Involving IDPs, host communities and international agenciesin thinking about the city, the quality of life and economicopportunities in Bossaso has led to significant improvements insettlement organisation and shelter provision for displaced people

Filiep Decorte

Ombretta Tempra

Involving IDPs, host communities and international agencies in thinking about the city, the quality of life and economic opportunities in Bossaso has led to significant improvements in settlement organisation and shelter provision for displaced people.Iyadoo laga qaybgelinayo barakacayaasha, ayaa dadka dad soo dhoweynaayo iyo hay'adaha caalamku ay ka gun gaareen in ay wanaajiyaan xaaladda iyo dhaqaalaha Boosaaso.Coinvolgere gli sfollati, le comunità di accoglienza e le agenzie internazionali nel ri-pensare la città, la qualità della vita e le opportunità economiche in Bosaso ha portato a miglioramenti significativi nell'organizzazione degli insediamento e nei servizi forniti agli sfollati

Decorte, Filiep

Tempra, Ombretta

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Displaced people, like others in in 
urban settings, face a continuous 
struggle to balance livelihood 
opportunities with personal safety. 
While it is initially easier for 
humanitarian agencies to protect 
and address the needs of displaced 
people in camps on the urban 
periphery, later the physical and 
social segregation and the perceived 
preferential treatment become 
increasingly problematic. With time, 
inevitably the physical boundaries 
loosen, mainly driven by the pursuit 
of livelihood opportunities of the 
displaced in the local economy 
and the spread of the city as more 
people arrive. With time, return 
to their often rural origins is no 
longer an attractive option, and 
internally displaced people morph 
into economic migrants. Protracted 
displacement also sometimes sees 
a whole generation born in their 
‘temporary’ urban location. 
Bossaso
Bossaso, a port city in the north-
east of Somalia, is a case in point 
where displacement has many facets. 
Bossaso has boomed, thanks to its 
port activities, but its growth would 
not have been possible without the 
influx of cheap labour, delivered 
by migrating minority clans. It has 
an estimated population of 150,000 
people of whom 35,000, or almost one 
in four, are considered displaced.
The displacement picture becomes 
even more complex as people from 
Ethiopia, southern Somalia and 
even far away places like central 
Africa and Asia see the port of 
Bossaso as an important gateway 
to a better life in the Middle East or 
Europe. This makes it impossible 
to single out internally displaced 
people as a distinct group at a 
precise moment in time or to only 
focus on humanitarian response 
or on long-term solutions.
The physical reality is the 
uncontrolled growth of numerous 
dense, un-serviced temporary 
settlements on the urban fringes. The 
disintegration of public institutions 
has allowed massive land-grabbing 
and left all land controlled by private 
individuals who are members of 
the ruling clans. Displaced people 
have no choice but to rent. They are 
a substantial source of income for 
the ‘landowners’, who commonly 
charge the highest possible rent while 
waiting for better opportunities to 
sell off their land. The economic logic, 
the absence of any standards and 
the weak societal position of IDPs 
translate into high and unhygienic 
densities, leaving no space for 
livelihood initiatives, community 
facilities or even simple privacy. 
Landlords are reluctant to allow 
any ‘permanent’ improvements on 
their property. No permanent shelter 
materials are allowed. No latrines 
can be dug. No water systems can 
be installed. Thus the ‘squatters’ 
are kept in a state of permanent 
transition, under constant threat of 
eviction and at risk from outbreaks 
of disease and various abuses. 
When Dennis McNamara, the then 
director of the Internal Displacement 
Division of OCHA, visited Bossaso 
in late 2004, he referred to the sea 
of makeshift structures, made of 
wooden sticks, cardboard and 
pieces of textile and string, as one 
of the world’s most neglected and 
desperate humanitarian situations. 
Cholera was just under control. No 
more than 140 latrines had been 
constructed over the previous 10 
years, and of these barely 10% 
were in working order. There was 
worrying evidence of sexual violence 
against women who had to leave 
the confines of their settlement at 
night in order to relieve themselves. 
Every year up to a quarter of all 
shelters would burn to the ground, 
deliberately or accidentally, 
helped by hot strong seasonal 
winds and the high population 
densities. A straightforward 
humanitarian response would 
always kick in, focusing on the 
distribution of wooden sticks for 
shelter reconstruction, the typical 
non-food items and a few daily 
rations. The end result was no 
better than what was there before.
New approaches
This led to growing frustration and 
a search for alternative solutions. 
One initial idea was to identify 
sufficient land where all of the 
displaced could be resettled which 
would allow security of tenure and 
easier service provision. The local 
authorities offered land 10 kms out 
of town, which was of little economic 
value in the prevailing informal 
land market. Fortunately, funds 
were not available for this massive 
exercise; the displaced would have 
been cut off from their livelihood 
