The Executive Director of SONYO Mr. Saeed Mohamed Ahmed , was among the those eleven youth leaders chosen to participate in this year’s International Visitor Leadership Program, Mr. Saeed met had the opportunity to with Mr. Grant Harris who is the President Obama’s Special Assistant on African Affairs and Policy Advisor on Africa during a visit to the white House.
The session was interactive and more of information-sharing. Saeed has interacted with Harris by also briefing on the processes of peace-building, state-building and democratization that Somaliland has managed to successfully pursue in the last two decades. In addition, Saeed urged Obama’s administration to come close to the real context in Africa and particularly stand up for the support of the growing democracy and the blossoming development in Somaliland. He said: “for Obama to be able to go down to the practicality of his fourfold strategy on Africa and push forward the growing democracies in the African world, it is imperative to support Somaliland and consider its case as a unique phenomenon that should be promoted for contributing to the desired peace and stability of the Horn of Africa and also setting a live example for the states that still need to recognize the importance of democratic governance”. In continuing his discussions with the Special Assistant of the US President, Saeed has also asked about the US’s plan on inviting Somaliland’s president to the upcoming African Leaders Summit in the United States. He said: “Our president is a democratically-elected leader and while he has been in office, he tried to consolidate Somaliland’s relations with your state, are you going to invite him in your upcoming African Leaders Summit as even a de facto state president?
In responding to the questions of Saeed, the Special Assistant and Senior Policy Advisor said: “Somaliland has a very unique case and we do respect its efforts and great work. We will continue to engage with Somaliland to reach its vision. But, as you know, we have recognized the current Somalia government and we also invested in the security sector so that Somalia can also cope with its challenges and build a strong peace”. Mr. Harris also mentioned that USA welcomes Somaliland’s good work and would also like to see its processes of democratization and peace-building continue for consolidation. Mr. Harris also mentioned that they will only invite African heads of de jure states in the upcoming African Leaders Summit.
Mr. Saeed, and fellow participants in the “International Visitor Leadership Program” most pof whom who came from Africa, got a briefing from Harris regarding President Obama’s agenda on Africa. In the briefing, it was told that the engagement of the leaders of the next generations—for building sustainable friendship and ties with Africa—is very important and a priority for the United States strategy on Africa. In addition, it was also mentioned that President Obama’s agenda on Africa has four key strategic objectives:
• Increase the trade and investment with and in Africa
• Strengthen democratic institutions in the African states
• Advance security and promote peace in Africa
• Extend the development channels for African socio-economic empowerment by identifying the actual constraints on the ground and looking for sustainable solutions
In conclusion, the meeting members were given chance to interact further with the adviser and have photo sessions with him. The meeting concluded with very good atmosphere. It was really a great opportunity for the mostly youthful participants of the program and particularly for Somaliland to have its voice heard in such important forum.
As a Somalilanders, currentlyfacing huge challengessuch as without international recognitionwhat lessonscan wedraw, and learn from Prof John D. Holm excellent research and findings.
African higher education faces a crisis. The quality of university teaching and research has declined drastically as institutions across the continent contend with budget cuts, growing enrollments, repeated strikes, a crumbling infrastructure, and a migration of the most talented professors to developed countries.
In response, universities from America and Europe, government aid agencies, and charitable foundations have started major efforts to help rebuild higher education in Africa. While those projects have dedicated substantial funds and human resources to the cause, they so far have produced mixed results. The problem is that representatives of universities from developed countries and other well-intentioned people come to Africa with basic assumptions that undermine their work.
Those assumptions about how to assist the region are not always explicit. They are manifested in subtle ways in the behavior and speech of higher-education officials who come to Africa. What’s more, the officials often fail to examine their own assumptions, some of which are obviously unrealistic. To be sure, not all Europeans and North Americans make such mistakes. But as the former and current directors of the Office of International Education and Partnerships at the University of Botswana, over the past four years we have seen such assumptions ruin potentially promising endeavors.
While many factors lead to the failure of partnerships, we have identified nine problems that hinder outside aid to Africa’s universities and several ways to improve the interaction between African academics and their peers:
1. Academics from developed countries often take the lead in research, while African colleagues are relegated to minor roles. A recent example occurred when an American scholar came to Botswana with a grant from a prestigious international organization to study aspects of condom use as part of an HIV/AIDS research project. The researcher approached the University of Botswana saying she needed a graduate student from her discipline to conduct the field research. She would pay the student well and allow the student to use the data for a thesis. From her viewpoint, the proposal sounded like a good deal.
