“Urban food systems governance and poverty in African cities” 
(edited by Jane Battersby and Vanessa Watson, published by Routledge)
and 
“Tomatoes & taxi ranks: running our cities to fill the food gap” 
(by Leonie Joubert and the Consuming Urban Poverty team, published by African Centre for Cities)

Both  books are free to download at http://www.tomatoesandtaxiranks.org.za/the-book/

Speakers:

Dr. Jane Battersby (senior researcher, African Centre for Cities; research co-ordinator of the ESRC/DFID-funded ‘Consuming Urban Poverty’ project)

Prof. Stephen Agong (Vice Chancellor of Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology, Kenya)

Chair: Prof. Vanessa Watson (University of Cape Town and African Centre for Cities)

About “Urban food systems governance and poverty in African cities”: As Africa urbanises and the focus of poverty shifts to urban centres, there is an imperative to address poverty in African cities…This book argues that an examination of the food system and food security provides a valuable lens to interrogate urban poverty. Chapters examine the linkages between poverty, urban food systems and local governance with a focus on case studies from three smaller or secondary cities: Kisumu (Kenya), Kitwe (Zambia) and Epworth (Zimbabwe).

About “Tomatoes & taxi ranks: running our cities to fill the food gap”: Despite their apparent abundance of resources, our cities often leave the urban poor hungry, heavy, and sick. This book isn’t really about the food that most people eat in Africa’s cities, though. Rather, it’s about the many forces that shape the day-to-day choices that people make as they try to survive close to the breadline, and how that expresses itself through the food they eat. It debunks some of the stubborn misconceptions about how cities keep themselves well fed and well nourished, and considers how to create a more sustainable and equitable urban food system, particularly for those struggling to make ends meet.

You can listen to the presentations and Q&A via the podcast below. Introduction by Vanessa Watson (1.00 mins), Jane Battersby (6.20 mins), Stephen Agong (22.50 mins), Jane Battersby on making the books freely downloadable (40.55 mins), Q&A (46.05 mins).

The slides to accompany the presentations are below. Photographs are by courtesy of Samantha Reinders (https://www.samreinders.com/)

The post Launch of ‘Tomatoes and taxi ranks’ and ‘Urban food systems governance and poverty in African cities’ appeared first on Africa Research Institute.

Michael Walls (chief observer), Susan Mwape, Ahmed Farag, Conrad Heine, Carrie Goggin, Andrea Klingel

Some of the photographs on display in the exhibition “Somaliland Decides” by Kate Stanworth/ Saferworld

The post Launch of Somaliland International Observation Mission final report appeared first on Africa Research Institute.

Q & A session – from 50.00 mins mark on the podcast

The post Somaliland – the presidential election and after appeared first on Africa Research Institute.

Key points made by Dr Abah are set out below. For those who would like to read the full lecture, it can be accessed here.

Institutions matter, but people matter more

What Africa needs is strong leaders – politically, intellectually and morally – that can copy from anywhere in the world and “paste-special” in Africa, and who are strong enough to develop unique solutions that can urgently catalyse a new set of institutions on the continent. China has done what works for China. Africa must find solutions that work for Africa, while learning from the experiences of others.

Reforming the reforms

“Reform” means different things to different people. At BPSR, we chose an outcome-focused approach. Its guiding principle is “the primary purpose of all public service reforms must be tangible improvements in the public services experienced by citizens. Everything else is an input.” Focusing public sector reforms on what the citizen experiences when they come into contact with government has neatly sidestepped a number of interminable debates. For instance, are public servants in many developing countries paid so little because they are useless? Or are they useless because they are paid so little? It is a fairly straightforward approach: “Your mandate is to issue licenses/ passports. Can we have it please? You can go and sort out the internal issues of economy, efficiency, performance management, incentives and sanctions that would make it possible for me to receive my license/ passport. I just want it now!”

“Activists” in government

BPSR has publicly promised improvements on behalf of others, based on their mandates and without their prior agreement, and used that pressure from within to bring about a turnaround in service delivery outcomes for citizens. In doing this our approach was never to embarrass, except where absolutely necessary to counter recalcitrance, but to offer support by holding up a mirror to the organisation to look at itself, bringing the voice of citizens to their attention, providing an independent process map for reform, and helping with “quick-and-dirty” business process reengineering and de-bottlenecking. We escalated the importance of agencies and parastatals in delivering public goods, an area that has been largely ignored while previous reforms focused on the reform of the civil service itself.

Leading by example

For two consecutive years, BPSR beat more than 200 organisations to emerge as the most transparent organisation in Nigeria in terms of procurement practices, as assessed by civil society. It was the first agency of government to publicly defend its budget proposals on live radio and social media. This credibility is important for any person or organisation driving reforms. It shows, above all else, that these things are possible and gives other would be reformers something to aim for.

The role of technology

Where they work well, public services just work, impersonally and predictably. It should be as easy as putting a stamp on an envelope and having it delivered without begging, bribing or relying on a highly-placed contact. To achieve this, it is helpful to make greater use of the impersonality and predictability that technology provides. Apart from improving processes and making them cheaper, technology helps to constrain corruption and to assure sustainability. Promoting the use of biometrics and consolidation of government-held information makes government records cleaner. Ensuring that payments are made online makes extortion more difficult. Technology also provides a clear audit trail.

Engaging citizens

It is important to engage the public and carry them along in any reform effort. Making a deliberate effort to overcome the cynicism in the mind of the public is as important as undertaking the reforms themselves. Social media channels like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube provide the reformer with immediate and direct access to his or her audience. Of course, using social media in this way comes with certain responsibilities. The immediacy, directness and cost-free nature with which information can be conveyed about reform efforts is the same immediacy and directness with which reform actions and motives can be questioned. It therefore takes experience, tenacity and supreme patience to win over the public, many of whom are engaging anonymously and would treat any senior government official they can engage directly with cynicism. BPSR has deployed online media to great effect in driving change and has successfully encouraged a number of government organisations to become more responsive to citizens using these platforms.

Political and technical will

Even political will at the highest level is sometimes not enough. In the case of agency reform, President Buhari himself has publicly stated his wish to reduce the number of agencies and parastatals. However, without activating the structures necessary to drive this work on agency reform, not much can be achieved. When political will is lacking, it is still possible to use the law, public demand for better performance, “technical” will at other organisations and publicity to achieve goals.

Getting the best out of donors

In seeking to intelligently manage technical assistance to the reform effort, BPSR sought to break from the mould of letting donors dictate the agenda and set the pace. It developed its work plans by carrying out surveys on what reforms should be focused on each year. This had the effect of ensuring that donor support was not “balkanised” and resources not dissipated. It ensured that resources and efforts were applied to the areas of greatest need by the recipients of the aid.

20 lessons from reforming Nigeria’s public sector

1. There is no silver bullet for reforms
2. Reforms are intensely political in nature
3. Leadership by example matters, both at the political and technical levels
4. Reforms tailored to the local context have a better chance of success
5. Even in the most difficult institutional environment, it is possible to achieve better delivery of public goods
6. Institutions matter but people matter more
7. “Activist” organisations within government can trigger change when their activism converges with demand-side accountability from the public
8. Periodically, there is a need to reform the reforms
9. Credibility, integrity and transparency are key requirements for reform drivers
10. Public support helps to nurture reforms to maturity and protect them from “infant mortality”
11. Both a whole-of-government approach and a problem-driven approach are needed
12. Political will is a necessary but insufficient condition for driving reforms
13. “Technical will” is a viable option in the absence of political will
14. Formal rules and laws alone are not enough to change behaviour, but ‘Establishment Acts’ setting out organisational mandates can be used to hold government bodies to account
15. Efficiency is important but effectiveness resonates more with the public
16. Copying and pasting models blindly from elsewhere does not work. Better to copy and “paste special” to local conditions
17. Drawing the public’s gaze on to an underperforming government organisation can help to trigger change
18. Technology can improve processes, curb corruption and enhance the prospects for sustainability
19. Donor support, properly and intelligently managed, can help
20. Africa is different but the same as the rest of the world

Here is the podcast of the event:

Below are a few images taken of the discussions:

The post ARI’s 10th anniversary lecture: Reforming the public sector in Nigeria appeared first on Africa Research Institute.

