Inception Workshop – Concept Note Development Project Idea 2: Enhancing Coastal Resilience for communities in Bari, Sanaag and Mudug Coastal Regions in Somalia.

The 2nd project idea aims to enhance coastal resilience for communities in Bari, Sanaag, and Mudug coastal regions of Somalia. These regions are afflicted by extreme climate induced challenges such as sea level rise, increased temperatures, extreme weather events, salt water intrusion, and coastal erosion. Somalia’s coastal ecosystem serves as an essential hub for biodiversity, fisheries, carbon sequestration, and protection against natural disasters. Nevertheless, these ecosystems are facing multiple threats as a direct result of climate change. The negative impacts of climate change reverberate across Somalia’s vast coastal ecosystem leaving in its wake habitat degradation, reduced biodiversity, flooding and other extremities. To address these challenges, this project idea proposes a concerted, multi-faceted effort involving various ministries, NGOS, stakeholders and local communities to bolster coastal resilience for these communities and revitalize these coastal ecosystems.

The project’s main focus is to strengthen resilience for these coastal communities through the rehabilitation and restoration of coastal ecosystems by planting indigenous vegetation such as mangroves and date palms, not to mention, bolster the local communities’ ability to benefit from these resources through the provision of essential fishing equipment such as boats, nets, storage and transportation units. This project idea places significant importance on Institutional capacity building and community engagement, specifically the need to foster a sense of ownership within the community to ensure the adaptation measures are contextually accurate and address the respective community’s needs and priorities.

Once successfully implemented, the assumption is that as a direct result of the outlined interventions within this project idea, the resilience of these coastal communities in relation to initial baseline assessments will be significantly improved as evidenced by rehabilitated biodiversity and coastal ecosystems, quantifiable reductions in erosion, salt water intrusions, flooding damage and habitat degradation.