Finding peace in Somalia: the Galkaio ‘local’ peace agreement

Abstract

A better understanding of ‘local’ agreements vis-a-vis national state-building processes is a strong current in policy and academic circles, with Somalia acknowledged as a context with a rich history in such processes. The 2017 Galkaio agreement is a landmark achievement in this history, and one that is located within the recent formation of the Federal system in Somalia. It successfully combined Somali and international actors and resources. As such, it is an important example of an appropriate external intervention. The Galkaio agreement-making process took place over 2-3 years, required sensitivity to both the national and local contexts and included a strong Somali identity among the international actors. This briefing discusses the blurred boundaries between organisational and personal identities, where, for example, a key individual in this case was able to leverage her multiple identities (in terms of gender, clan, diaspora, UN employee) with skill and sensitivity, in order to support and participate in networks pursuing peaceful outcomes. The agreement represents the re-establishment of social relations across a significant border area, a process which is still ongoing, and which remains fragile and unfinished. This social rebuilding process is qualitatively different than the 1993 Mudug Accord that characterised the pre-existing boundary. The international engagement, as embodied by a number of the key mediators working for international agencies, represented an activist approach to peacebuilding that was arguably sufficiently powerful to counter underlying grievances and the transactional elite-driven politics that dominates Somalia’s political marketplace. This work is part of the Conflict Research Programme managed by the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)