UN-Habitat provide 79 houses and a community centre to displaced people in Somalia

79 houses and a community centre, funded by the Innovative Solutions for Displacement in Somalia, were handed over to the Kismayo community from the UN-Habitat.

74 houses and five proto-houses have been constructed in Midnimo Village. The development is a collaboration between the UN-Habitat and the Norwegian Refugee Council. The site is adjacent to houses constructed by the UNHCR and Care International, totalling more than 350 houses in the area.

The Director General for the Ministry of Interior, Adan Garane, said:

“Within the framework of the government-led Somalia Durable Solutions Initiative, the project focused on fostering localized approaches and to better engage local actors and communities in the search for durable solutions to ensure ownership, local relevance and social cohesion.”

Since the 2017 droughts, displacement in Somalia has increased, leading to rapid acceleration of urban development projects.

Somalia is facing one of the world’s largest displacement crises, with over one million registered refugees and 2.6 million internally displaced people. Those who relocate to an urban area prefer to locally integrate, rather than to return to their place or origin, increasing the need for rapid acceleration in urbanisation.

The Innovative Solutions Project has, in many ways, acted as a precursor to larger scale UN durable solutions programmes. The project was designed to address new challenges that appear due to mass displacement, taking innovative approaches that can be applied across Somalia.

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Photo: UN-Habitat