But our university’s faculty members had two issues with her approach. First, they had not been involved in the development of the problem, the hypothesis, or the methodology. (The researcher had been in Botswana when she was developing the project but had made little attempt to contact the university.) Second, she was proposing to employ a graduate student whom the Botswanan academics would prefer to have working on their research. Ultimately the Botswana faculty members gave their American counterpart the cold shoulder, leaving her most puzzled that her “generous” offer had not been taken up.
2. Outside scholars think they know what curriculum is best for universities in the developing world. Consider a recent situation involving a graduate program in Italy. The program was an interdisciplinary master’s degree in community development to help Central European universities educate civil servants to work with local governments that are making the transition to a post-communist society. Several institutions offered the degree jointly. Italian academics proposed starting the same cooperative program, with virtually the same syllabus, in conjunction with four southern-African universities.
But the context of southern Africa is quite different from that of Central Europe. Moreover, the tuition required to cover the costs of circulating among universities was beyond anything southern African students, their parents, or their governments could afford. Finally, similar programs, although not as good, already operated within several of the countries at a much lower cost. Scholars from developed countries should not propose curriculum-development programs with African institutions without at least examining the existing curricula and the tuition charges. They should also understand the knowledge and skill levels of the students coming into the program, as well as the human resources required and the ability of African faculty members to be involved in the project.
3. Visiting academics think a top-down approach is the most effective way to get things done at universities in developing countries. The idea is that the vice chancellor, president, or other top administrator will round up the necessary academic staff members and resources to ensure the success of a project. In the short term, that approach will sometimes work, but over time it does not. New administrators come with new agendas and budget priorities, and previous partnerships have no value.
Top administrators often play into the problem, usually because they are good friends with a scholar organizing the project. The reality is that projects are sustained by personal and professional relationships developed among the key persons who are responsible for day-to-day operations. Top administrators should refer people who are proposing a particular endeavor to the appropriate faculty members at the institution and suggest that if concrete plans develop, the administration will try to allocate some start-up resources.
4. African universities, students, and faculty members often can’t afford significant project costs. One thing that surprises us in negotiating study-abroad exchanges is that universities from developed countries often refuse to pay room and board for students from Botswana. In some cases where such costs are heavily subsidized, like Japan and China, that sort of agreement is possible. For the most part, however, room and board are high-cost items in developed countries compared with Botswana. An exchange proposed by one European university was going to cost each Botswanan student about $5,700 per semester for room and board. By contrast, students coming to Botswana from the European university were to pay little more than $1,380. When we protested that the ratio was not fair, we were told that the university was just trying to treat Botswanan students equally compared with all other students attending the institution.
Other African universities face harder financial challenges. Because of Botswana’s diamond wealth, which helps support the country’s higher-education system, the University of Botswana is able to cover some of the costs of its students going abroad. Many of our sister universities in Africa simply cannot afford to cover any such costs. Unless a partner university is willing to be generous, student exchanges cannot become a reality.
Finding a fair monetary basis for student exchanges is not easy. The best situation for an African university is to exchange room, board, and tuition with universities in developed countries.
5. Projects with developing countries are often done with multiple partners. The reasoning, prevalent among foundations and multilateral donors, is that combining a number of African universities into a cooperative organization is efficient in the long run. Resources and staff can be pooled and thus create a more robust academic enterprise. For example, the World Bank for two decades has supported a program that sends economics professors from several universities to Nairobi, Kenya, for one semester a year to offer specialized graduate courses to students from partner institutions. More than a thousand students have studied in the program. Another notable example is the Partnership for Higher Education in Africa, started by American foundations. That effort brought universities together to buy new technologies to increase their Internet capabilities.
But those examples aside, more often than not the approach doesn’t work. One of the key problems is that financial support for such partnerships never lasts. Foundations, for example, usually cover the start-up costs of a multilateral program but don’t want to be long-term supporters. And African universities do not have the funds to sustain the administrative costs themselves.
Our experience is that projects developed between two institutions appear to have a much better chance of success. The costs are lower, and administrators and faculty members are more likely to be personally invested in the effort.
