Issue No. 848

The M&E Dilemma in Somalia

Somalia remains heavily-dependent on external aid to fund humanitarian and development projects and plug a huge budget deficit to keep the federal state functioning. In 2025, 67% of Somalia's USD 1.32 billion federal budget was funded by external donors. In 2022, Somalia received over USD 2.2 billion in humanitarian assistance, according to figures released by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) – a record high by sub-Saharan standards, but still far below the requirements with climate change distress and armed conflicts continuing to aggravate living conditions for millions of Somalis.

The dilemma for many external actors engaged in Somalia is how to ensure Somalia has capacity to absorb and put to good use this significant inflow of external resources. Relatedly, the other challenge is how to put in place effective monitoring and evaluation systems to ensure the accountability and integrity of foreign-supported programmes and projects.

The practice of effective Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) in Somalia is profoundly constrained by a set of deeply interwoven challenges. The country's history of protracted conflict has weakened traditional social safety nets, elevating humanitarian aid to the level of a critical and highly contested local resource. Consequently, any M&E framework must be designed with a granular understanding of the complex security, political, and social dynamics at play.

Insecurity is by far the most immediate barrier, creating a chilling ripple effect across all related activities. The presence of armed groups and the persistence of conflict severely curtail physical access for M&E teams. This reality forces most international organisations to remain hunkered down, adopting remote management strategies that rely on local NGO partners. These local actors navigate the treacherous landscape by leveraging the very kinship affiliations that can offer a shield of protection. However, this leads to a stark geographic bias: aid and monitoring efforts inevitably concentrate in more accessible district capitals, systematically creating "aid deserts" in remote, high-risk territories and leaving their populations invisible and their needs unaddressed. In a context where so many disputes are resource-based, the injection of aid can itself become a spark in a tinderbox, inadvertently fuelling the local conflicts it seeks to alleviate.

A less visible, yet equally critical, vulnerability lies in the skill gap among local field teams. A significant number of staff on the front lines lack formal training in robust M&E methodologies. This deficit directly impacts the integrity of the entire data chain, leading to inconsistent collection and analysis that can render findings unreliable. In such a complex environment, field teams ill-equipped with the principles of M&E may struggle to navigate the ethical tightropes and methodological adaptations required. The result is often a reliance on simplistic metrics that fail to capture the true impact of interventions, producing data that is not merely incomplete, but potentially misleading.

This operational reality is further complicated by a dual political landscape. Practitioners must operate within the framework of a "fragile and evolving formal government" often incapable of providing the security or legal enforcement needed for equitable aid distribution. Into the vacuum left by the state steps a deeply entrenched informal system of local power brokers. Here, competition for resources devolves to sub-clan rivalries, where clan elders and other powerbrokers can co-opt the aid process, dictating its distribution to favour their own kin. This capture of the aid flow is a direct consequence of the formal government’s limited reach and authority.

These dynamics are cemented by socio-cultural realities, where lineage-based identity is the primary determinant of power and relationships. The entire aid system is warped by the "need for protection", a service offered not by the state, but by dominant local clans. This forces local NGOs into affiliations that, by necessity, channel benefits towards these dominant groups while systematically marginalising minority clans. International NGOs, despite mandates of neutrality, can become unwitting pawns, perceived as aligned with specific clans through their local partners. When local information is controlled by these same dominant groups, it becomes nearly impossible for donors to get an unfiltered view, masking potential misappropriation and compromising the very integrity of the data collected.

In response to these persistent challenges, humanitarian and development actors have adopted several adaptive M&E strategies, each with distinct advantages and limitations. One prevalent strategy is Enhanced Third-Party Monitoring (TPM), where external entities are contracted to collect data on behalf of donors who cannot access programme sites. This approach provides a crucial window into insecure areas that might otherwise go unmonitored. While it offers a higher degree of verification than remote monitoring alone, TPM is often more effective at verifying if an activity occurred than at assessing its quality or outcomes. It thus strengthens accountability to the donor but not necessarily to beneficiaries, and the monitors themselves are subject to local clan dynamics and security risks that can influence their access and create a risk of data manipulation.

