Running from August 2009 to December 2011

The Somali people are prisoners of a cycle of armed violence and conflict that they do not manage to break. Absent or weak state institutions – including the justice and security apparatus – combined with depressed socio-economic indicators and a weakened social fabric leave communities unable to resist and overcome violence. Breaking this cycle requires interventions not only at the institutional level but, importantly, at the grassroots or community level.

Within the framework of the Rule of Law and Security Programme (ROLS), the Community Safety Project intends to build confidence, stability, and security through the involvement of State actors in a partnership with the community and NGOs in order to reduce and prevent armed violence, creating favourable conditions for recovery and development.

Using the agency of communities and local authorities, Local Safety Committees will be established with representatives of youth, women’s, and elders’ groups as well as the local council and police. They will be tasked to elaborate a Community Safety Plans based on a diagnosis of violence. The process will be facilitated by NGOs working with the communities from the initial stages into the establishment of LSCs. The communities are to be involved in each step of the project: the diagnosis, the community security plan, the execution (which is entrusted to local organisations and NGOs), and the evaluation.


In parallel, the project will help put in place a mechanism to help victims overcome trauma and reintegrate into society. A lead Ministry will be identified in each Somali region to establish a Victim Referral Mechanism (VRM) through which victims will be able to access needed medical, legal, psychological, and socioeconomic support. A related policy framework will help guide and ensure consistency of existing services in this field.


UNDP’s Community Safety Project will run for three years. It builds on lessons learned from countries such as Haiti, Colombia and El Salvador, which demonstrated the resourcefulness of communities and local authorities in addressing armed conflicts. UNDP and partners recognize the importance of actively involving communities, encouraging them to work in partnership with the local authorities to improve security. It also builds on UNDP’s former Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration project, which since 2002 has supported the authorities in their efforts to strengthen security through the demobilization and reintegration of militia members and security forces. Key lessons from that project referred to the need for a decentralized, bottom-up approach to safety and security.