London high level forum to chart Somalia's futureail
Sunday May 7, 2017
Thursday, May 12, will be an important day in the history and
future of Somalia. A high-level partnership meeting will take place in London
to discuss the country’s future.
The London Conference, will be hosted by the United Kingdom
government, the United Nations and the Federal Government of Somalia. Among
those expected is the UK Prime Minister Theresa May and UN Secretary-General
Antonio Guterres. Somalia’s President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo will also be
present.
The meeting will attract lots of interest from partners and donors
if the roundtable summit in Mogadishu on drought in Somalia is anything to go
by. At that meeting more than 50 countries and donors came together to pledge
more than $450 million in March 2017. Last year, a similar meeting was held in
Istanbul, Turkey building upon the New Deal Compact document produced in 2013.
The deal provided for political, security and development
architecture framing for relations between Somalia, its people and the international
community. The High-Level Partnership Forum attracted representatives from more
than 50 countries and 11 international organisations. At the end of the London
Conference, it is expected that a Partnership for Development will be reached
whose objective will set Somali commitments to progress in key areas against
sustained international support.
The Conference comes at a critical time for the new government in
Mogadishu. Elected on February 8, President Farmaajo has just completed the
process of putting together a cabinet led by Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire.
Farmaajo came to power on the platform of anti-corruption and restoration of
security in the war-torn country that has not had a stable government since the
collapse of the Siad Barre regime in 1991.
He has been strategic in the manner in which he has handled the
thorny issue of security. Farmaajo together with regional states leaders, has
come up with the security architecture that spells out the number of soldiers
and police that Somalia will have and the composition in various units. On
Tuesday (May 2) last week, parliament approved the document with minor
amendments.
The country will have a defense force of 22,000 troops, 4,000 of
them will be special forces. The federal police will be made up of 32,000
officers.
The document also spells
out the composition of the National Security Council to be chaired by the
President with Federal States presidents as members. This document will be part
of the presentations to be shared with the country’s donors and partners at the
Thursday meeting.
Besides security, there will also be a session on more inclusive
and stable politics as well as tackling Somalia’s economic recovery. However,
it will be the session on politics that will be of most interest to the
country’s western partners. Somalia has set itself a deadline of 2020 to have
one-person one-vote.
The last time the country held such an election was 40 years ago.
In 2012, the 175 clan elders picked 275 Members of Parliament while in the
recent election, 14,000 people picked by the same elders elected 275 MPs and 54
Senators. The reason behind this has been Al-Shabaab and insecurity in the
country. Also, to feature prominently at the London conference, will be the
agreement on the transition of the 22,000-strong African Union Mission in
Somalia (Amisom).
The force which has been securing the Federal Government in
Mogadishu since 2007 plans to exit in 2018. However, the structures for setting
up Somali security institutions remain weak and at best nascent.
The session on Amisom’s exit strategy will of course be followed
very closely by Kenya and neighbouring countries that have sent troops to
Somalia. Last week, President Uhuru Kenyatta while bidding farewell to
Somalia’s ambassador to Kenya pledged to work closely with his counterpart in
Somalia to deal a deadly blow to terrorism and insecurity.
The drought in Somalia and the new government are attracting
international interest like a magnet. German sent its highest-ranking diplomat,
the minister for foreign affairs, Sigmar Gabriel. During his visit to Mogadishu
and the central town of Baidoa, last Tuesday, Gabriel pledged to double his
country’s contribution to the drought kitty from the current 70 million Euros
to 140 million Euros.
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