June 13, 2018 | Daily Monitoring Report
Somali President Urges Religious Leaders To Help Avert The Spread Of Al-Shabaab’s Ambition
13 June – Source: Halbeeg News – 210 Words
Somali clerics should play their role to preach against Al-Shabaab and it’s ideology, President Farmaajo said on Tuesday night. The government of Somali has stepped up its efforts around the country to stop young people from joining Al-Shabaab fighters. In a meeting with the top religious leaders, President Farmaajo said, the country needs to fix the conditions that promotes the spread of Al-Shabaab, and deny the groups ability to put down its ideology.
The president called on the clerics to cement their relationship with the public, to avert the spread of Al-Shabaab’s ambition within the public. President Farmaajo said, the cooperation between the government and the religious leaders is fundamental for the annihilation of the terrorists and their ideologies. “The terrorists normally take advantage when there is lack of cooperation between the religious and the civil society leaders. Therefore you have to jointly shade light on the fight against Al-Shabaab,” said the president.
The president said the group will not be defeated by military force, law enforcement measures and intelligence operations alone. “To defend our religion, our clerics must point and call out those ill characters. A commitment to one’s religion beliefs should provide a feeling of moral duty and responsibility to assist authorities in counterterrorism efforts,” the president said.
Key Headlines
- Somali President Urges Religious Leaders To Help Avert The Spread Of Al-Shabaab’s Ambition (Halbeeg News)
- National Electoral Body Sends Warning To Political Parties (Jowhar.com)
- Somaliland Fishermen Out Of Work After Cyclone Sagar Destroyed Boats And Cold Stores (Radio Ergo)
- Chinese Envoy Tours Health Facility For Somali Children (Xinhua)
- Development Programs Can Help Reduce Political Violence (War On The Rocks)
NATIONAL MEDIA
National Electoral Body Sends Warning To Political Parties
13 June – Source: Jowhar.com – 170 Words
The Chairperson of the National Independent Electoral Commission (NIEC), Halima Ismail Ibrahim has sent a stern warning to registered political parties in the country. Halima warned that political parties which don’t set up offices and work as genuine political parties will lose their accreditation. “Any party that is confirmed to have no physical presence or doesn’t operate as a genuine political party will lose its registration certificate,” she warned.
“The political parties are required to build their institutions properly, but when a political party doesn’t open offices, it shows it cannot establish a genuine government,” she said. She said the electoral authorities will soon inspect all the offices of the registered parties and any party that is considered to be unfit to run as a party will be revoked of its certificate.” Up to 15 parties have registered with the NIEC, with many of them allegedly run by few individuals. It is expected that the political party system will replace the current clan-based power-sharing system in the upcoming 2020 elections.
Somaliland Fishermen Out Of Work After Cyclone Sagar Destroyed Boats And Cold Stores
12 June – Source: Radio Ergo – 354 Words
Around 3,500 fishermen in Somaliland have been put out of a living by the tropical cyclone Sagar that struck northern parts of Somalia on 18 May. Fishermen in Lughaya, Berbera, Sayla, Laasqoray and El-Sheikh are struggling to feed their families after losing equipment and the damage of infrastructure. Ali Hussein Nur, director of Somaliland’s ministry of pastoralism and fishing, said four large fish cold storage facilities in Lughaya had been destroyed in the storms. The deputy chairman of the fishermen association in Lughaya, Awil Hussein, said their 1,500 members had seen their income slashed.
Feysal Ali Sheikh, director of Somaliland’s disaster preparedness and food storage agency, said 53 fishermen who were out at sea when the storm came had made narrow escapes. Their boats were destroyed whilst the men were saved by the coast guards. Feysal said the government had issued warnings to stay away from the ocean two days prior to the cyclone. However, the fishermen continued to go out to fish. Feysal said he asked the regional administration to send out the coast guard to save fishermen stranded some 200 metres offshore as the storm increased.
