SomReP Gender and Inclusion Strategy

Somali Resilience Program

SomReP Gender and Inclusion
Strategy (GESI)

Understanding and providing recommendations on the dynamics which
influence gender equality and social inclusion

BACKGROUND In 2022, SomReP celebrates its 10-year anniversary. Over the years,
CONTEXT the consortium has implemented a number of interventions targeting
OVERVIEW marginalized groups, especially women, people with disabilities under
the assumption that economic empowerment and gender-sensitive
inclusive and participative planning processes would translate into
ability of the most marginalized segments of Somali society to engage in
markets on fair and equitable terms and agency to influence household
and community resource decision making processes. In 2019, the SomReP
conducted the Inclusion of the Most Vulnerable Study Report to test its
assumptions, analyzing the dynamics of exclusion and assessing whether
or not its community engagement methods and economic empowerment
approaches mitigated exclusion of the most vulnerable and limited inclusion
of better-off. Analysis and reflection led the consortium to commission
the Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) assessment in 2020/2021
to find ways to strengthen technical approaches. In 2021, the SomReP
Donor Advisory Groups endorsed the findings of the GESI assessment
and tasked the consortium to develop a comprehensive strategy to guide
resource requirements and development of programming approaches to
mainstream GESI.

This SomReP Gender & Inclusion Strategy (SomG&IS) is informed by the results
of a Gender Equality & Social Inclusion (GESI) assessment commissioned by
Somali Resilience Program (SomReP) and World Vision Somalia. The aim of
the assessment was to understand the dynamics which influence gender
equality and social inclusion and provide recommendations on how to
address the issues of access to program interventions and basic services
important for the excluded, participation in decision-making processes
facilitated through the consortium, and systemic changes required to
enable households and communities achieve transformational change.
Gender and other social inequality emanate from the unequal power
relations between men and women, boys and girls and different groups
in society. Within gender, beliefs, values and norms structure unfair
divisions of labor, encouraging men to focus on productive and community
responsibilities that earn money and give them decision making authority
while women and girls are assigned repetitive reproduction roles of caring
for children, sick people and the family which does not earn income and
their labor is not valued in national economic statistics. Tolerance towards
gender-based violence (GBV) and limited health psychosocial support
services form further barriers for women to engage fully in society.
Social exclusion comes partly from the negative attitudes of society
against people with disability (PwD) who are viewed as a bad omen and
or a burden to the family and community which is exacerbated by their
inability to move due to the physical impairment, as well as see or talk due

Inclusion of the Most Vulnerable study Report 2019: https://online.flippingbook.com/view/489047/
World Vision/SomReP Gender Analysis Report: https://online.flippingbook.com/view/140624298/

to vision and hearing impairments. PwDs are perceived as Conflict and climate change, including recurrent droughts
welfare cases and afforded no voice in community decision- and floods, have eroded traditional livelihoods and lead to
making processes, resulting in resilience planning which is displacement, aggravating unequal gender and social norms.
not responsive to their needs and strengths. Efforts to target Women are disproportionally impacted by changes resulting
women and PwD by targeting their families as proxies with from climate change and conflict, often forced to embrace
humanitarian and safety-net interventions buffers them from new roles not previously assigned to them. Men and boys are
shocks but does not a provide a pathway to overcome societal recruited into armed groups or face clan revenge while PwD
and economic barriers to more fully participate in society. Low are recruited as suicide bombers. Gender and social inequality
caste, ethnically-excluded livelihood groups lack capacity to permeate traditional clan decision making structures, religious
collectively produce and market products, and in unfavorable norms, governments and market systems. Despite the fact
environments, negotiate more favorable terms of trade as a that Somalia has made strides to improve the status of women
baseline to enter markets on favorable terms. In 2019 a field through the passage of a gender-sensitive constitution, NDP-
monitoring report identified exploitative relations between 9 policy and the Somali Women’s Charter, as well as reserved
host and minority groups in the Afgoye corridor. These groups 30% of parliamentary seats for women candidate, the country
are often considered second class citizens and frequently are still has a long way to go to overcome entrenched norms.
displaced from their lands during conflict and their household The current disposition, limits marginalized groups’ access
asset base has become depleted. Asset-stripping is a feature to opportunities, participation in productive sectors and
of violent conflict, in which personal property and the very leadership positions at household and community levels,
means of livelihood are forcibly seized or destroyed. As a result, where decision on resources and opportunities are made
these groups of marginalized farmers end up as IDPs and are which ultimately affect the well-being of vulnerable and
forced to take up sharecropper relationships across Southern marginalized groups.
and Northern Somalia.

