Overcoming power imbalances: Community recommendations for breaking the cycle

Ground Truth Solutions has been tracking people's perceptions in Somalia since 2017. Following a recent quantitative survey with cash and voucher recipients, as part of our Cash Barometer project, we carried out focus group discussions to discuss our findings with community members and gather their recommendations on how things could be done better. Many of the people we spoke to feel trapped in a never-ending cycle of dependence on humanitarian aid and crave longer-term solutions. People's voices are not always heard in decisions about aid. This is in part due to aid organisations struggling to prioritise consultations, but also a natural consequence of engaging only with gatekeepers, who often stand as bottlenecks between aid providers and the community. This report presents specific recommendations made by community members on how to go beyond gatekeepers, in addition to their insight into what would help them become more resilient.