6. Researchers from developed countries often feel an obligation to their financial supporters. Often scholars from America or other nations who win grants to work in Africa understandably feel responsible to the institutions supporting them. While grant dollars and other awards should be well managed, such obligations should not trump the need to make African faculty members full partners in topic selection, formulation of project objectives, budget building, and other aspects of a research effort.
Some donors are attempting to reverse that situation by insisting that African scholars be primary investigators on projects. Several such projects at the University of Botswana have forced major research universities to adopt a more egalitarian posture. But that approach requires senior scholars on African-university staffs who can manage the research ventures—and, unfortunately, experienced academics are in short supply in Africa. A cadre of African scholars who can administer programs must be created to fix the situation.
7. Top-quality universities in Europe and America want to do projects only with institutions of comparable quality. We have been told on more than one occasion—usually by universities in Europe or Australia seeking to improve their images internationally—that they cannot work with our institution, because it does not have adequate status in global-university rankings. In effect, the product or learning experience that emerges from a partnership does not matter. It is strictly a means to raise status. We do not waste our time with such universities.
8. The risks to the health and safety of students and staff members in Africa are exaggerated. Thanks to the American and European news media’s focus on political violence and health problems in Africa, partnerships with universities on the continent are sometimes perceived to be high-risk activities. In Botswana the two risks that are particularly well known are HIV/AIDS and crime. But while HIV/AIDS is certainly a serious problem, the incidence is frequently overstated. Visitors should simply use the same precautions they would at home to avoid the disease.
Foreign visitors can also take simple, common-sense steps to avoid being victims of crime, which tends to be thefts of laptops, cameras, and cellphones; it rarely involves physical violence. There is no doubt that visitors, particularly from developed countries, are attractive targets to thieves. But chances of being robbed can be reduced if valuable items are kept out of public view when not in use; dorm-room doors are locked; windows on the first floor are closed at night; and computer locks are used for laptops.
9. Efforts to teach African university staff members new skills are often done in quick workshops. African academics and administrators probably welcome such workshops because they mean time away from work, free food, and a chance to socialize with friends. Foundations and other donors like workshops because they reach a large number of participants who usually provide positive survey evaluations. But although workshops of five or fewer days may be productive for learning computer programs or accounting, they are often not effective at teaching more in-depth subjects, like conflict management, or important qualities, like leadership. They can’t provide the sustained interaction that participants need to take on new responsibilities, develop professional skills, or become managers. To develop those talents requires reading, feedback from mentors and colleagues, and reflection.
Our objective is not to to focus on the negative but to start a broad discussion about the challenges to university partnerships in Africa and make them more effective. Such a dialogue has been largely missing or, at best, intermittent.
Faculty members from developed countries, especially in subjects crucial to Africa’s development, like engineering and the health sciences, should understand that their assistance must be delivered in a different social and cultural context in Africa.
African professors need to start a frank discussion with their counterparts about the conditions for cooperation. We have repeatedly heard our University of Botswana colleagues grumble that they receive no respect in partnerships. Yet they do not speak up when they have an opportunity.
The challenges can be overcome, but not over a one- or two-day visit. They require the development of a relationship that stems from friendship, trust, and mutual respect, a relationship that comes with shared experiences, disagreements, conversations, and solving problems together. All of that is demanding, but not impossible.
John D. Holm and Leapetsewe Malete are, respectively, the former and current directors of the Office of International Education and Partnerships at the University of Botswana.
The $75,000 Anzisha Prize awards young African entrepreneurs between the ages of 15 and 22
JOHANNESBURG, South-Africa, March 26, 2014/African Press Organization (APO)/ – Data from this year’s Anzisha Prize (http://www.anzishaprize.org) applications reveal a potential shortage of young entrepreneurs who are women, are from North and Central Africa or involved in renewable energy ventures.
“We are hoping that our application data reflects weaknesses in our outreach strategy, rather than the reality on the ground. If our sample is a mirror of youth entrepreneur activity across the continent, then we are sitting with a fairly dire situation for youth venture creation outside of some key hubs,” comments Josh Adler, Director for the Centre for Entrepreneurial Leadership at the African Leadership Academy.
“This is a picture that has to change rapidly, and the Anzisha Prize is designed to catalyse this movement. We need to see more meaningful entrepreneur activity amongst teenagers across the continent and within key sectors that we know can create quality jobs and growth.”
The prestigious Anzisha Prize, Africa’s premier award for its youngest entrepreneurs, is encouraging North and Central Africans, young women and those with renewable energy ventures from around the African continent to enter. Application information and in-country support are available in both French and Arabic.
