Highlights

World Bank support for service delivery to citizens is relevant to the success of statebuilding. Citizen-centric programs focused on water and rural resilience, urban resilience, and the shock-responsive social safety net program Baxnaano blended long-term development with short-term emergency financing.

Service delivery objectives of World Bank–financed programs have been mostly achieved, developing the key building blocks of a national safety net program and benefiting an estimated 1.6 million people through programs targeting vulnerable groups, including poor people, rural and farming communities, and internally displaced persons, with a strong focus on female beneficiaries.

Unconditional cash transfers were effective in responding to internally displaced persons and rural populations affected by locusts and floods but do not provide evidence of higher-level outcomes for access to health, education services, or avoidance of displacement of rural households.

The sustainability of Baxnaano is at risk. Government’s budget allocations to safety net payments are not sustainable given low domestic resource mobilization. The World Bank’s expectation of continued donor grant support to cofinance the program appears unrealistic.

The World Bank did not engage at scale with private or nonstate entities that are providing basic services in health and education in the absence of government capacity.

World Bank Group Strategy for Service Delivery

This chapter assesses the relevance, effectiveness, and sustainability of World Bank support for service delivery, focusing on water and rural resilience, urban resilience, and safety nets. As highlighted in the 2023 fragility assessment, the provision of essential services helps to establish the reach of the state, which can help build the social contract with citizens, enhance state legitimacy, and overcome conflict drivers.

World Bank support for service delivery, focusing on water and rural resilience, urban resilience, and safety nets, started with trust-funded pilot programs during the ISN period and expanded during the CPF period. The FY14–16 ISN identified specific initial pilot interventions in urban and water that were scaled up with IDA resources during the FY19–23 CPF period. During the CPF period, commitments in support of service delivery amounted to $872.5 million in three major areas: access to water for rural resilience ($114 million); urban resilience ($325.5 million), which includes $187.5 million for crisis recovery; and safety nets ($433 million), including $115 million for locust crisis response and recovery. The evaluation focuses on these three areas of service delivery.

The World Bank did not engage at a significant scale with private entities, charities, or NGOs that are providing basic health and education services. World Bank support for such services was modest, consisting of support for family health workers and teacher training under Recurrent Cost and Reform Financing, piloting procurement of international NGOs for the delivery of health services, and continued investment in data and analytics as a basis for policy dialogue and investment in human capital development. While engagement with nonstate actors and international NGOs occurred as part of third-party implementation, the evaluation did not find a systematic effort to leverage nonstate actors for providing basic services in the country. As a consequence, World Bank support for health and education lagged other service delivery sectors in Somalia, and the CPE does not evaluate these sectors.

Support for Water and Rural Resilience in Somalia

The objectives of the water and rural resilience interventions were highly relevant to address critical needs, support activities that enhanced state legitimacy, and fill crucial gaps in promoting sustainable livelihoods (World Bank 2023f). The Water for Agro-Pastoral Livelihoods Pilot Project (WALP, P152024) aimed to improve the pastoral and agro-pastoral communities’ access to and management of small-scale water sources and to enhance the government’s capacity to implement small-scale water interventions in targeted arid lands of Somaliland and Puntland. The Water for Agro-Pastoral Productivity and Resilience (Biyoole) Project (P167826) supported the development of water and agricultural services among agro-pastoralist communities in dryland areas. The Somalia Water for Rural Resilience (Barwaaqo) Project (SWRRP, P177627) focused on developing water, agriculture, and environmental services for rural communities in the drylands. Although the objectives of the two earlier projects were output oriented, Barwaaqo goes further in specifying outcomes for improving water access, strengthening sustainable livelihoods, and reducing vulnerabilities to climatic events (table 4.1).

