Community dialogue in Somalia: Lessons learned from implementing peacebuilding dialogues in Mogadishu

This guide shares the lessons learned from a community dialogue initiative in Somalia and provides practical tips on designing and implementing similar initiatives.

It draws on our experience of running a community dialogue process in two districts of Mogadishu, where we worked in partnership with the Comitato Internazionale per lo Sviluppo dei Popoli (CISP).

The community dialogue was designed to provide communities with the opportunity to freely raise issues of concern, in particular around sexual and gender-based violence, and was part of a wider project combining service delivery and protection initiatives.

Dialogue was chosen in order to allow communities to explore issues together and, if proven useful, to use to address the issues raised.

Using an action learning methodology, staff and facilitators worked with the objective of incorporating the lessons learned into practice and of supporting the sustainability of community dialogue in Mogadishu.

This guide is a result of the collective learning gained from the initiative.