PSDO Launches DRRACS in Eight Drought-Affected Villages

A donkey crossing a dry, stony riverbed with green trees and hills behind

30 September 2023 · Sanaag, Saahil, Togdheer and Awdal, Somaliland

Pillar Social Development Organization (PSDO) has launched the Drought Recovery and Resilience for Affected Communities in Somaliland (DRRACS) project. The ten-month programme began on 1 July 2023 and runs until 30 April 2024. It will help eight villages that still carry the weight of the drought to move from emergency to recovery.

The situation

The rains have returned to parts of Somaliland, but many rural families have not yet recovered. The Jilaal dry season of early 2023 was severe, and its effects are still felt. By August 2023, a goat in the villages DRRACS serves sold for as little as $15 to $25, and in Sanaag and Saahil a 20-litre jerrycan of water cost between 4,000 and 7,000 Somaliland shillings. Families sold animals to buy food and water, and borrowed when there was nothing left to sell.

A pond lined with orange sheeting holding rainwater, with green grass around it — A lined pond holding rainwater. When DRRACS began, eight in ten households faced seasonal or chronic water shortages. Photo: Sharmake Haji Ismail

PSDO’s baseline assessment, carried out with 500 households in August 2023, shows how deep the damage runs:

Four households in ten had eaten only one meal the previous day.
Nine in ten were coping in ways that weaken their future: borrowing for food, selling productive animals, skipping meals or migrating for work and pasture.
No household surveyed had more than one source of income.
Eight in ten faced seasonal or chronic water shortages, and four in ten needed more than two hours for a single round trip to fetch water, a burden that falls mostly on women and girls.
Only one household in ten knew how to raise a complaint about aid.

Communal berkads, the stone-lined cisterns that store rainwater, were silted and cracked in several villages. In the farming villages of Oodweyne District, every heavy rain carried away more of the topsoil that families depend on.

A flock of sheep and goats on dry ground in Somaliland — Sheep and goats on the move in search of grazing. Livestock is the main asset of pastoral families, and its value fell sharply during the drought. Photo: Sharmake Haji Ismail

Eight villages, five components

DRRACS works in Kalmac and Godwaraabe in El Afweyn District, Sanaag; Laaleys in Berbera District, Saahil; Bali-Ciidle, Bali-Dalab, Duruqsi and Harada in Oodweyne District, Togdheer; and Baki in Baki District, Awdal.

The project rests on a simple idea: cash alone buys time, but households only become more resilient if the water points and farmland they depend on are restored at the same time. It has five components:

Community mobilization, targeting and protection in all eight villages, through Village Relief Committees, door-to-door registration and public validation of beneficiary lists.
Unconditional cash transfers of $80 a month for six months to 1,200 of the most vulnerable households, 200 in each of Godwaraabe, Bali-Ciidle, Bali-Dalab, Baki, Duruqsi and Harada, paid by mobile money.
Cash-for-Work on water for 400 labourers, who will rehabilitate the berkads in Kalmac and Laaleys and build a new berkad in Godwaraabe, with three Village Water Committees to manage them.
Cash-for-Work on soil and land in Bali-Ciidle and Bali-Dalab, where paid labourers will build soil bunds on eroded farmland and grazing land. Farming households will receive tool kits and seedlings, and two Soil and Land Management Committees will look after the works.
Training, safeguarding and accountability, including training for committee members in protection from sexual exploitation and abuse (PSEA) and in asset maintenance, a toll-free complaints hotline, and monitoring and evaluation throughout.

The launch

The first months have been given to building trust and getting the lists right. PSDO teams held community entry meetings in each village and formed Village Relief Committees to work alongside them. Registration was carried out door to door in August and September, and beneficiary lists were displayed publicly so that each community could confirm or challenge them before they were finalized. The baseline assessment was completed in August, and PSEA and safeguarding training for committees began in September.

A woman in a patterned dress seated in the shade of a tree — A mother in the shade outside her home in a DRRACS village, Somaliland. Photo: Sharmake Haji Ismail

The first monthly cash transfers are scheduled for November 2023. Cash-for-Work on the three berkads will begin in December, when tool kits and seedlings will also be distributed to farming households in Bali-Ciidle and Bali-Dalab.

Building on earlier work

Three of the eight villages, Bali-Ciidle, Baki and Harada, also took part in PSDO’s Drought Resilience And Cash Assistance Project (DRAAP) between 2021 and 2023, and DRRACS draws directly on that experience. Bali-Ciidle received only water trucking under DRAAP and was left without a lasting asset of its own. The new soil bunds will give the community something that stays after the project ends.

The project is supported through charitable contributions mobilized by PSDO’s founding team in Canada and their close networks, keeping the organization’s roots in the Somali diaspora at the heart of its work. PSDO will report on progress at the midline review in January 2024 and at the close of the project in April 2024.