The $75,000 Anzisha Prize – hosted by the African Leadership Academy in partnership with The MasterCard Foundation – awards young African entrepreneurs between the ages of 15 and 22 who have started ventures that are making a real impact in their communities. There is an additional $10,000 grant – courtesy of the Donor Circle for Africa group of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation – that is given to a young entrepreneur who is working on a renewable energy initiative.
With a week to go until the application deadline, over 200 applications have been received from more than 25 countries, with some very fascinating trends.
– Applications from young female entrepeneurs are waning. While 55% of the African youth population between 15-24 is female, young women only make up 25% of the current Anzisha Prize applicant pool. The Anzisha Prize has made special efforts to reach young women this year through partnering with organisations like the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE), yet it appears from our data that the barriers to pursuing entrepreneurship activity for young girls remain prevalent.
– North African applications are low despite significantly more awareness campaigns for the Anzisha Prize in the region. Of the 33 Anzisha Prize Fellows selected since 2011, only three are from North Africa and all of these are from young men from Egypt. This year massive effort has been made to increase access to the Anzisha Prize in North Africa – official documents are now available in Arabic and French and the Anzisha Prize team met with partners across North Africa in early March.
– Biogas and green charcoal initiatives look to be more prevalant amongst African youth rather than solar, wind, and other alternative energy initiatives. There is also little evidence of downstream business activity for services that make good use of off-grid power. Of the renewable energy applications received thus far, nearly all deal with biogas and charcoal made from waste material, which begs the question: are there young African entrepreneurs who are leading the way in other alternative energy initiatives?
“We need to enlist the help of the media, gender-focused youth organisations and teachers to encourage candidates they know of for the prize to apply.” Continues Adler: “Our applications team is standing by to support entries and nominations in French, Arabic and English and our country partners in every region are available to engage national media in the debate around youth entrepreneurship in different countries.”
Past award recipients include Best Ayiorwoth, a young woman from Uganda, who began a small micro-credit services company that invests in and empowers young women in Uganda, and Khaled Shady, inventor of Mubser, a wearable belt for the visually impaired in Egypt (Shady was recently listed by Forbes as amongst the 30 most promising young entrepreneurs under 30). Profiles for all 33 of our past Anzisha Fellows are available online at http://www.anzishaprize.org/fellows
The Anzisha Prize applications are now open and close on April 1, 2014. Application and nomination forms are available online and for download in English, French and Arabic at http://www.anzishaprize.org. Prospective applicants can chat online, see our recent activities and engage with our team on Facebook www.facebook.com/anzishaprize. You can also follow Anzisha Prize on Twitter (@anzishaprize).
Finalists will win an all-expense paid trip to the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg, South Africa, to attend a week-long entrepreneurship development programme and awards gala. While there, they will be taught by the African Leadership Academy’s renowned Entrepreneurial Leadership faculty, as well as experienced business mentors. They will then enter a life-long support programme as part of the African Leadership Academy’s alumni network with access to unrivaled opportunities for personal development and venture growth.
Distributed by the African Press Organization on behalf of the Internet Corporation for the Anzisha Prize.
1. Please use our interviews collection as content for your publications & websites!
We commissioned professional journalists to interview many of our Fellows, and have translated them into French and Arabic. Some examples are attached, and more are available at http://www.anzishaprize.org/media-centre – this content can be used freely.
2. Contact us and our country-partners for country-level data & insights!
Anzisha Prize has a growing country partners programme with national level organisations that are aligned to our mission across Africa. Please contact us for details and contact information. Further, we will soon be in a position to release country-level insights based on our applications pool to help media analyse and comment on entrepreneur dynamics in your own countries. Email prize@anzishaprize.org with queries.
3. We have photos and videos!
Note that we have a great collection of videos and images that you can use in your publications. Please visit our online media centre and youtube channel. All our images and videos can be used freely for media stories. WATCH THE ANZISHA PRIZE OVERVIEW IN FRENCH, ENGLISH OR ARABIC at http://www.youtube.com/user/AnzishaPrize
4. Follow the story
Our journey through the prize process is easily told through our Facebook page. Visit www.facebook.com/anzishaprize and follow our work to find Africa’s 12 top teen entrepreneurs day-by-day.
