EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Thirty years of protracted conflict, disasters, and environmental degradation in Somalia have led to massive displacement, high vulnerability to natural hazards, and poor to no primary services and infrastructures in many areas. After a famine in 2011 that caused an estimated 260,000 deaths, many communities are still struggling to recover. The BRCiS Consortium was created in 2013 to prevent such mass suffering in the future. Toward this end, BRCiS interventions balance short-term humanitarian aid with efforts to increase resilience and lift people out of poverty in the longer term.
By supporting investments in community leadership and social capital, early warning and action, livelihoods and basic services, BRCiS provides the foundation for disaster risk reduction (DRR), anticipatory action and economic empowerment. The second phase of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s (FCDO) support to the Consortium targeted 423 communities across 34 districts for nearly four years. Between September 2018 and March 2022, the BRCiS Consortium implemented one of the most adaptive and integrated resilience projects ever designed in Somalia. While the country experienced several shocks and stresses, the project worked to achieve five key outcomes by working hand-in-hand with participant communities. This report outlines the impact of BRCiS interventions and demonstrates the human experience of the impacted communities through five immersive narratives based on interviews and data.
Programme outcomes and accomplishments
The overall programme outcome is to improve target groups’ ability to resist and recover from cyclical shocks and stresses such as those cause by conflict, environmental and economic crises. The current drought impacting Somalia, which has seen four below or failed rainy seasons is the most severe shock experienced by communities during the BRCiS 2 implementation period. In addition to water scarcity, multiple failed harvests and excess livestock deaths have led to increased food insecurity across the region. This drought situation, combined with re-direction of FCDO-funded BRCiS resources to response to this wide-spread shock, required a revised design for the endline evaluation for BRCiS.
After broad discussions between BRCiS, MESH and FCDO, it was agreed to employ a mixed method project evaluation endline survey; MESH quantitative survey which would capture 4 measures of resilience (food consumption score, reduced coping strategy index, ability to cover basic needs and confidence in support networks), and BRCiS Consortium led qualitative survey to provide a deep dive into the drought impact, response and coping strategies employed by communities in selected BRCiS locations. The below are the harmonized main findings from both MESH and BRCiS Consortium conducted project evaluations. BRCiS respondent households experienced an average of 2.1 shocks between the baseline and midline and 3.9 shocks over the course of the programme. The most reported shocks by both participant and area communities were wide-spread drought, locust infestation and increased food price shocks. Unemployment or lack of jobs and household illness, and the COVID-19 pandemic were the next most reported shocks.
There was an initial increase in resilience among BRCiS households, reflected in the midline findings, but the prolonged drought subsequently caused a decline in the retained measures of resilience. By endline, there was some evidence of the influence of specific shocks on this decline in resilience, and some limited evidence on the duration of their effect.
Findings from the midline survey showed an increase in resilience and progress on key outcome indicators, such as access to water during the dry season, food security, self-reported recovery from shocks, reduced negative coping strategies, social capital and collective action, as well as participants’ ability to recover from health-related shocks. Multiple drivers were observed to influence the resilience capacity (RCI) increases between the baseline and midline, specifically access to basic services, assets and social safety-net drivers.
However, by the endline, there were no clear differences between participant and area communities for the 4 proxy indicators of resilience: food consumption score (FCS), reduced coping strategy index (rCSI), ability to cover basic needs, and household confidence in support networks to recover from shocks. There were also no differences in resilience observed between male and female-headed households, although aspects of social capital for female-headed households appeared to be more stable as the drought impact developed.
Although a reduction in resilience was observed at endline due to the ongoing drought in Somalia, there is some evidence that BRCiS activities contributed to mitigating this reduction. For instance, BRCiS interventions have made real impacts on increasing access to and management of water through construction of wells, boreholes, and other water infrastructures, as well as the improvement of existing facilities, have sustained and improved the ability of many households in BRCiS communities to access water during the current drought.
Despite the harshness of the conditions, there is evidence from the qualitative evaluation that cash assistance provided by BRCiS has made an impact in sustaining affected households and replacing a portion of their income. Loans from BRCiS supported VLSAs have also allowed community members to make large investments such as starting business or building homes. Other livelihood programmes such as agriculture and livestock assistance have also had a positive impact on the ability of households to maintain their livelihoods during shocks, although the length and scope of the current drought is stressing this resilience.
Evaluation participants discussed cash assistance triggered by crisis modifier programming helping them respond to a wide range of different shocks. This included using the money to buy water or food, for healthcare related expenses, for education related expenses, to buy fodder for livestock, or to purchase agricultural inputs. According to many of the respondents, the main benefit of the cash transfers was that it directly replaced other income sources and it could be used for multiple purposes. During the current drought BRCiS communities seem to have experienced a net increase in population due to migration. While a direct link to BRCiS activities is hard to establish, it is most likely that the improved conditions in BRCiS communities relative to other drought affected areas is driving at least some of the observed migration. Respondents in multiple communities included in this evaluation directly referenced improved access to water or other BRCiS activities when discussing IDPs moving to their area. Additionally, respondents reported minimal migration out of BRCiS communities, even during acute shocks impacting the community.
However, by the end of the project and the endline data collection in July 2022, Somalia was going through a historically severe drought. 4 rain seasons had failed, generating disastrous consequences on rain dependant value chains, such as agriculture and livestock. The lack of income, low availability of water and food, compounded the social economic impact of Covid 19, and the impact of crops and pasture of the locus invasions which occurred in 2019 and 2020. The impact of global inflation of staples, fuel and other commodities which came into play after the beginning of the Ukranian war in January 2022, further deteriorated terms of trades in the country.
By the end of BRCiS 2, communities were going through a general crisis, with a severe impact on all the aspects of their lives, including their health, access to food and water, income, leading thousands of people intro desperate coping strategies, including forced displacement, and increasing both mortality and morbidity, specifically for women and children.
As a result, the endline shows a degradation of most of the proxy indicators which were used to approximate the project’s impact. For example, Average Food Consumption Scores (FCS) showed reductions over time from an average of 45 points (s.d. 30) at baseline, similar levels at midline and then a reduction to 26 points (s.d. 22) at endline4. Another example is the Reduced Coping Strategy Index which is a score between 0 and 56 with higher scores reflecting households needing to apply more coping strategies. For the purposes of the final evaluation, the score has been reversed so that higher scores are positive, i.e. a higher rCSI for households means fewer coping strategies being applied. For this index, average scores were 42 points (s.d. 10) at baseline and midline, reducing to 39 points (s.d. 12) at the endline.
This clear trends indicate that in spite of communities and BRCiS best efforts, the extent and intensity of the crisis has a direct impact on communities coping strategies and food security. Some of the information collected through the BRCiS qualitative final evaluation points to the fact that in spite of this impact, some of the communities resilience capacities are withstanding the shock, particularly in terms of social capital, as communities are hosting displaced people that have left their villages.