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Parliament
A priority area for future democracy and governance assistance to Somaliland raised by a few
donor representatives interviewed was support to the Somaliland parliament, including capacity
development for members of parliament in the areas of policy/legislation development and
executive oversight. A representative from one donor agency explained:
I think having institutions function in a more professional and efficient manner,
like continuing to build up the capacity of the parliament…that can be more
transparent and accountable and strengthening those oversight functions is also
really critical. You know, one of the major drivers of instability in all of Somalia
has been the lack of transparency and accountability, a sense of corruption, a
sense of impunity, so those parts of the democratic system that can be
strengthened to start to build people’s faith in these institutions again, I think it
has a whole array of ramifications.
In also encouraging parliamentary support programs, one implementing partner explained:
I do think that more work does need to be done with the legislative branch as well
because they are so -- and I think we see this in lots of countries: Donors don’t
want to come in and work with politicians; they’d rather come in and work with
ministries. And so, assistance is so heavily weighted on the side of the executive,
that there’s sort of no point in having a legislative branch, and that’s a problem.
And so, I do think more resources need to be given to the legislative branch,
again, because they should be representing what the views are of their
constituencies outside of Hargeisa and that’s not -- there is no support for that.
So, yes, voices outside just aren’t getting heard.
Finally, an implementing partner encouraged that support to the Somaliland parliament be
directed at members of parliament rather than parliamentary staff as:
The assistance that parliament has been getting has been, perhaps, overly focused
on working with parliamentary staff. And although you think that that might
build the capacity of the institution, I can appreciate why you want to work with
staff as opposed to members of parliament at times, but the problem is because
staff is so poorly paid, there’s a lot of turnover among staff…I think traditional
programming of parliament has overly focused on training staff who then leave
and go somewhere else.
Harmonized Elections
Some donors, despite wanting to broaden the focus of democracy and governance support to
Somaliland beyond elections, included as a priority the need to encourage Somaliland to hold
harmonized elections. Donors, as well as the implementing partners, attributed many of the
challenges faced by Somaliland in holding timely elections to the existing electoral calendar.
For example, one interviewee explained:
They have got to reform their electoral calendar. They cannot keep having
elections every two or three years. It’s just not sustainable. It is way too
expensive…at the very minimum, you can harmonize presidential and
