Events
Connecting Somali and international peacemaking strategies
Abdurahman A. Osman ‘Shuke’, Director of Puntland Development Research Centre and Accord 21 author speaks about community reconciliation in Somalia.
© Ibraahim da'ud Abdalle
Panelists at the Nairobi workshop included (left to right) Charles Petrie, UN Deputy SRSG for Somalia; Abdirahman Osman Raghe from Interpeace; The Hon. Wafula Wamunyinyi, Deputy Head of the AU Mission in Somalia; security consultant Dr Jeremy Brickhill.
March 2010
In March CR launched the Somali version of our latest Accord. Held in Nairobi, the event brought together Somali and international media, civil society, government and intergovernmental representatives.
Roundtable sessions focused on statebuilding challenges and the responsibility to protect Somali citizens. Those attending stressed local reconciliation must come before national political processes are worked out, and demanded civilian protection be paramount in international interventions. Key Somali media covered the event. Download the Nairobi launch report here.
October 2009
Conciliation Resources held a policy workshop in London as part of our Accord project on Somali peace processes with Interpeace. Authors, editors and advisers met with international policymakers to discuss the implications of our findings for conflict transformation policy on Somalia. The Africa Programme at Chatham House generously hosted the meeting.
Download the October workshop report.
July 2009
Our first project workshop in Nairobi with Interpeace brought together Somali peacemakers, civil society and women’s groups, academics, and officials from the United Nations, the African Union, the European Union, and regional and international governments. Contributors to the forthcoming Accord publication (December 2009) exchanged views and discussed early findings. Download our workshop report of the key issues.
Panel discussions
- International peace processes
- Somali peace processes
- How to administer Mogadishu?
- Legal frameworks for peace
- Keeping the peace
Key issues arising
- the extensive experience Somalis have in dispute settlement and peacemaking and the vital importance of the links between security and accountability (security governance) that enable Somali communities to bring armed groups under public control
- the range of Somali endeavours by traditional elders and other civic actors to deal with security challenges, and the continuing difficulties of translating grassroots reconciliation into more durable structures of accountable government up to the national level
- the extent of Somalis’ misgivings about the state and its potential to misuse power, based on decades of either highly predatory governance or statelessness, and the suspicion this creates about the international community's statebuilding strategies
- the problem of how representation in a society characterized by radically decentralized political structures and fragile alliances can bedevil progress in internationally-led reconciliation processes
- the wider regional and international factors at work in Somalia and the need to frame state security and regional interests in ways that put the security of Somali people first rather than undermine it
- the lethal combination of the win-lose approach to Somali political power when combined with international support strategies centred on statebuilding
Speakers
Mark Bowden (UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia)
Dr Jeremy Brickhill (security consultant)
Dr Ibrahim Farah (University of Nairobi)
Ibrahim Abdulle Jabril (Centre for Research and Dialogue, Mogadishu)
Faiza Jama (Equality Now)
Mohamed Ahmed Jama (Somali Organizations for Community Development Activities)
Dr Pat Johnson (Interpeace)
Dr Ken Menkhaus (Davidson College)
Charles Petrie (Deputy UN Special Representative for Somalia)
Meredith Preston McGhie (Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue)
Hassan Sheikh (Somali Institute of Management and Administration Development)
Abdirahman Osman ‘Shuke’ (Puntland Research and Development Centre)
Ulf Terlinden (Consultant/EC)
Hon. Wafula Wamunyinyi (Deputy AU Special Representative for Somalia)
Hibo Yassin (Cooperation for the Development of Emerging Countries)
