Promotion of Women’s Empowerment and Rights in Somalia

Training materials focused only on upgrading the CSOs’ skills in governance, leadership and gender mainstreaming within their organizations. Advocacy was the only element of the project that looked beyond the organizations to wider political frameworks such as to national and local authorities. This seems to have been something of a missed opportunity; some specific training on, for example, media relations and campaigning might also have been useful.

As women become empowered or even make attempts to improve their situation, they may face reprisals at home and in the community. Women’s empowerment can shift relationships between the women and men in their family and community, or just be perceived to do so. This potentially puts the women at risk of reprisals including violence. Protection should be both theoretical (a component of the training) and practical (for example details of a helpline or drop-in centre that women might turn to if they feel that they are at risk of violence). Pro-active protection actions, for example those that work with men to change attitudes and behaviours towards women, might also be integrated into a project that primarily focuses on women.

The engagement of “community catalysts/mobilizers” included men in leadership positions within the communities. These men were recruited to spread the messages of women’s empowerment in conjunction with the grassroots campaigns. One community catalyst interviewed was a teacher and religious leader who was also consulted on the nature of the messages and said he considered them “excellent”. Another religious leader said his job was to “undo communities’ negative views on women’s rights and empowerment” and to help change people’s perceptions, including those of parents so that they allowed their daughters to explore their potential “even by seeking leadership positions”. The community catalysts also helped smooth the way for CSOs to gain access to regional administrations. Several of those interviewed expressed their satisfaction at having been consulted and then brought into the project.

Some partners were replaced during the project because they lacked commitment and did not attend meetings. Some of the organizations that were replaced had ceased operations, and in some cases CSOs insisted on nominating unqualified Resource Persons unacceptable to the grantee. Since the CSOs had signed memoranda of understanding with grantee and were considered to be non-performing against these, replacement was relatively smooth.

Cascade training carried out by the CSOs meant the acquired knowledge did not just stay with the leaders but extended to staff and volunteers of the organizations. Since turnover of staff is always a problem in relation to the sustainability of training, the spreading of capacity throughout the organizations is a positive sign.

The CSOs were fully involved in a series of TV and radio debates both as panelists and audiences. These were a good way to give the CSOs an opportunity to speak out, to engage local journalists in the issues, and to broaden the discourse on women’s empowerment. TV and particularly radio are the most common forms of information dissemination in a region where literacy rates are low.

Since the grantee did not have experience in working with such a large number of partners and in running a multi-faceted project of this kind, limiting the project’s complexity in this first instance was sensible. This project broke new ground for those leading and participating in it, and could be seen almost as a “pilot”. Now that lessons have been learned, it could well be replicated or extended to other regions.