Somalia’s contribution to promoting the global discourse on national ownership of reforms through the g7+ and in multiple forums won it much respect and admiration from international partners who were encouraged by the enormous level of national commitment and investment from the Somali government and people on transforming their future.
In addition to the above, there was effectively targeted strategic communication from the beginning which created a national reform narrative championed by the government, media, civil society and international partners and informed by public dialogue and debate on the IMF benchmarks and their purpose and impact. This narrative simultaneously engaged all key audiences including the Somali public, business community and international partners. Today, the reforms have become a source of national and international pride and above day-to-day politicking given the successful debt relief outcomes. This consensus on the reforms was, and remains, a huge achievement in Somalia’s highly contested politicised governance ecosystem and supports the implementation of the new 3-Year IMF successor program which the authorities are engaged in today.
Another factor that really matters in the successful delivery of IMF Supported Programs in fragile states like Somalia is the provision of technical assistance and a flexible and understanding approach from the IMF. Contrary to existing criticism of the IMF as dishing out the same medicine of public austerity to all borrowers from its concrete Washington DC base, this program with Somalia was treated with the unique care it required and deserved. In fact, in the last two decades, the IMF has made great effort to better understand and work with fragile states based on their circumstances rather than enforce a one size fits all approach. Furthermore, there is a new approach from all International Financial Institutions that is guided by the timely idea that economic reforms and macroeconomic stability are global public goods rather than just individual state problems and priorities. This new holistic burden sharing approach is more useful and realistic given the devastating impact of external shocks like climate change and conflict and the consequent higher levels of sovereign indebtedness and low growth of most developing nations today which in some cases are spending more on climate response than education and healthcare despite been among the least emitters of Green House Gases in the world.
The IMF Somalia Country Fund, kindly financed by various supportive donors, provided vital and much needed expert technical assistance for core Somali institutions including the Ministry of Finance and Central Bank to improve budgeting, economic analysis, fiscal reporting, statistics, financial sector regulations and maintaining macroeconomic stability. Furthermore, other supportive international partners including the World Bank, African Development Bank, European Union and its member states, the United Kingdom and the USA focused their Technical Assistance support on helping to deliver on the reforms, build climate resilience and increase social sector investments. This helped to deepen understanding and accelerate the wider economic reform implementation while aiding basic public service delivery in education and healthcare.
Political fragmentation was always a major cause of Somalia’s instability since the collapse of the state in 1991. This is the same in all fragile states today. Yet, the economic reform program with the IMF became a fundamental part of the state building process which created unity across the political divide. The commitment to de-politicise the reforms to start tackling multi-dimensional poverty, create jobs and address the nations unsustainable debts was a landmark achievement which continues today with a refocused lens on economic growth post debt relief. This political maturity and economic foresight would have arguably not been so strong in Somalia’s fragmented political process without the constant risk of failing to relief the nation of over $4 billion Dollars of unsustainable suffocating debt.
The author is the g7+ Focal Person for Somalia and Executive Director of Somalia’s National Climate Fund. He also serves as the Senior Adviser to the Minister of Finance. Previously, he was the Chief Policy Coordinator and Head of the Strategic Economic Unit at the Ministry of Finance of Somalia.