5. About the Anzisha Prize
The Anzisha Prize is managed out of African Leadership Academy’s Centre for Entrepreneurial Leadership, which was established through a multi-year partnership with The MasterCard Foundation. Through the Anzisha Prize, the organisers seek to catalyse innovation and entrepreneurship among youth across the continent.
The Hargeisa city council and the UN habitat have jointly has unveiled a detailed map showing all buildings and other features such as main roads, rivers, airport, etc. during an event held at Hotel Mansoor.
The Mayor of Hargeisa Mr. Abdurrahman Mahmoud Aideed (Solteco) speaking during the unveiling of the new map said, “The chosen variables for the property database describe in the map includes the physical characteristics of the property (dimensions, use, building materials, access to infrastructure) occupier (could be different from owner) number of residents living in the building
UN-Habitat Emrah Andenis representative said, “The mapping project of Hargeisa city began in mid-2004. The plan was to create a database of all the properties in the city, and a methodology for classifying them and developing tax bills.
The database is hyper-linked to a digital ground photograph of each property. This photo helps local council staff to verify the database and later facilitates communication with the owners and occupants of the properties.
With the goal of using property taxation to generate municipal revenue for public works, UN-HABITAT and the municipality decided to implement a property survey
After careful consideration, it was decided to develop a database with a limited number of variables for each property, essential for determining property tax. A satellite image was used to create a base map identifying all the buildings in Hargeisa, and through rapid fi eld surveys
UN-HABITAT approach to property registration the characteristics of the structures were collected. All data were stored in a Geographical Information System (GIS) for quick retrieval and mapping. This approach has proven to be fast and relatively cheap. At a later stage the database could be expanded into a full cadastral system. The project has illustrated how a GIS property survey to facilitate property taxation can be done rapidly and cost effectively, allowing local governments to raise revenue that can be invested in urgently needed public works and services.
The UN-Habitat Somaliland/ Somalia Programme has being implementing projects in Somaliland for more than 25 years and is active in the areas of Local Governance, Land Management, Security of Tenure and GIS, Participatory Urban Planning and Management, Environmentally Sound Urban Infrastructure and Basic Service Delivery, Local Government Finance, Shelter Construction, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction.
Forensic experts working in a newly found mass grave in Hargeisa
By Nadifa Mohamed
What is it like to know that you must leave your home this instant? What would you take with you? Where would you go? These were the questions that I asked my cousin, my aunts and former neighbors, but to be precise, I asked, “What was it like? What did you take with you? Where did you go?”, because all of these women had been forced to flee the Somali civil war in the late eighties. My cousin was separated from her parents on the first day of fighting, my aunt carried three very young boys to the Ethiopian border, while it took the war for a family friend to realize that her husband of many years had lied about his own background. The stories that emerged were of heroism and cowardice, despair and hope, a violent normality disturbed by abnormal violence.
I left Hargeisa in northern Somalia as a child but was born in a hospital that symbolized the brutality of the regime; my mother was nearly turned away from the labor ward as I had the temerity to want to arrive after the curfew, doctors who tried to improve the hospital were arrested on trumped-up charges and given life sentences, and during the war it became the site of unimaginable abuses. To return to this world of sadness was no easy act but one story kept leading me forward, demanding to be told and that was of my grandmother, my namesake, Nadifa. An apparently stern and no-nonsense kind of woman, she had been born a nomad in 1908 and had eloped at the age of seventeen with my grandfather, for the rest of her life she traveled where she wanted as free as any man, from the borderlands of Eritrea to Mecca, she pushed aside whatever barriers stood in her way. On her return to Somalia, she wanted to live a quiet life tending to her orchard, reading fortunes in coffee cups, and singing the songs a lifetime of adventure had taught her. It was not to be. A traffic accident left her bed-bound and when the bombardment of the city began she was left abandoned, as were many of Hargeisa’s elderly and disabled residents. I reflected on her fate with guilt, sorrow and most of all anger. The seed of The Orchard of Lost Souls was sown from that reflection, what does war mean when you strip it of machismo and romanticism? What does it mean for elderly women? The disabled? Street girls? What would it have meant for me if we hadn’t left?
