SSF is funding investments across Somalia in line with its Gender Equality and Social Inclusion Strategy, based on a theory of change that increasing participatory governance in Somalia, especially when inclusive of women, youth and minorities, will in turn enhance peace and stability in the country. The Life & Peace Institute (LPI) in partnership with Somali Women’s Solidarity Organization (SWSO) and Somali Women’s Studies Centre (SWSC) is currently implementing the SSF GESI investment: ‘Building and strengthening female public and political engagement, agency, and influence in Jubbaland’. The project activities are being implemented in four districts – Kismayo, Dobley, Garbaharey and Dollow with the broader goal of improving participatory governance, with a focus on inclusion of women and youth in political processes. An immediate goal and priority for the first year was to bring women’s voices to bear on the 2018 Jubbaland District Council formation elections. In this regard, the project was building on activities that are already underway and planned by SWSO and SWSCThis baselines assessment of this investment was carried out with the following objectives in mind; Provide a deeper contextual understanding of the status of gender equality and social inclusion which can inform programming at both the investment and SSF level. Establish a quantitative baseline for indicators on GESI in the intervention districts to monitor and evaluate the impact of the investment and progress against the outputs above. Evaluate the investment against SSF’s Output 2.1 indicator –  “Quality, relevance and effectiveness of SSF-delivered work to increase popular participation in formal and informal governance structures” – in order to inform SSF-level reporting, monitoring and evaluation. The evaluation was conducted in all four districts of intervention – Kismayo, Dobley, Garbaharey and Dollow. To meet the above objectives, the evaluation was divided into two parts, conceptually and methodologically.