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SOMALIA: Education and Peacebuilding - By Dr Tejendra Pherali
On the afternoon of 1st
Nov, we were having lunch
in a Yemeni restaurant
in Hargeisa, Somaliland
when I heard the news
about deadly attack in
Mogadishu that morning.
The Sahafi hotel in
Mogadishu was stormed
by Al-Shabab militants,
killing 15 people including
a Member of Parliament
and Somali general who
had led the military campaign that drove Al-Shabab
out of Mogadishu in 2011.
When my colleague Abdi Zenebe from the University
of Hargeisa received a call, it did not take me long to
realise that the person on the other side was asking
about me. It was my wife who had been terrified by the
news and confused about whether I had travelled to
Mogadishu or Hargeisa.
My UK mobile network would not work in Somaliland
and I had not yet managed to obtain a local SIM card
or perhaps, I had not prioritised it. I can empathise
with the stress that is caused on families of individuals
who work in conflict-affected or other humanitarian
situations. For some, career choices in challenging
situations are serendipitous whereas for others,
these are professional adventures. It is probably a
combination of both in my case.
model of peacebuilding and participatory democracy
in Somaliland. One of my personal research interests
has also been to explore how Somaliland navigates
through indigenous structures of governance to
advance aspirational modernisation in Somaliland.
The political parties are constitutionally barred from
adopting an explicit clan-based or religious ideology but
in reality, the source of support for these parties essentially
stems from their respective clans and sub-clans.
While Somaliland has successfully worked with its
bicameral presidential system in which the Guurti,
the upper House of Elders is represented by 82
senior members of various clans and the House of
Representative of the same size, the current challenges
are primarily concerned with the lack of basic services
- including, education, health, water, food and the
infrastructure.
What was extraordinary to see during the initial
meetings in which I participated in Hargeisa was the
enormity of self-pride and aspirations among the
people from all walks of life for social and economic
development in Somaliland.
The meeting with the university’s president and vice-
president was so encouraging that they did not just
highlight what had been achieved in the Somaliland’s
only public university but also were very honest about
the areas where improvement was needed.
This news came to us in the middle of our conversation
about how Somaliland had maintained peace and stability
since its declaration of independence from Somalia in
1991 while the Southern state continues to be violent.
UCL Institute of Education’s new research project in
partnership with the Institute of Peace and Conflict
Studies (IPCS) at University of Hargeisa and University
of York involves research into the role of education in
promoting peace, political stability and development
in the Somali region.
The project employs a multi-method approach to
curriculum development, which combines a rigorous
review of evidence, empirical study in the Somali
region and multi-stakeholder consultation to inform
the curriculum design process and pedagogy of an
academic course on education and peacebuilding.
John Paul Lederach’s theory on peacebuilding draws
significantly on political processes of the hybrid
Dr Tejendra Pherali second from the left
When the senior management of an academic institution
explicitly reveals their fundamental weaknesses at their
first meeting with a foreign partner, it clearly indicates
their desperation and genuine commitment to effect a
real change in the institution.
This is very unlike some of the other developing
countries where I have experienced rudimentary or
unenthusiastically dormant academic entrepreneurship.