These interventions were effective in contributing to substantial progress in rural resilience and food security. As an example, the Water for Agro-Pastoral Productivity and Resilience Biyoole project supported integrated community planning and management of water, land, and livestock resources, including through village development committees. The reliance on sand dams for water storage was a good example of grafting innovative technology appropriate to the country context. According to project Implementation Status and Results Reports, from 2018 to February 2023, Biyoole established 51 community management systems against a target of 45, improving water sources for 362,731 people. The number of farmers adopting improved technology reached 85,015 as of February 2023, compared with the CPF target of 25,000.

In addition to progress on outputs and targets, the water and rural projects contributed to broader social outcomes by strengthening rural resilience, especially among vulnerable populations and female beneficiaries. Table 4.2 reports other achievements of rural resilience: the indicator for the number of people benefiting from flood risk management has been achieved. Although the rural resilience indicator of number of people with improved access to livelihoods support in response to flood or drought shock has been only partially achieved, the number of female beneficiaries exceeded the 2023 target (World Bank 2024f).

Source: World Bank data.

Note: IDA = International Development Association; TF = trust fund.

Sources: World Bank project Implementation Status and Results Reports; World Bank 2024f.

Note: World Bank Group objective: increase access to water for rural resilience and productivity. CPF = Country Partnership Framework.

Building Urban Resilience of Somali Municipalities

World Bank interventions were relevant to improving the capacity of municipalities to deliver urban services and infrastructure in the face of rapid urbanization due to internal migration. The programmatic approach started with a feasibility and pilot phase. The Somalia Urban Investment Planning Project was designed to assess and plan selected urban investment and institutional strengthening activities in targeted cities in southern Somalia, Puntland, and Somaliland, and to enhance project preparation and implementation capacity of participating agencies. The follow-on Somalia Urban Resilience Project (SURP) was to strengthen public service delivery capacity at the subnational level and support the reconstruction of key urban infrastructure. The scope of SURP II also included climate resilience and crisis response, including for IDPs. SURP II was followed by the Somalia Crisis Recovery Project, which supported the recovery of livelihoods and infrastructure in areas affected by flood and drought and strengthened capacity for disaster preparedness nationwide (table 4.3).

The urban resilience programs have been effective in building municipal capacity and providing priority local infrastructure and services to urban communities in targeted municipalities. The decentralized implementation model enabled municipalities to deliver a cash transfer program for IDPs to integrate flood- and drought-affected households with urban beneficiary communities. The 2016 Somalia Urban Investment Planning Project and its 2019 additional financing helped municipalities plan and design climate-resilient urban investments that were implemented by the follow-on SURP I and SURP II, which financed priority urban infrastructure in major cities and expanded coverage to higher-risk states, such as Hirshabelle and Galmudug (World Bank 2024f). To strengthen social cohesion, interventions were targeted to benefit new IDPs, protracted IDPs, and host communities.

Source: World Bank data.

Note: Shaded rows denote operations designed specifically for crisis or emergency response. IDA = International Development Association; TF = trust fund.

The SURP made progress on CPF and project indicators (table 4.4). IEG rated SURP I moderately satisfactory, as capacity and investments were limited to the roads rehabilitated and did not institutionalize the accountability built by the project interventions. Based on results achieved by SURP I and SURP II, the Completion and Learning Review Validation rated the urban resilience as achieved. Targets for the number of beneficiaries have been exceeded (table 4.4). In terms of female employment, the program has reached 36,685, or 80 percent of the end-2023 target of 45,000.

Source: World Bank 2024f.

Note: World Bank Group objective: build the capacity of municipalities for urban resilience. CPF = Country Partnership Framework; IDP = internally displaced person; km = kilometer.

Support for Safety Nets in Somalia

The World Bank’s measured approach to a safety net program was upended by a series of natural disasters, and the World Bank reoriented its approach to help Somalia respond to these shocks. Development partners had been financing humanitarian cash transfers over many years when, in 2019, Somalia adopted a multisectoral Social Protection Policy. The policy aimed at mitigating vulnerability, better aligning humanitarian and developmental objectives, and reducing reliance on short-term humanitarian aid. A World Bank ASA supported the government through a more measured approach to explore design options for a state-led safety net program and provide technical assistance on delivery systems. In spring 2019, torrential floods forced accelerated preparation of the planned safety net program (Al-Ahmadi and Zampaglione 2022).