ARTICLE HEADER

SomReP The SomG&IS is guided by the principles of:
VISION; (i) contextualized/domesticated approaches through Do-No-Harm lens;
TOWARDS (ii) taking into account marginalized groups’ knowledge and capacities to inform
INCLUSIVE strategies, approaches and to influence decision-making;
RESILIENCE (iii) enhanced delivery capacity of member agencies and front-line staff to promote
inclusive systems;
(iv) alignment to international and local legal and policy frameworks; and
(v) effective and efficient scaling of gender approaches across the consortium.
The strategy will address five GESI domains, especially deficits in access, participation,
decision-making, well-being and systems that affect women, men, boys, girls
and PwD and marginalized clans as a result of long-standing social, political and
economic norms.
The SomG&SI will address GESI domains through enhancing:
Goal: To address the underlying factors of gender and other social inequality from
unequal power relations between men and women, boys and girls and different
groups in SomReP target areas in Somalia.

4 | SomReP Gender and Inclusion Strategy The objectives:
• Enhancing GESI in the internal architecture of the SomReP consortium, member agency policies and graduation pathways;
• Identify location/community specific barriers for GESI to guide intervention entry and emphasis
• Empowering vulnerable women, girls, men, boys, IDP/refugees & PwDs and marginalized clans with access to production
resources like land, finance and markets for resilience and sustainable livelihoods;
• Enhance capacity and wellbeing of socially excluded target groups;
• Promoting GESI transformative legal and policy environment through advocacy, capacity building for government and
local civil society and dialogue.

The expected outputs are:
• Business growth, household income and financial empowerment;
• Capacity for disaster management built;
• Holistic wellbeing of women enhanced,
• Youth, PWDs in education, health & water;
• Number of men, women, boys and girls trained/sensitized on gender and inclusion rights;
• Number of government institutions and LNGOs with gender-sensitive analysis, gender-responsive tools and policies;
• Number of National and subnational state legal and policy framework that espouses GESI principles;
• Number of gender-responsive private sector policies;
• Percentages of SomReP member agencies and partners with gender/PwD/marginalized-group responsive procedures,
protocols and systems;
• Number of gender/PwD-specialized members incorporated into the SomReP consortium as members;

The program outcome is:
Equally empowered woman, youth, boys, girls and PwDs who benefit from SomReP programs resulting in an impact of reduced
gender inequality and social exclusion.

The enablers of this change are:
(i) rights-awareness and capacity building for social, religious and political powerholders/gatekeepers
(ii) tailored capacity development with contextualized/domesticated gender and advocacy tools for marginalized groups;
(iii) inclusive governance and accountability at consortium, member agency and community levels;
(iv) gender-sensitive monitoring and evaluation; (iv) partnerships with local inclusion specialist organizations; and
(v) gender-focused resource mobilization.

