key member of Oxfam International family. Novib involvement in Somalia initially started with support for the development programmes. Since 1995 Novib has been more directly engaged with Somalia civil society organizations (CSOs) has funded several organizations, including CSO networks, comprising approximately 100 local NGO members all over Somalia. Over all Novib’s engagement with Somali civil society aims at contributing to the achievement of the following:
 The strengthening of all Partners in moving from an activity driven agenda towards becoming strong, proactive organizations
 Building of capacity of the partners, particularly network members, in the education sector in terms of vision, activity development and access to other donors
 Building of the capacity of partners in the sector of food security, especially pastoralist oriented groups
 Increasing of the lobbing capacity of Partners, particularly around the issue of illegal trade
 The linking of efforts to work towards a sustainable peace in the counteract the divided history, which perpetuates the conflict. This entails building a coalition that share a joint vision of the future, inside the country, as well as presenting a harmonized reaction to outside actors
 The strengthening of women’s political inclusion

As a result of ongoing conflict there is little conviction on the part of the international community that civil society in Somalia has the potential to play a role in re-building the country. Novib is one of the very few donors working closely with local organisations on a non-operational basis. A re- division of access to and control over wealth and power is necessary, and in turn requires that all sectors be addressed. As strategic donor, Novib, with EC funding support, is not only able to establish direct linkages with larger number of local organizations but also opts to do so on the basis of the principle of inclusion.
Advocacy Organisations
To a large extent, almost all organisations engage in one of advocacy or another. However, we use the term "advocacy" a bit more carefully to indicate that an NGO pushes for specific positions and sometimes, that may be the reason for its existence. In this category are NGOs which work for human rights, women's' rights, children rights, the rights of the people with disabilities etc.
(i) Human Rights Advocates: These are very many but notable amongst them, are Somali Human rights Defenders (SHD) the Foundation for which has advocated amongst other issues for the abolition of deaths, wars, the rights of kidnapped or privacy imprisonment. They publish yearly a country report on the state of human rights in Somalia. The SHD that attracts funding from human rights activists in the world, and also has tended to engage in programmes which though popular with people are less confrontational or minorities
(ii) Advocating for Women's Rights: Most women's organisation have an element of advocacy for women's rights. Although the list of women's organisations is too long to be reproduced here, the key actors are: COGWA
Unspoken political NGOs
All NGOs serve a civic purpose. However in this context civic activity is used to imply these organisations that engage directly in activities that overly or implicitly deal with politics or engage the state influencing the way power relations take place in society. We have noted that in Somalia most NGOs prefer to "play it safe" with the state. Most organisations claim that they are developmental or relief organisations in order to avoid argument with the state.
Despite the clear lack of concern or "apolitical" tendencies that characterise NGOs in Somalia, some NGOs have declared objectives of engaging the state or influencing its political activities. Some of the NGOs in Somalia, which have worked towards this end include: Foundation for African Development (FAD), National Organization for Civic Education and Elections Monitoring (NOCEM), The Uganda Think Tank Foundation, and The Uganda Joint Christian Council.
Foundation for African Development is one the oldest NGOs in Somalia. Supported largely by the Konrad Foundation of Germany, it has been long been associated with the Democratic Party (D.P). Over the period when the D.P leadership was closely associated with government in its early years in power, FAD took to a low profile by engaging in seminars on rural development and other similar activities. FAD regained true stance during the period of constitution making process. FAD organized seminars and workshops on constitutional issues clearly playing a role of influencing the kind of constitution it envisaged as suitable for Somalia. It sponsored debates that brought both officials and other stakeholders together. FAD is non committal today as to whether it achieved its objectives in the constitution making or not. After the constitution making, FAD has again taken a low profile. It is important to point out that FAD found some problems with the N1uVI officials. As it organized seminars, it reached a point where some NRM officials were invited and they simply turned down the invitation. The top NRM officials actually reached a point where they branded "too political".
Major constraints of the NGOs in Somalia
NGOs in Somalia will continuously face several challenges. Chief amongst these are:
• Acquiring funding is a major problem for all NGOs and organized civic groups in Somalia, a problem that is compound by the nature of funding which, when available, tends to be given specifically for project activities and rarely for institutional development, although this is a critical need for the development of NGOs and civil society structure as well.
• A related problem is that civil society organizations (CSOs) face issues of both visibility and credibility. NGOs have proliferated in recent years and vary widely in quality. As a result, the perception of local NGOs from inside the country as well as outside tends to be negative. This perception of has led to reluctance on the part of aid organizations to trust and therefore invest in the operational capacity of the local NGOs sector. Even within the country the mushrooming of NGOs has negatively influenced the attitude of the private sector and political powers.
• Leadership of CSOs is key issue to be addressed. The leadership of currently existing CSOs is in general poor. Somalia has suffered a massive ‘brain-drain’ and therefore lacks skills in key areas. This lack of leadership capacity consequently creates weaknesses within CSOs, including poor transparency, accountability and service delivery.
• There is relatively little collaboration and cooperation between the different actors in Somalia civil society or NGOs, in part due to the scarcity of both human and financial resources but also reflecting the divided history of the country. This leads to a lack of harmonization and common strategy within the civic sector –resulting in duplication and failure to utilize available resources most effectively.
• Somali NGOs face a problem in the scope of their captivities. CSOs have had to focus on the provision of basic social services and have perhaps failed to fully develop in the areas which are traditionally important for civil society; the promotion of good governance, peace, democracy and human rights.

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