Investing in livelihood activities helps reduce the costs associated with the provision of aid and protection. SOMPAD

Program assists conflict-affected communities to rehabilitate and restore their livelihoods and strengthen local food sovereignty based on sustainable agricultural practices and development of local livelihood opportunities.

The main aim of the program is to support small-scale local interventions that will result in improved management of community natural resources, conservation of local biodiversity, preservation and promotion of Indigenous knowledge, empowerment of women, strengthened local livelihood security, and enhanced resilience for natural and human-caused disasters.

In this program, we work closely with ‘Cluster’ leaders  including villagers and local leaders. The program’s approach is to – first and foremost – respond to community needs, and then ensure that community members take the lead during project planning, implementation and monitoring in to empower and promote community ownership of projects thereby making our interventions as socially and ecologically sustainable as possible.

Livelihoods allow people to secure the basic necessities of life such as food, water, shelter and clothing. Engaging in livelihoods activities involves acquiring the knowledge, skills, social network, raw materials, and other resources to meet individual or collective needs on a sustainable basis.

To adequately boost the livelihood capacities engagement and promote self-reliance of communities, SOMPAD has prioritized for:

• Provision of legal documentation and business development services to refugees and host communities engaging in businesses. The Organization will strive to provide well-coordinated, demand driven and needs based response for the MSMEs operation.
• Identification and support the roll-out of new businesses or support the expansion of existing operations that are commercially viable. This will need to be complemented by additional investments from multiple stakeholders on business incubation to maximize market potential.
• Strengthen the CBO modalities and maximize local capacities to offer services and implement relevant programmes that contribute to the SOMPAD goals.
• Promote specialized training that prepares communities to actively engage and market their skills and capabilities in their new market environment. This includes the development of a comprehensive and interactive livelihoods database to provide realistic, dependable and credible data.
• Partners have embarked on livelihoods data collection exercise of their past beneficiaries and the data will include information on existing skills amongst the communities and the correlation with their education, employability and financial inclusion.
• Moreover, the need to develop a comprehensive labour market assessment  to better understand the labour environment; market dynamics and relationships between actors; tap into refugees’ and host communities’ labor and market skills, their capacities and experiences; identify and overcome barriers to create opportunities for the Somali people and; distinguish entry points for market-based livelihood interventions.
• Combined with a comprehensive analysis of the livelihood baseline data and an initial investment in specialized/marketable skills in conjunction with the investments in private sector and business environment is likely to allow SOMPAD and partners to meet their collective goal of specialized and marketable skills.

Majority of the communities in Somalia earn their livelihoods through employment as incentive workers, petty trade, Humanitarian assistance, Cash based transfers, cash remittances from relatives and friends abroad as well as engagement in small and medium scale business enterprises (traders/vendors, motorcycle riders, tailors).

A range of vocational and skills training programmes are implemented by SOMPAD, these trainings provide youth with marketable hands on skills necessary for their survival.

SOMPAD Office in collaboration with the Government and partners seeks to promote self-reliance through development of refugees’ individual capabilities (e.g. skills development, establishment and development of small businesses) as well as promoting an environment that fosters access to livelihoods opportunities, partnerships with the private sector and sustained advocacy initiatives to ensure policy reform that allows for integration of refugee and host community economies.

Key livelihoods interventions include improved access to agriculture through use of optimal water irrigation systems, access to information and communications technologies, provision of vocational and technical skills training opportunities and improved access to self-employment/business.

The strategies employed include:

• Enhancement of market driven and sustainable initiatives: SOMPAD and its partners periodically conduct assessments and strengthen monitoring and evaluation of activities. The operation embraces innovation approaches in agriculture, business development, information and communication to enable beneficiaries have a competitive edge and penetrate new local, regional and international markets.
• Addressing the dependency mind-set of Somalis: SOMPAD has adopted an asset based approach in mobilization and capacity building initiatives.
• Scale up of business development opportunities through promotion of table banking, village saving and lending associations (VSLA) as well as expanding the revolving loans (at 0%) initiative implemented through a partnership. Expanding conflict and innovative approaches that enable marginalized communities to access informal loans.
• Strengthening strategic partnerships with the FGS and FMS governments, the private sector and developmental agencies to open up and galvanize livelihood initiatives.