Regional Reports - the European External Action Service

of new NGOs and also for existing ones to extend their activities to the areas where
security is a major problem.
o The other negative factors are the large geographic area of the region which involves high
logistic cost particularly due to the long distance travel between zones and woredas
located far away from each other. Moreover, the harsh climate and the recurrence of
drought and rain shortage would also influence the growth of NGO operation in the
region because it imposes limitation on the effectiveness of long term development
programs of NGOs.
o An important development that would help to promote the growth and operation of NSA
is the initiative taken recently to network NGOs and also to strengthen the partnership of
GO-NGO. In addition, there is a healthy relationship and ongoing consultation to build
collaborative partnership between NGO and sector offices which is a good start that will
attract new NGOs to the region. During the mission’s work, various interest groups like
youth, women and urban dwellers that became aware of the EC civil society capacity
building support (CSF) have indicated the initiatives already in progress to form
associations in order to benefit from the CSF.
6. Networking
There was no any form of networking among NSA in the region which is very small in number
and their activities are also sparsely scattered. A recent development in the NGO sector is the
establishment of forums particularly the Somali pastoralist forum. Representatives of five NGOs
have been selected to prepare the groundwork and organize the forum office.
In order to resume its activities, the forum has already secured an office while the recruitment of
core staff is in progress. Similarly, NGOs in the region have also taken the initiative to form
education forum and the main purpose of this forum is to facilitate efforts towards
increasing/improving the technical, human and material support of stakeholders to basic
education in Somali region.
Accordingly, the draft guideline of the education forum that has been prepared is already in
circulation in order to get comments and feedback as part of the ongoing consultation among
NGOs and the relevant regional government organs. The GO – NGO education forum is intended
to build collaborative partnerships that harmonize efforts and resources of all stakeholders in
education and that creates enabling environment of mutual understanding, cooperation,
transparency and trust between regional government and NSA.
7. Dialogue and cooperation between NSA and Local Government.
There is a good work relation with the sector bureaus and many of the NGOs participate in the
coordination of PASDEP activities of the respective sector in which they are engaged. A more
recent development is the GO – NGO task force that brings sector bureau experts and
representatives of NGOs that undertake various sector specific activities. The Regional
Agriculture Task Force (RATF) which is chaired by the regional agriculture bureau head with
FAO representative serving as its secretary is the most active TF. It is also the strongest of all in
terms of sector office and NGO collaboration and effectiveness in synchronizing their program
activities in the areas of agriculture and emergency responses. RATF has recently drafted its
agricultural sector based emergency response plan and implementation strategy for appeals in
order to coordinate humanitarian activities in the region. Based on the lessons learned from the
experiences of RATF coordination functions, the other NGOs and sector offices like education
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