Involving IDPs, host communities and international agencies 
in thinking about the city, the quality of life and economic 
opportunities in Bossaso has led to significant improvements in 
settlement organisation and shelter provision for displaced people.
Improving living conditions  
in Bossaso, Somalia
Filiep Decorte and Ombretta Tempra
IDP settlement after 
outbreak of fire, Bossaso.
URBAN DISPLACEMENT 17
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opportunities in the port and the 
local markets, and it did not address 
the fact that new arrivals would 
continue to end up in the city. 
It was clear that the complexity of the 
situation required a concerted effort 
of all the actors involved to develop a 
joint UN-INGO strategy for displaced 
communities based on a rights and 
protection approach, combined with 
concepts of sustainable urbanisation, 
slum prevention and incremental 
upgrading. 
UN-HABITAT drew up some basic 
criteria to assess the viability of 
land for local resettlement:
■■ ability to provide adequate, 
affordable and sustainable basic 
services and infrastructure
■■ possibility of security of 
tenure and shelter
■■ social sustainability (physical 
security and some integration into 
the existing host community)
■■ economic sustainability (access 
to economic opportunities 
■■ spatial sustainability (promoting 
environmentally friendly, 
compact city growth)
■■ cross-subsidising possibilities and 
benefits for the host community 
(for example, the sharing of 
infrastructure and services and 
increased value of serviced land)
Agencies pro-actively adopted the 
principles of the humanitarian 
cluster approach, which makes 
a lead agency responsible for 
bringing actors together, avoiding 
conflicting approaches and overlaps, 
and for common advocacy with 
local authorities, landlords and 
representatives of the displaced. 
Key components of the new plan 
were: a) changes to emergency 
response after fires; b) upgrading 
temporary settlements by planning 
access and firebreaks, creating 
community facilities, building 
latrines and water points and 
stocking mobile shelter kits; and 
c) planning sustainable local 
resettlement to effectively 
integrate some of the displaced 
with the host community.  
The emergency response now starts 
from a ‘build back better’ approach, 
using the aftermath of fires as an 
opportunity to introduce fire-breaks 
and to distribute mobile shelter 
kits which use metal poles and fire-
retardant canvas rather than wooden 
sticks and cardboard. This was 
coupled with disaster preparedness 
programmes, such as raising 
community awareness and training 
displaced people themselves and 
local authorities in fire response. A 
simple training guide for upgrading 
temporary settlements, aimed at 
municipal officials and community 
leaders, was developed to allow for 
a quick transfer of the basic skills 
needed and to empower displaced 
people to initiate improvements 
themselves. In 2008 the number 
of families who suffered fires 
fell by 50% compared to 2007.
A campaign was also launched 
to advocate for the ‘rights’ of the 
displaced. The argument was that 
if you pay rent, there need to be 
minimum standards for what you 
get in return. Local authorities and 
traditional and religious leaders 
were mobilised, as it is they who 
define what is acceptable and what 
is not within the local community. 
Radio and TV were used to ensure 
that the debate was widely heard. 
The discussion focused not only 
on the ‘rights’ of the displaced 
and their contribution to the local 
economy but also on the negative 
impact of unhygienic conditions 
and heightened fire risk on the 
host community. The end result 
was that the first landlords came 
forward and agreed to negotiate 
a tri-partite agreement between 
themselves, the local authorities 
and the representatives of 
particular displaced groups. The 
agreements opened the door 
for upgrading the settlement 
and included simple principles 
preventing ad hoc evictions. 
Empowerment of the displaced 
community has been one of the key 
factors allowing change for the better. 
Ms Karoon Sheikh Hussein is the 
settlement leader of Tawakal: 
“In Tawakal we are now about 
150 families. We have been living 
in Bossaso for over 10 years and 
experienced many difficulties because 
our clan is a minority in this area. 
Before Tawakal was created, we were 
staying in a settlement called 100 
Bush but we had to leave eight months 
ago when the land rent increased. 
Our former landlord also objected to 
the construction of latrines, and the 
sanitation conditions were very bad. 
100 Bush was very congested, without 
access roads and open spaces. We 
had frequent damage and loss of 
property from fires and we lived in fear 
of new fires.”
“When I was in 100 Bush I observed 
UN-HABITAT demarcating the site after 
a fire to create fire breaks. This is 
why, when we settled here I and other 
camp elders insisted on keeping the 
settlement spaced out and on creating 
firebreaks. It is the only way to prevent 
fires spreading.”
Displaced people who choose to 
integrate permanently into the host 
community have some land made 
available within the urban growth 
areas. Services and infrastructure 
are now planned in a way that 
benefits both the host community 
and the displaced. The original 
landowners benefit as the market 
value of their land, which will 
now have services and amenities, 
