The Effects of War and Peace on Foreign Aid in Somalia

1. Introduction

Since the early 1990s, scholars have recognized that violent conflict in Somalia has had profoundly adverse effects on the country’s development. In 1994, a UN Special Report commented on the difficulty in applying traditional development assistance in post-conflict environments such as Somalia, where the foundations for effective policy – the state, the society and the economy – were largely absent. For decades, Somalia has been the prime example of liberal peacebuilding, a form of development practice that theorizes peace as the primary condition for the success of aid and governance programs. Paradoxically, the authors argue, this focus on peace may be perpetuating a clientelist political economy that has been identified as one of the key barriers to political progress in the country. Although the theoretical prospects of this work have been realized to some extent, in that the focus on peace status as the indicator of success and failure in Somalia has resulted in political inclusivity being sidelined in favor of a power devolution model based on Western democratic ideology. This situation arises due to the shift towards ‘hybrid’ Western-led peace missions in recent years, the authors argue, and has significant implications because the limited levels of political legitimacy found at local level has been recognized as one of the key factors contributing to the failure of peacebuilding in Somalia. The report also provides preliminary account of the perils of such an approach for the current UK political situation, in that the lack of legitimacy in the ruling structure of Somalia has been identified by Al-Shabaab as a major recruitment tool. Such a case study offers policymakers a unique demonstration of the importance at local, societal level of the kind of political engagement that this paper is calling for on an international scale. I hope to answer this question, given a range of political actions and theories.

1.1 Background

The instability caused by the collapse of the Somali state in 1991 has led to a protracted and brutal civil war, which continues to devastate the country today. Somalia is widely regarded as one of the most extreme examples of a complex humanitarian emergency. This is a critical concept that will be explored in this report – it is defined by the United Nations as ‘a humanitarian crisis in a country, region or society where there is total collapse of authority, where there is no government and no institutions, and most people cannot live a normal life’. However, providing effective aid for over 25 years of conflict and in such a complex contested environment presents numerous and formidable challenges for aid workers, leading to significant policy and operational debates vis-a-vis foreign aid programmes in the country. These have been the focus of increasing attention in the region over recent years. In particular, the literature has explored the assumptions that aid agencies work under in such environments, the impacts of security concerns and the links to the wider global ‘war on terror’, and questions of how localised knowledge and the participation of Somali civil society in aid projects can be integrated into programme designs. Also, the effectiveness of aid programmes in relation to the shifts in the political and military strategies of the international community has been questioned. This has given rise to what has been described as a ‘political approach’ to the study of international aid influence. This represents a conceptual challenge to some accepted notions that aid leads the prospects for and direction of development. Also, this approach draws attention to the role played by aid in defining the agendas and actions of states in the international system.

1.2 Purpose

The main purpose of this study is to assess the impact of the war on terror that began in 2001 on the effectiveness of foreign aid in Somalia. The study seeks to establish whether the increased allocation of aid to volatile countries with weak governments made these countries safer or whether it encouraged more war and violence. From the current conflict in Somalia, the study will try to model the situation in the less to moderately conflict-affected world countries to see whether an increase in foreign aid different results in terms of stabilizing a situation when the conflict duration changes. The study will also seek to find out whether any additional controls could be carried out in the less to moderately affected countries to better understand the effect of different types of aid in different conflict duration. The findings will also help in understanding the current situation in Somalia and it is going to be a guide on what is supposed to be done in the war on terror. The study will help government, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other stakeholders in coming up with effective foreign aid strategies and policies in war on terror affected countries.

1.3 Scope

In chapter 1.3, the focus is on explaining what is meant by foreign aid as “the voluntary transfer of resources from one country to another.” It also explains the types of foreign aid, which are military or defense aid, emergency humanitarian aid (food, medicine, shelter, etc., given in response to a disaster), bilateral aid (one country directly giving aid to another), and multilateral aid (countries or organizations pooling contributions into a larger fund). The chapter goes on to argue how it is important to consider the “potential for aid to become politicized and the damaging effects this can have.” This is developed further in chapter 1.6, where it is explained how aid can sometimes be used as a political tool in support of a friendly government, to the detriment of the recipient’s “right to development.” This notion of aid being used for ulterior motives is furthered by chapter 1.8, which discusses different ‘theoretical perspectives’ on what motivates foreign aid. For instance, it explores whether or not aid is given in pursuit of economic development or could be used to maintain ‘relative power’, concluding that both explanations are plausible. Lastly, the scope of the chapter and what the rest of the report is going to focus on is summed up in chapter 1.9. It is made clear that the remainder of the report is focused upon understanding the underlying causal links between poverty and the effects of the ‘global system’. In other words, the rest of the essay is trying to identify how the various factors presented in chapter 1.4 (the ‘vicious circle’ described above) interact with one another to produce and maintain levels of poverty.

2. Historical Context of War in Somalia

2.1 Causes of Conflict

2.2 Duration and Impacts

2.3 International Intervention

3. Impact of War on Foreign Aid

3.1 Disruption of Infrastructure

3.2 Humanitarian Crisis

3.3 Decreased Economic Stability

4. Role of Peacebuilding Efforts

4.1 Peacekeeping Missions

4.2 Reestablishing Governance

4.3 Rebuilding Infrastructure

5. Challenges in Providing Foreign Aid

5.1 Security Concerns

5.2 Corruption and Mismanagement

5.3 Lack of Coordination

6. International Organizations and Foreign Aid

6.1 United Nations Assistance

6.2 World Bank Initiatives

6.3 Non-Governmental Organizations

7. Case Studies on Foreign Aid in Somalia

7.1 Humanitarian Aid Distribution

7.2 Development Projects

7.3 Capacity Building Programs

8. Evaluation of Foreign Aid Effectiveness

8.1 Impact on Poverty Alleviation

8.2 Sustainable Development Goals

8.3 Lessons Learned

9. Conclusion

9.1 Summary of Findings

9.2 Recommendations for Future Aid Strategies