Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Observatory of
Conflict and Violence
Prevention
Observatory of
Conflict and Violence
Prevention
Berbera 2012
District Conflict and Security Assessment Report
Acknowledgments
The Somali Observatory of Conflict and Violence Prevention (OCVP)
would like to thank the following:
Berbera
particular, the Community Security project within the Governance and
Rule of Law Programme, for providing financial support during this
survey exercise.
1
Overview
Focus group discussions were held with youth (men and women
in one group), women, elders and religious leaders, IDP camp
residents, and business leaders. Youth participants pointed out
that terrorism is the most significant safety concern in the district;
Table of Contents they think that Sahil's close proximity to Yemen may offer
terrorists a main transportation route. In addition, rape has
Overview ................................................................ 2 recently become a safety concern, together with an increasing
number of robberies after dark.
Picture 1: Map of Somaliland
and Puntland illustrating the Participants of the womens focus group discussion said that they
location of Berbera .............................................. 1 do not face major safety concerns and that Sahil is the safest
region in Somaliland. However, although the numbers were not
1. Introduction..........................................................3 alarming according to the women, rape was mentioned as the
biggest concern. There had been some instances of child rape
2. Methodology .....................................................4 and rape against women from other regions by young boys from
2.1 Questionnaires ...........................................4 Berbera. Participants of the religious leaders and elders focus
2.2 Focus Group Discussions ...........................4 group and IDP focus group both confirmed this. In addition,
2.3 Key Informant Interviews...........................4 business leaders expressed their concern with regard to recent
family-based disputes and muggings of women after dark.
3. Perceived Performance of
Security, Justice, and Governance Youth, women and IDPs mentioned the community committee as
Actors ....................................................................... 5 the institution that is best able to prevent or stop violence at the
3.1 Security Provider ....................................... 5 local level. Other institutions that were mentioned by these groups
3.2 Justice Provider........................................... 7 were the police and community elders. In addition, youth focus
3.3 Governance Provider................................ 8 group participants mentioned the regional security committee as
a powerful agency, whereas women emphasized the importance
4. Forms of Insecurity and Violence................... 10 of the role of courts. The elders and religious leaders and
business leaders mentioned the police and elders and religious
leaders as effective institutions/individuals with regard to
preventing and stopping violence.
Authors
Abdirahman Sheikh Hassan, Lead Researcher (OCVP)
Abdullahi Mohamed Odowa, Senior Social Researcher
(General Director, OCVP)
Ilyas Ibrahim Mohamed, Data Analyst (OCVP)
Nienke Hiemstra, Researcher (OCVP)
2
Intrduction
Key findings from the key informant
(mayor, prosecutor, community elder Regular assessments of issues affecting
and religious leader) interviews are community safety and security are critical in
as follows: providingevidence for effective programming,
and to allow for continual monitoring and
Both the key local elder and the prosecutor evaluation of safety and security interventions.
mentioned a conflict over regionally rooted However, such evidence based programming at
economic interests regarding Berberas Cement a district level does not currently exist in Somalia.
Factory as the most serious conflict in the region. Measuring the outcome and impact of interventions
Recently, the most serious manifestation of the to deal with insecurity is important in order to
conflict resulted from meetings organized by advance collective understanding of what works
members of the Ciise Muuse clan. and what does not. The Somali Observatory of
Conflict and Violence Prevention (OCVP) is an
The conflict is not a traditional clan based apolitical and neutral Somali organization, which
conflict; there were internal disagreements collectively aims at building Somali capacity to
within the clan. The conflict has reached critical mitigate violence andinsecurity in a sustainable
levels and is yet to be resolved. manner.
According to the key local elder, security is the The objective of the survey is to annually assess
most significant community concern, whilst the performance of security, justice, and governance
another major issue is poverty, against which providers, and levels of conflict and violence at the
the local government currently does not take district level in Somalia, in order to assist in the
any action. Besides his discontent with the local development of District Council Annual Work Plans.
administration, he also gives suggestions for
areas where performance improvements are The questionnaire was designed to gather
within reach: re-distribution of land and speci- quantitative data, in combination with the data
fically in the sub- district of Waraabe u from focus group discussions and key informant
Taagga important steps can be taken through interviews. The findings of this analysis will be
improvement of water supply and establishment used in the preparation of the annual develop-
of religious and formal schools. ment plan of Berbera, as part of provision of local
governance across Somalia.
