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We need real capacity building. That word has been used for a very long time and it has never
been so effective. It doesn’t help the citizens at all.” Stakeholder interviews further confirmed
low interest in capacity building, with all respondents believing their own organizations
functioned sufficiently well. Only some acknowledged different needs among different
organizations, between older and newer, for example, and that capacity should be tailored
according to these different needs. Among both workshop participants and stakeholder
interviews, respondents linked discussion of organizational capacity back to wider
conversations regarding donors, including issues of financial independence and local ownership.
Many considered the capacity of international organizations to be low themselves, and
dismissed the attitude of international organizations as a reluctance to work themselves out of a
job: “I believe that if international organizations build the local capacity, then they will lose
their work…So, to make my work sustainable, I have to put you down and say he/she is weak,
does not have the capacity.”
Priority Opportunities for International Support
Although participations articulated their vision of the sector as “an independent and sustainable
civil society with the capacity to engage and effectively represent the citizens of Somaliland and
participate in decision making in a well-coordinated, professional and ethical way,” a number of
these aspects were not raised over the course of the workshop. Most significantly, participants
did not discuss the importance of representing citizens, what kind of barriers they may face in
doing so, or what kind of changes they must undergo in their work in order to do so more
effectively. Despite lively debates on women’s participation, participants did not address
concrete issues related to other aspects of decision-making. There was little self-reflection on
the weaknesses of civil society itself, or the kind of improvements individual civil society
organizations may need to make (this was particularly reflected in the stakeholder interviews, in
which respondents believed their internal governance was sufficient, and there was no need for
any other development). Lastly, the question of sustainability received cursory treatment, with
only some participants interested in exploring creative mechanisms for resource diversification.
The largest theme to emerge from official documents, workshop participants, and interview
respondents concerns the ways in which the international community provides funding and
implements assistance. Many of these concerns reflect common frustrations with how priorities
are determined, resources are allocated, and overhead costs are covered. Some aspects result
from entrenched organizational cultures and may be a necessary byproduct of the aid dynamic,
and therefore difficult, if also unrealistic, to change. Other elements may present greater
opportunities for enhancing the legitimate goals of aid coordination and effectiveness. Given
the tone of the NGO Act and the civil society section of the
National Development Plan
, it may
not be surprising that workshop participants reflected a particularly strong frustration with the
international community. It is troubling, however, that their sole focus on the act’s
implementation relates to the role of the international community, without any corresponding
awareness of how the Act may affect them. This includes, for example, the implications of
whether there may soon come a time in which they themselves may be expected to more fully
align their work with the government’s agenda. In addition, there remains somewhat of a
disconnect between the emphasis on prohibiting international organizations to act as
implementers (and thus by extension, ensuring that this role will be filled by local actors
instead), and the noted medium-level priority of improving the skills that may help local
organizations to play this larger, more sophisticated role. It is also a bit ironic given the cliché
