IIDA Africa Women’s Development Organization (IIDA) is a women-led non-profit organization founded in 1991 in Mogadishu, Somalia by a group of pioneering Somali women leaders to provide relief and emergency services to women and children affected by the civil war in Somalia.
To advocate for the socio-economic rights of children, youth, and women, promote peace and reconciliation among warring communities, and foster their integration into society. We work towards non-violent conflict resolution, policy formulation and implementation, women empowerment, transparency and accountability. We advocate for high standards of service delivery, education, economic self-sustenance, and improvement of health. We conduct research, defend human rights, establish partnerships and mobilize communities towards gender equality.
IIDA is one the founding members of and the lead organization for the Somali Women Agenda (SWA), a national women’s movement formed by Somali women within Somalia and in the Diaspora in October 2007SWA aims to draw urgent attention to the need to alleviate the status of Somali women and enable them strengthen each other in addressing issues affecting women and girls through capacity building, advocacy and networking. SWA seeks to promote women’s participation in the decision-making processes in Somalia, in an effort to affect governance policy changes and promote accountability. SWA platform currently represents a constituency of approximately 200,000 Somali women from all over Somalia and the Diaspora. SWA have representatives from 22 organizations.
IIDA is the National Coalition leader for Somalia in the Better Migration Management (BMM) Regional Civil Society Organisation (CSO) Network, which is informal, largely self-organising network of CSOs that work on issues relating to anti-trafficking and the protection of vulnerable migrants in East Africa. It currently encompasses close to 100 individuals from organisations in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda. It has been initiated by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH under the Better Migration Management Programme (BMM), which is funded by the Federal Government of Germany and the European Union.
IIDA is a member of the Eastern African Sub-Regional Support Initiative for the Advancement of Women (EASSI) which is a feminist sub-regional Civil Society Organisation made up of committed individuals, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), coalitions and networks driven to transform gender relations globally and especially in the Eastern Africa sub-region. EASSI are engaged with strengthening the capacity of women, youth and civil society organisations in governance, leadership, economic empowerment, policy advocacy and conflict resolution.
They work in nine countries within the East and Horn of Africa namely: Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and South Sudan.
IIDA is the country team for Somalia on the Civil Society Platform for Peace building and State building (CSPPS) network, a South-North non-governmental coalition of peace building organizations, which aims at strengthening the voice and capacity of society to effectively engage in, and influence, peace building and state building as a critical contribution to crisis prevention, sustainable peace and development for all.
The Network provides learning new ways of reaching out to global audience and international policy makers e.g. through the engagement in the Civil Society Platform for Peace-building and State-building (CSPPS) that strengthens national chapters (e.g. Somali chapter) in line with Sustainable development goal (SDG) 16.