State-Building Amidst Conflict

This chapter discusses the correlation between bottom-up local reconciliation and state-building in Somalia. It identifies key conflict actors in three regional states, and postulates general trends in local conflicts and how to address them. Rather than promoting grassroots reconciliation between various sets of clans engaged in localized conflicts throughout south-central Somalia, the process of forming Federal Member States has intensified and, in some cases, revived conflicts over regional boundaries, land use, and political representation. The urgency to meet the New Deal benchmarks has led to what independent observers consider to be contentious and hasty state-formation. The 2013–17 period was marred by a surge in clan-based violence as discontent grew among those clans that felt they received an unfair deal.