Between May and July 2019, the Shock Responsive Safety Net for Human Capital Project (SNHCP) was designed to support the government to establish its first national unconditional cash transfer program (Baxnaano). Less than a year later, Somalia experienced the worst locust outbreak in 25 years. In response, the World Bank approved the Safety Net for Locust Response Project (SNLRP), aiming to scale up Baxnaano. Considering the persistence of the locust crisis and to ensure continuity of the regular Baxnaano program, the World Bank approved additional financing operations in 2021 and 2022 for $328 million (table 4.5).

These interventions to support the strengthening of safety nets were relevant to help Somalia cope with multiple shocks. The SNHCP is building on early efforts to create a social protection system (Baxnaano). Its objective is to provide nutrition-linked cash transfers to targeted poor and vulnerable households and establish the key building blocks of a national shock-responsive safety net system. The objective of the SNLRP is to protect the food security and livelihoods of poor and vulnerable households affected by the locust outbreak and strengthen social protection systems.

The SNHCP has been effective in developing the key building blocks of a national safety net program, delivering regular unconditional cash transfers to 1.6 million beneficiaries and in launching a Unified Social Registry (USR; table 4.6). As of April 2023, about 1.59 million individuals, 796,362 of them women, received regular cash transfers of $20 per month in quarterly installments, compared with targets of 2.25 million people and 1.125 million women by the end of 2024 (World Bank 2024f). The SNHCP also supported the development and implementation of a USR, which was an HIPC Completion Point milestone. Actual implementation of the USR supported by the SNHCP and the SNLRP appears to be slower than expected, having registered 212,470 households as of April 2023, against combined targets of 660,000 by 2024.

Source: World Bank operations data.

Note: Shaded rows denote operations designed specifically for crisis or emergency response. IDA = International Development Association; TF = trust fund.

Sources: Qureshi 2024; World Bank 2024f.

Note: World Bank Group objective: As part of Objective 1.3, “Improve delivery systems for more inclusive social services,” the CPF envisaged that the World Bank team would start work to build the systems of government necessary to leverage existing cash transfer programs toward a more sustainable safety net system to be able to respond to shocks. CPF = Country Partnership Framework; USR = Unified Social Registry.

The twin objectives of building a safety net system alongside a shock response mechanism and the existence of multiple donor-financed programs in Somalia created their own challenges. The humanitarian approach for the shock response mechanisms (for example, SNLRP) adopted a community-based targeting approach guided by predetermined eligibility criteria to capture the effects of locust infestation. But this slowed the transition to a developmental approach involving more complex targeting approaches. Although the World Bank aimed to strengthen the government’s program, led by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, the World Food Programme was handling actual cash transfers with technical support from the United Nations Children’s Fund. Other donor agencies perceived handing over control of cash transfers to the government as high risk and preferred to continue implementing these programs independently. Those parallel approaches also hindered the adoption of a uniform targeting methodology to integrate the multiple donor programs under one umbrella.

The crisis response projects leveraged the existing platforms established by the urban and safety net projects to disburse cash to affected populations and included longer-term development components. World Bank support financed the response to and recovery from the pandemic, drought, and locust infestation. The Somalia Crisis Recovery Project provided livelihood support to households affected by floods and drought; and the SNLRP leveraged the Baxnaano platform to deliver cash transfers to mitigate the shocks of the locust infestation benefiting an additional 1.6 million Somalis.

Safety net programs addressed food insecurity among the vulnerable. Regular postdistribution monitoring of samples of beneficiaries reported that cash transfers were primarily used for food purchases, addressing food security in line with the program’s rationale, but also for debt repayments. The beneficiary sample comprised 99.6 percent of individuals living below the global poverty line ($2.15 per day). While the monitoring noted positive outcomes at the household and community level, it also identified areas to strengthen the sustainability and effectiveness of the Baxnaano program, including direct beneficiary engagement, initiating a livelihood component, strengthening social support, gender empowerment, enhanced communication and outreach, and data management and governance (Somalia 2023a).