On Thursday 7 June we were joined by three expert speakers to discuss population distribution and migration, the impact of the reconfiguration of the rural economy, and the administration of new settlements; and consider the political and economic implications ahead of elections in 2018. The event also launched our publication “On the periphery: missing urbanisation in Zimbabwe” by Beacon Mbiba.

Dr Beacon Mbiba (School of the Built Environment, Oxford Brookes University)

• The last two decades have seen a proliferation of organisations, institutions and companies researching African urbanisation. There are diverse interpretations of the data, and often people miss something important. That certainly seems to be the case with Zimbabwe. For example, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation asserted that land reform had caused the de-urbanisation seemingly captured in the 2012 census. I was motivated to investigate whether that was actually true.
• There is an epistemological difference between “land reform” and the term ordinary Zimbabweans more commonly use – jambanja. In Shona jambanja means “turning the tables upside down”. Whereas “land reform” is horizontal, apolitical and technical, jambanja is much more nuanced. It denotes chaos with a purpose and is an ongoing process that annihilated traditional norms. Jambanja has become the modus operandi in everyday life and statecraft. “Land reform” implies certainty, but everything in Zimbabwe is temporary, in a state of flux. This is important when analysing urbanisation (or anything else).
• Zimbabwe’s headline census figures recorded a decline in the urbanisation level from 35% to 33% between 2002 and 2012. How we define “urban” impacts the result. By definition, urban areas have a population above 2,500. At the lower end of the spectrum – in many small towns, “growth points” and service centres – rapid urbanisation is taking place. Definitions of urban often refer to settlements with predominantly “non-agricultural economic activities”, but in Zimbabwe smaller urban centres invariably still depend on agriculture.
• There has also been an expansion of peri-urban areas. In 2004, the government enacted a policy that permitted anyone with the necessary capital to develop land. This led to the development of urban settlements on the fringes of rural government areas, on the fringes of existing urban areas; and of sizeable slums and housing developments in rural districts, paying rent to rural councils but receiving no infrastructure in return. Caledonia Farm, to the east of Harare, has a population of more than 100,000. It is an extension of the city, but was still enumerated as part of rural Goromonzi District in the 2012 census. The expansion of peri-urban areas, whose populations are not counted as urban, is very much associated with jambanja and the breakdown of rules regarding land use and urban development planning.
• Statistics have a political use. There is a difference between what economic and housing policymakers focus on, in terms of population statistics. In all urban areas there are a substantial number of residents not counted as urban in the census. In the 2012 census, census boundaries were defined by election boundaries from 2008. This negates the traditional practice of basing election boundaries on census figures, and means the census did not fulfil its intended purpose.

Professor JoAnn McGregor (Department of Human Geography, University of Sussex)

• New urban areas involve diverse authorities. The “Migrants on the Margins” research project I am involved with is focusing on three peri-urban areas in Harare – Epworth, Hopley (in Harare South) and Hatcliffe Extension. These settlements are not being populated by people from rural areas to any significant degree, but by people moving from elsewhere in the city. Many of Harare’s largest peri-urban settlements are on land made available through the land reform programme – mostly state land, but some handed over to the city council – and it’s been settled in a variety of ways: through occupations, state allocations, co-operatives, and through state programmes in the aftermath of Operation Murambatsvina. An array of state and ruling party authorities such as councillors, planners and surveyors, have been allocating land – but not traditional authorities. Even in communal areas, places that are under chiefly authority, land claims and allocations are not framed in the language of tradition. The language is that of opportunism. In the context of Operation Garawadya (“eat first then questions later”), which Mbiba mentions in his publication, villages and village heads have been, and are, selling land opportunistically with the prospect of urbanisation or regularisation encroaching on their territory.
• Governance of peri-urban spaces is the politics of the periphery. These zones and areas on municipal boundaries are often described as “ungoverned spaces” or “no man’s land”. They are also a political resource. Land for housing in Harare has been used by ZANU-PF to encroach on the authority of the city, which is controlled by the opposition. But there is more to it than this binary suggests. Opposition politics is fragmented and complicated. Recently there have been court cases brought against land barons and cooperatives by ministerial and local authorities. They have failed: judges have ruled that it has to be ordinary citizens bringing such cases. But they show how the complexities of national politics are mirrored in peri-urban areas.
• Settlements straddle ministerial boundaries. The ministry of local government is now split, adding further complexity to the politics of peri-urban settlements. The ministry of local government and housing is responsible for urban space and a new ministry of local government is responsible for rural areas. There are a whole range of participants, beyond the land barons and cooperatives, that are seeking to capture the land and rental value of peri-urban land.
• City of Harare perspective. There has been pushback by the city authorities following the formal process of handing over responsibility for peri-urban areas to them. The view is “we don’t want them, they weren’t settled by us, they took the land value from the settlements” and “we’ll take them over when they’ve been serviced’. The Urban Development Corporation (Udcorp) is responsible for regularising informal settlements. This is a parastatal that answers to the ministry, not the city authorities. So that’s created a very interesting situation.  City councillors are saying “we don’t know what Udcorp is doing”. Udcorp is on the ground, moving from house to house and charging for planning and regularisation services, and that’s a problem for the city council when it tries to collect rates. It is seeking to charge for services in peri-urban settlements where it provided no services, and people are reluctant to pay. As a result, from the city’s point of view the settlements are a drain on their meagre resources.
• Peri-urban settlements are not properly represented. The term “stateless citizens” is evocative of the situation in peri-urban settlements. Certainly citizens are “stateless” in terms of having access to services. There is also insecurity and a lack of political freedom. Formal institutions are either absent or unable to access these places, but people bring their grievances to them all the same. In terms of political representation, citizens either have none because their councillors are in distant rural wards, or they are incorporated in bloated wards the size of small towns. Caledonia does not have a councillor. The huge population of Harare South has one councillor. In the mid-1990s, urban citizenship was extended beyond ratepayers to all residents, but the new reality is not recognised by boundary adjustments that will probably not happen before 2023.
• State-led regularisation of settlements is contentious and fuelling the process it is meant to be halting. The official shift away from large-scale state demolitions is welcome, but now regularisation of homes by Udcorp is the problem for residents. They have already paid land barons or cooperatives to be where they are, now they have to pay Udcorp for regularisation. While regularisation is extremely popular, for obvious reasons, it is also a distant prospect. It is also bringing in its wake an increasing number of land occupations, prompted by speculation that Udcorp might be about to start work in a particular area. The imminent elections are intensifying this process.

Professor Ian Scoones (Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex)

• Significant increase in population in the three small towns that my research has focused on since 2000 – Mvurwi (Mazowe), Chatsworth (Gutu) and Maphisa (Matabeleland). The census shows Mvurwi’s population increased 30% between 2002 and 2012. Following land reform there were obviously major changes in economic activity and settlement in rural areas and these impacted on urban centres nearby. This has gone largely unnoticed and un-researched.
• Business opportunities have increases as a result of land reform. Many larger businesses, white-owned companies, banks and other service industries closed down following land reform. There has also been a significant decline in public services and state investment. But in all three centres there has been a rapid growth in business activity, especially of small enterprises, many of them linked to agriculture. Smallholder tobacco growing has driven this in Mvuwi and Chatsworth, and livestock in Maphisa. The business is highly seasonal, and is seriously affected by the current cash crisis, but there has also been a dramatic shift to e-commerce. This is giving rise to a whole array of what economists call “linkage” and “multiplier” effects, including increasing demand for all sorts of services and supplies.
• People who have not directly benefited from land reform are profiting from its impact on the local economy. In the towns we study there has been a four-fold or five-fold increase in the number of hardware stores, grocery stores, food outlets and butchers. That is not to take a rose-tinted view of this – many of these businesses are informal, fragile and risky forms of economic activity – but it does demonstrate how local economies have been reconfigured by land reform. There is investment by black Zimbabweans, Chinese and Indians in these places, and dynamism.
• There has been a change in patterns of accumulation and the relationship between rural and urban. There has been massive growth of medium- and low-density housing – a big building boom. In Mvurwi, for example, about 2,000 low-density and 750 medium-density stands have been added during the study period, a significant expansion. Many of the investors in these new homes are land reform farmers, people who have been accumulating through agriculture and finding new things to spend their money on. The new landlords are traders and farmers, they are the ones accommodating the teachers and nurses. This is symptomatic of an important change in class relationships.
• Basic services, infrastructure and planning are absent. These expanding urban areas are, as is the case in peri-urban areas, different to how Zimbabweans would have conceived “urban” in the past. This is partly due to the lack of state resources and capacity, but also to confusion around local government and who is responsible for what. There is demand for planning and services and infrastructure. But who is going to provide them? We need to throw out the old models and classifications and generally think differently due to the dramatic reconfiguration of lives and livelihoods that is taking place in Zimbabwe. I think we have to worry a little less about the numbers and planning classifications and consider more seriously what it means to be urban and rural.

