Mogadishu and the Mayor

Almost caught up with this blog. I was way behind and just couldn’t seem to find (allocate) the time to pick it back up again. I do this more for me than anyone. I am seeking to have at least some record of life’s adventures. It has already proven useful as a reference but I suspect it will be even more useful in years to come.

Back to Somalia

Soon after returning to Nairobi, I needed to get back to Somalia. After being away for some time, I needed to reconnect and continue pushing forward the transition of our Nairobi office to Mogadishu. It’s a tricky thing to do. Over the years I’ve opened operations and I’ve closed them down, depending on what our humanitarian mandate required. The latter is obviously the more challenging. In this case we're doing both - we’re scaling down in Nairobi and trying to scale up on the Somalia side, build capacity of staff and to focus on moving positions rather than people. Moving our Kenyan team to Somalia is not a viable option for most positions. We want the jobs to go to Somalis who desperately need them. It’s also cheaper. And from a security standpoint, it’s far safer to have Somali staff given the more precarious status of foreigners in the country. 

So we forge ahead. Most of the “heavy lifting” is done. We only have a few people left in Nairobi and almost all core functions are already in Somalia. I’m now in Mogadishu with a work permit and paying my taxes. We have no international staff in country except me. Lots still to do, however. Much more capacity development, building systems and making sure that the team has what they need to be successful. All the while we need to keep doing our main job which is to provide services to the Somali people. These are busy times, needless to say.

In January I had a meeting with the Mayor of Mogadishu. It was connected to some other meetings that I had with the regional authorities. I took advantage of the time to seek out a meeting with him and he was kind enough to oblige. In fact I ended up being on national TV. You might have missed it.

I found out later that many organizations’ security protocols don’t allow them to attend such meetings or even enter this part of the city. It’s a shame, really. Not that it doesn’t present security risk. It certainly does. But wherever you are in the world you need to strike a balance between being irresponsibly careless or irresponsibly cautious. Both can be problematic. The risk of being careless is obvious. The risk of being cautious, less so. 

meeting the mayor

Somalia is extremely complex. The social structures are difficult to understand for outsiders and they have a tendency to change over time. The security situation is the same. You have to surround yourself with a skilled, trusted team. You need to do your homework. And you need to accept the fact that this is what you signed up for and you just need to do your job. In my opinion, you cannot isolate yourself from the people you are serving. They, and your team, need to know you are committed to them. If you can’t, you probably need to do something else.

Admittedly this is not always easy. In the background is the awareness that one of our counterparts from another organization is still being held hostage, going on one year now. There is the frequent sound of gunfire and the occasional sound of explosions. It’s certainly not for everyone. But I can honestly say that I’m committed to our work serving Somalis and as long as I’m in this role, I’ll do what I have to do.

A Bit of History

In my meeting with the mayor he started off by welcoming me to his historic office. I smiled and told him that I had been fascinated by the history of the country, and in particular the city, over the past two and a half years that I had been working there. I think he appreciated seeing deeper interest in his country from an outsider, something that isn't super common in the international community. So here is a very brief background of the building that we were in. 

The city of Mogadishu came under Italian control in the 1880s after the Kingdom of Italy acquired what was called the territory of Italian Somaliland. Over the next several decades, thousands of Italians settled in the city.

the Palazzo degli Uffici back in the day - back when walls were decorative

Long before it became the current regional administration/city hall, the building had a bit of a storied past. Built in the late 1920s, the "Palazzo degli Uffici dell' Amministrazione Fiduciaria Italiana della Somalia ", a neoclassical Italian style building, was one of the most significant and enduring architectural structures created by the Italians in “Mogadiscio”. It served the Italian government until World War II. In the north, the British occupied what is today called Somaliland. During the East African Campaign in February 1941, Mogadishu was captured by British forces. Though Italy had lost the war, the Italians were allowed to continue to oversee Somalia and the Palazzo degli Uffici served as the headquarters of the Italian administration. When the country gained independence in 1960, administration of the city was turned over to the Somalis.

the regional administration/city hall building in 2012...

During the 21-year civil war of the 1990s and early 2000s, the city took a pounding. The city hall, unlike many of the surrounding buildings in the old city, somehow was able to remain standing, at least enough for it to eventually be restored. I was told that the renovations were completed in 2015. Though much of the surrounding area still remains in ruins, this building is a striking symbol of progress. It's my hope that effort will be made to preserve the dozens and dozens of other beautiful structures that remain in ruins.

...and how it looks today