That I made the story of the Somali civil war one of women doesn’t mean that it is solely one of men against women; the dictatorship of Siad Barre had a much vaunted policy of sexual equality and many Somali women supported the regime and took part in its abuses. From the local espionage networks to the Women’s Auxiliary Unit in the army they wielded power over perceived enemies of the state. These individuals have been completely overlooked, as are most female perpetrators of violence, but when we are forced to confront them, as we were by Lynddie England’s smirking face in the images from Abu Ghraib, we feel a particular hatred and maybe even betrayal. Although male combatants often return home from war with trophy photos and engage in sexual humiliation of both men and women, the sight of her doing the same enraged people, and it was hard to tell if the condemnation was based on the idea that women are above these cruel acts or if we were unsettled by seeing a female exert that raw power over men. I wanted to investigate that discomfort and ask if women are in essence different to men when it comes to violence, if that desire is present in us however submerged or if, in fact, it’s just another power that we are denied?
The lasting impression I will have from those conversations with my female relatives is that there are no medals for women who show courage, ingenuity, or who sacrifice themselves for others. In the end, my grandmother was rescued by a niece, who braved the bombs, bullets, and mortars falling on their small, provincial city, and brought my grandmother to a place of safety and kept her alive until she was reunited with my uncle in Ethiopia.
Nadifa Mohamed is the author of the new novel The Orchard of Lost Souls
I write further to the letter I received from the Foreign Office (FO) dated 11th November 2013 in response to the letter I addressed to you. That letter was aimed at bringing to your attention to the propensity of the FO misinformation on Somaliland pertaining to terrorism threats. Within the past six months, the FO promulgated twice in the media that Somaliland was facing eminent terrorism threat that had turned out to be incorrect. In the letter I sent to you, I delineated the inappropriate approximation of the FO of the state of Somaliland. With that regards, I had requested to interfere with the FO to desist the production of economically and politically damaging counterintuitive security warning on Somaliland that only aids terrorism.As the FO again issued last month a security threat warning emanating from Somaliland, I am writing to you again to similar request as the misinformation of FO on my native country is cringe at everything that has been achieved in the past twenty two years. I irratively elaborate on the economic and political cost of Britain Foreign Office dissemination of wrongful information on Somaliland – and it argued those security warning had been perplexed us and are impetus to terrorism in the region – In Somaliland terrorism was stemmed out whilst Uganda and Kenya are the most prone to terrorism in the region after Somalia.
Your Excellency, I have been involved in the transition of the Somaliland move from clan based system. In that transition, I was oneof the founders of Somaliland’s first political party that had led the country to move fully fledged democratic system. With this background, I have taken the ownership and responsibility to respond to the FO ineptitude at Somaliland. To that capacity, the FO had been extrapolating the increase in terrorism activities in Somalia to causally link to Somaliland. To this end, the FO did not appear to have learned its pernicious claim to Somaliland stability as it had manifested devoid of knowledge of the state of Somaliland. With this devoid knowledge of FO as I had demystified in my previous letter, it was estimated to have predisposed Somaliland huge economic and political implication. Economically, it cost Somaliland millions in lost revenue and huge employment opportunities. That cost lost to FO misinformation is a foray into Somaliland could compute to be more than the support Britian has provided Somaliland since it reverted its independence from the Somalia i.e. in the past twenty two years. This FO policy on Somaliland is deleterious aggrandisement to Somaliland without substance that and it should have been averted. This is why I am again writing to you directly to the same context to appeal your altruism – to save Somaliland from economic and instability turbulence emanating from FO.
The economy lost out to the FO wrongful information on Somaliland, it could be equated to be in millions of dollars – when the Gunnel Oil exploration, which had signed a year beforean oil exploration deal that was estimated to be hundreds of million dollars hastily withdrawn the country infatuated by the FO security warning. With this conflating with thousands of our people who had lost their money invested in local infrastructure in the regions that Gunned had been expected to carry out its oil exploration. This was further compounded by thousands of Somaliland people who had lost their promised employment opportunity. Our country has a high unemployment rate of estimated to be more than 80%. People of Somaliland cherish Britian for its support that has helped it to become the most stable and democratically advanced country in Africa, which is evident to be the second to none. The late Ethiopian Prime Minister was quoted to have said the democratic system Somaliland achieved was not only an example to Ethiopia but to Africa as a whole.