is increased. Now displaced 
people in Bossaso have started 
purchasing land on an individual 
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basis and more landowners have 
come forward to share part of their 
property. Mosques and schools 
are being built next to the resettled 
displaced and shops are opening. 
Conclusions
Although it is too soon for a full 
evaluation, key lessons so far can 
be summarised as follows:
■■ A protection and rights-
based approach can facilitate 
access to land and services.
■■ An inclusive process empowers 
displaced people and pushes the 
authorities to fulfil their role. 
■■ A ‘One UN/INGO voice’ is 
key to creating the necessary 
political leverage.
■■ A focus on the upgrading of 
temporary settlements, in parallel 
to integrated resettlement, allows 
an incremental response. It also 
improves access to services for 
the urban poor and promotes 
social and economic integration.
Only an approach that starts from 
the urban reality, that builds on 
strong ownership by both the host 
community (its elite in particular) 
and the displaced themselves, and 
that focuses on local integration, 
albeit temporarily, has the hope of 
ensuring better protection, more 
sustainable livelihoods and more 
durable shelter conditions. Such 
an approach also ensures shared 
benefits for the host community and 
its urban poor and might indeed be 
where displacement ends for some. 
Filiep Decorte (filiep.decorte@
unhabitat.org) was Project Manager 
and Ombretta Tempra (ombretta.
tempra@unhabitat.org) was 
Programme Support Officer in the 
Somalia Unit of the Regional Office 
for Africa and Arab States of UN-
HABITAT (http://www.unhabitat.org).
In Khartoum, as in many other cases of urban displacement, 
it is difficult to separate the elements of coercion in 
someone’s decision to leave their home from other reasons 
(including economic ones) as migrants tend to settle among 
existing residents of slums and shanty towns. There are 
no visible barriers separating those displaced by conflict 
and/or generalised violence from other migrants. The 
protracted nature of displacement in Khartoum blurs this 
distinction even further and those defined as IDPs may 
no longer see themselves in this category. The absence of 
any system of IDP registration in Khartoum, the presence 
of a population that moved in a series of waves and 
for different reasons, and a large and not consistently 
tracked process of spontaneous return to South Sudan 
make it virtually impossible to put a figure on Khartoum 
displacement and to determine its trends. The 1-1.2 million 
IDPs still reported in official UN documents represents 
a conventional estimate rather than a firm statistic. 
Several gaps are visible in the response to urban 
displacement in Khartoum. The attention of the international 
community is influenced by the geopolitics and the other 
emergencies in the country, and advocacy with the 
authorities, including on forced relocations, is largely left to a 
few protection/human rights actors. It is believed that in the 
poorest IDP and squatter areas of the capital, humanitarian 
indicators may be worse than in the serviced IDP camps of 
Darfur. The expulsion of international NGOs in March 2009 
meant the discontinuation of essential activities in support 
of displaced and other poor communities in Khartoum which 
had contributed to a favourable protection environment. 
Humanitarian assistance, however, seems increasingly 
inadequate in providing definitive responses to the challenges 
of urban displacement and poverty in Khartoum. The chances 
of mobilising substantial funds by tapping into humanitarian 
sources are almost negligible. Besides, more importantly, 
the Khartoum situation calls for development-oriented 
approaches as well as the increased presence of specialised 
actors, including in those areas still conventionally defined 
as IDP sites. Yet on the ground the gap left by relief has 
not been adequately filled by development assistance.
The situation in Khartoum needs to be tackled from a 
broader rights-based perspective, where the dimension of 
internal displacement is only one part of something more 
complex. This situation requires a renewed dialogue between 
the international community and state authorities on urban 
development, land management, pro-poor policies of 
housing support, access to services, income generation for 
protracted displaced and urban poor. It requires a renewed 
commitment by humanitarian and, especially, development 
actors to strengthen their field presence in the poor urban 
areas of Khartoum, to improve contacts and networking with 
the existing civil society and community structures and to 
support authorities in reaching out to the population. It also 
requires renewed efforts by donor governments to assist 
in the mobilisation of resources for longer-term structural 
interventions for Khartoum’s urban poor, including IDPs.
Elisabetta Brumat (brumat@unhcr.org) is a Protection 
Officer with UNHCR currently working in Sri Lanka. 
The poor and the displaced in Khartoum
Elisabetta Brumat
Upgraded 
IDP 
settlement 
with fire 
breaks, 
Bossaso.
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Improving living conditions in Bossaso, Somalia

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Improving living conditions in Bossaso, Somalia

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