Peacebuilding & Governance

With the total disintegration of the Somalia’s political and civil infrastructure, people have been left to care for themselves.
While the problems are many and complex, Zamzam Foundation recognizes that the Somali people share, to a large degree, many commonalities such as language, religion and shared history, which can be a strong basis upon which to build a new kind of social and political infrastructure.

Zamzam Foundation is working on the premise that among the key causes of conflicts in Somalia are limited access to natural resources such as water, grazing rights, farming land and competing interests over their control.
Zamzam Foundation expects to bridge the gap between the Non-State Actors (NSA) and the local controlling authority by utilizing project design, the LPI’s conflict transformation methods, combined with local expertise and resources in the targeted areas. Uniquely designed peace-building projects utilize post-conflict social transformation techniques while at the same time enhancing community development initiatives, awareness and educational programs in nonviolent approaches.

The high costs of human loss in conflict spurred Zamzam Foundation to become engaged in post-conflict transformation and peace-building through joint, inter-clan resource management projects.
Zamzam’s approach to peace-building and conflict management is to focus on quick impact interventions that increase security, and economic activity.
These quick impact interventions differ from mainstream development initiatives in that they take place in conflict and post-conflict environments where certain traditional development considerations – such as needs assessments that include extensive consultations with beneficiaries – are counterproductive. This is due to the unstable and under-resourced environments in which the interventions take place. Somalia’s newly liberated areas are characterized by high levels of inter-clan tension and a lack of basic
public services.
Therefore, Zamzam’s theory of change is based on working with the local authorities to boost their legitimacy among the communities they serve, further cementing the stabilization effect of the interventions.