Somalia.org: Why it takes forever to rebuild a state?

Twenty-five years after the Arta Conference, Somalia remains just as divided as it was then. It still poses a security threat to the region and the world. It continues to rely on foreign aid to operate its basic institutions. It has yet to let the people elect their leaders. Yet the state-building project has continued to expand over that time.

You might wonder why, after twenty-five years of state-building, this process hasn’t resulted in a stable state. The answer lies within the state-building project itself. It is to blame for the current political situation — a fragile, fragmented, foreign-reliant state.

It’s not because regional nations or the international community intentionally sought this outcome. I don’t hold that cynical view. On the contrary, these states would be better off with a stable Somalia. It is because they viewed statelessness in Somalia solely as a security issue. Thus, they thought that merging warring factions and sharing power along tribal lines would naturally create a functioning state. And all that was left was to oversee the process.

The solution seemed appealing. The conflict involved a group of warlords competing for resources through tribal identity politics. It then made sense to develop a tribal formula that allowed them to share resources. That is precisely what has been implemented in Arta and Mbagathi.

However, unforeseen at the time was the possibility that the warring factions would also fight over the state-building project as an additional resource. Indeed, that is exactly what happened. The past twenty-five years have mostly been spent fighting over the project of rebuilding Somalia rather than actually rebuilding the country. The top concern for most actors has been gaining a stake in Somalia.org — the project — rather than finding a solution for Somalia.

This fight has gone through several phases. Initially, it appeared as recurring disagreements between the president and the prime minister. It then shifted to conflicts between the federal government and the federal member states. More recently, it has devolved into conflict among warring federal lords as consensus over the project itself has diminished. To understand how we ended up here, we need to revisit the history of the state-building project and its foundations.

The state-building project was conceived at the Arta Conference in 2000. It is based on a simple yet effective power-sharing formula of 4.5. According to this formula, citizens are grouped into four main clans, each with an equal number of seats, plus minor clans that receive half the seats allotted to each major clan. For example, out of the current 275 seats in the lower house, the House of the People, each major clan is allocated 61 seats. This means the four major clans together hold 244 seats, with the remaining 31 seats distributed among the minor clans.

The Arta Conference, which mainly focused on civil society, lacked participation from key actors including Puntland, Somaliland, and prominent warlords in the South. The absence of these vital players weakened TNG's legitimacy and effectiveness

The 4.5 power-sharing formula was not the only outcome of the Arta Conference. A transitional charter, a transitional national government (TNG), and an assembly were also results. However, the formula was the only part of the Arta Conference to survive after the IGAD initiative reshaped the Somali state-building project two years later.

The Arta Conference, which mainly focused on civil society, lacked participation from key actors including Puntland, Somaliland, and prominent warlords in the South. The absence of these vital players weakened TNG's legitimacy and effectiveness. Consequently, the transitional government and the state-building project were nearing collapse.

IGAD had to act quickly to resolve the crisis. It brought together the transitional government, opposition warlords, and Puntland in Mbagathi in 2002. After two years of dialogue, the conference established a transitional federal government (TFG), a transitional federal charter, and a parliament with seats allocated according to the Arta 4.5 power-sharing formula.

The expectation was that the TFG would have a better chance of survival. This was because of three main reasons. First, unlike the TNG, the TFG included all warlords. Now that they all had a stake in power, it was reasonable to believe that the state was more likely to endure.

Second, the federal system was viewed as more promising for stability. Since each warlord controlled part of the land, the federal system allowed them to maintain their territories while participating in the national government. It also eased concerns among key players, such as Puntland, who feared that a central government would revert the country back to dictatorship. They also argued that a central system would reduce the chances of Somaliland's return to the republic.

Third, the TFG was a product of regional consensus. All frontline states were involved in the process. Ethiopia and Djibouti, which were on opposite sides, each had nearly equal influence on the conference's outcome. For these reasons, the belief was that this time the results would produce a state that would last longer.

Unfortunately, that expectation did not come true. Within months of gaining power, the government split into two opposing factions — mainly the executive branch on one side and Parliament on the other. And within two years, it faced a serious challenge from the local insurgency of the Islamic Union of Courts, which had strengthened its control of the capital by June 2006.

Ethiopia intervened to support the TFG. An AU security mission replaced Ethiopian forces in 2007. That mission is approaching its second decade in about a year and a half, with no signs of ending. The federal government asked for a stop to troop withdrawal roughly a year ago. Somalia is still not capable of securing itself.

The Mbagathi TFG ended in 2008 when the president resigned. To form a new government, Somalis returned to Djibouti once again. A new TFG government was established by early 2009, and it completed its term as the last transitional government in 2012. The next three governments were set up within Somalia.

However, Somali political issues still remain a regional concern. In fact, more influence from regional and international players — ranging from Kampala to Abu Dhabi to Ankara — is now at play. While political leaders align themselves with these different powers, the people are left out of the entire process.

This state-building project, however, is now at a critical juncture. Somali stakeholders have lost consensus on its core principles: the federal system and the charter. More importantly, the international community is becoming more hesitant to provide funding. Instead, regional powers support opposing sides, whether the federal government, the member states, or other non-state actors.

The past twenty-five years have weakened the Somalis’ ability to resolve issues among themselves. Unless luxury flights and hotels are involved, political leaders hesitate to gather.

As a result, we face two scenarios. The more probable one is a fragmented state. In a way, we are already there, as at least five de facto states exist within the country. However, this division has largely been cost-free so far. Each state’s control and influence have been limited to its territory. That status quo, however, is about to change.

The concerns are both domestic and regional. The federal government has already engaged in multiple rounds of armed clashes with Jubbaland. These clashes are likely to intensify, especially given the increase in arms since the embargo was lifted less than two years ago. Puntland, according to reliable sources, is heavily involved as a logistics hub in the Sudanese civil war.

What mainly makes this scenario even more likely is the current world order. Superpowers and regional powers are increasingly engaging in international politics as it is, not as it should be. In other words, sovereignty is gone. It has been replaced by an understanding among international and regional powers on how to divide spheres of influence within weak states. Syria is a recent example. Sudan is not far behind. And Somalia is probably next.

This realpolitik approach to global politics is partly driven by fierce competition for oil and rare earth minerals. However, the international community has also realized that states cannot be built — they are only born.

This leads me to the less likely scenario: pursuing an internally driven state-building project. The models for such state-building are nearby. Both Somaliland and Puntland's state-building processes adopted a bottom-up approach. They began with reconciliation efforts involving not just the warring factions but also ordinary people. The result was a political model that fostered a sense of belonging among the people.

This scenario is less likely because the past twenty-five years have weakened the Somalis’ ability to resolve issues among themselves. Unless luxury flights and hotels are involved, political leaders hesitate to gather. However, that period has ended. Unless we sit face-to-face under a tree like our ancestors did, we will remain stuck with the first scenario for the next twenty-five years and beyond.