Overall Assessment

The service delivery objectives of World Bank–financed programs have been mostly achieved through programs targeting the vulnerable, such as poor people and IDPs. IEG’s Completion and Learning Review Validation rated the CPF development outcome over FY19–23 moderately satisfactory (World Bank 2024f). Despite the progress during the past few years, both the PLR and the Completion and Learning Review recognize that capacity remains weak and fragile. The Completion and Learning Review finds that spending on social services delivery and social assistance also increased notably. There was reasonable progress on resilience, with improvements in urban roads and water infrastructure and expanded and improved access to water in rural areas for domestic, livestock, and horticultural use. A growing number of people in rural areas benefited from improved flood risk management and from greater access to livelihood support in response to major shocks. Safety nets seem to work well as a shock response mechanism. However, rollout of the USR is lagging, and concerns about the sustainability of the safety net program expressed in 2022 were validated by the CPE mission.

The geographic coverage of service delivery projects initially focused on the relatively safe, higher-capacity government areas of Mogadishu, Somaliland, and Puntland and expanded during the CPF period to cover other parts of the country. The coverage of the safety net project expanded more rapidly than the other two sectors, whose physical works require more lead time (figure 4.1).

Community beneficiaries and district government stakeholders concurred that World Bank urban and water infrastructure projects were highly relevant and addressed pressing community needs.1 Stakeholder feedback from focus group discussions in three cities acknowledged the benefits of various infrastructure projects, including the paving of main roads, solar streetlights, drainage systems, and water harvesting renovations. Participants found these projects to be highly relevant to community priorities, leading to tangible improvements in mobility, safety, and overall living conditions. Respondents highlighted the community’s active role in project planning, which cultivated a strong sense of ownership and willingness to maintain the projects. While focus group participants were aware of the World Bank’s support for statebuilding, very few were aware of the safety net program Baxnaano.

Figure 4.1. Geographic Coverage of Service Delivery Projects in Somalia, FY14–22

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Figure 4.1. Geographic Coverage of Service Delivery Projects in Somalia, FY14–22

Sources: Independent Evaluation Group; World Bank project documents for the water and rural resilience, urban resilience and crisis recovery, and safety net portfolios.

Note: The expansion of the Barwaaqo water project to southern states in 2023 is not reflected in the figure, but by the end of the Country Partnership Framework period, its geographic coverage was also more widespread. This map has been cleared by the World Bank Group cartography unit.

Sustainability of Service Delivery Programs

The high country ownership of urban, water, and rural resilience projects among government agencies and communities bodes well for the sustainability of these projects. The very positive feedback received during the focus group discussions both with government agencies and local communities indicates that the sector will remain high on the government’s list of development priorities, and local communities have a vested interest in ensuring that those programs will be sustainable. The gradual scaling up of the programs in targeted cities and their careful design balancing the needs of IDPs with those of host communities helped nurture local ownership and social stability, as confirmed by focus group participants, while expanding the coverage of urban services, in keeping with local institutional capacity.

The sustainability of the safety net program, however, is uncertain. In terms of financial sustainability, an estimated 14 percent of the government’s budget was allocated to safety net payments in 2023, a high share given low domestic resource mobilization. The social safety net interventions represented a statebuilding investment in systems, institutions, and capacity, under the leadership of the government. However, it is unlikely that this level of the government budget will continue to be allocated to safety nets. Expectations of development partner grants to cofinance the program are not likely to materialize. Client counterparts expressed weak ownership of safety nets, preferring infrastructure and economic development priorities. Additionally, the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs’ own resources and capacity to administer a large-scale safety net program remain uncertain. Weaknesses in all three dimensions—financial sustainability, country ownership, and institutional sustainability—indicate that the sustainability of the safety net program is at risk.