Far too many Somaliland academics such as me who looked into the FO security warning had found the claim did not hold water when was empirically tested. The question I was going to get an answer from you is -what was made the FO stubborn to issue a security warning on Somaliland that had no correlation to its situation. This does not mean to negate the pernicious claim of FO but all the hard evidence and statistics have pointed out the FO to be inept at the state of Somaliland since it reverted its independence from Somalia. To this end, It was of the empirical answer that FO was mistaken Somaliland to that of Somalia. Those security threats were extrapolative claim the FO had mirrored the situation of the Somaliland whenever there had been an increase in terrorism activities in Somalia. Your Excellency, my people would like your government to desist this deleterious claim by FO as it contextually causing huge economic and political instability in our country. Our people who had lost millions dollars when Gunnel left demanded the government to compensate their losses. It was narrowly avoided violent civil unrest, however, the FO did not appear to conceptualise the implication of the severity of its manifestation of misinformation of my native country.
Our president carried out visits to Somaliland regions across the country in this month, including to areas in the most southern peripheries – and the journey was carried out by land and conducted during the days and nights. This was a message that had been aimed at the FO and the international community that Somaliland does not only have the most advanced democracy in Africa but is the most stable country in Africa. The president’s visit took two weeks and was successfully concluded peacefully. Wherever, he had visited he was acclaimed a hero welcome. He finally returned safely to Hergeisa last week.
Finally,as I have aforementioned being a senior opposition politician and academic, and one of the founder of the first political party that have led Somaliland to the adaption of the multi-party democratic system, I assumed to have provided you an expert knowledge about Somaliland. With this regards, the currents Somaliland government has inherited a fully functioning state. This means, previous governments had put together a strong government institutions and completed the democratisation system fully. This government is expected to create enabling environment to induce economic growth, developments and employment opportunities. If it failed it would not only lose power, but ifopportunities are not created for our unemployed estimated to be more than 80%, it will undermine all what has been achieved for the past twenty years. Somaliland people would love to see Britain helping Somaliland to complete its mission into statehood by supporting to secure international recognition that it has been seeking for the past twenty two years. In conclusion, I hope you will review the FO policy on Somaliland to ensure it does not aid terrorism agendas in Somaliland but to defeat them anywhere in the world.
Mogadishu 26th March 2014- In an operation that lasted three days, Somali National Army backed by African Union forces captured the strategic town of Eel Buur town in Galgaduud region of Somalia.
The joint forces left Galgaduud headquarters, Dhusamareeb three days ago capturing a number of small towns on the way, these include Ceel-lahele, Ceel-Garas and Ceel-Qoxle. Al-Shabaab ambushed the joint forces in several towns in desperate attempts to prevent AMISOM and SNA troops from reaching Eel buur but they were repulsed.
The African Union Special Representative for Somalia Ambassador Mahamat Saleh Annadif said the capture of Eel Buur town is a welcome victory for Somali security forces and AMISOM.
“The joint operation undertaken by AMISOM and SNA is a great achievement worth celebrating. The people in the Galgaduud region can now feel safe and begin to rebuild their lives unencumbered by the Al Shabaab terrorists”.
This is the tenth major town that AMISOM and SNA have liberated since the offensive started a month ago.Yesterday, after 5 days on the road, African Union AMISOM troops and Somali Forces also captured Mahas town located in Galgaduud region.
The NGO BIRI AL-AL-BIRI Charitable Association, founded in 1994, the Republic of Djibouti, administrative dissolved following a political decision by an association that his commitment, selflessness, seriousness, may have the title of ” advisory status to the United Nations. “Unfortunately once again it is the independence and community involvement Djiboutian citizens who are sanctioned by the politico-administrative dissolution.
Moreover, by virtue of its status, Al-Biri Association has always strived to maintain its neutrality and reject any political stance. And yet, this has led repeatedly confrontations with members of the ruling party. Moreover, for the current regime “no salvation outside the party” is the policy of “you’re with us or you’re against us.”
I.The sequence of events
·On 14 February 2013, the Minister of the Interior sent a letter to the NGO Al-Biri in which he criticized the use of the headquarters of the association for political purposes. Immediately, the leaders of the association addressed a letter to the Minister 1 in which they recalled their neutrality and non-interference in the political life of the country.
·5, 6 and 7 August 2013, the President of the Association Mohamoud Robleh Dabar is the subject of an investigation by agents of the SDS (Service of Documentation and Security), a kind of political police whose power often used against opponents.
·September 26, 2013, an order is issued by the Court of First Instance which freezes al-Biri accounts for suspected terrorist activities.
·On 9 October 2013 the director of general administration and regulation of the Ministry of Interior address a letter to the association on the dissolution of the association.
