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PARTNERSHIP FOR CROSS-SECTORAL ENGAGEMENT (PACE)
The Partnership for Cross-sectoral Engagement is a regional capacity building initiative designed to increase the capabilities and opportunities for civil society organisations, state structures and businesses in Somaliland to interact and work together.
PACE provides an alternative experience to the current mode of interactions among many of these stakeholders in an effort to lessen current mutual fear and mistrust. By learning to value and manage their interdependence, state, civil society and businesses can deepen the notion of reciprocity and thereby foster greater trust and tolerance in the societies of the Horn of Africa. PACE has supported the new development discourse currently emerging from the deepening of the democratisation process in Somaliland . Those changes are creating opportunities for local stakeholders to form and strengthen relationships required to mutually support their own process of development.
PACE is about enabling ordinary people and their organisations to appropriate those changes, to define issues and to form relationships in an effort to remove some of the unfreedoms imposed on them by the consequences of poverty, war and bad governance.
Through PACE, GAVO has engaged with its local partners and stakeholders from municipalities, CSOs, the business community and the local community at large through the following three-pronged process: local resources mobilisation, organisational development support and provision of advisory services for information sharing.
GAVO organised consultative meetings with all stakeholders including Berbera Market vendors, Berbera civil society organisations, municipal councils, health officers and community leaders to discuss and analyse the relations between the stakeholders and also to have a meaningful discussion and dialogue. This aimed to create space for learning on how communities could participate in the development issues at municipality level.
Advocating for change
The PACE project has organised workshops to advocate for change in the mental health sector particularly the need to formulate a mental health policy. Thirty participants attended the workshops and were drawn from MOHL, municipal councils, civil society organisations, media groups, GAVO and the community. Also, the project has engaged the above stakeholders, among others, in various ways to influence and lobby for bettering mental health practices. The purpose is to reinforce the mental health sector in Somaliland in order to improve the condition of the mentally-ill.
Community integrated projects: The PACE project has also initiated and implemented an integrated small project which involved all the relevant stakeholders such as the municipality, small business communities and the civil society. In this regard, GAVO has started a micro-credit project through a revolving fund at the Berbera Market. About 250 poor women vendors at the market benefit from the project.
Supporting municipalities for better urban planning
GAVO has over the years extended its services to urban and rural communities. The organisation has also initiated the geographical information system (GIS) project to support the Burao local municipality to enhance its planning. This GIS or urban land information project entails collecting data from all households in Hargeisa and Burao, in collaboration with the two cities' local authorities with technical support and funding from UN-HABITAT.
For an understanding of the concept of unfreedoms, see Amartya Sen, Development as Freedoms .
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