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A theme cutting across all internal organizational capacity sub-categories was a desire for
international best practices, and in particular, gaining exposure to other political parties and
their leaders who have struggled with similar circumstances and in similar environments.
Resource Mobilization and Fundraising
All three political parties emphasized the need for more resources to fund party organizational
and outreach efforts, and the commensurate need to develop stronger party fundraising
mechanisms. An underlying theme throughout the discussions was political party reliance on
clans to mobilize funds for their candidates during elections, and participants emphasized the
need (as mentioned elsewhere in this report) to reduce party reliance on clans. A high ranking
party official noted the following:
[Resources] is one of the things which will be a problem on political parties.
Whenever we propose to the donors to support us on resource they automatically
assume that political parties want to get money from them, but we need specific
resources, for example computers, printers, these are the essential things, which
their daily task needs. They also need resources which they can travel, for
example if the political party travels to Erigavo, or Zeila once, it is difficulty to
travel back again for the whole year, because resources are not enough. Since it
is needed the political parties to be strong and existed, they need to be helped on
resource.
Party resources come from leader donations, the diaspora and party member subscriptions. As
one participant noted, “Well, the financial resource that our party acquires is very limited.
Mainly we get it from our subscriptions, and some contribution we get from our abroad
branches, therefore we don’t have factories and businesses, we usually ask contribution from
our supporters.” All parties mentioned a need to improve the way in which they collect member
subscriptions.
Several participants raised the concern that diaspora support for parties would likely diminish in
the coming years, as the diaspora becomes less connected over time to Somaliland. Participants
emphasized the importance of raising money more sustainably from within Somaliland, as in-
country supporters are more invested in the parties.
Within the overarching goal of increasing access to resources, parties prioritized the ability to
develop and implement fundraising strategies, gaining experience from political parties from
other countries that have undergone similar economic challenges and increasing the ability of
parties to collect member dues.
Effective Grassroots Structures and Outreach
All three political parties rated as a high priority the need to increase the presence of parties at
the grassroots level. For two parties this manifested as a need to decentralize the party to the
regions so as to increase regional party efforts and their participation in party agendas, and for
all parties it included the opening and financing of regional offices. Doing so, as some
participants suggested, would also put the parties in a better position to determine the number of
supporters they really have, and to aggregate voter interests.
