45
organizations; and the Somaliland National Youth Umbrella, which has particularly focused on
youth participation. Many of these organizations grew out of donor efforts, rather than from
fully indigenous impetus. The Academy for Peace and Development was established in
cooperation with Interpeace, for example, while the Somaliland Non-State Actors Forum grew
out of European Union-funded efforts by Saferworld to encourage structures capable of
engaging in policy dialogue.
Resources
International organizations continue to play a disproportionate role in funding civil society,
while also coming under increasing criticism for the ways in which they distribute their funds.
As expressed by the Minister of National Planning and Development:
One of the main problems with aid at the present time is the long route it takes –
the number of hands and accounts it goes through and the high administrative
cost that this entails. We estimate that for every dollar donated no more than 20
cents are actually spent on the ground. The total aid figure for Somaliland in
2009, excluding humanitarian aid, was $83 million – about double the
government’s revenue for the year. That is a huge amount by our standards, but
you do not see its trail on the ground. Where has the money gone?…A good
deal has been spent to cover administrative, financial, logistics and security
costs. The rest has been spent mainly on consumables and so-called capacity
building projects in the form of one to three day seminars and workshops.
84
In its section on civil society, the
National Development Plan
provides the following data
85
on
development aid disbursed by sector in 2009, suggesting, though not clearly explaining, that the
balance between allocations has been inappropriate.
Sector
Amount (USD)
Percentage
Health
26,000,000
31.2
Livelihoods
21,100,000
25.3
Education
18,100,000
21.7
Governance
9,000,000
10.8
Water/Sanitation
7,000,000
8.4
Private
1,600,000
1.9
Infrastructure
500,000
0.6
Total
83,300,000
100
As expressed in the plan:
While governance, education and health are important, equally important, if not
more so are production, infrastructure and the environment. But production and
environment do not feature in the table and infrastructure is allocated a mere
84
Africa Research Institute,
AFTER BORAMA: Consensus, representation and parliament in Somaliland
.
85
National Development Plan
, p. 240. A more comprehensive discussion can be found in the
Somaliland 2009
Annual Aid Report,
available at