The post Altered landscape, changing livelihoods: missing urbanisation in Zimbabwe appeared first on Africa Research Institute.

On Thursday 22 June, ARI hosted the launch of “How alternative dispute resolution made a comeback in Nigeria’s courts”. The authors, Dr Emilia Onyema of SOAS, University of London, and Dr Monalisa Ofure Odibo of Bangor University, reflected on the growth of the Lagos Multi-Door Courthouse (LMDC) since its founding 15 years earlier, and the resurgence of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in Nigeria. Below are 10 salient points from the discussion:

Litigation was not always supreme

In pre-colonial Nigeria, local communities practised different dispute resolution processes which encompassed elements of negotiation, mediation and arbitration. By contrast, the colonial administration introduced a judicial system modelled on English laws and practices. Courts designed for European settlers gradually gained favour among Nigerians, primarily because their rulings were enforced by the state authorities. Litigation became the preferred means to resolve disputes. The 1999 constitution reinforces this prejudice, while law schools, attorneys, judges, court officials and police sustain the status quo.

Justice is slow and stressful

Nigeria’s courts face significant backlogs, cases are subject to severe delays, and the whole judicial process carries a huge emotional expense. Few disputants understand what is said in court. The system is structured to include procedural questions, with lawyers frequently appealing technicalities all the way to the Supreme Court. Nigerians are acutely aware of their constitutional right to appeal; however, the system is open to abuse. With many cases dragging on for 20 years or more, some disputes outlive the plaintiffs and defendants.

The LMDC offers a different model

In recent years, the Nigerian private sector has embraced arbitration as a means to resolve disputes without having to wait for a judicial ruling. In June 2002, Kehinde Aina introduced an adapted version of the Multi-Door Courthouse (MDC) in Lagos. This was an innovation spearheaded by Harvard law professor, Frank Sander, under which disputants are presented with a series of “doors” leading to different dispute resolution mechanisms (much as one finds doors to individual flats in an apartment block). The model stresses the equivalence of mediation and arbitration with litigation. According to Sander’s model, the MDC would share a single registry with the formal court system, facilitating case management; however, this has yet to come to pass in Lagos.

Lagos as a test-bed for ADR

Nigeria’s commercial capital has an innovative and forward-looking government. Babatunde Fashola was the first Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) to serve as Governor of Lagos State. He supported the introduction of the LMDC during his term of office, May 2007 to May 2015, and prior to that as Chief of Staff to Governor Bola Tinubu. The Lagos State judiciary embraced the MDC scheme during the tenure of Justice Ayotunde Phillips, who served as Chief Judge from July 2012 to July 2014. Before the Lagos Multi-Door Courthouse Law was enacted in June 2007, the use of the LMDC was entirely voluntary, with disputants mandated to use the scheme if one or more of the parties approached a judge. The 2012 High Court Civil Procedure Rules provide for all cases filed to be screened for suitability for ADR, and if appropriate, referred to the LMDC.

Mandatory referrals are controversial

By referring cases for mediation, judges raise awareness of the MDC scheme among the public, which might not be aware of alternatives to litigation. Forcing parties to engage with the LMDC eradicates the “signalling effect of weakness” under which disputants – or their lawyers – might hesitate to propose settlement by ADR out of a fear that their opponent would then underestimate the strength of their case or their resolve. As a majority of civil disputes are concluded on the basis of an out-of-court settlement rather than a judicial determination, the very act of convening parties might expedite the resolution of their case – or at the least, help them to better understand the nature of their dispute. Finally, referrals reduce the number of cases handled by the courts, reducing the backlog in the formal system.

By contrast, informal dispute resolution is attractive precisely because of its voluntary nature. If the parties approach the process in good faith, it is more likely to lead to resolution than if they are reluctant to participate. This is particularly the case where disputants do not consider their case to be suitable for ADR. They may come to feel that they are being denied their day in court. Equally, the process is open to abuse – lawyers can use the additional step as a delaying tactic.

The Citizens’ Mediation Centre

Low value civil disputes are increasingly referred for mediation rather than proceeding to the magistrates’ courts. Since 2010, no cases have been heard by the Lagos State rent tribunal. These disputes have instead been handled by the Citizens’ Mediation Centre (CMC), which exists to provide indigent Lagosians with a free means of dispute resolution. CMCs are administered by Local Government Associations, rather than the Lagos State government. They are more accessible to ordinary citizens than the LMDC, located at the High Court. In Lagos, the CMC handles as many civil disputes each year as are filed with the courts.

How can the LMDC grow?

It would not be helpful for government to subsidise the LMDC in order to increase the number of cases it handles. The Courthouse offers a valuable service; users should pay a fee to use it. Once the state is the sole source of funding, an institution becomes dependent on the generosity of government, which is liable to change as politicians come and go. The LMDC should assert its independence. A recent pilot with three local banks, whereby the LMDC charged fees to resolve disputes raised by customers, demonstrates the potential. However, to undertake such initiatives, the LMDC must not be bogged down with small-value disputes – it needs to retain capacity to handle serious commercial matters.

What future for court-connected ADR in Nigeria?

The Supreme Court intends to open a mediation centre, but court-connected ADR is not the answer to every problem. Reducing the number of outstanding cases in the system would ease the burden on the judiciary in a much more effective manner. The government should instead promote ADR at the courts of first instance (magistrates’ courts and the High Court). Lawyers are also part of the problem – they want to keep cases in the system, rather than have them resolved.

Where do customary dispute resolution mechanisms fit in?

The more avenues available to resolve disputes, the better. That includes customary courts and area courts. The important question is how rulings from customary dispute resolution processes can be enforced by the state. It might be possible to borrow from the LMDC model and have a duty judge sign an agreement drawn up following mediation or arbitration. Enforcement remains key to increasing confidence in ADR. If traditional chiefs or community heads are able to resolve local disputes then they should be able to obtain a court order. In Ghana, customary arbitration is recognised in the ADR Act 2010. Chiefs in certain parts of the country are able to resolve disputes, reduce the agreement in writing, and have it enforced by a judge.

What more could be to convince trainee lawyers of the advantages of ADR?

Aspiring advocates attending the Nigerian Law School (NLS) can take a course in ADR, but this is delivered by a private provider and additional payment is required to participate. The NLS curriculum should be redesigned to reflect the breadth of potential practice areas. Trainee lawyers already spend four months attached to a local institution. Historically, this has been split to allow for a two-month placement with the courts; and a further two months working at a law firm. The LMDC is considered part of the court architecture so there is no reason why NLS students cannot be placed there. The Courthouse is short-staffed and could benefit from working with trainee lawyers, who also need to gain practical experience of case management. ADR should also be included in the law curricula at Nigerian universities so that aspiring advocates have a sense of its value before they attend the NLS.

Podcast

The post Justice without lawyers in Nigeria: How Lagos fashioned an alternative to litigation appeared first on Africa Research Institute.

