Stakeholders’ Participation and Sustainability of Food Security Programme: a Case of Somalia Drought and Livelihood Response Programme in Mogadishu, Somalia

Abstract

Food security is a major issue, especially among less developed countries like Somalia that are recovering from past decades of civil wars. About half of the entire population of Somalia (6.7 million) people is acutely facing challenges of food insecurity. Different programs have been designed to address this situation although the needs keep on increasing. Somalia Drought and Livelihood Response Programme were designed to enhance food security, especially the IDPs who have been affected by the earlier indicated civil wars in Somalia. However, as it is now, enhancing sustainability of Somalia Drought and Livelihood Response Programme may be a challenge due to persistent wrangles between the projects and stakeholders including beneficiaries that could have been achieved through a participatory approach. The purpose of the study was to examine the influence of stakeholders’ participation on sustainability of food security programmes using a case of Somalia Drought and Livelihood Response Programme in Mogadishu. More specifically, the interplay between stakeholder participation in project identification, stakeholder participation in project planning, stakeholder participation in project implementation as well as stakeholder participation in monitoring and evaluation and sustainability of food security programmes in Mogadishu was explored. This study was underpinned by the community action planning theory, the stakeholder’s theory and the sustainability theory. A descriptive cross-sectional survey research design was adopted. The target population for the study was 155. This population comprised of project managers, monitoring and evaluation staff, project coordinators, field officers and the community liaison officers from the Somalia Drought and Livelihood Response Programme in Mogadishu Somalia. In total, 110 participants were sampled through stratified random method. A questionnaire and interview guide was used to collect data from the sampled respondents. Descriptive data analysis and inferential data analysis was conducted on the quantitative data to yield descriptive statistics. Content analysis was conducted on the qualitative data collected. Tables backed by verbatim quotes helped in presentation of evidence. It was established that stakeholder participation in project identification (β=0.359, p<0.05), stakeholder participation in monitoring and evaluation (β=0.139, p<0.05), stakeholder participation in project implementation (β=0.131, p<0.05) and stakeholder participation in project planning (β=0.121, p<0.05) were predictors with significance. It was concluded that stakeholder participation is instrumental in regard to sustainability of food security programmes in Mogadishu. It was recommended that project managers working in the food security programmes in Mogadishu should actively involve all the stakeholders in the identification phase of the projects. There is need for project managers of the food security programmes in Mogadishu to actively involve all the stakeholders in planning activities of their projects. Stakeholders of the food security programmes in Mogadishu should be actively involved in monitoring and evaluation activities including the utilization of progress reports. Thus, the focus of further research should be on bringing out these other additional factors that have an effect on sustainability of these projects. Furthermore, aside from project sustainability, future studies should be conducted covering other concepts like project performance or success.