I’ve just returned from a marathon trip. I was away for a month and in that time, I visited (amongst other places) The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Balkans, and Nairobi and Somaliland, where I spent sixteen days with a range of stakeholders, discussing the challenges, successes and obstacles for the humanitarian sector in Somalia. These days, humanitarian actors are struggling to reach those in need in Somalia; conflict and crisis make access difficult. This was why many of our meetings were held in Nairobi, and many organisations working in the area expressed concerns about the security issues.
One problem seems to be that there’s a set way of working in Somalia: a status quo, which has become a habit. It’s not just there: it's easy for all of us to fall into a comfortable pattern in our humanitarian work: we work a certain way because we’ve always done it that way. It can be comfortable, but it’s not always what’s best for the people in dire need. We need to address this issue before we can jump into creating a comprehensive humanitarian sector.
Over the sixteen days, I attended more than thirty meetings. Participants came from embassies, governments, UN agencies, INGOs, local organisations, and the business sector, to name a few. But we came to this conclusion: still more dialogue is needed if we want to include everyone, in the issue of humanitarian access.
Participants were Muslim and non-Muslim, and we welcomed the participation of local and grass-roots organisations. Many were concerned with personal safety; all accepted that a discussion with all stakeholders - without excluding anyone – was needed in order to ensure humanitarian aid to everyone.
We consider these 16 days the second round of extensive consultations with most of the stakeholders – the first round was our conference in October. In the third round, which will be soon, Insha’Allah, we’ll expand our reach again, this time hoping to reach all stakeholders: to enable more humanitarian organisations to deliver aid material to different and remote areas of Somalia where the need is dire.
We were carrying a purely humanitarian message, to everyone, including governments, organisations, businesses, groups and the international community. We don’t want to be misunderstood or misread. The human need in Somalia is more than the imagination of decision makers can understand. We need to put our humanitarian spirit to the test; to balance our impartiality. If we really claim that we are the champions of the needy, we must take on board that the championship is won by delivering on people’s expectations, not by talking and doing nothing. We must give hope, and remove the conditions that breed radicalisation.
The message of humanitarianism is beyond the scope of politics, tribalism, sectarianism and ‘groupism’, not to mention the religious ‘isms’ that can abound. Since we believe the message of humanitarianism is far more universal than all of these, we have to work collectively to a sustainable solution for the humanitarian catastrophe in Somalia, as well as everywhere else.
The answer is a collective comprehensive effort by all of us, even if some of us will need to implement it on behalf of all. The time for working as individuals is past: all individuals must come together in a common cause, setting aside their differences to address the need collectively, as a community.
Let us discuss serious issues. What do we mean when we talk about security and insecurity? Do we mean the security of the vulnerable community? Do we mean the security of our national field staff? Our international field staff? Do we mean the security of our organisations? Or is it the security of our funds we worry about the most? We need to be very honest about our interests when we claim to be champions of vulnerable people – to go beyond our own partialities, and put local civil society organisations at the centre of our operations. Our first responsibility is not to ourselves, but to the local community.
So we should not give up striving –however many rounds it takes – to create sustainable, ongoing security in the future.
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