UN, DONORS TALK SERIOUSLY ABOUT SOMALIA

UN, DONORS TALK SERIOUSLY ABOUT SOMALIA

GENEVA, 8 February (OCHA) -- Somalia has an image problem -– one that may prevent the international community from doing what it can and should do to help the country.  To tackle this, for the first time, the heads of every United Nations agency working in Somalia met with members of the donor community in Geneva this week, at a one-day conference called “Talking Seriously About Somalia: Dialogue with the United Nations Country Team.”

“We have got to look at Somalia in a different way,” says Carolyn McAskie, United Nations Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, who chaired the meeting.  ”Somalia has almost become, in some circles, a byword for anarchy, violence and hopelessness, but the real Somalia is different.  It is a society of 6 million people which has moved a long way from old images of social and State collapse.  Somalia’s successes, however, are seriously harmed by continuing simplistic images, seen in movies and elsewhere.”

Despite the lack of a strong central Government in Somalia, functioning authorities have emerged, people have not only survived but the economy is slowly re-establishing itself.  Somalia has the most effective telecommunications system in the Horn of Africa.  It has growing industries from food processing, bottling and packaging to the export of products used in the international cosmetics industry.  Somalia’s central Government collapsed, but it is now rebuilding in its own way with minimal assistance from the outside world.  Somali society is stabilizing and critical development investments can help pave the way towards peace.

On a practical level, these developments mean that the United Nations and its partners have increasingly been able to engage in Somalia over the past several years, delivering both emergency humanitarian aid and recovery and rehabilitation assistance in various areas across the country.  The United Nations system has developed innovative ways to get its work done in Somalia, and, in so doing, to contribute to an environment for peace. 

“The fact of the matter is, the United Nations works in Somalia -- we deliver and implement and engage on a daily basis, albeit with some geographic limitations,” says Randolph Kent, United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia.  “You cannot have peace unless you engage.  But the international community needs to join the effort, through greater understanding and through its resources.”

The United Nations appealed for some $83 million for Somalia in the year 2002.  The United Nations is urging donors to commit more funds for Somalia, which in recent years has only attracted roughly half the funding required.

For further information, please contact:  Thierry Delbreuve, Humanitarian Affairs Officer, UN OCHA Geneva, tel: +41-22-917-1638, fax: +41-22-917-0023,

e-mail: delbreuve@un.org; Sonya Laurence Green, Information Officer,

UN Humanitarian Coordinator’s Office-Somalia, tel: +254-2-448-434,

fax: +254 2 448439, e-mail: sonya.green@undp.org.

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