Istanbul Dialogue on Somalia
The Effective Institutions Platform (EIP) and the International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding (IDPS) joined different branches of the federal government of Somalia and development partners for the Somalia High Level Partnership Forum held in Istanbul from 23th to 25th February 2016. Development partners and the Somali government expressed interest in maintaining momentum on the use and strengthening of country systems in Somalia. The EIP’s initiative of country dialogues is a useful means to do so.
There is a consensus that development partners and the Somali government have made much progress over the past two years to strengthen security and institutional capacity. Since 2013, the New Deal Compact played a pivotal role in ensuring alignment of Overseas Development Assistance with the International Dialogue’s Peacebuilding and Statebuilding Goals (PSGs) as well as greater Somali ownership. Now the Somalian government has gone a step further clearly articulating a National Plan to build upon recent gains.
In this context, the IDPS and EIP are offering their expertise as a neutral broker, helping to find common ground between development partners and the Somali government on the use and strengthening of country systems. Building upon its experience supporting similar dialogues in Bangladesh and Senegal, the EIP will support different parties to identify how existing benchmarks can become real progress. Other fragile states can learn from Somalia’s encouraging experience through the New Deal Compact—progress that the EIP and IDPS hope to consolidate through their support.