On Wednesday 28 June we were joined by three speakers to discuss the state of the media, land matters and the economy, ahead of the August 8th election.

Kwame Owino is chief executive officer of the Institute of Economic Affairs (Kenya).

Ambreena Manji is Professor of Land Law and Development at Cardiff University and former director of the British Institute in East Africa. She is the author of ARI Counterpoint ‘Whose land is it anyway: The failure of land law in Kenya‘

Denis Galava is a former Managing Editor of the Nation Media Group.

The event marked the launch of “How Kenya is failing to create decent jobs” by Kwame Owino, Ivory Ndekei and Noah Wamalwa”.

The interview with Denis Galava featured in the event is separately available here as well.

Podcast

The post The State of Kenya appeared first on Africa Research Institute.

On Thursday 20 April Africa Research Institute hosted HE Dr Sa’ad Ali Shire, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Somaliland, who addressed guests and answered questions on a wide range of issues including Somaliland’s role in the region, its electoral record, the impact of the devastating drought, DP World’s US$442 million investment in the port of Berbera and the lease of a military base to The United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Here is an abridged version of Dr Shire’s speech and a representative sample of the Q & A:

On the history of Somaliland

“We always feel Somaliland is not as well-known as we think it should be. We want people to understand where we are coming from.

Somaliland was declared a British protectorate in 1887. Between 1888 and 1897 international boundaries were established in agreement with colonial and neighbouring powers. Somaliland was on the map. For 70 years it existed as a country and on 26 June 1960 it was granted independence on the same day as Madagascar.

After five days we rushed into a decision which we regretted for the next 30 years: the new State of Somaliland joined in a union with [the former Italian-administered territory of] Somalia to create the Somali Republic. The way the union was effected was legally questionable.  Our people soon sensed that they were not being dealt with fairly. In June 1961, a majority rejected the official constitution of the new republic and Act of Union in a referendum. Six months later, a group of Somaliland military officers unsuccessfully attempted a coup d’état. Somalilanders felt their expectations of the union with Somalia were not being matched by reality.

In October 1969 a military coup led by Major-General Mohamed Siad Barre toppled the democratically elected government of the Somali Republic. The junta stayed in power until 1991. During its time in power Somaliland was under continual pressure: the people felt mistreated, marginalised and discriminated against. In 1981 the Somali National Movement (SNM) was founded. Resistance to the junta grew steadily and skirmishes more frequent. In 1988 full-blown war broke out, with the regime in Mogadishu retaliating against the SNM in an almost genocidal manner. Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland, was utterly destroyed by artillery fire from bases around the city and planes launched from its own airport; 50-100,000 people lost their lives and about 500,000 were displaced.

In 1991, the regime was defeated in Somaliland and the government in Mogadishu was overthrown. In May, Somaliland leaders, statesmen, intellectuals and the people in general met at the Grand Conference of the Northern Peoples in Burao and decided to leave the Union and proclaim independence. A series of meetings to reconcile the people after the civil war ensued.

The peacebuilding process in Somaliland was an indigenous one. Help was offered from outside the country but Somalilanders decided not to accept because this would have involved conditions and timetables. People just wanted to talk, to reconcile, without time limitations. Of course the process did not always go smoothly, but finally, in 2001, a constitution was put to the people. It was approved by 97%, a majority of the population.

On political development and elections

Somaliland has held a series of successful elections since reclaiming its independence. Municipal elections were held in 2002 and 2012; presidential elections in 2003 and 2010; and parliamentary elections in 2005. All five elections have been internationally monitored and declared free and fair. There have been delays – three times in the case of the parliamentary elections. We are not proud of that. Democracy is not just about elections, it is about timely elections. Parliament has been sitting far too long. The issue of regional allocations within parliament is still to be resolved and the guurti, the upper house, is the ultimate authority on holding elections.

This year’s presidential election, scheduled for March, has also been postponed to November. We know that the UK and other friends are upset about this delay. We have a special relationship with Britain and wouldn’t be able to finance elections without their support and that of other friends. But it just couldn’t be done. We couldn’t have held an election with the drought at its peak and so many of our people displaced.

Somaliland has a very important role in the region. It is the most democratic country in the region. It has a liberal economic system. We have achieved peace through our own efforts and processes, without outside intervention, and we have a constitution that guarantees the right to free speech. We have established good relations with our neighbours and have succeeded in maintaining peace and security in a very troubled region. Somaliland is a role model, I think, a positive influence.

As far as Somalia is concerned, Parliament gave the government authority to hold general discussions with them. To date there have been eight meetings, but so far little has come of them.

On social development

Somaliland has made progress in social and economic development despite non-recognition. Hargeisa, the capital, was rubble in 1988. Today it is a thriving metropolis of almost one million inhabitants. We did this ourselves. There were hardly any schools left by the end of the civil war. Any teaching that took place was done under trees or corrugated iron. By 2015, however, Somaliland had 1,200 primary and secondary schools with 290,000 children enrolled. We also have 30 registered universities with 30,000 students enrolled.

The health sector was also totally destroyed. We had to start from scratch. Now we have 230 health facilities – 16 public and 15 private hospitals, 101 mother and child units and 181 health posts. International partners have been very supportive in this area.

We still have real problems with water supply. This is as much an issue of management as of scarcity, although I think we have made some progress.

On economic development

The decision to enter into an agreement with DP World for the development of Berbera port, and with UAE for the lease of a military base, are economic decisions. The two deals are entirely separate. The rationale for developing Berbera into a modern port, including an 800 metre extension to the existing facilities, is self-evident. Among other reasons, Somaliland has a huge trade deficit with Ethiopia and an expanded port will help to redress this while assisting Ethiopia to reduce its dependency on port facilities in Djibouti.

As far the base is concerned we will get a new 250km road worth US$100-200 million, to link Berbera and Hargeisa to the Ethiopian border at Wajaale; a new cargo airport at Berbera, worth US$30-50 million; and other social and economic infrastructure which is still the subject of negotiation. We also have secured access to the UAE labour market, which is very important given high youth unemployment.   The imperative of job creation is absolutely in the forefront of our minds.

Some people have suggested that there are risks and downside to the agreements, particularly the one relating to the military base. There are always risks in every investment. Every decision you make has a downside. But we have judged these agreements to be to the overall benefit of the people of Somaliland and the region. We have consulted our neighbours and friends closely:  we would not do anything to endanger the security of our neighbours because ultimately that would have an adverse effect on us.

I must speak about the drought that started in October 2016. Although it affects the whole of East Africa, it is the worst in living memory in Somaliland and Somalia. Somaliland is predominantly a pastoral economy and pastoralists have lost two-thirds of their livestock. That tells you how severe the situation is. Businesses and the diaspora have joined hands and are doing a remarkable job in providing relief, as is the international community. But we will need international help to address the fact that droughts used to occur every ten years or so, now it’s every other year. Climate change and population pressure are really biting in the region.

On recognition as a sovereign state

In 2005, an African Union (AU) fact-finding mission assessed Somaliland. It commented that “the fact that the Union between Somaliland and Somalia was never ratified and that it malfunctioned makes Somaliland’s search for recognition historically unique and self-justified in African political history”. The mission recommended that the AU should find a way of dealing with Somaliland as a “special case” and should be disposed to judge the situation from a historical standpoint.

Somaliland is not yet recognised internationally but it is a de facto state and fulfils all the requirements of a sovereign state. It has a defined territory; a government in authority; the authority to enter into agreements with states, corporations and international organisations; its own army, police force and currency; and four million people who consider themselves Somalilanders. Our case is convincing. In meetings with senior government officials of more than 20 states no one has ever told me otherwise.

There is a downside to not being recognised – non-recognition imposes a lot of challenges to our continued development. For example:

• We cannot access funding for infrastructure from certain types of lender, including the World Bank, the African Development Bank and Islamic banks
• We cannot be granted bilateral aid – aid must be channelled to us through a third party
• It is harder to attract foreign investment. We have plenty of interest from potential investors but they do not leave much of a footprint
• Travel opportunities are limited for people with only a Somaliland passport
• We have limited participation in international fora, even ones whose decisions affect us.