Mohamud Farah Ali, a fisherman in Las-qoray, Sanaag region, and a father of five, normally earns $6 a day from fishing. His family is currently buying food on credit from the stores. Mohamud and two others were saved off Laasqoray coast. He told Radio Ergo they were powerless to navigate their way back to the shore due to the high winds. After two hours in the rain and storm, the coast guard came to their rescue.
Some families dependent on fishing are now relying on aid handouts from Somaliland and Djibouti, as well as from UN agencies including UNICEF and WFP. Hussein Ibrahim Rayaale lost his house in the storm and is sheltering with his four children under plastic sheeting given out by UNICEF. He said they lost all their belongings. Awil Hussein, deputy chairman of the fishermen’s association in Lughaya, told Radio Ergo they have not calculated the losses caused by the cyclone. They are working to rebuild the fish storage facilities.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Chinese Envoy Tours Health Facility For Somali Children
13 June – Source: Xinhua – 248 Words
Chinese Ambassador to Somalia Qin Jian on Tuesday visited China-funded health facility in Mogadishu’s Wadajir district where about 15,000 Somali children are receiving medical care. The Mother to Child Care project run by the UN children’s fund (UNICEF) benefited from 2 million U.S. dollar donation from the Chinese government. Speaking during the tour, Qin reiterated his government’s support to Somali people, adding that Beijing has also given donations worth 1.5 million dollars to people whose lives were affected by floods in the country in May.
The Chinese envoy commended UNICEF officials in the country for effectively utilizing the money. “We are supporting Somali development projects, humanitarian assistance, peace and also giving out scholarships,” Qin said during the tour of the facility. UNICEF Deputy Representative to Somalia Jesper Moller thanked the Chinese government for the donation towards the construction of the health facility.
Moller noted that the project has benefited 1,500 children who were initially suffering from malnutrition since inception. “We are very happy and proud of our relationship with the Chinese government that will go a long way in helping save lives of children in the country,” he said and appreciated the good working relationship with the Chinese government.
According to Mohamed Ahmed, a Medical Coordinator at the health facility, the newly refurbished center treated 35,356 children last year. “We screened a total of 34,784 children, 1,422 children were treated with severe malnutrition and 74 were hospitalized last year,” Ahmed said.
OPINION, ANALYSIS & CULTURE
“Our research found that those enrolled in the secondary education program in Somaliland were 16 percent less likely to have actually used violence for a political cause. By decreasing social isolation, secondary school enrollment in Somalia seemed to protect youth against recruitment by armed groups.”
Development Programs Can Help Reduce Political Violence
13 June – Source: War On The Rocks – 1212 Words
Maintaining a critical eye toward development programs — particularly those with the explicit intent to counter violent extremism — is important, especially given the dearth of rigorous research analyzing their impact over the short and long term. In a recent article in War on the Rocks, Jessica Trisko Darden uses research from our global organization, Mercy Corps, to convey the flaws inherent to development programs seeking to counter violent extremism.
We commend Trisko Darden for pushing those seeking to counter violent extremism to be more self-reflective and to ensure that development programs do not exacerbate the very issues they seek to address. Yet, we find her characterization of our research incomplete and in some cases inaccurate. We stand by the conclusions offered in recent Mercy Corps reports on Somalia and Afghanistan: Under certain circumstances, development interventions can decrease support for political violence.
We want to correct the record regarding the original program goals, the intent of the research, and the findings themselves. To build her argument, Trisko Darden highlights our research findings related to two programs that Mercy Corps implements—the Somali Youth Learners Initiative, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the INVEST program in Kandahar, Afghanistan, funded by the State Department (not by the United States Institute for Peace, as her article states).
It is important to note that neither the Somali youth program nor INVEST are development programs with an original, explicit objective or strategy to counter violent extremism or to prevent youth radicalization. The Somali program reflects USAID’s broader development agenda in Somalia, which prioritizes job opportunities, particularly for youth. The INVEST program sought to improve the employability of vulnerable, displaced Afghan youth in Kandahar through technical vocational training.
