Some of DRC’s biggest
operations are based in Mogadishu involving beneficiaries who have lost their
livelihood and became Internally Displaced People (IDPs) in Mogadishu due to the
droughts in 2011. It was my first visit to Mogadishu with this particular project
so we decided for security reasons to limit the trip to a week and spend this
time familiarizing with the complex Cash Relief project (with 20,850 families receiving cash) and identify other
suitable projects for the SMS feedback.
I anticipated a chaotic and
highly insecure environment and prepared myself for the security restrictions
that might hinder my movements. Most of the first day was spent traveling to
Mogadishu, going through the disorientating Mogadishu immigration and taking a short
breather before meeting staff. The
couple of hours I managed to meet the staff implementing the project was very
productive and we decided on Cash Relief and Small Business Grant beneficiaries
in 3 districts: Wadajir, Waberi and Hamar Weyne. We aimed to meet 40 to 70
beneficiaries given that I only had 4 days. The visits were swiftly organized to
start the following day and local authorities and beneficiaries in Wadajir were
informed. This was turning out to be one of the most efficient team we have
worked with so far, they are focused, helpful and super efficient.
Following day, however,
plans are interrupted as the city is at a standstill due to curfew imposed by the
military, apparently, for a celebration.
There is nothing we can do so I spend the day reading on projects and getting
to know the Mogadishu staff.
Day 3, we finally start the
visits and spend the day in Wadajir. We start with Small Business Grant
beneficiaries who are day traders in Buulo Hubey market selling all sorts of
things from vegetables, meat to charcoal. I was accompanied by Raaxo, a female
staff working with the Small Business Grant beneficiaries and Awale, male staff
with Cash Relief beneficiaries. They were very helpful and worked hard to both
inform the local authorities, some beneficiaries and active community members in
advance and mobilize as many beneficiaries as possible. They also patiently took me around the market
and in the unbearable heat and humidity we managed to visit 20 beneficiaries at
their stalls to give them the meeting address and to see their businesses. I
didn’t think this was possible, to walk around a market in Mogadishu and chat
with beneficiaries in their work environment! I was glad to have the
opportunity to visit beneficiaries without armed guards, the relaxed and casual
nature of the meetings I feel make it easier to interact with beneficiaries and
for them to feel comfortable to send frank feedback. We met around 23 female
and 2 male beneficiaries in a house kindly provided by one of the beneficiaries.
Our second meeting was at
Djibouti 2 IDP camp for families receiving Cash Relief. This was easier meeting
as nearly everyone was in the tiny camp and we only took few minutes to gather
100 beneficiaries out of 198! By the far the largest group we have met. I noticed the
beneficiaries were majority from outside Mogadishu and spoke a dialect of
Somali am not very familiar with called May May, spoken in the South of Somalia
and part of Mogadishu. They were also from an ethnic minority group of Bantu
Somalis. The camp supervisor translated for those who couldn’t understand us
but a lot of them understood and asked questions. They were a lot keener to
hear about the project, asked many questions and interestingly, even though
they were in an IDP camp, almost all of them came out with mobile phones and
saved the feedback number on their phones, in contrast to all the other
beneficiaries we have met who usually ask for the numbers to be written down
for them on paper. By the time I got back from the meetings, we had 14 SMSes!
Not a particularly high number but the highest we have received after a single
day’s meetings and most of them came from the IDP camp.
Before I
checked the feedback site http://somcdrd.org/hif I sent an
email to our team in Nairobi and Hargeisa with a concern that we might not
receive a lot of SMSes from Mogadishu because the number we are using is a
Somaliland number and costs 10 cents to send a single SMS from Mogadishu to our
SIM card in Hargeisa, whereas it costs 01 cent to send an SMS within Somaliland. However,
after only 3 days meetings with beneficiaries and with the original target of
40 to 70, we met 270 beneficiaries and within a week received 93 SMS from
Mogadishu! This is in contrast to our
Somaliland and Puntland experiences where beneficiaries take longer to send
feedback even though it is much cheaper for them.
It is too early to tell why
this is but my first impression is that the greater the need the more likely for beneficiaries to send feedback. Beneficiaries in unstable and
poorer region like Mogadishu seem keener to
communicate in the hope they will get the help they need compare to beneficiaries
in stable regions like Somaliland and Puntland, who seem a bit more ‘relaxed’.
