Integrated Integrated Protection services for Persons with Specific Needs in Displacement Affected Communities in the Somali This is a joint proposal that builds on the strengths of Humanity amp Inclusion (HI) and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC). Both organisations are implementing a project that will end on the 31st of January 2020. This present project will continue and expand the activities launched during this first phase of implementation, taking stock of the mixed teams experience and lessons learned. As per the needs identified by the team on the ground, the mixed team will concentrate their effort in Filtu and Dekasuftu Woredas.

It aims to target IDPs with specific needs, including persons with disabilities, injuries, chronic illnesses, and the elderly, in Liben Zone (Filtu and Dekasuftu), Somali Region. Among IDPs, persons with specific needs face multiple layers of discrimination and are uniquely vulnerable to protection risks (including, for example, domestic and gender based violence, discrimination and exclusion, insecurity, access to services, and arbitrary detention and/or arrest). These protection risks are exacerbated when persons with specific need do not possess legal identity documents (including national identity cards, birth certificates, marriage and/or death certificates, rental contracts, deed documents). While legal identity documents serve as an effective protection tool in a variety of contexts, of immediate relevance to persons with specific needs, legal identity documents permit IDPs to travel through checkpoints in order to access medical services in urban centres. 

The project will also identify and preliminary address the numerous complex and overlapping issues related to housing, land ad Property (HLP) in Filtu and Dekasuftu from a protection perspective.
According to the needs assessment conducted in 2018, household questionnaires reveal that housing, land and property disputes are common: 37.4% of respondent indicated that they had experienced land grabbing, 32.3% had experienced eviction and/or the threat of eviction, 18.1% referenced boundary disputes, 17.4% referenced being asked for compensation for the use of the land, and 14.2% indicated that they had been implicated in a dispute that involved multiple claims to the same land. Focus group participants referenced housing, land and property disputes at nearly all of the IDP sites visited as part of this assessment. NRC HLP assessment (funded by UNHCR) will feed into this project and will be performed in this region in January 2020, to assess HLP issues including its linkage with legal identity documentation, within displacement, return and relocations context to inform programmatic responses based on needs identified.  

Working closely with displacement affected population, this project contemplates the provision of a variety of integrated protection services to persons with special needs and their family members / caregivers in Liben zone, including psychosocial support services in Filtu, functional rehabilitation services in Filtu and Dekasuftu, and information, counselling and legal assistance support in Fitlu and Dekasuftu in order to facilitate access to legal identity documents and HLP rights.