Literature suggests that issues of gender, equality, and social inclusion (GESI) and the challenges women and those from marginalised groups face in the context of security and justice in Somalia are interlinked and often mutually reinforcing. Overall, the evidence base is limited and what does exist is weighted towards broad strategies that have had a positive impact across different types of programming. This evidence is drawn primarily from monitoring and evaluation reports and some anecdotal examples of success from external observers.
Strategies and approaches that have had a positive impact on GESI and increasing access to justice and security for women and marginalised groups in the Somali context include:
- Applying an intersectional lens at each phase of project design can increase the participation of a broader range of people, increasing the likelihood that the impact of these projects will not be confined to only the most visible or privileged members of a particular group.
- Facilitating continuous community discussions in formats adapted to the needs and habits of the communities, and pre-training for women and marginalised groups to ensure their meaningful involvement in these discussions, has been effective in ensuring that the voices, needs and priorities of women and marginalised groups are better understood and incorporated into project design.
- Conducting stakeholder mapping and identifying champions has been effective in finding entry points or moving certain interventions forward, e.g., getting legislation introduced and seriously discussed by finding elders willing to advocate for it.
There are also examples of interventions that have either experienced some successes, or which have yet to yield successes but may be expected to in the future, including one-stop centres for responding to rape cases, police oversight mechanisms and increasing the inclusivity of alternative dispute resolution (ADR).
One-off training on access to justice, GBV, land rights and other issues relating to the rights of women and marginalised groups appear to have no effect. Likewise, though gender desks have been set up in police stations across Somalia, there is no evidence that they have had any impact on increasing access to justice and security.