·On 25 December 2013 resignation of the President of the NGO MOHAMOUD ROBLEH DABAR following multiple pressures power.
·January 7, 2013, seized Al-biri fund several local banks (Saba Bank, Salam Bank Dahabshil Bank and the bank BCI-MR) following the order made by the President of the Court of 1eraInstance by a bailiff. The amount of funds provided is $ 32,500,000 FD (thirty two million five hundred thousand francs Djibouti).
·On 8 February 2013, action Broadcast Hassan Aden Aden Aden said Balalo Minister of Muslim Affairs, Culture and Awqaf While announcing the dissolution of the Al-Biri association and the vesting of all the property of the association Diwan Al-Zakat.
II.The school run by the NGO Al-Biri
Al-Biri school offers courses from kindergarten to class 5th Year (equivalent of CM2 in the French curriculum) in French. The school is attended regularly by 265 (two hundred and sixty five) students aged 3 to 11 years.
·Wednesday, February 5, 2014 at around 12:30, the school was raided by police rapid intervention to evacuate the place and padlocked the site of the association. This sad event took place under the eyes of the astonished children and traumatized by the presence of uniformed and armed.
·During the week from Saturday 8 to Thursday, March 13, 2014, management of the school was the victim of a sustained by officials of the Ministry of Muslim Affairs, Culture and Awqaf often accompanied by uniformed police harassment and sometimes weapons. Threats, pressures of all kinds that have outlets Thursday, March 13, 2014 with the arrest of director Abdurahman Ahmed Youssouf school, secretary Aicha Robleh and Musa Hassan, Mohamed Mahamoud, Mahad Ali and Mohamed Hassan with all responsibilities within the NGO or school. Arrested around 9:30 am and detained in 2nd District Police is around 21:30 they were released. The trauma suffered by the children, teachers and the management team during this week will take time to heal.
Why send a police commando in a school?
Why traumatize to develop children and teachers without political commitment?
Why not wait until the end of the year does not create an administrative and educational discontinuity?
The ODDH recommends to comply with the constitutional provisions on the protection of citizens, respect for fundamental freedoms, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as well as ‘the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The ODDH calls once again for an end to harassment and prosecution sympathizers, activists of the opposition but also associations and citizens wrongly or rightly as close to the opposition.
Las Anod-Somaliland Customs agents in Las Anod have confiscated 11 vehicles which were being smuggled into the country by yet-to-be-identified persons without paying the necessary levies to the Ministry of Finance.
“The Vehicles which were comprised of 10 4WD land cruisers vehicles and one mini bus and the number plates and the documents of the smuggled vehicles we have in our custody were all forged or taken off non-functional vehicles with, said the Custom Official.
The Ministry of Finance has in the past warned the general public against buying vehicles from brokers and other agents before verifying them first with Somaliland Custom Authorities as this implies that the buyer will have to pay taxes earlier forfeited by the importer and penalties.
Just recently Custom officers launched an operation in which apprehended a gang of forgers and at the same time confiscating equipment used to forge documents for shady businessmen who were intended on dodges paying taxes in the city of Burao.
Berbera- A consignment of Hi tech security equipment donated by the UK government meant to upgraded local counter terrorism capabilities consisting of X-Ray, Explosive Trace Detection (ETD) and CCTV equipment has arrived in the port of Berbera and will be deployed at the two major airports in the country in the coming few days’ reliable sources have confirmed.
As part of the Government’s approach to counter terrorism (CT), the UK assists key partner nations to improve their CT capabilities. By helping countries to undertake CT activities locally, it targets the problem at source and reduces the risk of a terrorist attack against the UK. The UK is committed to developing counter terrorism capability in the Horn of Africa.
The proposal in this case is to gift security equipment and vehicles to a) the Somaliland Ministry of Civil Aviation and Air Transport to be used at Berbera and Hargeisa Airports, and b) the Somaliland Department of Immigration to use at land/sea/air border crossings to ensure that persons entering/leaving Somaliland pass through robust security and immigration checks, allowing Somaliland authorities to identify and disrupt threats to aviation and border security.
The equipment and vehicles will be gifted alongside a training and mentoring package (which is not part of the gift but also provided by the UK), costing £457,263. The training aims to ensure airport security staff can operate X-Ray, Explosive Trace Detection (ETD) and CCTV equipment; as well as to promote the benefits of a sustainable and compliant civil aviation sector through close mentoring of senior officials and professional development of operational staff.
