This book considers the best way to make the streets of a strategically significant and chronically insecure Southern city – in this case, Mogadishu – safe. It uses the city's neighbourhood-watch schemes to explore the ways in which Somalis, from politicians in the presidential compound of Villa Somalia to policemen and women street-sweepers in the rubbish-filled alleys of Waberi district, try to manage everyday security threats. Additionally, it considers the ways in which Somalia's international sponsors attempt to influence Mogadishu's security architecture and policing practices. Special attention is paid to the city's security plan and the points at which local and international interests meet.
The immediate challenges confronting the city are terrorism-related, but the legacy of 25 years of chronic insecurity means that threats are mutually reinforcing and reflect broader social and political tensions. It is difficult for me, as a non-Somali speaking white, European woman, to assess the full implications of this, let alone analyse accurately the personal strategies used by Mogadishu's inhabitants to stay out of harm's way. Nevertheless, exploring the city's security architecture and responses in this way provides contextual detail that offers insight into Somali policing priorities and the ways in which they interface with international practices. It also throws light on generic issues such as the nature of security and the security sector's contribution to state- and capacity-building.
The chapters that follow use the attempt by Mogadishu's Somali authorities to develop and implement an internationally acceptable security plan to discuss the relationship between counter-terrorism and softer forms of community safety, the contribution of community cohesion and mobilisation to sustainable policing provision, and the potential of information and communications technology (ICT) to improve the police–community engagement on which this is thought to depend. To explore the possibilities for generalising from Mogadishu's experience, the contribution of ICT to police–community relations in Hargeisa, capital of Somaliland, is compared.
Issues such as these are usually assessed in the light of the international community's high-level political agenda for the Federal Government of Somalia; May 2017's London Somalia conference on security governance and economic development is a case in point. But the emphasis here is on Somali perspectives on city and, more importantly, street-level security and police–community relations. The election of a new president in February 2017 may improve Mogadishu's security management, as may the allocation of billions of US dollars, euros, sterling, Turkish lira and Japanese yen to stability and development programmes, but to date new governments and aid projects have failed to improve neighbourhood security or community safety significantly, whereas the neighbourhood-watch schemes that this Whitehall Paper addresses have. Now is a good time to assess the prospects for making the city safer.
The research on which this paper is based received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 653909. But it would not have been achievable without the support and advice I received from international and Somali officials, officers and advisers in Mogadishu, Hargeisa and Nairobi, most of whom requested – or expected – anonymity. The views expressed are solely mine, but I am nevertheless indebted to the Somali Police Force, Benadir Regional Administration, African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), European Union, United Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM), and, above all, to Stephen Fulcher and the security advisers working for an international consultancy based in Mogadishu without whose support my visit to the city would not have been possible. I am equally grateful to the Somaliland Ministry of Interior, Somaliland Police Force, and Transparency Solutions’ Hargeisa office. Special thanks are due to the EU Capacity Building Mission in Somalia (EUCAP Somalia).