The Somali Christian Development Network (SOCDEN) is nonprofit and non-governmental organization which is a membership confederation representing a network of Faith Based Organizations from all over Somali speaking region in across horn of Africa. SOCDEN is an NGO that aims to assist Christians and non- Christian communities realize Christian values, such as non-violence, and mutual respect, and forgiveness, irrespectively of their creed, race, ethnic origin, social and political affiliation and nationality through their leaders.

The mission of the Somali Christian Development Network (SOCDEN) is an inter-regional confederation, and is to proclaim to the Somali speaking region in the Horn of Africa (HOA’s) the little-understood gospel taught by Jesus Christ—the good news of the coming Kingdom of God—and to prepare a people for that Kingdom. This message not only offers great hope for all of humanity, but encompasses the purpose of human existence—why we are here and where our world is headed.

 SOCDEN underlines that Somalia is under from death to relive habitat with a keen interest in advocating for socio-economic development, democracy and governance, social and economic justice, peace and justice, religious tolerance and interfaith dialogue. The organization was established in 2017 in bringing churches, mosques, communities and CSOs together on national and regional issues by creating a direct dialogue between fath societies and Governments as well as regional States.

However, SOCDEN believes that social justice and religious tolerance, unity and reconciliation, peace and economic progress cannot work successfully and all alone without God’s blessing through the involvement of his people for a peaceful and a vibrant democratic society.

Vision:

Advocacy for social transformation, good governance and green growth nature

Mission:

Empower Christians and Non-Christians to participate in the public arena for social, economic, and political advancement.

SODEN Objectives:

• To proclaim Jesus as Lord through all we do;
• To defend the religious liberty of all Somalis through the legislatures and courts;
• To defend the religious liberty of young generations to gather on their campuses as Christian vertebrate;
• To promote justice for the poor, religious liberty, sanctity of human life, and biblical conflict resolution;
• To provide Christian CSOs a means of society and fellowship;
• To encourage and disciple Christian law professors and students;
• To provide a forum for discussing issues related to Christianity and the law;

SOCDEN Core value:

SOCDEN advocates social and political development, democracy and governance, social and economic justice, peace and justice, religious tolerance and interfaith dialogues, unity and reconciliation and other social issues that affect the entire Somali speaking region.

SOCDEN Structure:

Despite financial and security challenges, SOCDEN has grown as a URI Somalia Cooperation Circle body in which working as NGO and reinvigorating itself and formally re-establishing itself. As part of this process, the organization has adopted the operational model of a regional NGO (5 Board Members); Advisory Council (21 members from each CC member). These two bodies are complimented by a Group of Experts (3 members) in order to use all its structure as an operational framework to pursue its vision.

Despite challenges in securing resources and member’s recruitment, SOCDEN has over the years worked, mostly through volunteers to provide forums and platforms for its members to interact and learn from their national experiences, and to strengthen the Faith Based Organizations’ network in the entire Somalia regional states including Djibouti, Kenya party as well as Ethiopia party. We have also expanded to provide close visits at regional based interfaith level meetings for those members whose parties were experiencing devastation on a social, economic or political level, by engaging in concerted outreach campaigns to highlight their plight.

We continue to look for strategic partners and affiliations to comprehensively address the issues of economic integrity and social rights, in light of the increasing social and economic inequality, preventing countering violent extremism (PCVE) and corruption in across Somalia and the entire Somali speaking region. The main tenets of the SOCDEN strategy plan is to fight corruption and terrorism actions are to: • Achieve a reduction in the incidences of corruption by increasing awar eness about the effects of corrupt practices, sharing and knowledge for violent extremism and participating in civic activism initiatives to expose and fight corruption and PCVE.