Implementation and analysis in Action of Accountability Programme

Tana has won an assignment under the Implementation and analysis in Action of Accountability Programme in Somalia under DFID. The won assignment, Accountability of IDP Camp “Gatekeepers” in Mogadishu, has been designed by Tana and follows a feasibility study carried out by Tana in April/May 2015. The assignment will run over the course of 1 year and is being carried out by Tana and its close partner, iDC Kenya.

Background info:

Humanitarian agencies have been providing assistance to IDPs in urban areas across Somalia and in particular Mogadishu since the early 1990s. In particular since 2001 the aid agencies have been challenged in the service provision to IDPs due to lack of availability of land, security concerns and access difficulties.

As a consequence IDPs have since then mostly resided on private land or illegally seized public land. These lands are controlled by “Gatekeepers” (informal camp managers) who provide a degree of security and access to aid agencies to provide services to the IDPs. The role of the informal camp managers is sanctioned by the local authorities/local militia and clan leadership. Some of these camp managers exploit the situation, resulting in compromises of the protection of the IDPs and human rights violations. Some informal camp managers are assessed as being fairer, and also provide services to the IDPs at a set fee rate. The informal camp manager issue was silently accepted by the humanitarian aid community and only publicly acknowledged in 2013. The humanitarian agencies need the informal camp managers to access IDPs and IDPs need the camp managers to access land, security and services.

The aim of the project is to identify the gatekeepers, train these, create a camp manager certification and marketing camp transparency in order to reach the overall goal of making the gatekeepers accountable.