In October 2010, Somali Family Services (SFS) invited 12 NGOs based in Garowe to partake in a meeting facilitated by Fiona Adolu, Legal Officer from the African Commission for Human and Peoples’ Rights. The meeting, which took place at the Puntland Library & Resource Center, had the goal of bringing together members of civil society to produce reports on the human rights-related achievements, best practices, challenges and constraints in Puntland. The meeting formed part of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) mechanism, which was established by UN General Assembly Resolution 60/251 in 2006. As Adolu explained during the meeting, the UPR is a cooperative process—aimed at evaluating the human rights performance of all UN Member States—which relies on the exchange of objective information, interactive dialogue with the countries concerned, and equal treatment of all States. According to Adolu, it is important that Somalia start re-submitting human rights after it ceased to do so in 1994.

Somali Family Services took the initiative of leading the UPR in Puntland, demonstrating its commitment to collaborate with and support other NGOs in producing human rights reports. Thus far, seven NGOs including SFS have volunteered to report on the human rights issues they work on. SFS will coordinate with the UN Political Office for Somalia, and follow up with the six other organizations to help ensure that no important human rights issues go neglected or underreported.

In addition to organizing the UPR in Puntland, SFS participated in a training conducted from 23 to 27 August 2010 by the East and Horn of Africa Rights Defenders Project, in partnership with the International Service for Human Rights. The training gathered twenty human rights defenders from various African countries, among them Somalia (including Somaliland), Eritrea, Ethiopia and Sudan.