Updated October 2026: this post was first published in December 2018 to announce the analysis. We have expanded it with a summary drawn from its executive summary.
In July and August 2018 we carried out a solutions analysis for Somaliland, with support from the Somaliland Durable Solutions Consortium (SDSC). It compares the situation of internally displaced people (IDPs) with that of the communities hosting them, identifies gaps and opportunities for their (re)integration, and sets out recommendations for the Government of Somaliland, operational agencies and donors. It considers three routes to a solution: voluntary relocation, voluntary return and reintegration, and local integration.
How the analysis was done
The analysis combined a review of existing data with 46 key informant interviews and 12 focus group discussions, followed by a consultation and validation workshop in Hargeisa in September 2018. Findings are organised under the physical, material and legal safety criteria of the ReDSS Solutions Framework, which puts the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Framework on Durable Solutions for IDPs into practice through 8 criteria and 28 indicators.
Who is displaced in Somaliland
The protracted caseload includes people displaced by earlier droughts, former refugees who have returned from Ethiopia since the 1990s, economic migrants labelled as IDPs, and a small number from South-Central Somalia. Most of the recently displaced left their homes from late 2016 onwards, mainly because of drought and the loss of livestock and land. Hargeisa and Burao are the main urban centres where they live. Split households are common, with some members, usually men, staying in rural areas to farm or herd. The executive summary gives no total IDP figure, and notes that droughts have become more frequent and severe over the past decade.
What the three safety criteria show
On physical safety, IDPs are generally more exposed than their hosts to theft, assault and gender-based violence. Overcrowding, poor lighting, a thinner police presence and the lack of household latrines in settlements add to the risk, and women face danger when they travel outside them. Relations between IDPs and host communities are mostly good, helped by IDPs often settling among their own sub-clan.
On material safety, food security improved markedly over the year before the analysis, but IDPs, especially those displaced by the 2016/2017 drought, were still more likely to be food insecure. IDPs have poorer access to services: limits on permanent infrastructure in settlements restrict water and sanitation, school attendance is lower for IDP children, and many settlements have no health facility. IDP incomes are considerably lower than those of their hosts and come mostly from casual construction work, with women increasingly selling in markets or working as domestic workers. Land disputes and a rise in forced evictions threaten those in temporary settlements, and the lack of land, both for relocation and at places of origin, is a major barrier to return.
On legal safety, the evidence runs out. Birth registration is very low across Somaliland, and family separation is more common among IDPs, mostly as a deliberate livelihood strategy. There is not enough data to compare IDPs and hosts on documentation, participation in public affairs or access to justice. We treat this as a gap to fill.
Policy foundations exist but need capacity
Somaliland finalised its National Internal Displacement Policy in 2015 and established the National Displacement and Refugee Agency (NDRA) in January 2018, whose five-year strategic plan for 2018 to 2022 was being finalised at the time. A Disaster Risk Management Policy and a Drought Recovery Strategy also support recovery and resilience. The NDRA needs more capacity and resources to implement them.
What we recommended
The recommendations fall into three groups. The first is better information: data on IDP numbers, origins, vulnerabilities and intentions, led by the NDRA and starting with a longitudinal aspirations survey, plus awareness-raising that goes beyond one-off trainings. The second is putting policy into practice: an action plan with collective outcomes and monitoring for the Internal Displacement Policy, a whole-of-government approach, and joint planning between the NDRA and the National Disaster Preparedness and Food Reserve Authority (NADFOR) to link solutions with recovery and resilience.
The third is the interventions themselves. They include prevention in drought-prone areas; government-led voluntary relocation with permanent land titles; return and reintegration planned on better data and tested through area-based pilots; and, for those who cannot reach a durable solution soon, transitional support covering protection, safeguards against forced eviction under Section 4 of the Internal Displacement Policy, and livelihoods. Flexible, multi-year funding underpins all of it.
The analysis was funded by the European Union and the Danish Embassy for Kenya and Somalia.
Read the full report, the executive summary and the summary presentation.
References
ReDSS (2018). Somaliland Solutions Analysis: Executive Summary. Regional Durable Solutions Secretariat. https://www.regionaldss.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/REDSS-SOMLILAND-EXECUTIVE-SUMMARY-ONLINE.pdf