I believe the region and the world are poorer for the fact that Somaliland is not recognised. I do not think anyone is benefitting from non-recognition, but a great many people are losing out. I am confident the situation will change – I hope sooner rather than later.”

Selected questions from the audience

Q. Somalia is less secure and more corrupt than Somaliland but receives a lot more support from the international community? How do you explain that and how does it affect your government?

We have a blessing and a problem called the good child syndrome problem. The naughty child gets the attention. People seem to take for granted what is happening in Somaliland and prefer to fight fires in Somalia. In a way that creates an atmosphere where bad behaviour is rewarded and good behaviour penalised, which I do not think is right. There needs to be a balance. Of course Somalia needs help. We ourselves have helped her, for example during the last drought in 2011. But lack of attention hinders our efforts to deal with things like the current drought. Somalia receives external assistance amounting to about US$2 billion a year, much of it for AMISOM, whereas Somaliland receives about US$100-150 million a year.

Q. Regarding the deal with DP World over Berbera port and the lease of a military base to UAE, is non-recognition of Somaliland forcing the government to “sell the family silver”?

A. We certainly do not see it that way. We’re trying to add to the silver!

Q. There are reports of increasing, large-scale land-grabbing in Somaliland. What legal power exists to counter this?

A. According to our constitution all land belongs to the state. There is no freehold. In the British colonial era Somaliland was zoned: there were demarcated urban areas, agricultural areas and pastoralist reserves. This system has fragmented. Land-grabbing has become a big problem, particularly for pastoralists whose corridors for moving livestock are now blocked by people laying claim to the land. I think that is wrong and we must do something about it. The problem is the implementation of policy and the law. We are trying to improve this by producing a single Land Act.

Q. The history of modern Somaliland is related as if it is all about the SNM. What about Awdal and other regions?

A. I agree that not everyone involved in defeating Somali government forces rebuilding Somaliland after the civil war was SNM, but the SNM is part of our history – just like the union with Somalia is part of our history. We need to be fair to all parties in creating and relating our history. I mentioned the role of Borama in the peacebuilding process – the role of everyone should be acknowledged and where there is bias it should be countered.

Q. Might Somaliland advance the case for international recognition by becoming an associate member of The Commonwealth?

A. We believe we tick all the boxes for being a full member of The Commonwealth, but in the interim we would like to be associated in one way or another.

Q. What guarantees does the government have regarding aggressive use of the military base being leased to UAE, for example in Yemen operations?

A. A military base is a military base. I quite understand that there are legitimate concerns. But there are others in the region. Think of the multiple bases in Djibouti or UAE’s base at Assab, Eritrea. I am not aware of any negative repercussions for host countries of these bases.

Q. Is the government trying to silence anyone discussing or opposing the DP World and military base deals?

A. There is never a good reason why voices should be silenced. Of course when you are negotiating deals you cannot discuss all the details in public. Transparency and consultation is important, but so is securing a good deal. Some terms will always remain confidential, as they would in any country in the world. Both deals were approved by Parliament.

Q. Is the government in Mogadishu trying to disrupt the DP World deal and lease of the military base to UAE?

A. The Government of Somalia has no authority whatsoever in Somaliland as far as Berbera is concerned. The deals are none of its business. Those with whom we signed the deals know exactly what the situation is. They negotiated with Somaliland as a state and they know what they are doing.

Q. While negotiating with UAE did you ask them to recognise Somaliland formally?

A. You can be sure we asked – we ask everybody we have dealings with! But in negotiation you do not always get everything you want. You can only push conditionality so far.

Q. What is being done to combat youth unemployment and emigration?

A. These are huge problems for Somaliland and the whole region. We are not happy that our young people risk their lives migrating, in an attempt to fulfil their aspirations elsewhere. The way to deal with it is to create jobs and that is done by attracting investment. In this respect, Somaliland would be given a substantial boost if our friends and partners would formally recognise us a sovereign state. We also need to re-examine education. It is very academic – there are too few technical schools. We need to address this.

Podcast:

Photos:

The post Q & A session with HE Dr Sa’ad Ali Shire, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Somaliland appeared first on Africa Research Institute.

Fadumo Dayib – former presidential candidate and anti-corruption activist – Somalia

• Decision to run: I was always aware that we needed change in Somalia, but I thought that it would come from elsewhere, or from someone else. However, after waiting for almost 26 years, I realised that maybe I could be that person. In September 2014 I decided to declare my candidacy for president. I knew that from that moment my life would never be the same again.
• My experience as a woman: We have a proverb in Somalia that a woman’s place is either at home or in the grave. I was trying to negotiate a space between the two and some people were adamant that it would expedite my journey to the grave. I received a lot of death threats; an experience not shared by the male candidates in the race. These threats were very specific and on some occasions targeted my children. This was shocking and traumatising for me as a mother, knowing that what I was doing was going to impact on my children and perhaps put them at risk. Despite the threats I do not regret coming forward.
• Corruption: Corruption was the biggest challenge. Whenever I spoke to people in politics or power the first thing they would ask was “What do you have for us?”, “How much money do you have?” or “How much can you pay?” They were not interested in my vision for Somalia. This was very frustrating. How can you come into elected office through unconstitutional means and then demand that the citizens adhere to the rule of law when you yourself have not done so?
• Clan system: I declared my candidacy with the understanding that Somalia’s elections were going to take place under a one-person-one-vote system. However, 18 months later the government reverted back to the 4.5 clan-based system. This formula segregates Somalis in a way that is akin to apartheid. It supports the notion that the four major clans are ethnically pure, while the remainder – the 0.5 – are marginalised. It is unconstitutional.
• Towards 2020: In 2020, when we will hopefully have democratic elections, I will be running again. I truly believe 12 million Somalis deserve peace, dignity, prosperity and leaders who walk the talk and set a good example. Until then I will work independently in civil society to promote transparency and human rights, to make sure that we begin the process of bringing democratic accountability to Somalia.

George Bob-Milliar – senior lecturer at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology – Ghana

• A model for the continent? 28 August 2013 was the day nine Supreme Court justices returned their verdict on an electoral petition raised by the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) about the conduct of the previous year’s election. In the preceding eight months, Ghanaians had been hooked, watching or listening to the litigation in court. At the end we were all convinced that there was something wrong with our electoral system. For example, it became obvious that there were systematic discrepancies between the results being returned at polling centres and those being returned at collation centres. This was happening on both sides of the political spectrum and it was clear these practices been going on in previous elections. The Supreme Court’s report exposed the myth that Ghana’s democracy was a model for the rest of Africa.
• Key campaign issues: The 2016 election was the first time that a sitting incumbent has lost an election in Ghana. Some commentators said that although John Mahama had served only one elected term his party had been in power for eight years, and that this historically has always resulted in a party being ousted. However, poor electricity supply and rising costs, a lack of job opportunities for young people and rising inflation meant that it was largely the economy that put paid to Mahama’s bid for a second elected term. Social welfare – the lack thereof – was also an important campaign issue. During their time in power the National Democratic Congress (NDC) invested a lot in infrastructural development, but they failed to address the welfare components of those structures; people still could not afford or access health insurance. The NPP campaigned to improve social welfare provision and on a promise to radically transform Ghana’s economy through industrialisation. But their election promise of setting up factories in all 271 districts in the country may prove difficult to deliver.
• State capture: In Ghana, whenever there is transition between the NPP and NDC, party footsoldiers view it as a coup d’état. Transition is improving at the level of national politics, but at the grassroots there is still a very strong winner-takes-all mentality. People see anything that is associated with the state as being owned by the party in power, and in the aftermath of elections in which power changes hands these footsoldiers seize control of state assets like public toilets and road toll booths. This way they ensure the revenue collected goes directly to themselves and not to central government.
• Room for improvement: Ghana has successfully consolidated its electoral democracy, but it is not perfect. Several challenges remain: the legislature is weak, the judiciary has problems and the economy is not producing the dividends that democracy was expected to bring.

