The United Nations is launching a $3 million (Sh300 million) \u201cpeacebuilding\u201d initiative in Kenya and Somalia to facilitate the voluntary departure of 3,000 refugees from the Dadaab complex.<\/p>\n
UN officials describe the 18-month-long pilot project as \u201cunique\u201d in its cross-border scope.<\/p>\n
On the Somalia side, it will be focused on the Baidoa area, which lies about 250 kilometres west of Mogadishu.<\/p>\n
Security is said to have improved in Baidoa following an Al-Shabaab attack 10 months ago that killed 30 civilians.<\/p>\n
KENYA’S PUSH<\/p>\n
The new UN project, announced on Wednesday, could be extended and expanded to assist additional numbers of Somali refugees in returning to their homeland, UN officials added.<\/p>\n
By providing skills training in Dadaab and investment in job creation in Baidoa, the effort seeks to overcome a major impediment to the mass return of refugees from Dadaab: lack of economic opportunities in Somalia.
\nCiting security concerns, the Kenyan government has been pushing for the closure of the Dadaab camps, which held 275,529 refugees as of December 1.<\/p>\n
RAINY SEASON<\/p>\n
The UN said last week that so far this year it has assisted the return to Somalia of 32,058 Dadaab residents.<\/p>\n
The pace of voluntary departures appears to be accelerating, with 1,743 refugees flown from Kenya to Somalia during the first half of this month.<\/p>\n
Supported returns to Mogadishu, Baidoa and Kismayu are currently taking place exclusively by air, the UN refugee agency noted.<\/p>\n
Transport by road is expected to resume next month once the rainy season ends.<\/p>\n
Skills development in Dadaab through the peacebuilding pilot project \u201cwill be tailored to the beneficiaries, depending on areas of return (urban vs rural) in Baidoa,\u201d John van Rosendaal, a spokesman for the UN Peacebuilding Fund, wrote in an email message on Thursday.<\/p>\n
FARMING<\/p>\n
Business start-up grants, mentoring and enterprise training will be provided to those returning refugees who settle in the city of Baidoa, Mr van Rosendaal added.<\/p>\n
For those returning to rural areas, the UN will offer \u201cagricultural and livestock inputs\u201d to help repatriated refugees establish livelihoods involving farming and herding, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo promote peaceful coexistence with the host community, vulnerable host community members will also be assisted,\u201d Mr van Rosendaal noted.<\/p>\n
The Dadaab-Baidoa pilot project is part of a larger UN peacebuilding effort that seeks to stabilise parts of Somalia described as \u201cnewly recovered\u201d from Al-Shabaab.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The United Nations is launching a $3 million (Sh300 million) \u201cpeacebuilding\u201d initiative in Kenya and Somalia to facilitate the voluntary departure of 3,000 refugees from the Dadaab complex. UN officials describe the 18-month-long pilot project as \u201cunique\u201d in its cross-border scope. On the Somalia side, it will be focused on the Baidoa area, which lies […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1283,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmdsom.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1282"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmdsom.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmdsom.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmdsom.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmdsom.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1282"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmdsom.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1284,"href":"https:\/\/mmdsom.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1282\/revisions\/1284"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmdsom.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmdsom.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmdsom.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmdsom.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}