SomReP Gender and Inclusion Strategy | 5

MAINSTREAMING The SomG&IS lays out the roadmap of how the consortium will
SOMREP GENDER work towards mainstreaming GESI into our processes, appreciating
& INCLUSION that structural change requires sustained efforts, political will and
STRATEGY IN 2019 targeted investments to ensure that as we continue to implement
TO 2023 SOMREP current program, innovate and build evidence for our work,
STRATEGY AND our approaches remain responsive and actively work towards
BEYOND: inclusion. The strategy has laid out a phased approach through
which we will work towards this goal as follows;
Phase 1: Transformative Mandate, Policies and Programming:
SomReP and member agencies will develop a GESI statement
to articulate the consortium’s commitment in terms of identity,
mandate, and culture; outlining goals and values and sharing
those with external stakeholders;
Phase 2: Internal Architecture and Capacity Development: Raise
awareness on the fundamentals of GESI to consortium leadership,
management, and frontline staff, communication envisioned
for organizational change, provide knowledge of national and
international policy frameworks which support change, articulate
entry points where the application of GESI principles can impact
on program outcomes, and catalyze leadership support and
provide technical guidance to plan, implement and monitor
GESI transformative changes at consortium and member agency
institution-levels;

6 | SomReP Gender and Inclusion Strategy

Phase 3: Integration in Policies and Programs: Review all amongst socially and culturally marginalized groups about
member agency policies, guidelines and standard operating their rights and enabling policy and regulatory frameworks
producers to mobilize best-practice to develop consortium- to support their empowerment, strengthen local inclusion
level Gender & Inclusion Standard Operating Procedures and specialist organizations and network of LNGOs to support
integrate performance metrics into audit and other program gender/PwD-sensitive analysis and responsive planning,
evaluation processes to monitor consortium and member identify and empower clan/religious leaders and family
agency uptake of GESI. Identify entry points to implement GESI gender champions to lead awareness raising and support
approaches in existing religious, community structures and empowerment campaigns, build the capacity of socially and
economic groups and support technical teams to develop new culturally marginalized champions to enhance confidence to
capacity development initiatives, communication strategies, demand their rights and access to basic services by mobilizing
activity sets, monitoring and evaluation metrics and methods women, youth, PwD and marginalized into support groups,
to capture impact; identify/empowering target line ministries to promote
Phase 4: Build Member Agency and Local Partner Capacity: change, and facilitating linkages to networks to advocate for
Build the capacity of member agency leadership, management equality and more inclusive governance and market systems.
and frontline staff, national and subnational governments, Underlining all these phases will be systematic documentation
local NGOs and academia, community committees and private of evidence and impact that will be instrumental to guide
sector on GESI principles and approaches. Raise awareness and contribute to local, sub-national and national advocacy
platforms and campaign for change.

GRADUATION GESI is a method to build the capacity whole communities, but SomReP Gender and Inclusion Strategy | 7
PATHWAYS especially socially and economically marginalized groups, to
INTEGRATING analyze context and identify differential impact of climate, social
GENDER AND and economic changes and barriers resulting from longstanding
SOCIAL INCLUSION norms. Through Community Voice in Action (CVA) approach then
equips the marginalized for collective advocacy actions to address
barriers to their meaningful participation in civic affairs and
economic life. Through Women Economic Empowerment (WEE),
the SomReP works through economic groups supported by the
program, including to VSLAs and women-led businesses to build
their capacity to engage in markets on fair and equitable terms
and manage household resources. The SomReP works through
community committees and economic groups to strengthen
resilience by investing resources and support to them along their
graduation pathway, appreciating that resilience-building is a
multi-year process which requires change of norms, attitudes and
perspectives at household, community and government levels.
Behavior change is dependent on sustained engagement and
conversations to make an impact on intrapersonal, interpersonal,
and organizational relationships. The consortium will target
approaches to support traditionally marginalized groups such as a
women and PwD, but also marginalized ethnic groups, engaged in
agricultural values chains, whose low status limits them to access
services and supports important for building resilience. Through
this process we also will work with government powerholders,
individual families, clan/religious leaders as champions for
inclusion, engaging existing social networks and power structures
to influence perspectives.

