DRRACS Completes All Planned Work in Eight Somaliland Villages

For immediate release

Pillar Social Development Organization (PSDO) today announced the completion of the Drought Recovery and Resilience for Affected Communities in Somaliland (DRRACS) project, a ten-month recovery programme supported through charitable contributions. Every planned activity was delivered, and the new berkads and soil bunds were handed over to community committees and district authorities this week.

What the project delivered

Between July 2023 and April 2024, DRRACS:

• paid 7,200 monthly cash transfers of $80 to 1,200 households in six villages, with every household receiving the full $480 over six months;
• paid 1,600 monthly wages to 400 Cash-for-Work labourers;
• rehabilitated the berkads in Kalmac (completed 28 March 2024) and Laaleys (10 April 2024) and built a new berkad, with a silt trap and roof, in Godwaraabe (18 April 2024);
• built 18.2 kilometres of soil bunds protecting about 414 hectares in Bali-Ciidle and Bali-Dalab, and distributed 400 tool kits and 400 seedling packages;
• trained 56 committee members, 26 of them women, in PSEA, safeguarding and asset maintenance; and
• received 214 complaints and queries through its hotline, resolving 96.7% within the standard timeframe.

What changed for families

An endline survey of 500 households, carried out by PSDO’s MEAL team between 14 and 30 April 2024, shows that the project met every outcome and impact target in its logical framework:

• households eating only one meal a day fell from 40.0% in August 2023 to 3.6%;
• households using negative coping strategies fell from 90.0% to 27.4%;
• households with two or more sources of income rose from none to 27.6%;
• households facing water shortages fell from 82.0% to 31.8%, and in the berkad villages the share using a communal berkad as their main source rose from 49.3% to 81.3%;
• awareness of how to raise a complaint rose from 10.0% to 83.0%; and
• the share of households meeting their food and water needs without negative coping rose from 2.0% to 61.8%, above the target of 60%.

“DRRACS was built on a simple belief: cash buys time, but families only become stronger when the water and the land they depend on are restored as well. These results belong to the communities who built the berkads and the bunds with their own hands. Our task now is to make sure the gains survive the next dry season.”

Ahmed Jama, Programme Manager, PSDO

“With the first Gu’ rains the water stayed on the fields behind the bunds. The soil stays wet longer and the sorghum is growing better than on the land without bunds.”

Member of the Soil and Land Management Committee, Bali-Dalab

Looking ahead

PSDO is clear that the gains are still fragile. The berkads were completed in the weeks before the Gu’ rains and have not yet been through a full dry season, and nearly three-quarters of households still rely on a single source of income. PSDO will carry out a post-project check of the berkads and bunds in July 2024 and will support the committees with any major repairs.

PSDO has also recommended savings groups, small-business support and restocking for households without livestock, and new water storage for the villages that asked for it: the dam in Baki, the berkad in Harada, and ponds or berkads in Bali-Ciidle, Bali-Dalab and Duruqsi.

PSDO thanks its partners and supporters in Canada, the Ministry of Water and the Ministry of Agricultural Development (MoAD), the district authorities, and the Village Authorities and Soil and Land Management Committees whose work made the project possible.

About DRRACS

The Drought Recovery and Resilience for Affected Communities in Somaliland (DRRACS) project ran from 1 July 2023 to 30 April 2024 in Kalmac, Laaleys, Godwaraabe, Bali-Ciidle, Bali-Dalab, Baki, Duruqsi and Harada, in Sanaag, Saahil, Togdheer and Awdal. It combined unconditional cash transfers, Cash-for-Work on berkads and soil bunds, tools and seedlings, and community training in safeguarding and asset maintenance.

About PSDO

Pillar Social Development Organization (PSDO) is a non-governmental organization established in 2010 by members of the Somali diaspora in Canada together with local representatives and staff. It works in humanitarian response, recovery and community development, with a focus on rural pastoral and agropastoral communities affected by drought.

Media contact: Ahmed Jama, Programme Manager, Pillar Social Development Organization (PSDO), via pillarsdo.org/contact/

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