ADR has accumulated over 9 years of hands-on expertise working for and with community groups, LNGO/INGO’s, international bodies, and for-profit organisations – partnering with government representatives at the federal, regional state, and municipal levels. In Somalia, we have developed invaluable experience in safely and successfully operating in a country still emerging from two-and-a-half decades of civil war and the resulting chaos, rendering the context highly volatile and challenging. Our intimate exposure has shown us that traditional project approaches have too often failed, as they acted as straitjackets to communities, preventing them from effectively taking charge of their development agenda and programs.