Robtel Neajai Pailey – Liberian academic, activist and author

• Pseudo-incumbency: October’s election will be the first democratic transition in Liberia between two heads of state in recent memory. There will be no incumbent in this election as President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf will step aside having served her constitutionally allotted 12 years. But Vice-President Joseph Boakai is almost a “pseudo-incumbent”. Being in a position of power, he has access to state resources that can be employed to give him an edge over his rivals.
• New faces: There are a lot of the usual suspects – the seasoned politicians – who will run for the presidency, but what is fascinating is the number of new aspirants with more technocratic or entrepreneurial backgrounds. These include Alex Cummings, the former chief administrative officer at Coca-Cola; Mills Jones, the former Governor of the Central Bank; and John Morlu, the former Auditor General, who is a viewed as an anti-corruption “messiah” in many parts of the country. So far these candidates have shown signs they can gather support in urban and rural areas. The 2017 election is shaping up to be an issues race in Liberia – it is not about the cult of the personality. Voters are asking questions like “What is your track record?”, “What have you actually delivered in the last 6-12 years?”, and “Why should we trust you?”
• Coalition building: Several political party leaders have realised that they cannot win this election in the first round. Coalition-building is necessary and at the moment the most powerful looks to be the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC), fronted by George Weah with Jewel Howard Taylor as his running mate. The CDC promises to be a “hot ticket” as it brings together voters from outside their respective ethno-regional bases and the early indications are that it can do well in areas won by Johnson Sirleaf in 2011 that are less supportive of her Unity Party successor, Joseph Boakai.
• Law enforcement: The enforcement of certain laws, or lack thereof, will be worth keeping an eye on. First, a residency clause explicitly states that if you have not resided in Liberia for ten consecutive years you are not eligible to run for president. This clause was not applied in the 2011 election, but a decision taken then by Supreme Court promised that it would be in 2017. There has not been much discussion about it so far, but if it does come up it may cause problems for the candidatures of Alex Cummings and John Morlu. Secondly, Liberia does not recognise dual citizenship. The suggestion is that several of the candidates, including Weah, who stood in 2011, would be affected if this is enforced. Finally, in 2014 a civil service code of conduct law was introduced that states anyone who is intending to run for elected office, either in the legislature or the presidency, must resign two years before the polls. There are a number of people vying for the presidency and seats in the House of Representatives who have not done so. If these three laws are raised and discussed it could lead to a constitutional quagmire.
• Women in politics: In 2006, just after Sirleaf was elected president she had five women with strong technocratic qualifications in her cabinet. There were five female superintendents, who represent the president in the 15 counties, and 13 female senators. In 2017, there are only two superintendents, three senators and three women in the cabinet. Of those cabinet officials one is the gender minister, which is a bit tokenistic, and the other heads up the National Investment Commission, a non-ministerial position.
• Sirleaf’s mixed legacy for women: Efforts to improve equality have struggled to make progress in the political sphere. A Gender Equity in Politics Bill put forward by the women’s legislative caucus in 2010 proposed a quota system, but Sirleaf was noticeably silent on it initially; even when she did express support, it was with no great enthusiasm. The bill was not passed and the fact that a female president would not openly champion a measure to give women an edge has filtered down to voters and shaped their attitudes against the need for these types of measures in the future. On a more positive note, Sirleaf, at least initially, tried to bring a lot of younger women into her political inner circle and she has done a great job improving market women’s access to entrepreneurial opportunities, in particular, and supporting efforts to improve financial autonomy. But whilst in the economic sphere there has been progress, in the political sphere Sirleaf has not done enough. The question a lot of young Liberian women are asking is “What about us?” “Is the glass ceiling so high that our president, who is a woman, has not completely shattered it?” “If so, why not?”

Podcast

Video:

Photos:

The post The State of Democracy in Africa 2017 appeared first on Africa Research Institute.

On Wednesday 5 October 2016 we were joined by Fr.Atta Barkindo, from The Kukah Center and doctoral research candidate at SOAS,  and Hilary Matfess, from the Institute for Defense Analyses. The event also launched ARI’s latest Counterpoint – “How Boko Haram exploits history and memory” by Fr. Atta Barkindo.

Fr. Atta Barkindo

• To understand the appeal of Boko Haram you need to make a distinction between the period prior to 2009 and the period after 2009. In the early 2000s people donated money to the group because they wanted to support the Islamic values it promoted. At that stage Boko Haram was not violent, and as such it was able to freely communicate with people about its religious beliefs and values. After 2009, when the approach became violent, people became less likely to join or support the group voluntarily, though many still did. The emergence of Boko Haram is not as important to understand as the why and how of the group’s transformation.
• Boko Haram’s leaders, Mohammed Yusuf and Abubakar Shekau, have made use of the region’s history and exploited a collective memory. Translating over 50 of their YouTube videos I was struck by how frequently they referred to the Kanem-Bornu empire. What this has enabled them to do is successfully localise jihadi-salafi ideology. They describe Kanem-Bornu as a flourishing Islamic empire with good economic relations that were destroyed by the colonial powers who not only took it over but replaced it with a corrupt, western secular state system. It is against this system that Shekau constantly rails. The historical account may not be accurate, but it serves an important function for Boko Haram. They use history and memory for three things: target selection, atrocity justification and recruitment. When I interviewed former Boko Haram members in prison they could repeat verbatim sections of the YouTube videos I had transcribed.
• If you are really going to be serious about counter-radicalisation then you really need to sit down and listen to what these people have to say. This was not the approach taken at the start of the conflict. The Nigerian government saw them as poor, hungry, ignorant people – President Goodluck Jonathan called them “faceless masquerades and ghosts”. But Nigeria is now approaching its eighth year of military engagement with Boko Haram and the end of the conflict is not yet in sight. The violence perpetrated by the insurgents is abhorrent. But if we listen to them, their grievances reflect the voices and concerns of a particular set of people in a particular environment and context. For me, you can kill every single member of Boko Haram, but unless you understand how the group thinks and the environment from which it has emerged you will not eradicate them.
• The socio-economic and political environment in north-east Nigeria lends itself to the emergence of groups like Boko Haram. Citizens feel marginalised and ignored by the government, both at federal and state levels. The construct of the western state has been imposed on northern Nigerians without noticeable improvements to their daily lives. The Nigerian state is dominated by corruption, identity politics and impunity. These are drivers of conflict across the country and are why we see the continuation of conflicts in the Delta and between pastoralists and farmers.
• Boko Haram is not a Kanuri movement, and a lot of Kanuris denounce Boko Haram, but at the same time Kanuri identity and networks have been co-opted by the group. Shekau has taken advantage of local worker unions and utilised the Kanuri language to manoeuvre in the region. Historically, Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, has been connected not with Lagos but with towns and people across the borders in Chad, Niger and Cameroon. These connections have been utilised by Boko Haram to outsmart the Nigerian military, whose reliance on the use of federal character principles mean that many soldiers fighting Boko Haram do so without an understanding of the language, the culture and the history of the region.

 Hilary Matfess

• The role of gender is poorly understood in conflict studies generally. The tendency is to group “women and children” together, but in doing so we give the same agency to a child as we do to a woman. As “victims” is not the only way to understand the experience of women in Boko Haram.
• Operationally women have played a role as suicide bombers – more than 100 in the last 2 years – but they are also logistical lynchpins of the insurgency. They keep the camps running by cooking, cleaning and portering. Women have also been used as a bargaining chip in negotiations by Boko Haram and their value to the group is well understood. It is noteworthy that the shortest time between YouTube videos, was in the immediate aftermath of the capture of schoolgirls from Chibok and the international outcry that followed.
• Women who are forcibly conscripted into Boko Haram are referred to as those who are oppressed and downtrodden, terms of pity that imply the need for help. However some women I talked to voluntarily chose to join Boko Haram and spoke of experiencing a sense of “empowerment”. They received daily Koranic education, were banned from farming and the back-breaking labour that entails, and when married would receive the bride price normally given to their family. Boko Haram sees itself as a vanguard of Muslims and women’s role in it is crucial.
• The level of gender representation in the Nigerian political sphere, particularly in the north-east is very low. Governor Shettima of Borno State has at least spoken publically and positively about the role women can play in the reconstruction, but it can sometimes to be difficult to see in reality. A Ramadan feeding scheme I observed was supposed to issue bags of rice that would be collected by women only, but when I went to see the distribution I saw only men in the collection lines. Implementation is just as important as design and in some communities cultural practices are at odds with gender mainstreaming in policy.
• There is sizeable stigma facing women who have been part of Boko Haram. Many community leaders treat them as carriers of a disease; even families ostracise their own kin, even in cases of abduction. The process of societal reintegration is going to be very difficult at the end of the conflict and there is little-to-no planning as to how it will be done. When Nigeria reaches a post-conflict situation women will have a vital role to play in societal redevelopment as so many men have been affected by the violence.

