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The government of Somaliland needs support in two primary areas: national statistical capacity
and information sharing and gathering. In relation to the former, support is needed to ensure
that ministries are staffed with statistics experts and provided with the necessary software to
create and analyze databases of information. In relation to the latter, there needs to be greater
sharing of information across government, between local and central governments, and between
government and non-governmental organizations. While the NGO law in some ways addresses
information–sharing with the government, it is recommended that ministries be supported in
order to have dedicated information or communication officers to facilitate this.
Opportunity 6: Support efforts to establish and institutionalize internal systems and
procedures.
While there has been support in this area – particularly in regard to internal policies on systems
and procedures – a key priority is both the standardization of procedures across ministries and
local government offices, particularly in regard to: financial management, communications and
information-sharing, and recruitment. Once these standard procedures have been established
and understood at the national level, alongside clear roles and responsibilities delineated within
an overall decentralization framework, it is imperative that support is then focused on ensuring
that systems and procedures are understood and institutionalized at the local government level.
This requires the resourcing of designated local staff to take responsibility for leading and
managing internal changes and acting as a liaison with counterparts in the central government.
It is also recommended that the mandate of the Civil Service Institute be reviewed in order to
allow the agency to provide capacity building training in these areas to local government staff,
who are currently non-civil servants and therefore do not come under the Institute’s remit.
Opportunity 7: Address lack of public buy-in and engagement to decentralization,
including engaging with and sustaining relationships with both the media and CSOs.
While levels of buy-in differ according to political affiliation, proximity to Hargeisa, and level
of UN Joint Program on Local Governance and Decentralized Service Delivery support,
addressing what appears to be weak public buy-in to local government has emerged as an area
which needs consideration. The problem is most acute in the eastern regions, where local
governments lack legitimacy due to a wider distrust in the national government. The lack of
buy-in has a number of negative impacts, including a reluctance to pay taxes in return for what
is seen as poor quality of services delivered, high expectations of what local governments are
expected to deliver going unrealized,
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and relations between constituents and members of
parliament being characterized by tension due to anger over a lack of services. The UN’s focus
on civic education, transparency and social accountability mechanisms needs to be scaled-up,
with local government staffing and procedures linked to the need to both widen and deepen
citizen engagement by creating designated public outreach staff posts and ensuring that
mechanisms for the reporting and redress of grievances exist.
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See parliament section.
