Who We Are
Africa for Rural Development (ARD) a national NGO, was founded in June 2013 in Mogadishu, Benadir region, Somalia as a humanitarian and development organization by local Somali intellectuals and Somali Diaspora community members. The purpose is to provide sustainable livelihoods intervention opportunities to support the most vulnerable communities both in the urban and rural areas of South-Central Somalia consequently will have access to improve livelihood situation, better education, adequate primary health care, and employment opportunities, respect the ideals of human rights, peace, good-governance and eventually improved sustainable community development.
The organization is legally registered under the Somali Government Institutions and works with different line Ministers. Subsequent to series of consultative meetings in Somalia and outside of Somalia, the founders responded to the urgent need of Somali people and contributed into the emergency humanitarian crisis and development of their country rehabilitation and reconstruction after years of destructive conflicts and successive droughts and famines which led to the total collapse of socio-economic and political institutions.
The vulnerable communities in ARD targeted areas and Somalis in general live in extremely poor and under-developed conditions. Their livelihoods are broadly based on subsistence farming and pastoralism with limited opportunity to earn wages. The predominant livelihood systems are;1) Pastoralism a)Agro- pastoralist b) Agriculturalist: agriculture based livelihood. 2) Fishing: 3) Urban Residents and IDPs:
Successive conflicts, droughts and famine had eroded the livelihoods coping mechanisms of these communities. The negative occurrences instigated a huge number of civilian population displaced internally and refugees’ camps in neighboring countries.
ARD’s humanitarian and development intervention programs are holistic, people-centered, community- based and sustainable. Therefore, sustainable livelihoods approaches are adopted for all ARD strategic and short-term program focus in Somalia.
ARD sustainable livelihoods program interventions only add to the current humanitarian and developmental commitments in Somalia, by utilizing principally home-ground solutions to vulnerable community challenges and needs. ARD corresponds to the existing international and national humanitarian and development strategies.
The organization puts into operation participatory approaches, strategic planning and community mobilization to find solutions to community problems. It offers a range of programming and support in: Emergency Relief Response, Food Security and Livelihoods, Health, Formal Education, WASH, Youth Capacity Development Programs, Micro-Enterprise Development, and three Cross Cutting Issues: Peace Building and Reconciliation, Gender, and FGM, GBV and HIV/Aids.
Since inception, the organization was successful to implement a number of emergency and development projects in cooperation with the locals and international agencies. These projects benefited a large number of the most vulnerable communities in south-central Somalia. It created credibility, good-track- record, close collaboration with the all stakeholders; local authorities, communities and donors. It has now transformed into well-established NGO competent of implementing multiple projects simultaneously