| Project Detail |
The Bulsho operation will provide anchor financing for implementing Somalias Bulsho program for strengthening community and local institutions for social cohesion, inclusion and resilience. The Bulsho program is guided by the governments decentralization, stabilization and reconciliation policy framework. It seeks to leverage Somalias robust social capital and nascent community institutions to provide a complementary bottom-up and community-centered approach to address Somalia’s core development and service delivery challenges by implementing at scale a local platform that starts with citizens’ objectives, needs and priorities, and incentivizes communities, local leaders, district authorities, FMS and FGS to mobilize resources and collaborate in the delivery of sustainable solutions. It is a 10-year program (2025-2030), will be implemented in all FMS, focuses on extending local governance and services to hard-to-reach and rural areas, and seeks to build trust and legitimacy by focusing on process--or how services are delivered--while contributing to progress on service delivery outcomes. The design of the governments Bulsho program and the proposed Bulsho operation is underpinned by local and global knowledge. This includes an in-depth review of 15-years of operational experience implementing community development and local governance initiatives in Somalia under the Bulsho ASA (P179287). This review encompassed the World Bank’s previous Community Driven Development and Recovery operations (CDRD), the Develop Informed and Accountable Local Governance through User Empowerment (DIALOGUE) project, and the UN’s Joint Program for Local Governance (JP-LG). It also draws and builds on lessons from ongoing operations including public participation and community planning under Barwaaqo (P177627), funds flows to local authorities under the Somalia Urban Resilience Project (P170922), and the inter-governmental fiscal transfer (IGTF) pilot under the Recurrent Cost and Reform Financing (RCRF) project (P173731) and the Enhanced Governance Dialogue (P177298). Globally, the design draws on experience from the Citizen Charter Program (P160567) in Afghanistan, the Financing Locally-Led Climate Action Program (P173065) in Kenya, and a global review of social cohesion and displacement interventions. The Bulsho operation will finance the following components: Component 1: Community and District Social and Institutional Strengthening. This component will finance the Bulsho programs institutional strengthening activities under the three district support packages. This includes foundational institutional strengthening for districts with minimal state presence under Package #1 (of which there are approximately 29 districts across Somalia), enhanced institutional strengthening for districts that have emerged from post-stabilization support and/or established an interim or permanent state administration but are fragile and possesses limited capacity for community engagement, planning and service delivery under Package #2 (of which there are approximately 90 districts), and advanced institutional strengthening for districts that have established district councils and are capable of varying degrees of resource mobilization, coordination and service delivery (of which there are approximately 37 districts). Thus this component will finance technical assistance to recognize inclusive community institutions and establish interim or permanent district administrations, foundational reconciliation and social healing activities, and awareness raising activities on the Bulsho programs principles, pathways and support packages. Component 2: Local Social Contract Platform. This component will finance the Bulsho programs local social contract platform under the programs Support Package #2 and Support Package #3. It will support each district to establish the Bulsho local social contract platform consisting of (a) community diagnostic and collaboration forums in each community, (b) participatory planning systems, (c) resource mobilization and budgeting systems, (d) community oversight and accountability systems, and (e) citizen charters between citizens and the government that would encompass commitments to provide and/or facilitate the provision of basic services (i.e. via private or humanitarian actors) based on community prioritization, commitments on process (e.g., participation, transparency, grievance handling) as well as citizen commitments on process and contributions. The activities under this component would provide a platform for other development partner programs and World Bank-financed projects to systematically engage communities and citizens in a coordinated joined up fashion. The component would thus finance capacity building, collective action allowances for select marginalized and/or disempowered groups (e.g., women, youth, IDPs), and access to Sokaab-like crowdfunding platforms and other participatory and social accountability tools. Component 3: Matching Grants for Social Cohesion, Inclusion and Resilience. This component will finance the Bulsho programs matching grants under to the districts that graduate and/or meet the minimum participating conditions for Support Package #3. Furthermore, over the life of the Bulsho program and as additional financing becomes available, more districts receiving support packages #1 and #2 under components 1 and 2, respectively, will graduate and thus meet the minimum participating conditions for accessing the matching grants. Building on the lessons of the DIALOGUE project--which successfully used matching grants to incentive cross-community collaboration and build citizen-state trust--the component will incentivize communities to mobilize and pool resources with other communities and government authorities with the aim of increasing the building blocks of social cohesion (shared purpose, trust and willingness to cooperate) across communities as well as trust between citizen and state. Component 4: Program Management for Coordination, Delivery, Innovation and Learning. This component will finance operational and technical capacity building of the Ministry of Interior, Federal Affairs and Reconciliation (MoIFAR) to review, develop and/or cascade policy, legislations, regulations and guidelines needed to achieve the Bulsho program objectives thereby establishing clear “rules of the game” and embedding them in the local policy framework, to augment the capacity of MoIFAR to deliver technical support and backstopping to FMS in relation to components 1-3, to comply with World Bank guidelines and requirements, to coordinate between and across government and with development partners, to monitor results and report progress, and to document and disseminate innovation and lessons including lessons from other development partner initiatives. The Bulsho operations Implementing Agencies will be MoIFAR and the FMS ministries of interior in close partnership with the Ministry of Finance and sector lines ministries. The operation will make a significant contribution to corporate priorities. This includes Climate Co-Benefits through its investments in community resilience, addressing gender gaps through its inclusive requirements and incentives, and citizen engagement through its investment in a shared social contract platform. |
