HIPS - core support 2019-2021

In HIPS own view their top results during the agreement period includes: "Policy influence In 2020, there was a deadlock between the government and the opposition. HIPS have brought together the two sides in Garowe. The two sides agreed to commit to four areas and mandated us to focus on the areas of construction completion, federalization, and development. HIPS raised awareness of the development status through our human capital studies. For that, seven ministries of the FGS and a number of ministries at the FMS levels were brought together . The organization's research helped identify Somalia's economy's key challenges, such as high unemployment, poverty, and corruption. HIPS has also developed a number of recommendations for how to address these challenges. The Federal Government of Somalia officially adopted the [their development] strategy, emphasizing its critical significance for the country's needs. Following this, the Ministry of Planning requested from HIPS to contribute to the National Development Plan 9. Besides adopting our recommendations, we have contributed to the preparation of the plan and assisted in the capacity building area. HIPS have had a significant impact on the major political agreements between the government and the opposition in Dhusamarreeb and Mogadishu. The blueprint presented was used as the starting point. HIPS have also shared recommendations with the FMS level democratization after observing the elections and political dispensations. Some of the recommendations have been adopted by the FMS leadership. The Institutes research on the security sector helped to inform the development of a new security strategy by the Somali government. The strategy has successfully reduced the number of attacks by Al-Shabaab, the Islamist militant group that has been waging an insurgency in Somalia for over three decades. The Institutes work on human rights has also significantly impacted policymaking. The organization's research has helped identify the key human rights issues facing Somalia, such as the lack of access to justice, the need for the protection and inclusion of women and youth, and the widespread use of child soldiers. HIPS has also developed a number of recommendations for how to address these challenges that have been used by the Somali government to develop human rights policy. It is argued that HIPS have influenced the thinking and policy actions of the international partners of Somalia. So many times, the international partners have confirmed to HIPS that they are regular consumers of our reports. Public opinion The Institute has played an important role in shaping public opinion in the areas of unilateral term extensions of the government, constitutional issues, and climate change. Besides reports, HIPS often engage the public through traditional media such as the Voice of America and BBC. The Institute has a huge presence on social media and have over 139,000 Twitter (X) followers and more than 57,000 Facebook followers, and have frequently engaged the public through social media. Research and Education Including Citations HIPS reports are widely cited by researchers and scholars. Somalias education institutions regularly use our reports for education. The Institute was featured in a number of international media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Al Jazeera, VOA, and BBC. This exposure helped raise awareness of HIPS' work to promote peacebuilding, Statebuilding, and socioeconomic development in Somalia. The organization's research and analysis have been used by the researchers of the Somali government and international partners to develop a number of policies and programs to address key challenges facing Somalia, including security, economic development, and human rights. Many researchers and think tanks, and media cite our work. Funding Because of its feasible influence and convening power, the Institutes funding has been increasing since 2020. The Core donors have renewed their commitment and increased the funding they provided. Additionally, the Institute has partnered with new donors.". To conclude, in HIPS assessment, the examples of results can be verified to a large extent as representative of the Institutes activities and results". The Embassy's assessment is that HIPS own subjective statement on their results can generally be substantiated. Having said that, it is difficult to verify or assess how "large", "huge" or "significant" the impact has been. A true dialogue with HIPS during implementation on how to measure some results and impact in an honest way has therefore been undertaken and HIPS has been humble in that it might be difficult to verify correlations in a "scientific way". However, based on i) the overall impression by staff at the embassy, ii) the evaluation and iii) the fact that HIPS draws interest from other donors points to that HIPS is a respected organisation that can demonstrate value addition in the Somalia context. More specifically First objective: To develop programs and conduct research in the priority thematic areas of peace, justice and good governance It can be concluded that research has been been undertaken in the said areas. It is often surprisingly well timed interventions which indicates that HIPS do have a good capacity to capture current affairs. It can be discussed if "programs" has been developed or not and it will depend on perceptions. All in all it should be concluded that well acknowledged research has been undertaken in the specified areas which has been timely released. Second objective: To foster inclusive public dialogues that will influence policy, increase transparency and accountability and inform HIPS research agenda: The embassy concludes that HIPS has been able to reach out to the stimulate the public dialogue. It is more difficult to exactly assess how it has influenced policy but it is a fair assumption that policies has been influenced. As stated above, HIPS research deliveries are normally fairly timely, and deals also with areas that are of interest not only to the political elite. Their engagement using social media has also gained results (and outnumber, for example, the largest think tank in Sweden on twitter 10 times). It can be concluded that HIPS has done successful attempts via available platforms to reach out as a way to reach the organisation's objectives. Third objective: To ensure sufficient staff in both numbers and capacity to deliver organizational objectives might on one hand be difficult to assess but on another hand given the delivery demonstrated a conclusion can be made that HIPS has built capacity that has been sufficient. Forth objective: To fully computerize the core and support functions of HIPS . In our assessment the institute has not yet reached this objective to its full extent. Their project/workflow management process is digitized while their enterprise resource management software is yet to be operational. While the two first results has more to do with the productivity of the organisation the latter two can be seen more as indicators of institution building. HIPS fares better on the two first. However, it might be difficult to build a sustainable organisation as it is entirely dependent on donor funding.

HIPS anchored the new Five Year strategic plan (20182022) around two broad pillars: research action and policy action. The overall objectives that Sida supported were: Strategic objective 1: To develop programs and conduct research in the priority thematic areas of peace, justice and good governance. Strategic objective 2: To foster inclusive public dialogues that will influence policy, increase transparency and accountability and inform HIPS research agenda. Strategic objective 3: To ensure sufficient staff in both numbers and capacity to deliver organizational objectives Strategic objective 4: To fully computerize the core and support functions of HIPS.