May, 11, 2022

Research made by Ikram Charitable Foundation

How much humanitarian aid is enough?

Introduction:
Afgooye City located in lowest southwest Somalia have experienced a very
rainy season this year that affected its already destroyed infrastructure which
forced thousands of people to flee their homes and evacuate their
neighborhoods in result of a river flood.
So far the local government have not acted in any form against the rising basic
human needs in the most affected areas and rathered to attack its critics and
prison them.
We ourselves have established contacts with King Salman relief center in KM4,
Mogadishu and were invited into a meeting where we discussed together the
scope of help and aid that could be
made available to the displaced people
and came into a conclusion that there is
so much that can be done if we are to
secure the operation and can guarantee
a flawless delivery of aid.

We had to get back into Afgooye and test the possibility of providing
convenient circumstances to the imposed conditions. We had to refer to the
local governmental administration for obtaining an approval for the project.
After a considerable time of a complex discussion with the mayor Abdullahi

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Research made by Ikram Charitable Foundation

Hiraabe and his team, the outcome of the meeting was in contrary of what we
had expected; We were set forth to a number of conditions that the mayor and
his team found of great importance for the project to be given the green light
to go.
Director of the distribution
The team of the mayor had insisted on suggesting numerous names of
individuals they believed were to be engaged in the project, not only that but,
they’ve expressed their concern about who should be appointed as the
director of the distribution and went further by being clear over how much we
should pay the person appointed by them. A salary of $2000 for a 3 days
project, is what they believed is the minimum they would consider as
acceptable.
Inventory Management
The team expressed a great deal of concern when it came to the inventory of
the food that was to be stored for distribution. More over, they thought that
as well, the inventory management should be a suggested by the local
governmental administration too, and a compensation of a similar range
should be paid to him.
Aid Recipients
Breaking off our confidence, the team of the mayor had expressed total
distrust in our data and list of names of people whom have been affected most
by the ongoing floods, they believed that a list should be provided by the local
governmental administration to determine who should receive help and who
shouldn’t, which areas to be approached and those which must not be
approached.

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Research made by Ikram Charitable Foundation

We examined that on the ground, and saw that in practical, submitting to the
conditions made by the addressed team would mean additional costs of nearly
$4000 to the project costs, and a complete control of the destination of the
food baskets that we were supposed to arrange in a later time.
The challenge to how such an amount of money can be arranged, and trusting
a clan based government to deliver aid to the targeted audience were what we
found most difficult.
In their response for our concerns, Mohammed Nur Gaabow, the chief of the
financial directorate of the adminstrative government had suggested that %50
of the inventory be sold to merchants from Afgooye, adding that Abdullah
Abdi, the director of Public Affairs in the mayor’s house could help facilitate
the process by contacting the merchant and delivering the goods to them.
The team had encouraged us to proceed with that plan and started talking us
into how rewarding it is for all parties involved, including us. In their
perspective, it would mean less work for us, quick profit, and support for new
merchants as we will be selling half price.
The team called us naïve for not having learned from our peers of non-
governmental organisations which have been doing it for years and the
luxurious lives their members were able to enjoy.

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Research made by Ikram Charitable Foundation

Conclusion
These propositions helped us connect the dots to what we have heard early
from the displaced people whom we’ve visited in the past days as we were
surveying the affected areas. For multiple times, we’ve heard people here say
that they were visited by tens of non-governmental organisations who did
nothing for them but take a great deal of photos and videos from their
clusters.
It also helped us understand why were more grocery shops opening. For the
visible eye, one could not have argued that everyday 2 or 3 new shops were
coming to existence in Afgooye during the month where the crisis were at its
peak in parallel with the activities were being held by NGOs.
It was inevitable for us to investigate what other NGOs in the same field have
encountered throughout their efforts in conducting humanitarian aid regarding
the situation in subject.
We selected two examples for this research, Afgoi International University and
Salaama Qeyr; the common factor between these two organisations is that the
both belonged to the Geledi clan, this is the clan which most of the inhabitants
of Afgooye belong to.
The international university of Afgooye
had attempted to distribute bags full of
sand to the displaced people from
Aytire, a district in Afgooye which was
horribly affected by the flood and tens
of houses turned into debris. Their

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Research made by Ikram Charitable Foundation

efforts were hindered by the police forces of Afgooye in a claim that they were
unauthorized to hold such a project. As a result, all the bags were seized and
the university was fined an amount of $1500.
In a similar incident, Salama Qeyr, with the help from a number of community
based contributions, had begun efforts to deliver financial aid to families
affected by the flood. The moment few videos were posted on their social
media, police force motorcycles were on their way to their office. They had to
stop the project, and pay a fine of $800.
In Ikram, we found ourselves given two options; We were to either become
corrupt by submitting to the conditions posed by the administrative
government, or risk a fine by going clean. As expected, we chose the later, but
with a different method.
We knew that King Salman relief center was
going to be too demanding when it came to social
media, which would have caused a momentum
and exposed us to the government’s revenge.
To go about it, we stuck to a program where we
launch a fundraising campaign amid Somalis
diaspora. We were able to find a budget for
around 300 food baskets, which were enough to
provide a two weeks food for 300 families.

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Research made by Ikram Charitable Foundation

When it came to distribution, we invited people in small numbers to our

inventory and handed them their food baskets in a uncomplicated process.
Luckily, we were able to deliver all the baskets without being caught by the
corrupted security forces, and neither Alshabab, who were even worse than
the government and very less tolerating to humanitarian aid workers.
Since 2022/04/15 when the severe drought took place and countless people
lost their livestock, homes, and belongings in Afgooye, 60km away was
Wanlaweyn, going through horrific communal war where thousands of people
fled away towards Afgooye in hope for a shelter, only to find out later on that
the city was going through horrible floods, which left the new arrivals hopeless
and desperate, with no where else to go.

NOTE:
A copy of this research was shared with several interested bodies inside the
country including but not limited to, Media, non-governmental organisations.

IKRAM CHARITABLE FOUNDATION

Dhagax Tuur, Afgooye, Lower Shabeele, Somalia
https://icf.org.so/
info@iikram.org
+252618535115