Every so often, whenever you hear the word “Somalia,” it’s usually accompanied by “failed state.” This is repeated so often, one begins to believe that this part of Somalia’s official name.

In the past few years, IOM has been working closely with the Somali Government Authorities to assist them

to remove the stigma of the so-called failed state. One mechanism that IOM has made effective use of is the Somali diaspora. Under its Migration for Development in Africa (MIDA) umbrella, IOM has been assisting the Somali Governments in all three regions in their requests to create new institutions and strengthen existing ones to be more effective in implementing their mandates. In this edition of the MIDA E-Newsletter, we will showcase some of the work the MIDA participants have been doing in Somalia and bring you up to date on some of our other activities. Below we bring you two stories on how the MIDA participants are effecting change in Somalia. The first one highlights the work of one of the MIDA participants

in the Somali Disaster Management Agency (SODMA). The second one displays the quest of a brave (MIDA) lady to regulate the medical sector in Somaliland.

Transfer of Knowledge & SkillsJawahir Shirwa is a current MIDA participant and works as a Community Safety Liaison Officer for the Somali Disaster Management Agency (SODMA) in Mogadishu, Somalia. SODMA was created by the former Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali on August 3, 2011 with the mandate of serving as the primary government institution tasked with the management of all types of disasters within the country. The agency was created as a result of the drought and famine of 2011 which claimed many Somali lives. Currently, SODMA is focusing mainly on disaster prevention and risk reduction. In terms of human resources, SODMA adopted a very effective policy of hiring former employees of many other key ministries. This strategy, not only allows the institution to maximize the impact of already existing human capital in terms of knowledge transfer, but also builds relationships across ministries within the government and concerned partners.

l Brief Overview

l Transfer of Knowledge & Skills

l Endorsement of the Somaliland National Health Professions Commission (NHPC)

l Highlights

l QUESTS-MIDA Website Overhaul

l “Training-of-Trainers” Workshop for Diaspora Experts Held in Somaliland (April 2013)

l Outreach in the UK, US & Nordic Countries

INSIDEOur Mission in Somalia

SomaliaA QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER BY THE MIGRATION AND DEVELOPMENT UNITAUGUST 2013

MIDA

Endorsement of the Somaliland National Health Professions Commission (NHPC)Dr. Lula J. Hussein is a Somali Canadian medical doctor who has been supporting the Somaliland National Health Professions Commission (NHPC) since March 2012 as a MIDA Health Northern Somalia (MIDA-FINNSOM) participant. The Somaliland NHPC is a statutory body with the mandate of regulating, accrediting, licensing professionals, and addressing health workforce issues in the country. Despite the challenges, the NHPC is a key platform for the overall promotion of health safety standards, high quality health care standards and a central body working on regulatory issues in the longer term. The contribution that Dr. Lula, as a policy developer, has been providing not only to the beneficiary institution, but in general to the health sector in Somaliland as a whole is hard to quantify. In addition to developing the capacities of her local colleagues to bring about lasting changes to the medical sector, Dr. Lula has contributed to the development of a four year strategic plan, the passage by the legislature of proposed amendments to the Health Professions Act 19/2001, and the development of procedure manuals for NHPC.

On June 5th, 2013, Dr. Lula, as the Head of the NHPC, officially announced that the NHPC is opened for

business. Dr. Lula, some few staff and some dedicated volunteers planned, prepared and organized a successful official launch of the institution and the Health Regulatory Act that was signed into law by the President of Somaliland HE Dr. Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud on January 19th, 2013. The launch was well organized and highly attended. Invitations were sent to all NHPC stakeholders, health institutions, health care facilities, members of the House of Elders, members of Parliament with a special invitation to members of the Social Affairs Committee, line ministries, and influential community and religious leaders. The honorable Vice

Jawahir during a training for the SODMA staff in Mogadishu, FRS

Dr. Lula at the official launching of the NHPC Legal Act in Hargeisa, Somaliland

My duties consist of visiting IDP camps and uncovering issues related to safety either through dialogue with gatekeepers, camp residents, camp police and etc. or through visual assessments. Coming from human resources background, I understand the importance of knowledge transfer and capacity building. I ensure knowledge transfer through group trainings that I conduct with other IOM experts, interactive small group trainings that I individually conduct, staff coaching/mentoring, and by having an open door policy where staff members can contact me at any time and I will provide them with whatever assistance that I can. There are weekly IDP Task Force meetings that we attend as a group and with key stakeholders, such as the Ministry of Interior, UNHCR, OCHA, DRC, UN Habitat, ARC, Care and etc.

During these meetings, we discuss issues related to IDPs and the government led Relocation Plan for IDPs living in Mogadishu. Working at SODMA has been great and I hope to continue my work with this organization, one thing I truly admire about the staff is that they are motivated and that they are very resilient. Although they have not received a salary for more than a couple of months now they still show up to work and they still carry out their daily duties.”

President HE Abdirahman Mohamed Saylici officially opened the launch of NHPC.

