Briefing: The UN’s integrated mission in Somalia
NAIROBI, 10 May 2013 (IRIN) - Following the unanimous adoption of a UN
Security Council (UNSC)
<
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2013/sc10944.doc.htm> resolution setting
up an integrated mission in Somalia, the UN Assistance Mission in Somalia
(UNSOM) will be set up for an initial one-year period beginning on 3 June;
it will be based in the capital Mogadishu.
The UN defines an integrated mission as one in which there is a shared
vision among all the UN actors at country level.
“This strategic objective is the result of a deliberate effort by all
elements of the UN system to achieve a shared understanding of the mandates
and functions of the various elements of the UN presence at country level
and to use this understanding to maximize
<
http://www.regjeringen.no/upload/UD/Vedlegg/FN/Multidimensional%20and%20Int
egrated/06_DPKO_IMPP_final_.pdf> UN effectiveness, efficiency, and impact in
all aspects of its work,” say the Integrated Mission Planning Guidelines
endorsed in 2006 by the Secretary-General.
According to the resolution, the mission is intended to help Somalia build
on the political gains made over the past year; assist the country to
develop a federal system of government; review its constitution and hold a
constitutional referendum; and facilitate preparations for presidential and
parliamentary elections in 2016.
In addition, UNSOM will “promote respect for human rights and women's
empowerment, promote child protection, prevent conflict-related sexual and
gender-based violence, and strengthen justice institutions.”
UN agencies working in Somalia are expected to move there. Many are
currently based in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital.
In this briefing, IRIN looks at what an integrated approach means for
Somalia.
What is the political, humanitarian situation in Somalia?
Somalia has recently made progress towards stability. In 2012, the country
set up a functioning federal government under the leadership of President
Sheikh Hassan Mohamud, the first such administration since 1990.
However, there continue to be huge political and humanitarian challenges.
Insurgents, who still control parts of the country, continue to launch
deadly attacks regularly, while more than one million Somalis are displaced
due to conflict and drought. One million more have crossed into neighbouring
countries, mainly Kenya and Ethiopia.
A 2013 report published by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
revealed that over
<
http://www.fsnau.org/in-focus/technical-release-study-suggests-258000-somal
is-died-due-severe-food-insecurity-and-famine> 250,000 Somalis, many of them
children under five, died as a result of famine between October 2010 and
April 2012. They were unable to receive any humanitarian assistance, in
part, due to insecurity.
What is UNSOM’s role?
On 6 March 2013 the Security Council had, while partially lifting a
20-year-old
<
http://www.irinnews.org/report/97703/Briefing-The-risks-and-rewards-of-easi
ng-Somalia-s-arms-embargo> arms embargo on Somalia and extending the mandate
of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), for another year, agreed
with the UN Secretary-General that the UN Political Office for Somalia
(UNPOS) had “fulfilled its obligation” and needed to be replaced by an
integrated mission to give the Somali administration “a single door to knock
on”.
“It looks like an ambitious plan and is probably the most significant
engagement in Somalia by the UN in decades,”
The new mission, to be headed by a special representative of the
Secretary-General would include, “the provision of policy advice to the
Federal Government and AMISOM on peace-building and state-building in the
areas of governance, security sector reform and rule of law (including the
disengagement of combatants); development of a federal system (including
preparations for elections in 2016); and coordination of international donor
support.”
All the UN country teams, both political and humanitarian in Somalia, would
be expected, with immediate effect, to coordinate all their activities with
the head of the newly established mission.
The office of the UN humanitarian coordinator for Somalia is expected to
fall under the office of the special representative from the beginning
January 2014.
What now for UNPOS and AMISOM?
With the creation of an integrated mission, UNPOS ceases to exist.
Established in 1995 and headed by a special representative of the
Secretary-General, UNPOS’s role was mainly political, facilitating political
dialogue and peace-building activities. In his
<
http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2013/239> letter to the
UNSC seeking the establishment of an integrated mission in Somalia, the
Secretary-General said UNPOS had fulfilled its mandate and should “be
dissolved and replaced by a new expanded special political mission as soon
as possible”.
The Somalia Federal Government is largely propped up by the 18,000-strong
AMISOM force.
A
<
http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E
4FF96FF9%7D/s_2013_239.pdf> technical assistance mission to Somalia by the
Secretary-General recommended in its report “use of local UN-contracted and
trained security guards, the impending deployment of an AMISOM guard force
in Mogadishu, and reliance on Somali National Security Forces (SNSF). If
these are deemed insufficient, UN Guard Units or international private
security companies could be utilized.”
AMISOM has always been involved in limited
<
http://amisom-au.org/mission-profile/humanitarian-work/> humanitarian
assistance but it is not clear if this will continue with UNSOM.
