In 2006, the Do No Harm Project of CDA Collaborative Learning Projects (CDA) set out to determine how Do No Harm (DNH) was being used in the world and whether that use was leading to more effective programming decisions. While DNH is widely utilised in some countries, it has not taken hold in others, such as Somalia. The mission of this study was to understand why. Could it be that Somalia is intrinsically a more complicated place to introduce and disseminate DNH than in other violence-prone areas of the world? The study concluded that Somalia does face many unique circumstances that require equally unique approaches to the dissemination of DNH.
Interviews and discussions were held in the Gedo and Bakool regions of South Central Somalia with international NGO staff working in Somalia, their implementing partners and members of the local communities.
Key Findings:
- The tipping point of DNH in Somalia rests with local peoples’ own ingenuity and ambition, along with access to technology. External solutions will not lead to the organic evolution of DNH in Somalia, but can potentially further dependency, manipulation, corruption, extremism and the continuing violent competition for resources by a generation who has known little else.
- NGOs in Somalia appear to have greater flexibility to invest in local people, whereas multilateral agencies do not. Knowing this, it is understandable why donors more and more seem to favour bilateral aid, which in turn funds NGOs.
- Many bilateral donors have been diligent in requiring that projects receiving funds adhere to DNH. Sometimes this strict adherence has led to inflexible rules, which assume that the communities and their local NGOs are already familiar with and comfortable using DNH. Donor insistence on full compliance with DNH in the application process does not encourage good DNH practices and may lead to shortcuts or outright cheating.
- Trauma is another serious and underrated contextual issue in many parts of Somalia. Unmanaged trauma, a result of Somalia’s continuous disasters, can severely weaken the performance of the institutions and structures created to steer the application of DNH in a specific area. Due to the paralysing and disorienting effects caused by trauma, a community’s ability to practice DNH effectively is impacted.
Recommendations:
- Agencies should continue to actively train their own staff in DNH. Other agencies should also consider investing in DNH as an indispensable tool for creating the right aid environment, as has been done by some other agencies.
- The top management of international agencies must adopt DNH with enthusiasm and consistency and make sure that it is implemented at every level of the organisation. They should organise and participate in training, make sure that DNH is built into as many of the agency’s projects as possible and set DNH benchmarks along the way with which to evaluate the progress.
- Donors should be prevailed upon to finance the hiring of dedicated in-house DNH trainers. They could also provide support during project planning, implementation, make follow-up visits in the field and work with the communities to establish their own, self-perpetuating DNH training networks appropriate for any given Somali locality. Training should be conducted in a framework that includes the use of participatory processes.
- Given the role of clan identity and manipulation in Somalia, it is not easy to conduct DNH training in Somalia on a generic level, which is the way DNH has usually been taught. The trainers must remain alert and sensitive to any mention of local issues and be able to transition from the distant (generic) scenario and sit on the local case until all the underlying issues have been addressed.
- The partner communities and organisations on the ground must develop local structures that can take responsibility for day-to-day monitoring of the way in which DNH is implemented. The structures should also facilitate local networks and the sharing of experiences. Communities and local organisations should be able to develop local resource teams of trainers.
