Conclusions

Abstract

Unlike most analyses of Mogadishu’s security governance, which concentrate on high-level developments involving the international community’s plans for Somalia’s stabilisation and political progress, this Whitehall Paper explores the ways in which the city’s Somali inhabitants assess street-level threats and try to mitigate insecurity. It uses Mogadishu’s city security plan and its constituent parts – most notably, the Waberi district neighbourhood-watch scheme – as an entrance into the city’s security dynamics. This enables a consideration of issues such as the connections between counterterrorism and community safety, the contribution of community cohesion and mobilisation to sustainable civilian policing, and the potential of ICT to improve the police– community engagement on which stateand capacity-building is thought to depend. In other words, the city security plan and neighbourhoodwatch scheme allow for a concrete conceptualisation of problems and problem-solving that help to generate insights into the nature of (in)security in an otherwise inaccessible environment. They also allow an exploration of the interface between three issues usually kept separate: hard and soft security; formal and informal policing provision; and international and local perspectives on security. The result is a more balanced picture of the city’s security provision. Mogadishu’s security environment is shaped by terrorist, insurgent, criminal and militia networks entrenched in clan identity politics, all of which are exacerbated by chronic violence, poverty, deprivation, inequality and alienation. Although security is formally the responsibility of the FGS, the Benadir Regional Administration, the SPF and NISA, most people rely on informal providers, such as local clanand district-based militia. However, sharply distinguishing between formal and informal provision is misleading because the borders between the two are porous and shift according to need. Thus, the city security plan draws on information collected by illiterate women who rely on clan-based protection, but choose to visit police stations to discuss their concerns,