Somalia Partnership Forum: A Talking Shop?

EDITORIAL 

Somalia Partnership Forum will take place in Mogadishu on 1 and 2 October at the time the Federal Government of Somalia has lost political capital it has accumulated since 2017.

The Government has blockaded a Federal Member State, Jubaland, in protest of results of an election run by Jubaland Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission.  Earlier this year in Garowe,  the adminstrative capital of Puntland State, where he was attending a summit for the Federal Government and Federal Member States,  President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed rejected the proposal from member states to form a National Leadership Forum similar to the one his predecessor, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, created to facilitate dialogue between the Federal Government and Federal Member States to pave the way for Vision 2016 upon which 2017 presidential election was based.    

     

Former President Hassan Sh. Mohamud chairing National Leadership Forum

The forthcoming Partnership Forum will have to grapple with diverging views of partners on how to resolve political differences between the Federal Government and Federal Member States of which lopsided reconstruction of the Somali National Army and plight of internally displaced peoples are the most pressing issues. It would help  Somalia if International Partners  focused more on challenging Somali political leaders to spend less on rhetoric and more on substance. If the Partnership Forum turns out to be a venue for presenting progress reports, it will no doubt become a talking shop.   

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