🪐Building Resilience in Somalia: USAID’s Quiet Transformation

Behind Somalia’s progress toward stability lies an often-unseen force: systems that help communities withstand shocks, recover faster, and build forward stronger.

Through USAID/Somalia’s Economic Growth Office (EGO) and its flagship programs – AGES, BAB, BRCiS, Durable Solutions, IRiS, Nabadoon, RECOVER, STEP, and TIS3 – a quiet transformation is taking shape.

What began as a humanitarian response is now evolving into a resilience economy, linking rural producers, urban markets, and displaced communities into shared opportunity networks.

What this looks like on the ground:

✅ Livelihoods that last – From greenhouse farming in Baidoa to fisheries in Kismayo, USAID programs connect households to value chains that endure beyond aid cycles.
✅ Urban resilience redefined – Integrating internally displaced persons (IDPs) into city economies through vocational skills, micro-enterprise, and dignified jobs in construction, energy, and services.
✅ Women and youth at the center – Village Savings & Loan Associations (VSLAs), mentorship, and entrepreneurship training help young women move from vulnerability to viable business ownership.
✅ Partnerships that multiply impact – Linking humanitarian, development, and private-sector actors through the Somalia Resilience Partnership (SRP), fostering the “sequencing, layering, and integration” model which guided USAID’s portfolio.
✅ Evidence-driven adaptation – Mid-course stocktaking, facilitated retreats, and DO2 mapping have reframed how resilience is measured — shifting from projects to systems that absorb, adapt, and transform.

This is USAID’s legacy in Somalia: not just recovery, but re-design — from dependence to dignity, and from aid to agency.

👉 If you’ve worked in Somalia, in government, civil society, the private sector, or as a partner, what example stands out for you where resilience moved from concept to lived reality?

🙏 Appreciation to the leaders and teams from USAID/Somalia, ELMI, DT Global, Save the Children, FAO, and many others whose collaboration continues to shape this story.

Jacob Veverka, PMP, Keisha Herbert, Naren Chanmugam, Tina Byenkya, Michael Kunz, Eunice Kidero, Stephen Okoth, Takele Tassew, Mohamed Said Abdillahi, Pauline Ngenga, John Burns, Dustin Caniglia, Dr. Diba Dida Wako, Irene Karimi, Jacquie Ndirangu, Lukas Barake, Joseph N. Mungai, Chris Thompson, PMP, CPA, IBA, Msc, Priscillah Kiarie, Alexandra McMullin, Doreen GATWIRI, Agnes Kagunyi, Emily Mutai, Daniel Adero.