Excerpts from the discussion

Is it important to differentiate between the different factions of Boko Haram?

(Murray Last, University College London)

AB: There is a valid question about the group’s heterogeneity but I believe there are also lines of continuity. Boko Haram is a collection of disparate cells, more criminal the further north you go and comprised of foot soldiers that have different motivations for joining. They can be members, followers, sympathisers or simply passers-by and opportunists caught up in conflict. But at the top, there are clearly ideologues that motivate and show others the way. I chose to focus on them, to look at what is it they teach and what it is they tell their followers. The eloquence of Shekau and Yusuf is rarely mentioned, but when you listen to them speak you can begin to understand their appeal. I don’t like the atrocities Shekau extolls but I find him fascinating to listen to; he can so easily switch between languages to deliver specific messages. In one of the most recent videos Shekau insults Buhari in Fulani – the president’s own language. It was a deliberate strategy to speak directly to Nigeria’s head of state. Shekau was not educated in the west, but his clarity of thinking and logic in Kanuri, Hausa and Arabic means that dismissing him as uneducated, as often happens in Nigeria when people do not speak English, is dangerous.

What does it mean for Boko Haram to be aligned to ISIS?

(Ludovica Iaccino, International Business Times)

AB: We first must ask ourselves what is a link: is it physical, ideological or inspirational? Is it not possible that I can Skype with a terrorist in Malaysia and learn something without ever meeting face-to-face? If you listen to the Boko Haram videos they draw inspiration from the writings of scholars from Saudi Arabia. This is because in Saudi Arabia they practise monarchy and therefore do not glorify democratic values – in fact they denounce them. We should not be limited to saying that there is only a link when Islamic state physically delivers weapons to Boko Haram. The ideological link is very important. I have never met Pope Francis, yet I am inspired by him every day.

To what extent has the Nigerian military’s response exacerbated the conflict in the region?

(Eva Anderson, Transparency International)

HM: The abuses committed by the Nigerian military are one of the factors that allowed Boko Haram to evolve as it did. In Maiduguri someone I spoke with compared the relationship between citizens and the military to being “like Tom and Jerry, the cartoon”. Trust is higher in the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) but its role in efforts to resolve the conflict poses longer-term problems for the state regarding what to do with these armed, often young, men. CJTF numbers 26,000 in Borno State alone and there is no real accountability mechanism in place to monitor their actions. Local mistrust of the military has created a simmering crisis – once Boko Haram has been defeated what do you do with the CJTF? Absorbing some into the formal security sector is one option, but others are needed.

AB: The problems facing Nigeria’s security service predate the Boko Haram insurgency. Long years of lack of reform of the military meant that training was not up-to-date on things like guerrilla warfare and cyber terror. This impacted on the response.  When I started my research I visited over 25 police and military barracks and the conditions I saw were deplorable. Single rooms meant for individual occupancy were housing families of eight. This is the root cause of the problem. When you ask a soldier to stand by the roadside you shouldn’t be surprised he asks for a bribe as he is always thinking about how he can raise money to move out of the barracks. In him, there is already a grievance against the state so even though he is fighting he is most probably doing so to keep his job. It is important to pay tribute to the individual soldiers who have sacrificed their lives fighting Boko Haram.

Is the Nigerian state a predatory entity? And how does this impact on the humanitarian response?

(Matthew T Page, former US State Department Nigeria expert)

HM: The scale of displacement in Lake Chad basin is huge. Estimates suggest 1 in every 7 residents is displaced. Nigeria has emergency agencies at federal, state and local government levels that, on paper, should be caring for these IDPs. However, at the camps I visited, the military and police are in charge. They are managing the gates and deciding what, and who, go in and out. On a recent visit I was unable to access a camp without express permission of the military even though I had permission from the director of the state emergency agency. This means that security services are running the humanitarian response and that raises a number of issues. Firstly, it turns displacement centres into possible targets as the insurgency is anti-state; and secondly, it increases the vulnerability of women to violence and sexual assault. As a result of these problems with official IDP camps the vast majority of displaced people in north-east Nigeria live in informal camps or with extended kin networks. This raises a question about whether channelling aid to the formal camps, when so many people live outside them, is fully addressing food insecurity.

AB: Let me give you an example of the predatory nature of the whole response. So many people in Nigeria now are coming forward as counter-terror experts; they are submitting bids for consultancy work when they don’t know the first thing about the subject. The Boko Haram insurgency has created an independent economy where people, at many different layers, are involved for personal gain. Relief materials continue to go missing. The lack of trust between citizens and the state is painfully obvious.

Why and how should we listen to Boko Haram? Who can listen?

(Elizabeth Pearson, King’s College London) 

AB: I want to go against the narrative that Boko Haram is simply faceless. Before 2009 they were preaching freely in states across the north-east and most of the YouTube videos were readily available on cassette, video and CDs in local markets. I think if you want to research Boko Haram you should go directly to the source and that is what I did.

We also have to look for invisible signs of extremism. If your drive from Jos going north there are writings on the walls and street signs in Arabic saying things like “down with democracy” & “Islam is the solution”. The Nigerian state has not responded sufficiently to the needs of these citizens.

I strongly believe that despite the atrocities of Boko Haram they really have something to say, if we can listen to them. I spoke to an imprisoned former member who was angry about the 25 car convoy of the Gombe state governor, “all the cars need to be fuelled, driven and have policeman who need to be fed”. You may think that this is a madman talking but I think he is saying something very important about the huge financial waste in maintaining Nigeria’s political democratic system. Listening to Boko Haram will help us to counter them.

See the conversation via Twitter #BokoHistory

Event recording

Films of Fr Atta Barkindo and Hilary Matfess

The post Boko Haram: the importance of listening appeared first on Africa Research Institute.

Responsible city authorities are examining how to improve revenue generation and diversify their sources of finance. Following the creation of a sustainable development goal for cities (SDG 11), and ahead of the Habitat III summit in October 2016, ARI invited three speakers to draw upon their experiences on  financing options and the urgent need for a proactive approach on the part of national and municipal governments. It coincides with the publication of a new ARI briefing note Dakar’s municipal bond issue: A tale of two cities.