The prosecutor held office for only two weeks
at the time that the interview was conducted. Targeting level of deployment, level of use and
According to his observation, rape cases and perception by the community on justice, security
homicide occur more frequently as compared and governance providers, as well as community
to Hargeisa. Most crimes are negotiated by perceptions on conflict and violence, the district
the clans of victims and perpetrators. He holds assessment will be divided into four key sections.
the opinion that the local government stays Following this introduction, methodologies used will
behind in providing community services be described in section 2.
(sanitation, waste management) compared
to other regions and he is concerned about The remaining sections present the perceived
the high unit prices of electricity, keeping it performance of security, justice, and governance
beyond the reach of many poor people. actors. Finally, the last section looks at perceptions
of conflict and violence.
The mayor confirms the concerns regarding
energy prices. On the other hand, his view on
security issues deviates from the other
interviewees: rape cases are sometimes
reported, but no murder case had been
reported over the past 12 months. He rates
the performance of his local government as
adequate.
3
2. Methodology
2.1 Questionnaires
The first tool used was questionnaires. The
questionnaire aims at providing the necessary
quantitative information for outlining an
accurate picture of the level of deployment,
level of use and perception of Security, Justice
and Governance providers, and finally, conflict
and violence. The questionnaires were admini- 2.2 Focus Group Discussions
stered to 80 households, approximately 80 The second tool used is focus groups to capture
people (66.3% were female and 62.5% were perceptions about the nature of insecurities in
married) from the four district divisions of district subdivisions, and its victims and perpe-
Berbera, namely: Barwaaqo, Burao Sheikh, trators. The researchers from the Observatory
Daaroole and Wadajir (including the IDP of Conflict and Violence Prevention convened
settlement Jaame Laaye). Figures 1 and 2 show the focus groups in October, bringing together
characteristics of the respondents. women, youth, elders and religious leaders,
business leaders and IDPs of the district. Partici-
pants were asked to compile a list of all major
types of violence experienced in Berbera. They
were then led through a process of describing
the causes, locations, times, victims and perpe-
trators. Finally, they were asked to identify the
individuals or institutions that they trusted to either
prevent or respond to violence.
4
3. Perceived Performance of
Security, Justice, and Governance
Actors
Both the questionnaires, focus group discussions
and key informant interviews inquired about the
performance of the various public authorities or
civil society actors ableto respond to insecurity,
namely the police, the courts, local authorities,
religious leaders and community elders.
5
Remarkably, while all respondents from Daaroole The overwhelming majority of respondents (83.8%)
said to have a high level of trust in the police, the said they would also contact the police for serious
majority of respondents that indicated that there crimes,3 and 13.8 per cent said they would contact
was no police were also from Daaroole. In addition, a court. As figure 10 shows, male and female
the opposite goes for the respondents from Burao respondents have similar preferences regarding
Sheikh. which agency to contact in case of a serious crime.
Whereas the majority afforded low levels of trust Overall, it can be concluded that the police and
to the police, all respondents affirmed the existence courts appeared to be the favourite course for
of police (Figure 7). Berbera respondents when dealing with crimes.
6
3.2 Justice Provider
The vast majority of respondents (80%) said they
were confident in the formal justice providers. Most
male respondents (59.3%) were fairly confident in
the formal justice system, whereas most female
respondents (50.9%) said to be very confident
(Figure 11).
7
On the other hand, only 10 respondents (12.5%)
had used local elders in the last12 months for
land/water dispute, robbery and household
violence. Only two of them did not receive
judgement. As the figure below shows, none of
the respondents from Wadajir had used a local
elder for solving conflicts in the last 12 months.
8
The responses differed significantly with respect to Only 15 per cent (twelve respondents, of which nine
the gender of respondents. Whereas a majority of were female) of respondents believe it is necessary
female respondents (60.4%) said they are not to have an elected official to represent them in the
familiar with their representatives, the vast majority district council. 6 of them were residents of Wadijir
of male respondents (77.8%) said they are familiar division, and 70 per cent of all respondents from
with their representatives (Figure 20). Wadijir believe that it is important to have elected
officials. On the contrary, none of the Barwaaqo
respondents said it is necessary to have elected
officials for their representation (Figure 22).
9
4. Forms of Insecurity and Violence
10
District Conflict and
Security Assessment Report
Berbera District 2012
www.ocvp.org