The UNSC in its resolution, urges the newly appointed special representative
to align closely with other stakeholders in Somalia, including UN country
teams, the federal government, AMISOM, the Intergovernmental Authority for
Development (IGAD), the European Union and “other regional, bilateral and
multilateral partners”.
Experts, say the success of UNSOM will depend on whether it aligns its
operations with the different actors in Somalia, some of whom may have
qualms about sharing their areas of expertise and/or influence.
“The number of pivotal actors dealing with Somalia has increased as of late,
not least as new donors have come in and stepped up their support. Hence, if
the international community is serious about UNSOM and would like to see it
fulfil its mandate, actors need to be aligned behind UNSOM,” Dominik
Balthasar, an expert on Somalia at Chatham House, told IRIN. “Yet, this
might possibly be a hard bullet to bite for other actors such as AMISOM or
IGAD, as the participation of UNSOM is likely to restrict the roles they
have played thus far.”
Abdi Aynte, executive director of the <
http://heritageinstitute.org>
Heritage Institute for Policy Studies (HIPS), a Mogadishu-based think tank,
said: “With respect to its relations with AMISOM, the hope is that they
become mutually reinforcing [and] not mutually exclusive [since] AMISOM is
widely viewed positively.”
What are the merits of UNSOM?
UNSOM will merge the UN’s humanitarian and political operations in Somalia,
providing an opportunity to harness the operational capacities of the many
agencies into a single mission.
“It looks like an ambitious plan and is probably the most significant
engagement in Somalia by the UN in decades,” Cedric Barnes, director, Horn
of Africa programmes at the International Crisis Group, told IRIN.
HIPS’s Aynte said the integrated mission will provide a single international
community narrative on Somalia, something he says the Somalis have wanted
for a long time.
A unification of the development and humanitarian pillars in Somalia, others
have argued, would help marshal the much-needed international funding to
remedy the situation in Somalia while also “creating coherence and unifying
strategies”.
Elmi Ahmed Duale, Somalia’s ambassador to the UN, described the resolution
as important and said it had ensured “there was only “one door” to knock on,
“as opposed to fragmented approaches in coordinating assistance”.
According to ICG’s Barnes, this will be dependent on how much the government
is willing to cede in the new engagement.
“It would be interesting to see how this will play out with a government
that might want to assert authority while at the same time fronting the
issue of sovereignty,” Barnes added.
The fact that Al Shabab is listed as a terrorist group has made it difficult
for many humanitarian agencies to have an engagement with it, at least for
the purposes of offering humanitarian assistance in areas still under the
group’s control.
Why the dissenting voices against UNSOM?
Humanitarians have voiced their concerns against merging humanitarian
operations with political and military activities, arguing it would make
their work in Somalia difficult as it runs the risk of delegitimizing
humanitarian actors.
“As many Somalis continue to struggle to obtain the basic necessities for
survival, such as food, health care, and protection from violence,
humanitarian assistance must remain a priority and it must remain completely
independent of any political agenda,” Jerome Oberreit, secretary-general of
Médecins Sans Frontières, said in a
<
http://www.msf.org.uk/article/somalia-humanitarian-aid-must-not-be-co-opted
> statement.
“The humanitarian aid system must not be co-opted as an implementing partner
of counter-insurgency or stabilization efforts in Somalia,” he added.
In March,
<
http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/131669840?access_key=key-axjqq1wp5tlwu7r4v
iw> InterAction, The International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA) and
Voluntary Organizations in Cooperation in Emergencies (VOICE), said in a
joint statement that the decision risked jeopardizing the delivery of
impartial humanitarian assistance in the country: “By requiring UN
humanitarian coordination to fall under the political mandate of the new UN
peace-building mission in Somalia, the neutrality, impartiality and
independence of humanitarian action will be compromised.”
Russel Geekie, public information officer at the UN Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Somalia office, said: “The integration
should not hamper the delivery of aid. In its most recent resolution on
Somalia (SC resolution 2102, which follows up on 2093), the Security Council
reiterated that impartial, neutral and independent humanitarian assistance
must be ensured, wherever those in need are.”
According Chatham House’s Balthasar, integrating humanitarian operations
into the broader politico-military stabilization plans “runs the risk of
constraining humanitarian space, but that this does not necessarily need to
be the case. Moreover, it should not be forgotten that humanitarian aid has
always been political and that it has frequently been instrumentalized by a
wide variety of actors - not least by those who oppose the government.” With
an eye towards the dynamics surrounding humanitarian space in Somalia, he
added that ever since Al Shabab had been put on the back foot, humanitarian
actors who had become accustomed to negotiating with the insurgents to
deliver humanitarian aid lacked clarity over who was in control and how to
safely deliver aid.
“Basically, the political situation on the ground appears to have become
more, rather than less, complicated. In this situation, devising an
integrated mission might not be the worst of all options for the sake of
prioritizing stability and the establishment of functioning structures of
governance,” he added.
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Received on Fri May 10 2013 - 16:34:47 EDT
