Updated October 2026: this post was first published in April 2019 to announce the update. We have expanded it with a summary drawn from the update’s summary report.
In 2019 we updated the 2016/2017 solutions analyses for Mogadishu, Kismayo and Baidoa, working with partners in the EU RE-INTEG programme, the Durable Solutions Programme and the Danwadaag Solutions Consortium, with funding from ECHO, Danida and DFID. The update reviews progress since the first analyses, identifies what is holding (re)integration back, and sets priorities for 2019 and 2020. It is published in two parts. Part A reviews progress against four durable solutions programming principles and includes eight case studies from practice. Part B updates the Solutions Framework rating for each city.
How the update was done
The research was qualitative. It drew on a review of more than 110 sources, consultations with 275 internally displaced people (IDPs), returnees and host community members, 70 key informant interviews, and a roundtable with 18 participants from government, municipalities, aid organisations, the private sector, donors and research. Three operational workshops, one in each city, brought together 90 representatives to test the findings. The first, in Mogadishu, took place on 30 April 2019, with Kismayo and Baidoa following in June.
What changed since 2016/2017
Political commitment to durable solutions grew. It is reflected in the National Development Plan, and 24 federal and state policies and guidelines were developed in 2017 and 2018. The range of actors also expanded, with multi-year funding, donor-funded consortia and a stated aim of collective outcomes. The update finds that these pieces had not yet come together, for four reasons: the processes only began in 2016 and 2017; external actors have limited influence where clan dynamics largely define what is feasible; information sharing, joint planning and common tools were inadequate; and balancing immediate and longer-term needs is hard in a setting of protracted displacement and state building.
Progress against the four programming principles
On area-based planning, community action plans were developed and the housing, land and property approach to eviction response and prevention took hold, most strongly in Baidoa. But joint planning with federal and state governments was limited, and displacement-affected communities were rarely involved in design or monitoring. On sustainable (re)integration, a housing-led approach became a model for integrated programming, while economic inclusion lagged and private sector services remained too costly for displaced people. On collective outcomes, a learning partner and joint assessments brought UN agencies, NGOs and government together, but there were no coordination structures suited to durable solutions planning and little shared or disaggregated data. On government engagement, limited finance and uneven technical capacity held progress back, and a Durable Solutions Unit within the Benadir Regional Administration was identified as a key success factor.
City by city
In Mogadishu, most indicators were rated red, a decline compared with 2017, driven by forced evictions, food insecurity and protection concerns, particularly sexual and gender-based violence. IDPs were still unable to enter the local labour market. Baidoa showed the most positive change in physical safety and social cohesion, largely because of community-level programming, along with better access to education; legal safety could not be rated for lack of data. In Kismayo, physical safety had improved since 2016/2017 and the new hospital brought integrated health services, but material and legal safety ratings were unchanged, evictions had risen, and livelihood activities had not yet produced change.
Priorities for 2019 and 2020
Three priorities cut across all locations: wider inclusion, moving from secondments towards real partnership with government and bringing in business and Somali civil society; a social cohesion strategy for each location, with donors modelling joint planning and common standards; and better data, including common monitoring tools and support for national data systems. Each city also has its own agenda. Mogadishu needs more investment in social accountability, tenure security and an eviction tracker for government-led working groups. Baidoa should link social cohesion with social protection and invest in local economic development. Kismayo should scale up community-driven reconstruction, integrated services and grievance mechanisms in each sector.
Download the full report with executive summary, the overall solutions frameworks and the summary report. The full report has an interactive table of contents with links to each section.
References
ReDSS (2019). Solutions Analysis Update 2019: Mogadishu, Kismayo and Baidoa. Regional Durable Solutions Secretariat. https://data.unhcr.org/en/documents/details/77738
ReDSS (2019). Solutions Analysis Update 2019: summary. Regional Durable Solutions Secretariat. https://www.regionaldss.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Solutions-analysis-updates-Somalia-2019-Summary.pdf