In Kandahar, we also studied cash transfers, a short-term economic intervention that humanitarian organizations use to help displaced communities globally. We sought to test the effects of cash transfers and the INVEST program by asking whether these programs might also reduce support for political violence rather than against their original intended economic goal. Many countering violent extremism programs have focused on vocational training, and our research partners wanted to add in the additional element of cash, an immediate and relative less expensive economic solution, to the study.
We are committed to transparency in our research — presenting both the positive and negative findings from these studies. Trisko Darden’s article, however, only highlights findings that align with her argument that countering violent extremism programs are ineffective or harmful, while overlooking results that suggest these programs’ potential to reduce support for violence. For instance, her article highlights that the provision of cash in Kandahar by itself increased relative support for armed opposition groups such as the Taliban (by roughly 4.5 percent).
Yet the more important point is the central finding of that study: The combination of cash and vocational training reduced relative support for armed opposition groups by nearly four times that affect (a reduction of 17 percent). With regards to the youth program that we implement in Somaliland, Trisko Darden incorrectly states that the secondary education program provided in the semi-autonomous Somaliland region of Somalia, made youth less likely to use violence in personal disputes – there was no statistically significant effect.
She is correct, however, in reporting our finding that providing secondary education to youth in Somaliland did increase their self-reported support for political violence. We carefully evaluated these findings when they came out two years ago and arrived at a preliminary analysis based on our field research to explain them – it seems that as Somaliland youth became more educated, they had higher expectations for their future and became dissatisfied with their government’s ability to respond to their needs.
TOP TWEETS
@DalsanFM: A Former State Minister Of Finance Warns Government Against Printing New Currencyhttps://www.
@SRSGKeatingGreat that five new political parties registered yesterday with the @NIECsomalia bringing the total parties registered to 15. Positive step towards inclusive elections in#Somalia2020
@JeanNteziman: @StatsSweden’s DG Joakim Stymne continues his visit to Kenya & Somalia. Meeting on Tuesday w/#WorldBankSomalia & @SwedeninSomalia in #Nairobi. Fruitful discussions with a clear commitment to work together for statistics in #Somalia. @mpfsomalia @Abdullahi_Aress@StefaniKenya
@HarunMaruf: A new report by NRC says counterterrorism measures limit organisations’ ability to deliver aid according to needs alone, and oblige them to avoid certain groups and areas, therefore needs in some areas are unmet as aid groups limit work to govt-held areas.
@DalsanFM: The spirit of charity is in the air in #Mogadishu. A surprise treat for 187 orphans at the Pizza House and were later gifted with Eid goodies plus $30 each. This was a citizen initiative by @Zahraqoranne @HajiWarabe and others. #EidUlFitr2018
@taakulosom: The remote #IDP #settlements of Ali Awed and Jameecadka Caynaanshe initially had no access to health assistance. Thanks to #funding from @shf_somalia the communities now have access to health care through two trained mobile health & nutritional teams.
#SustainSomaliSupport
@DrBeileh: Ramadan is an opportunity to reflect on what we have achieved& consider what more WE can DO together to ensure our collective progress.We are working towards a fiscally sustainable future @MofSomalia to finance our needs &aspirations thru difficult reforms. Collective effort key.
@StatsSweden: Good discussions on Statistical cooperation in Mogadishu. Director General Joakim Stymne meeting with Minister Gamal Mohamed Hassan and PS Abdi Dirshe. In the company of Sweden’s Ambassador to Somalia Andreas von Uexküll @AUexkull @SwedeninSomalia @DNS_MoPIED
IMAGE OF THE DAY
Prime Minister, Hassan Ali Khaire with senior government officials visited Criminal Investigation Department on his impromptu tour at government agencies across the city.
Photo: @SomaliPM