In her speech Dr. Lula thanked the participants; she talked in detail why NHPC is such an important factor in the provision of health services in Somaliland. Dr. Lula, furthermore, told the participants that NHPC’s mandate is all about protecting the public and raising the quality of the health care services, health training institutions as well as health professionals in Somaliland. Dr. Lula urged concerned stakeholders especially the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Higher Education as well as the Higher Education Commission to work with NHPC.

As a testament of the great job that Dr. Lula is doing at the Somaliland NHPC, MIDA has been asked by the Somalia Health Sector Committee to share with other international actors the best practices arising out of this success story and, above all, to keep on supporting the NHPC through Dr. Lula’s assignment. MIDA has just extended Dr. Lula’s contract in order to let her further contribute to the development of the health sector regulation in Somaliland whose framework is already serving as a role model for the development of the same sectors in Puntland and South Central Somalia.

HighlightsYears of tension and instability as well as the lack of economic prospects have led to a massive and long-lasting departure of qualified persons in all key development sectors. Thus, Somalia experienced decades of ‘brain drain’ and continued deterioration of the public sector service delivery, transparency, and accountability. There has been growing recognition that migration can have positive effects on development.

QUESTS-MIDA has capitalized on this and given the Somali diaspora the opportunity to go back to their country of origin and assist in its development efforts. QUESTS-MIDA (QM) has drawn a lot of interest from the Somali community worldwide. Since the project inception in 2009, 62 participants have been placed in different government institutions in Somalia. QM, as MIDA Somalia’s flagship project, represents one of six such projects being implemented in Somalia today. Below you will find graphs that highlight these projects.

The total number of MIDA participants placed since 2009 is 146. These experts can be found at virtually every vital Somali institution, such as the Somali Disaster Management Agency (DMA), the Civil Service Commission and the Office of the Accountant General and such Ministries as Finance and Planning, Health, Interior, National Resources, among others.

MIDA placements of Somali diaspora experts

QUESTS-MIDA

MIDA-FINNSOM

MIDA-CBS

MIDA-TIS

MIDA-CBMM

MIDA-DMA

MIDA-TRQN III

QUESTS-MIDA Website OverhaulSince 2009, the QUESTS-MIDA website has been the primary recruitment tool for MIDA Somalia. To make easier for potential candidates and partners to access, the website has been redesigned. As part of the redesign, the website now has a new look and is now easier to navigate. All applicants must apply online through the QUESTS-MIDA website. To start the application process, the applicants are required to register an account with the QUESTS-MIDA website (www.quests-mida.org), go to login and register as a user, then fill the form and create a password to enter in the applications section.

“Training-of-Trainers” Workshop for Diaspora Experts Held in Somaliland

The training was crucial for me; it is one thing to have so many years of experience, and another to be able to effectively transfer my knowledge and skills to someone else within a short period of time”.

Musa Noor, a financial management expert from England.

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Seven Somali diaspora experts,who are currently embedded in government institutions in Mogadishu, Hargeisa, Bosaso and Garowe,returned to Somalia from

IOM, under its Migration for Development in Africa (MIDA), and UNDP, under its Somalia Institutional Development Project (SIDP), have been working with the Transitional Federal Government and the current Government since 2009 to build the capacity of the Government institutions. The increasing number of requests from the Government required an IOM campaign to reconnect with the Somali diaspora in key constituencies in North America and Northern Europe. To that end, IOM Somalia sent its Chief of Mission and the MIDA Program Manager on an outreach tour. IOM selected six countries (Canada, U.S., UK, Norway,

Sweden, and Denmark) and seven cities where we believe the vast majority of the Somali diaspora outside of Africa are concentrated.

During the many discussions, we heard some important ideas from Somali diaspora. One participant had a great idea of preventing animals from starving during the dry seasons. He wants to bring a special hay that grows in extreme climate to plant in Somalia. This hay is low maintenance and can be grown at low costs. According to him, this venture would not need a large sum of start-up capital and can be rolled out fairly quickly and effectively. Most of the business ideas we heard from the Somali diaspora fall between $50,000 and $100,000. The potential impacts of Somalis returning to establish business could be great.

This tour opened our eyes to the Somali youth in the diaspora. This vibrant untapped resource is what Somalia needs to develop. The international community and the Somali Government need to engage the Somali youth in the diaspora to return the country of their mothers and fathers to help rebuild it.

For any questions and comments, send email toquests-mida@iom.int

QM participants divided in working groups during the “Training of Trainers” workshop in Hargeisa, Somaliland

MIDA presentation in Minneapolis, USA

abroad to conduct short-term capacity building assignments to train Somali government officials as part of the QUESTS-MIDA project. In April 2013, they completed a “Training-of-Trainers” workshop conducted by IOM Somalia and UNDP Somalia.

The two-day workshop, held in Hargeisa from the 7th to the 9th of April 2013, assisted the group to learn how to transfer their knowledge and skills to staff in government institutions by developing a basic understanding of Training Needs Assessment (TNA) tools and techniques to be used in the field.

Outreach in the UK, US & Nordic Countries

International Organization for Migration (IOM),Mission in Somalia, Gitanga Groove, off Gitanga Road, Lavington

P O Box 1810, Nairobi 00606 Kenyamidasomalia@iom.int | www.quests-mida.org