Twinning Program

Introduction to Twinning

The Somalia NGO Consortium & Oxfam Somalia:

• Agreed to support Capacity Building program focused on equitable shift and sharing of power among NGOS, intended to expand knowledge, and resources between local, national and international humanitarian actors
• Focus on supporting women’s rights organizations (WROs) and addressing gender inequities.
• Address the systemic lack of capacity of national NNGOs providing humanitarian aid and lack of representation in the Common Humanitarian Fund (CHF)
• Provide a platform for International actors to have better understanding of local and national civil society throughout country

Why Twinning?

The SNC’s Strategy 2017-2019 includes as an outcome a “25 per cent of direct funding to Somali Local NGOs and increased voice and representation with donors by 2020”

Oxfam Somalia aims to implement the localization agenda in a way that can help address Somali women’s rights and gender justice and be a powerful agent of women’s transformative leadership in Somalia/Somaliland.

Project Title –  Strengthening Gender-Just, Locally-Led Humanitarian Response in Somalia

Over the past few years, “localizing humanitarian aid” has been regularly raised as a necessity to fundamentally reform the humanitarian system to respond more effectively and equitably to the current complex crises. The 2016 World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) brought together old and new voices for local humanitarian leadership, creating a space and momentum to speak out and bring change to the system, resulting in “The Grand Bargain” commitments to advance the localization agenda. In parallel, the Charter4Change, signed on to by many international NGOs (INGOs), including Oxfam, further commits to reforming the humanitarian system to ensure greater influence and funding for local a new-1570356555 nd national NGOs.

The Somalia NGO Consortium and Oxfam Somalia are supporting this movement by planning and implementing activities to more equitable shift and share power, knowledge, and resources between local, national and international humanitarian actors involved in Somalia’s humanitarian response, with a particular focus on supporting women’s rights organizations (WROs) and addressing deeply embedded gender inequities. The SNC’s Strategy 2017-2019 (attached here) includes as an outcome, a “25 per cent of direct funding to Somali local NGOs and increased voice and representation with donors, United Nations (UN) and INGOs by 2019. Twinning program is a two years’ pilot program started 2019-2020.

Possible Outcomes

1. Local/national NGOs participating in twinning have improved capacity related to gender equality and other identified needs
2. Participating local and national NGOs are more coordinated, clear and gender-responsive in their advocacy efforts
3. Learn and Pilot from 1st Cohort of Twins to establish a long term running Capacity Building program for all NGOs, that foster trust, solidarity and improving aid delivery

Strategic Areas of Influence

Program has three main components:

• Capacity Development
• Gender Leadership
• Advocacy on Localizations

Influence in 6 Core Areas:

1. NNGO’s membership in the SHF
2. Participation in the humanitarian clusters
3. Ability to access future funding
4. Ability to manage humanitarian emergency response, humanitarian and development projects
5. The sharing of knowledge between NNGOs and INGOs
6. Building networks and offering opportunities to meet with INGOs, OCHA and other stakeholders

Key Outputs & Milestones

During these two years, the Program will deliver three main outputs, related to the Somalia/Somaliland localization agenda:

1. NGO mapping and perception survey
2. Advocacy consultative meetings, workshops and initiatives
3. Supporting partnership with local organizations