SAACID continues to fulfil its mandate to women through anti-FGM programming and messaging; formal primary and secondary education, numeracy, literacy and vocational training; micro-credit and business enterprise training; agricultural training, women’s advocacy in governance; specialised women’s rights training; leadership and management training for women; and gender equity inclusiveness in all programming.

SAACID’s mandate for women pervades all SAACID programming. In all programme design, women’s empowerment is a core feature. If donors and partners do not accept gender equity in some form, SAACID will not implement the programme. As such, it could be said that all programming implemented by SAACID falls under "women’s empowerment".

In January of 1991, the Somali government fell, and Somali fell into anarchy, which has lasted until today.

In 1991, SAACID expanded its mandate to include emergency relief and conflict transformation.

SAACID continues to fulfil its "emergency relief" mandate in responding to communities in crisis in conflict, flood, drought and tsunami. SAACID has provided tailored responses to each context. Thid has been achieved by providing food-for-work; cash-for-work; food relief; medical an nutritional interventions; emergency education responses; emergency water and sanitation responses; cash and tools for repairs; home utensils and goods to re-establish subsistence home life; and, agricultural start up funds, goods and services to re-establish sustainable small-scale subsistence agriculture.

In the sector of “Governance and Conflict Transformation”, SAACID has been involved in a diverse portfolio of programming.

"Conflict transformation" includes, hostage negotiations; demobilisation, disarmament and reintegration programmes (DDR); leadership and management training programmes; specialised conflict transformation training programmes for rural and urban communities; youth empowerment programmes; women’s empowerment programmes; and lobbying and advocacy – both locally and internationally.

In "governance", the area could itself be a catch-all for many programmes. For example, SAACID is currently partnering UN-HABITAT on a governance programme that includes the rehabilitation of markets and wells – as part of a local district empowerment process. Yet, this programme could equally go under our “Livelihoods and Development” sector. The choice of where a programme is placed on this web site is largely made from the original design of a proposal.

SAACID perceives the governance sector as increasingly important for Somalia. There is a massive amount of work required in training in gender equity and government, management, leadership, participatory budgeting and planning, democracy, rule-of-law, good governance, human rights, and legal, electoral, and constitutional processes. Through practical training and workshop interventions, SAACID has found, even amongst Somali leaders, a very poor understanding of basic concepts of governance, and its omponents. If Somalia is to successfully reconstitute itself as a nation state, then much more sustained investment is required for educating both leaders and the population at large; as well as significant and sustained investments in reconstituting basic grassroots governance structures.

SAACID combines governance and conflict transformation into the one sector because the 2 constantly overlap in practice.

In 1994, SAACID again expanded its mandate to include certain health services.

SAACID continues to fulfil its "health" mandate through TB clinics; health outposts, one hospital, water and sanitation programmes; nutritional services; education and awareness-raising in health messaging; and anti-malarial programming.

In 1996, after the UN withdrew its base of operations to Kenya, SAACID expanded its mandate to include primary, secondary and vocational training. It also began micro-credit services for women; and "livelihoods and development" programming.

SAACID continues to operate fee-paying primary, secondary and vocational schools. In partnership with Oxfam Novib, SAACID continues to operate a 2-year teachers training instate for women; which produces on average 50 qualified female primary school teachers every year.

SAACID’s "Livelihood and Development" sector encompasses a diverse range of programmes – which have a lot of cross-over into our other sectors. The programmes that fall under this sector tend to have a special focus, so, instead of encumbering normal operations, SAACID utilises this specialised sector. Example of the programming range includes the Somali Urban Development Programme (the rehabilitation of public infrastructure), Employment for Peace (garbage collection); Internally Displaced Person (IDP) settlement rehabilitation; and agricultural training and development.

In 2005, SAACID added formal "research" to its mandate. This has been a necessary inclusion, because of ongoing complaints from donors and partners that there is no indigenous Somali capacity to provide quality data for programme or strategic planning. SAACID has since partnered UN agencies, INGOs and for-profit international research companies in producing quality data through surveys and reports.

The reasons for such broad coverage are twofold – the massive needs within the Somali context and the systemic lack of support and empowerment to deal with those needs; and, the lack of recurrent funding that SAACID has access to, which forces SAACID, if it wishes to continue operating, to match donor interest and priorities. The result is a multi-thematic organisation with a multi-skilled and innovative staff.

General Human Interest Stories

2010

Educating IDPs without resources - June 2010 

Displaced by fighting - May 2010 

Plight of IDPs in Mogadishu - March 2010

2009

Displaced - August 2009