ARTICLE HEADER

8 | SomReP Gender and Inclusion Strategy Community-level: Targeting Vulnerable and women are supportive of attitude and behavior change to
in Community Structures and Economic support more inclusive systems;
Groups Approach 6: Raise awareness with community structures,
economic groups, private sector and various levels of
There is an opportunity for the consortium to leverage existing government of existing gender-related policies and support
networks of community structures and groups to support their operationalization. Community and household change-
processes to overcome social and cultural marginalization for agents equipped with information on rights and policies to
the most vulnerable: inform advocacy actions;
Approach 7: Implement interventions which raise awareness
Approach 1: Through GESI and GCVCA participatory and and establish referral mechanisms for GBV, disability and other
inclusive analysis, engage whole communities through protective services important to vulnerable-person’s resilience.
established governance structures on the impact of existing Most vulnerable awareness of and access to basic services
socio-cultural norms on fueling inequalities, especially enhanced to create supportive conditions for behavior change.
with regards to the differential impact of climate change
and the potential impact of more inclusive structures on Community, Private Sector and Government
overall well-being and resilience. Communities’ have a Policy Environment Interventions
common understanding of the drivers of marginalization
and vulnerability, co-created and co-owned strategies which There is need for sustained coalition building to support joint
realize the capacities and needs of the vulnerable to address advocacy initiatives with specialized local and international
underlying causes, resources to realize priorities to address agencies, interest groups and government to:
inequality and enhance accountability to hold powerholders
accountable to improving the status quo; Approach 1: Support the development of enabling policy
Approach 2: Through CVA, equip marginalized with skills, and regulatory frameworks which engender more inclusive
networks, and supporters in government and civil society community structures and decision-making processes and
(LNGO and academia) to raise issues with local barriers. strengthen economic groups (farmers, livestock keepers,
Marginalized groups have advocacy skills, knowledge of VSLA members, and MSME) access to fair and equitable
rights, and support networks with international, national and markets. More inclusive and participatory decision-making
subnational counterparts to demand basic services and holder processes catalyze policies to enable marginalized people to
powerholders accountable; engage in markets on fair and equitable terms.
Approach 3: Through Women Economic Empowerment (WEE) Approach 2: Support producers and laborers to collectively
approach, support communities to identify barriers, enlist advocate for access to factors of production and share of
men and women and marginalized to design interventions resources emanating from their labor. Marginalized groups
that promote and enable women and marginalized to have engaged in production have skills to negotiate for better
increased access and ownership of productive assets and control of assets and improved incomes.
inputs, including bridging barriers to credit for women, Approach 3: Through CVA, mobilize most-vulnerable
extension services, agricultural training, and business advocacy groups, promote cross-learning, link with LNGO and
development skills and services, as well as play roles in natural government policy champions and support efforts towards
resource and peace management processes. Women, PWD ratifying international conventions and commitment towards
other marginalized groups are equipped with skills and inputs operationalizing policies that address gender inequalities.
that support them to develop and diversify livelihoods and Change agent’s confidence, knowledge and networks to lead
enter markets on fair and equitable terms; group change strengthened.
Approach 4: Implement interventions that build alliances Approach 4: Develop evidence base and operational research
with religious leaders, community leaders and facilitates to influence, including market and social local barrier analysis,
conversations on approaches that work towards inclusive opportunity cost analysis of lack of operationalization on
decision-making, as well as link community structures to gender-related policy; policy, legislative and bottleneck
district, regional and national forums to support advocacy analysis to support policy develop roadmaps to strengthen
and policy action(s). Community, business and government frameworks for inclusion, as well as capture and disseminate
leaders’ attitude towards women’s role in decision-making and best-practice. Powerholder and marginalized person’s
participation in economic opportunities changed and their awareness of the differentiated impact of norms, attitude on
support enlisted to champion women’s engagement; opportunity strengthened and change-agents equipped to
Approach 5: Raise awareness with communities to understand support change processes.
the relationship between inclusive community level targeting
and prioritization of interventions with inclusive household Attitudes and Behaviors
approaches to help avoid risk of misconceptions and
encourage shifts from inequitable social cultural norms. Men To achieve transformational change, the consortium will
support the marginalized to develop skills and gain confidence

