THE INTERVIEW: UK ambassador to Somalia on bilateral relations, security, climate change and debt relief

The United Kingdom ambassador to Somalia, Mike Nithavrianakis spoke exclusively to Goobjoog News ahead of the UK Global Food Summit which took place in London on November 20. Here is an abridged version of the interview.

Thank you for speaking to Goobjoog News ambassador. First, could you briefly speak about your experience in Somalia since your recent start of tour?

I’ve been lucky in my first six months to have met a very wide range of Somali politicians, civil society, business people, and community leaders. I’ve managed to travel a little bit although I would like to do more and see more of the country, but I’m very happy to be here and very happy with the state of the bilateral relationship. His Excellency, the President, Hassan Sheikh Mohammed will be delivering the keynote address alongside our own Prime Minister. It’s very important given some of the long-term planning that needs to take place to secure global food supplies and elevate the importance of nutrition and Somalia.

The UK is this week (Nov 20) hosting the Global Food Security Summit and will be co-chairing with Somalia. Could you shed light on the summit, especially in light of climate-change-related adverse conditions in Somalia and prospects for long-term sustainable solutions?

I think the issue will be focusing on how we harness the existing support that the UK and other international partners provide to ensure that we help Somalia start the long process of adapting to climate change, help Somalia access much larger sources of climate finance and green finance funding, and also address some of the longer term challenges of food security that will allow Somalia to be less exposed to the international price shocks that might move in one direction or the other. And so it is about bringing all of those strategies together, understanding what immediate support is required because of things like El Nino, but putting in place medium and long-term strategies that will deliver over time a a, a better freer, fairer society for the people of Somalia who are having to deal with these challenges. And I think we can only do that by getting the right participants in the room together propose objectives plans, get the Somalia delegations’ insights and input into that to help influence in as collective a way as possible the best outcomes.

The UK has been the penholder on Somalia issues at the UN Security Council. Could you speak about your country’s vision for post-ATMIS Somalia especially in reforming and empowering the Somali Security Forces?

By penholder, I mean that the UK being a permanent member of the Security Council, one of the P five, we are within the Security Council, the pen holder on Somalia Security Council resolutions. And we go through a regular process of reviewing the mandates for those resolutions. And there are a couple that are very relevant to the security environment here in Somalia. So for example, the United Nations mandate for their Office of Support in Somalia is one, the ATMIS and UNSOS Trust Fund. So the, logistical arm of what the UN does to support ATMIS and the Somali National Army is another. And the UK needs to understand what is happening on the ground in terms of, the operations to counter Al-Shabaab, the force generation to develop the Somali National Army, the other security agencies, of course, including critically the police.

We need to understand what the government’s policy is on equipping and training those personnel. And we need to do that alongside the other key security partners. That includes the African Union Mission ATMIS, the United Nations and other key players such as the European Union, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Qatar, and, and other regional actors such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda. So all of the relevant stakeholders and interested partners need to come together for us to work out what is the most supportive way that we can draft resolutions that meet the needs and the requirements of the Federal Government of Somalia, the Federal Member States, and the challenge that they face on the ground alongside the insight that we can all give from the international community. And that is a responsibility that we take very seriously and one that we are very active in, in supporting Somalia.

We are very much in the front of the pack with countries supporting the SNA in developing the expertise, the training, and the equipment to be able to do that, and working out what support might be required once ATMIS has departed. So what will be needed in January 2025, and for the period beyond to help Somalia take, the fight to Al-Shabaab to help them guarantee the security of Somalia’s citizens, and also to ensure that the training that happens between now and then is the best possible conduit to, to bring the fullest possible security to the, the armed forces.

The Somali government is currently engaged in an all-out war against Al-Shabaab. Could you speak about your country’s role in this campaign?

We have a small number of British forces who are exclusively focused on providing training to Somalia National Armed Forces, or they are embedded in the various ATMIS and United Nations teams to provide advice to the Somali system and to the key leaders within the Somalia armed forces and the government on policy direction training, advice, support on affordability of what is required. And we have a training team that has, since 2017, trained almost 3000 Somali soldiers. We’ve actually changed the format of that training in, as a direct result actually of, of the input of his excellency the president.

