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Garowe Mapping Exercise (May 2016)

Countries
Somalia
Sources
CARE
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BACKGROUND

Garowe (Somali: Garowe ),is the administrative capital of the autonomous Puntland region in north eastern Somalia. Garowe is located in the Nugaal region, and is the seat of the Puntland parliament, presidential palace and government ministries. A fast-growing city, it has also evolved into a local media and cultural hub.

UNHCR reported in 2012 that Garowe hosts around 10.000 internal displaced persons, but the latest official estimate is outdated. IDP settlements in Garowe are very protracted (some more than 15 years) and have fewer intentions to go back to their places of origin. The existing IDP settlements have expanded and grown since the last estimate due to droughts, the recent Yemeni crisis (with many Somali refugee-returnee families have come), rural-urban migration and other displacement options. Therefore, UNHCR is funding a registration exercise in all existing IDP settlements in Puntland led by the government and starting in Garowe. This will help to get an updated number on the internal displaced populations that are residing in the urban centres.

This fact-sheet presents an analysis of primary data collected by NRC, UNHCR, WVI, OCHA DRC, UNHABITAT, CARE and the Garowe local authority during the month of May 2016. The collection of data was closely supervised by the Shelter Cluster in Somalia.

The objective of the infrastructure mapping exercise is to provide a useful and timely ‘snap-shot’ of the IDP settlements in Nugaal Garowe region, Garowe district and in the city of Garowe, with a main aim to map out the basic services that IDPs can access in their respective settlements. This factsheet does not aim to provide detailed programmatic information; rather it is designed to share with a broad audience a concise overview of the current situation in this area. In total, 2571 gps points were taken during the exercise, of which facilities.

Settlements in Somalia generally are divided into numerous ‘umbrellas’. Each umbrella is made up of multiple IDP settlements. Umbrella leaders are responsible for the oversight and management of the settlements. Each of the settlements generally have an elected leader or ‘gatekeeper’ responsible for multiple IDP settlements and landowner engagement. Settlements in Somalia are often divided by natural land boundaries belonging to one or more landowner.

The report takes into account several key limitations in the collection of data:

  • Due to budget restrictions and the short time-scale, general data on each settlement was collected through one or two key informant interviews (KII).3 32% of all KII were female.

  • Due to security restrictions and the capacity of field staff, the methodology used for average shelter density was limited to 0 case-studies and random sampling in the other settlements.

  • Data collected may reflect both IDP and host community needs.

  • Other approaches based on probability sampling, including cluster and area sampling4, were considered but were not used due to budget restrictions and non-availability of updated Satellite imagery. Emphasis was given to collecting reliable GPS data for the perimeter, density and facility purposes, which resulted in less representative data at the household level.

UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs: To learn more about OCHA's activities, please visit https://www.unocha.org/.