Share:
Female athletes outnumbered male athletes for the first time in a Somali Olympic Committee development initiative, building on recent efforts to increase female representation in coaching, officiating and sport leadership.
Who gets to coach the next generation of athletes? Who makes decisions about competitions, identifies promising talent or helps ensure that sporting environments are safe? In Somalia, a new national initiative is creating opportunities for more women to take on these responsibilities.
The Somali National Olympic Committee (NOCSOM) launched its nationwide youth sport development program in early October in Garowe, the capital of Puntland State in northeastern Somalia. According to reporting by sportanddev, young women made up the majority of participants at the launch, the first time this has happened in an official NOCSOM development program.
It’s a notable development in a country where women and girls have historically faced cultural and social barriers to participating in organized sport. And while increasing the number of female athletes remains important, the initiative also focuses on the people who make sport possible beyond competition.
More women taking on roles in sport
The program provides training in coaching, refereeing, sport administration, talent identification and safeguarding, with representatives from Somalia’s national athletics, basketball, handball, table tennis and chess federations involved.
Supported by Olympic Solidarity, an International Olympic Committee (IOC) program that assists National Olympic Committees with sport development, the initiative aims to build local expertise across multiple disciplines.
The launch follows other efforts to increase women’s involvement in Somali sport. In 2024, the Somali Football Federation trained nine female coaches, followed by 12 newly qualified female referees in February 2025.
The latter marked a particularly meaningful development. According to the federation, Somalia had previously trained two women as referees in 2009, but neither was able to continue officiating amid the country’s security challenges.
More recently, local organizations have also been creating opportunities for women to develop skills and support younger girls through sport.
In Bossaso, another city in Puntland, the Hawa Feminist Coalition (also a grantee of the Olympism365 Innovation Hub) launched Girls Play for Change in February 2026 with support from the UEFA Foundation for Children. The initiative is training 12 young women from internally displaced communities to become football coaches and peer mentors, with the goal of reaching 300 displaced and marginalized girls.
The program combines football with mentorship, mental health support and education on girls’ rights. It also aims to establish six safe spaces for sport within displacement settlements, addressing the limited recreational opportunities available to girls affected by conflict and displacement.
By September, the newly trained coaches were helping plan the next phase of activities, including selecting participants, developing training schedules and organizing safeguarding measures.
Although separate from NOCSOM’s initiative, the project offers another example of Somali women taking on responsibilities for delivering sport in their own communities.
Expanding opportunities across Somalia
Speaking at the Garowe launch, Duran Ahmed Farah, senior vice president of NOCSOM, outlined the committee’s ambition to develop qualified sport professionals throughout the country.
The initiative is being delivered with cooperation from the Puntland administration and its Ministry of Youth and Sports. Garowe is the first location in a planned national rollout, with similar training expected to reach other Federal Member States.
For a country continuing to rebuild institutions and infrastructure following decades of conflict, investing in local coaches, officials and administrators could help strengthen the foundations of organized sport.
The increasing presence of women in these roles is also significant for girls who may be considering their own involvement. Seeing women coach teams, officiate matches or manage programs can broaden their understanding of what a future in sport might look like.
The October launch is an encouraging milestone, although the longer-term impact will depend on whether participants can put their training into practice and access sustained opportunities.
The progress already taking place through Somalia’s football federation and local initiatives such as Girls Play for Change provides a useful point of comparison. As NOCSOM expands its program nationwide, the question will be how many more women can move from receiving training to actively shaping the country’s sporting future.
Share:
