Untitled...

This blog hasn't got a title. I decided not to name it, because, in my opinion, we have been failing consistently.  You are entitled to ask: why? Let me tell you.

The past 6 months’ events in North Africa and Somalia showed one serious mistake committed by the international community. This gross mistake is the fact that we didn’t empower and build local community based organisations or community services in areas where we have been working for the past decades.

Could we be to blame as humanitarian actors or do we also blame the local system functioning in these countries? I was revisiting the access problem for Somalia and asked myself a question- whose security is more important, the security of the million of beneficiaries who are the real owners of money we spend, or us as humanitarian actors? Therein lays the problem.

How should we prioritise? Who should be on top of the pecking order? The expat staff? The local staff? The people in need? I leave you to answer that question.

Our failure to address these issues makes us guilty before generations to come.

It is not enough to talk about famine, conflict or needs - we should act. I hope that our humanitarian action for Somalia will not stop at just observing famine and managing drought.

I am writing this just as I am about to enter the meeting The Humanitarian Forum and OIC are holding in Nairobi.