Professor Susan Parnell, Department of Environmental and Geographical Sciences, University of Cape Town, and the African Centre for Cities (event podcast 07.13 – 25.45)

• We are all interested in Africa, in cities and in financing. But the community of urban scholars and practitioners is not well defined. People do not always agree on the way cities should be studied, or what is important, and do not approach the issue of financing and Africa’s cities from the same direction.
• The availability of finance is subject to global ideas and capital flows, but is also shaped and captured by local politics and administrative systems. Understanding how this interaction plays out in the case of African urban finance is made much more complex by the fact that while money flows it also gets “fixed” very quickly in a particular type of investment; by the nature of the built environment, for quite some time. There are real conflicts internally in fiscal systems, but many other factors are also shaping urban financing.
• We are in a moment of fundamental change. The discussion about scaling up financing to Africa’s cities has been catalysed by a wider global discussion about sustainable development and cities. The sustainable development goals (SDGs) and discussion about the post-2030 development environment have played a part. So too have a number of major multilateral agreements – the Paris Agreement on climate change is one, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction is another. There has been a global realignment of thinking about what we want, with ramifications for where money will potentially go and shifts in the value system with regard to humanitarian aid, health and biodiversity. These changes are as important as the technical process of capital allocation. The normative base has changed in an attempt to do things differently.
• One of the things that has emerged is that the importance of the sub-national is being emphasised, as well as universality: cities across the world will determine how well we do with the SDGs.
• A number of other important shifts are emerging. For example, Africa has pushed hard to promote in these multilateral agreements a focus on territorial systems and development, not just individual cities. There is also greater emphasis on professionalisation of delivery of sustainable development, whereas previously the emphasis was more on grassroots organisations and participation. The two needn’t be in competition, but the shift has important ramifications for financing and there may be some “push-back”. In this context we are also seeing an increasing aspiration for evidence-based interventions, including in financing.
• Implicit in the shift described is the strong argument that cities are the future; and that Africa’s cities, along with Asia’s cities, are the critical sites of intervention. Africa is not being treated as a blank slate exactly, but the continent offers the potential for rolling out a whole raft of innovative and radical practices. Plenty of innovation is already taking place, of course, but there is a sense that African cities offers the most scope for improvement and transformation. This is the context for discussing the financing of cities, and the way this financing is done will be critically important.
• A word of caution. At the risk of being rude, finance people have no clue about the constraints they are about to encounter when they begin to engage with African cities and the interplay between all sorts of things – planning, law, finance, the building of administrative capacity, corruption etc. The enormous complexity is poorly understood and there is limited time in which to understand it better.

 
Dr Beacon Mbiba, Senior Lecturer, Urban Policy and International Development, Oxford Brookes University (event podcast 26.00 – 48.15)

• It is important to be aware of the history of the social and political dimensions that are barriers to the mobilisation of financial resources in cities.
• A lot has changed in Africa since Habitat II in 1996. The continent is politically more stable, governments are more confident and assertive on the back of economic growth and are determined to dictate what happens rather than be dictated to. Africa now has a coherent strategy – the African Union’s Agenda 2063.
• It appears that the people, civil society and local groups, who were predominant in 1996, have become more marginalised. Governments are now to the fore in formulating the input to Habitat III. There are positives and negatives to this.
• The main challenges in Africa are very rapid urban population growth (although it must be acknowledged that rural population growth is also rapid); and a chronic infrastructure shortage with regards to transport, energy, water and sanitation. Although proper sanitation is accessible by many more people now than a decade ago 2005, the proportion of people with access has not improved. It is a similar story with access to water.  Of course there is much diversity between countries and cities: Accra is not Takoradi and it is not Addis Ababa. The countries with higher economic growth have been able to spend more on urban infrastructure.
• The quality of local government will be critical to the sustainability of urban development. We need to have better planning, the political will to manage local finances and resources, and an improvement in local-central relations. Strong, accountable, democratic, participatory local governance is necessary.
• This imperative raises important questions about resources. At present, finance raised by local governments in Africa is paltry by comparison with elsewhere. Most funding comes from central government but often it doesn’t pay; as for urban authorities, they often don’t even collect revenues that are due to them. We need to better manage what we have. At least 30% of local government revenue should be self-generated. Ideally, financing should come from land tax or rates, but in most cases land is poorly managed. Urban authorities and elites are the biggest culprits when it comes to non-payment for services.
• Since Habitat II, new sources of finance have emerged. One of the most significant – China – isn’t “new” at all. It’s an old partner of Africa. Remember the TAZARA railway. It is now financing many urban projects which traditional western sources of finance wouldn’t touch with a bargepole, such as the Addis Ababa light railway. Such projects can have a major impact on mobility, social inclusion, densification and increased productivity and economic diversification. A journey across Addis which a few years ago took me 2 hours now takes 35 minutes on the light railway. For the poor, especially, this is a significant improvement, although we must bear in mind that cost recovery systems and debts incurred by city authorities often place a greater burden on the poor than the better off.
• There is a need for a new social compact between central and local governments. Since 1996, decentralisation laws have been passed in most countries in Africa, yet this has not been pursued in earnest. Political tension between the centre and the local remains high. Most capital cities are controlled by the opposition. This frustrates constructive, sustainable development.
• Experimentation by the World Bank and others to see what might make local governments perform better has yielded many positive results. Introducing performance based incentives can work. For example, if you raise more tax locally/ share audited accounts (crucial for project management) with citizens/ introduce more participation in local government decision-making, you will receive a new tranche of funding. We need to ensure that such improvements in governance become sustainable and are not simply abandoned at the end of a programme. Citizen participation and better central-local relations are crucial to sustainability.
• Financing should not be seen in isolation. It is intimately connected to the political and social dimensions of urban management and development. So too is the important issue of physical planning.
• Informality predominates in African cities. Some big businesses even operate informally. Some city administration operate informally and outside the law. This phenomenon will continue to effect the entire political economy in Africa. At the same time, Africa has resources which it is not tapping effectively. More of what is lost needs to be captured.
•  
•  
  

Jeremy Gorelick, lead technical adviser, Dakar Municipal Finance Program; lecturer, Johns Hopkins University (event podcast 49.00 – 73.10)

• While it is true that the financial sector is ill-prepared for conditions in Africa, it is equally true that city leadership is ill prepared for financiers. It is alarming how many cities think they can launch a municipal bond issue without actually having established a credit history. There are many steps to go through before borrowing commercially from external investors. City leaders are often not prepared to take the time to do the work on structuring and planning projects or assessing appropriate financing packages.
• Municipal bonds are attracting a good deal of attention in African capitals, but more traditional sources of funding should not be overlooked: taxes, concessional grants from central government or international donors, user charges for services, and property income.
• In many cities, potential investors are confronted by deterrent factors including: high levels of indebtedness; an unwillingness or inability to demonstrate how loans will be repaid; a weak institutional framework, notably when responsibilities  have been transferred through devolution without a concomitant transfer of necessary skills to carry them out; weak project management skills and feasibility assessments for the ongoing maintenance and management costs of a project; and shallow domestic or regional financial markets for listing new securities.
• Additionally, potential financiers have to consider the enabling environment in a country. Is central government genuinely supportive of local government? Will a mayor or administration’s commitment to a project survive a change in city leadership? Does the city has a credible master plan? Does the project serve its purported purpose – do the users actually care about it? These are all important questions which will routinely be asked.
• Dakar’s finances in 2011 were not bleak, but neither was the outlook promising. The cost of the planned investment budget exceeded available revenue and this deficit was set to widen. But Dakar showed what can be done. It had a record of creditworthiness, having repaid some concessional project loans. The leadership was committed to public participation in the planning of the proposed project, a new market in downtown Dakar that would offer subsidised rents to street traders. The proposed investment project was revenue generating. As a result, the city secured a reasonable rating from an external ratings agency and a credit guarantee for 50% of the principal amount of the loan from USAID. However, Dakar’s experience was also instructive in another, less positive respect: the central government’s refusal, for political reasons, to allow the bond issue to go ahead highlighted a tension that exists in many countries in Africa.
• If central governments are not more supportive of local governments and remain unwilling or afraid to decentralise in the way they have said they will, the sustainable provision of external financing for Africa’s cities will be very problematic.

Podcast

Photos

The post Sustainable funding for Africa’s cities appeared first on Africa Research Institute.

The federal system of governance in Nigeria is failing to provide the basic welfare for all citizens that the 1999 Constitution prescribes. On the first anniversary of the election victory of President Muhammadu Buhari, ARI published a Briefing Note that examines the origins and purpose of the federation, state governments’ financial management and responsibilities, governors’ arbitrary power, and the need to increase internally generated state revenue.

On  28 April 2016, ARI invited three speakers to draw upon their experiences and expertise in order to discuss the state of state governments in Nigeria:

 ‘Dapo Oyewole

 Podcast

YouTube

The post The State of State Governments in Nigeria appeared first on Africa Research Institute.