Somalia State Building Opportunities and Key Lessons Learnt
By Ahmed Mohamud
The ousting of Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 sparked a decade-long civil war between rival clan warlords and the disintegration of central authority. Former British Somaliland declared unilateral independence. Somalia has been struggling with state building initiatives, with numerous challenges and opportunities in equal measures but there is need to find out what is ailing the state building with over 30 years and still there is much to be done.
Here is the summary of what needs to be done to achieve desired objectives of meaningful state building in Somalia.
1. Seeking forgiveness among local tribes: seeking Allah forgiveness and turning back to the creator for the sins that were committed and not to accept collective wrong doings among the tribes and not defend few wrong doers because they belong to your tribe.
2. Building trust among the Somali communities: by setting up just in judiciary, police forces and military based on unity and common good for all, for the equity in term of resources sharing and power in manner in which there is equal opportunity for all.
3. Peace and reconciliation forums across the Somali regions: using the religious leaders, women, youth and local administration to spare head and open up centers where communities can meet and discuss peace and reconciliations and what needs to be done and get in house conflict resolutions based on under tree as per the Somali traditions.
4. Build and strengthen governance structures in Somalia: by defining roles and responsibilities of the federal government and federal member states by doing proper constitutional review process and ensure all-inclusive to the publics and getting priorities right by having Somali own Somali lead process.
5. Creating community awareness through behavior communications initiatives on peace, security, good governance. this is to be done by creating locals with coming up of creating mindset change and ensuring that our schools and madrasa have role in shaping our youth on civic educations on nationalism and also raising of the level of awareness among elders, youth, women and religious leaders.
6 Aligning education curriculum with country needs: for prosperity and achieving desired development in Somalia there is need to readjust educations system we have with needs of the country so as to have harmonized system of educations that can compete with regions and international level and have value addition work force in government and private sector .Having universal accepted accreditation of Somali educations certificates by having quality assurance and control of accreditation and have quality educations that is responsive to the country needs holistically.
7 Separations of state organs and the need to have three branches of government working independent from each other, the legislature, executive, and judiciary should work and support each other to allow each organ functioning without interference of the other body.
As it stands now there is need to bring the Somali publics together due to the geopolitics of the region which is changing very fast and Somalia needs to align itself which directions it has to go so as to stand political, social and economic trends happening horn of Africa. Current government led by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has to prioritise the unity of the nation, create opportunities for youth in terms of job creations and facilitate dialogue with political elites and interested parties to agree on a functional and inclusive election model.
There is need to support state building so as to achieve our collective responsibilities and nation building through healthy discussions and respect for diverse view and adding value to each other.
Having unity of purpose makes our communities relevant rather than having individuals who can’t work towards achieving unity.
Ahmed Mohamud is communication specialist based in Nairobi.
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