ARTICLE HEADER

to challenge existing norms and power structures. Moreover, PwD access technologies, skills and inputs to engage in
the program will enlist powerholders at community, national economic life on fair and equitable terms.
and subnational levels as champions to challenge existing
norms and power structures for inclusion at household and Consortium-level Change; People Systems
community level to recognize the benefits of more inclusive and Governance are frontrunners for
systems to improving household and community resilience. inclusive resilience
Approach 1: The gender, marginalized and PwD inclusion
conversations start at the household level as social norms To be a credible promoter of social and economic systems
dictate control of family resources and access to opportunities. change, the consortium will adopt structures, partnership,
SomReP will raise awareness at household-level of unequal policies, programming and methods which promote attitude
power relations on key family decisions and the differential and behavior change to enhance equality.
impact of climate change and conflict on women, and PwD Approach 1: Efficient mechanisms in the form of the Gender
and marginalized groups. These will be supported through and Inclusion Advisor to mainstream GESI at consortium
provision of enabling technologies, skills development policy, technical approach, systems, partnerships and external
and economic development support to contribute to and learning-levels, coordinate marginalized advocacy groups
diversify household livelihood. Men and women, boys and participation in advocacy initiative important for resilience,
girls and PWD build more cohesive household economic build the capacity of member agency policy and staff capacity
units, improve gender/PWD relations and contribute to to implement gender and PwD-responsive approaches,
overall household resilience. celebrate women and PWD champions on international days
Approach 2: Exclusive societal norms and power structures through media platforms. Consortium members and partners
are barriers for women, youth and PwD to access economic credible to champions attitude and behavior change for
opportunities, participate in community governance women and PwD.
structures and adapt to climate change and other shocks. Approach 2: Develop partnerships with civil society (LNGOs
In partnership with local civil society (LNGOs and academia) and academia) with capacities to support mainstreaming
and religious leaders, scale awareness of the socio-cultural of gender and disability inclusion. The consortium has
norms which fuel inequalities, the potential of more inclusive contextualized and sustainable approaches to empowering
structures to improve community resilience and well-being the most vulnerable.
and enabling gender-related policies through community
structures and economic groups. Support community SomReP Gender and Inclusion Strategy | 9
structures and economic groups to enlist champions;
undertake participatory and inclusive socio-cultural analysis
to identify barriers for marginalized access to productive
assets, inputs and financial services; facilitate powerholders
including religious leaders and marginalized groups to design
strategies to enhance opportunities for most marginalized
to acquire production factors, training, assets, business
development skills and services. Whole communities
(powerholders and marginalized) recognize how exclusive
practices hinder climate adaptation, resilience and economic
growth and support attitude and behavior change.
Approach 3: Gender is as much a household-level as
community-level conversation, and hence, SomReP will
review its intervention package to apply gender-awareness
to household dialogues through the Life Skills Training
curriculum to enhance the understanding of the effect of
unequal power relations and support households to build
more cohesive units and improve gender relations and
contribute to overall household resilience. Women and PwD
control over household resources and decision-making
processes strengthened.
Approach 4: Support people with disability through
provision of enabling technologies and skills development to
take-up livelihood development opportunities within both
agricultural value chains as well as non-farm activities to
foster inclusion and improve resilience outcomes for them.

THEORY OF The GESI assessment process has enabled the consortium
CHANGE to develop a comprehensive Theory of Change which
mainstreams principles into end-state statements, providing
an understanding of how to refine technical approaches to
enhance gender equality and social inclusion. The overriding
rationale is that SomReP recognizes the crucial role that social
justice and voice plays in creating a peaceful co-existing
society for the growth of livelihood opportunities, as well as the
impact that increased household incomes and empowerment
as a result of expanded opportunities for women and people
with disability has on not only developing local economies but
also on reducing vulnerability and deepening social cohesion.
On this basis SomReP has prioritized three pillars for GESI that
map out pathways of change in the processes and outcome
changes building on to inclusive resilience in Somalia

10 | SomReP Gender and Inclusion Strategy Pillar 1; GESI responsive risk assessment and planning target marginalized groups similarly from a market systems
and response: The consortium will invest efforts to ensure perspective the consortium will support targeted interventions
community planning processes anchored in SomReP’s that ensure production an and market systems are
community driven resilience model take into account barriers competitive—system actors are able to effectively innovate,
for inclusion sharpening the focus of existing community upgrade and add value to their products and services to
targeting guidelines and sustaining appreciation of the match market demand and maintain or grow market share;
challenges that marginalized groups, helping communities to inclusive—delivering a sustainable flow of benefits to a range
develop community action and adaptation plans (CAAPs) that of actors, including the poor and otherwise marginalized, as
are responsive to the barriers and needs of the most vulnerable well as to society as a whole; and resilient—system actors are
and marginalized groups. able to address, absorb and overcome shocks in the market,
Pillar 2; Inclusive economic empowerment and market policy environment, resource base or other aspect of the
systems; Appreciating the challenges that communities system
vulnerable to shocks face, as part of SomReP’s Push and Pull Pillar 3; Inclusive governance and policy structures; Aligning
strategy, the consortium will support investments to ensure positive actions that work toward building inclusion of
that interventions that support economic empowerment marginalized groups into decision making processes at

ARTICLE HEADER

community. Household and interpersonal level influencing to private sector for sustainable livelihoods and economic
social relations to build synergies for socio-economic growth. growth informed a strong evidence base (transformative) .
SomReP will support evidence gathering that enables These changes across different capacities will contribute to to
communities appreciate their opportunities and challenges enhanced food security and resilience in the target villages.
along their resilience journey and contribute to influencing
policies that enable the protection of their resilience gains. Assumptions:-
If these three pillars are fulfilled in line with the end-statements
outline in the ToC diagram below, then Households and Assumptions for outputs level actions:-
communities will be empowered to make risk informed • Improving knowledge and capacity among marginalized
decisions to preserve resources (saving, credit, animal, food, groups leads to changes in practice and action.
pasture, fodder and water) and meet their own needs.There will • Learning will be a driver of the SomReP programme and
be an increase in productivity of crop and animal products, as SomReP IPs will apply the learning gained to improve
well as an increase in families with diversified income sources. their projects and maximize impact.
Additionally, there will be inclusive and sustainable market
and inclusive economic growth, understanding of resilience Assumptions for Outcome level actions:-
evidence will be mainstreamed and informed decision-making • Improving climate and disaster risk management
processes adopted at all levels of governance among vulnerable and marginalized groups leads to
As a result, there will be improved absorptive capacity better developmental outcomes.
of HH and communities to respond to shocks and stress • Improving access to climate and weather information,
across seasons. The capacity of individuals, households and including early warning systems, strengthens resilience.
communities to adhere to positive development trajectories; • Improving GESI responsive basic service delivery in
and to engage in strategies for sustainable livelihoods and different sectors strengthens household resilience.
economic growth will increase (adaptive capacity); and • Improving access to markets (physical/regulatory
there will be more transparent and accountable governance systems/pricing information, etc.) for vulnerable
structures at community, district and national levels to ensure and marginalized smallholders and other producers
an enabling policy and regulatory environment with linkage strengthens resilience to climate extremes and disasters.
• Lessons from projects about which approaches work,
and in what contexts, can influence policymaking
and development planning in national and local
governments, regional and international initiatives.

SomReP Gender and Inclusion Strategy | 11

12 | SomReP Gender and Inclusion Strategy



SomReP Gender and Inclusion Strategy | 13

ARTICLE HEADER

Somali Resilience Program

CONTACT
Kevin Mackey
SomReP Chief of Party
[email protected]