Another adaptive strategy is the increasing use of community-based feedback and accountability mechanisms, such as telephone hotlines or community meetings, to establish direct lines of communication with affected populations. These mechanisms empower communities by giving them a direct voice in the aid process and can provide rapid, nuanced qualitative data often missed by traditional M&E methods. However, these channels face a significant risk of being captured by local elites or dominant groups, which can silence the voices of women, youth, and minority clans. The feedback is also often project-specific and may not provide a comprehensive view of a programme's overall impact.

Technological solutions are also being integrated, with agencies using tools like high-resolution satellite imagery and Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) to remotely verify physical activities. This provides objective, verifiable evidence of physical outputs, reducing reliance on potentially biased partner reporting. The primary drawback of this method is "context blindness"; a satellite image can confirm a school was built but reveals nothing about its quality, use, or community impact, thereby missing the critical social and political context.

Finally, in line with the global "localisation" agenda, there is a push to support more equitable local partnerships by shifting resources and decision-making power to a wider range of Somali NGOs. This strategy aims to strengthen local M&E capacity for long-term sustainability and leverage the unparalleled contextual understanding of local partners. However, without extremely careful vetting, this approach risks reinforcing the very patterns of aid capture it is meant to solve. Easing partnership criteria to be more inclusive may increase mismanagement risks if not paired with intensive support, and channelling resources to minority-led organisations can make them targets for predatory behaviour from stronger groups.

Improving the efficacy and accountability of M&E in Somalia will require targeted changes to both methodology and mindset. A key strategic shift is the adoption of a mandatory triangulation protocol for projects operating in high-risk environments. Rather than relying on a single adaptive strategy, organisations should be required to use at least three distinct M&E methods to cross-verify results. For example, the construction of a school could be confirmed through satellite imagery, assessed for quality via Third-Party Monitoring interviews, and evaluated for accessibility through focused community feedback. This layered approach combines the objectivity of remote sensing with the depth of qualitative insights, helping to counter human bias while addressing the context-blindness often inherent in remote data collection.

Equally critical is the need to embed a robust analysis of clan and power dynamics into project design. This means going beyond generic risk assessments to conduct a detailed Conflict and Power Dynamics Analysis before implementation begins. Such an analysis should map out the local clan structure, identify key powerbrokers, and highlight groups at risk of exclusion. These findings must then shape decisions around beneficiary targeting and the selection of local partners. Given Somalia’s fluid political environment, this analysis cannot be static – it must be regularly updated to ensure programming remains conflict-sensitive and responsive to shifts in power. Doing so helps pre-empt aid capture, avoid reinforcing existing inequalities, and reduce the risk of inadvertently fuelling inter-clan tensions.

Strengthening accountability to affected populations also demands a redesign of feedback mechanisms. The risk of elite capture of standard feedback channels necessitates moving beyond a single public hotline. Feedback channels must be diversified and made safer for marginalised groups. Organisations should establish multiple, confidential communication lines, such as dedicated hotlines for women and youth staffed by operators from the same demographic to build trust. Additionally, using low-tech, anonymous methods like locked suggestion boxes in safe community spaces or partnering with trusted CBOs representing minority groups as feedback intermediaries can ensure their voices are heard without direct exposure. This approach directly confronts the reality that dominant groups can silence the voices of the most vulnerable, creating safer ways to receive honest feedback on sensitive issues.

Finally, while pursuing the vital "localisation" agenda, organisations must adopt a "protection mainstreaming" approach for local partners. This is crucial because supporting CBOs from minority clans can make them targets for predatory behaviour from more powerful groups. A protection-by-partnership model –pairing these groups with larger, established NGOs – can offer political cover while enabling meaningful participation. This strategy allows organisations to strengthen local capacity while proactively mitigating the significant risks involved, making local partnerships safer and more sustainable.

The Somali Wire Team