Safety, Security, and Socio-Economic Wellbeing in Somaliland

Authors

Laura Hammond, SOAS

Document Type

Article

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Publication Date

Spring 4-2014

Keywords

ERW Clearance, Somaliland, Danish Demining Group, DDG, SOAS, University of London, GICHD, Research, Safe Storage, Conventional Weapons Stockpile Destruction, Laura Hammond

Abstract

This report provides the findings of an extensive research exercise carried out in 12 communities in Somaliland in March 2013. The research aimed to determine:

1. Whether there had been an improvement or deterioration in people’s perceived levels of safety and security in their communities since DDG had first engaged with them, and if so, what was the evidence of improvement/deterioration.

2. Whether there had been an improvement or deterioration in people’s socio-economic wellbeing since DDG had first engaged with them, and if so, the evidence for either, and the reasons people associated with it.

3. Whether the trends identified in 1) and 2) above are related. In particular, whether increased safety and security were positively correlated with increased socioeconomic wellbeing. We were interested in indicators of correlations as well as in people’s perceptions of the relationship between safety and security and socioeconomic wellbeing.

4. Based on an analysis of the aforementioned data, we provide recommendations to DDG’s Community Safety Programme. These recommendations identify activities with the greatest impact, and they further suggest additional activities to enhance DDG’s contributions to improved safety and security, as well as socio-economic conditions. Fieldwork consisted of collecting both qualitative and quantitative information from urban and rural areas of Somaliland. Three teams of four people each collected this data.