And we have decided to include leadership and command training in that. Now, we are doing this in our training center in Southwest State. We are also working more closely with the European Union and possibly in the future with the United Nations to coordinate and cohere the training that we provide so that there is some interoperability and some single military doctrine led by the Somali systems. So that over time there is a much more integrated approach to the training that is provided by different partners. So we recognize that this is a long-term investment. There is a short-term challenge because, the war against Al-Shabaab is extremely difficult and one that we congratulate his Excellency, the president on leading. But we know that it is not going to be success all the way. There will be setbacks and we need to continuously monitor and pivot and review our support so that we are giving Somalia precisely what they need alongside the very important contribution that other countries are making.

The el-nino rains have caused adverse effects and heralded yet another humanitarian crisis in Somalia. What interventions is the UK putting in place to support ongoing response?

The UK is very involved in the humanitarian aspects we have already because of the risks posed by the droughts of recent years last year, were very involved in giving extra monetary support, both directly in cash transfers through the World Food Program, but also through international NGO consortiums including a group called Action Against Hunger, and also with the Food and Agricultural Organization through UN agency such as OCHA and the World Health Organization, all alongside the Somalia government and system, including SoDMA and, and others.

We have tried to ensure that we are bringing to bear all of the resources, not just financial, but human that can help address some of the challenges for the people on the ground who are, who are exposed to the potential displacement, lack of food supplies, lack of medical care. So it is a very significant challenge. We know that funding internationally for these sorts of events is at a premium, but we think that Somalia’s case is a very deserving one, and it a case that we will continue to make with our partners, but I would urge individuals to consider that the coming weeks and months could indeed be very difficult for large parts of the country. And we need to be absolutely ready to respond rapidly to those who are in greatest need.

Somalia is on course to reach the tail end of the debt relief process-Completion Point in December. Can you highlight the significance of this, the opportunities for Somalia in the international financial market, especially in the UK?

I think that is an enormous credit to this Somalia government and its predecessors for the efforts it has made to reduce Somalia’s debt. Overall, it is credit to international partners who have either written off or reduced their debt. It is credit to the Somalia system, which has grown and matured enormously over the last 10 years in putting in place the mechanisms and the structures that have allowed the Decision Point to be reached in 2020 and now to be on the cusp of Completion Point, and without them, the UK taking too much of the credit. I am proud that we as champions for Somalia in debt relief, which is a, role we took on in 2017, that we have absolutely been at the forefront of advocating for Somalia, helping the key decision-makers in the system here take the decisions they needed to allow countries to approach this process in a very constructive way.

We have also worked incredibly closely with the Ministry of Finance, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, the other international financial institutions and the other key donors to those funds, to try and come together with one voice to help Somalia reach this point. So the credit goes entirely well, almost exclusively to the Somali people, to the Somali system. We think it is a big milestone. We have confidence in the system that there is a bright future for Somalia, a Somalia where there is more revenue generated that will allow the budget to increase and therefore be spent on the priorities that the government wants to spend it on, such as education, health, and attracting investment into the economy. The UK is a a long-term partner c committed to that process.

Could you speak about your country’s long term plan in supporting Somalia’s ability to cope and adapt to the dynamics of climate change?

If I was choosing one issue on which UK leadership and convening power can support Somalia, it would be in the long term needs that Somalia identifies in adapting to changing climates. So how do we help Somalia access the technical expertise and the financing to be able to adapt to what is happening on the ground in terms of increased temperatures more freak weather incidents, either longer term droughts or flash flooding, both of which can wreak havoc with agricultural crops nomadic pastoralism, people whose communities are in vulnerable exposed areas. So we need to find a way that alongside Somalia’s plan for 2060, where Somalia will be 100 years old in 2060, how does the UK help Somalia achieve the milestones it wants to see between now and 2060 to help them start in a very successful way that journey to reach to come out of, of lower heavily indebted development level to, to the prosperity that, that his excellency to the president and everybody aspires for the Somali people. So I think that is the most critical long term issue that the UK can help Somalia with is, is adapting to climate change.