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Dr. Menwurtcs is associatepro$ssor ofpolitical science at D avaon College. In1993-94, he servedas pecialplitical adviser in the United Nations @ration inSomalkz The author g ra te flb acknowledges-ial sqprt that contributed tothk researchporn the Fulbright abctoral dissertation grantprogram (1987-88), asummer researchgrmforn the Amerkan University in Cairo (I 9901,and aresearch gr@j?om D avaon College (1996).

ew topics inspiimore cynicismamongseasoned observers ofinternationalpolitics than foreignF ssistance o Somalia. By m ereckonings, no o k ountrysave Isael hasreceived such high levels of military andeconomic aid percapita; certainly no country

has lessto show for it. Even before itscollapseintoprotracted civil warand anarchy in 1990,Somaliahadearned a reputaton as a graveyardof foreign aid, a landwhereaid prbjeds werenotoriously unsuccesshl, and wherehigh levelsof foreign assistance helped tocreateanentirely-le,comptand repressivestate. The heavilymed violence of Somaliascivil war, moreover, exposed themilitary aid intotheHom of Afiica Finally,themassive armed humanitarian intmentionintoand outof Somaliain 1992-95dramaticallyexposed the shom min gs of theentire industry of foreign aid -hm thebihteddonors,whosestrategicandpoliticalof theSomali people; to UN agencies,whoseinflexiblebmaucraticproceduresfiiledtorespondto theSomali h i n e ; o the non-

de s t n t C t i vm o f yeafi of Cold -W at-inspi

in- have m l y i withthe needs

governmentalorganizations,whose programs

succumbedto extortion h m omali militiasand sometimes inadvertentlyheled localconflicts;tocompt local leaders, whosystematically d i v e d foreign aid to their owncoffm at the expense of their ow npopulations. In short, Somalias history offoreign aid yieldsan almost exclusivelynegative set of lessons leamed.Yet thevery depth of these failures both inSomalia and other crisis-ridden countries n theGreater Horn of Afiica may now beprovidingfertileground for innovative reforms in thephilosophy and delivery of foreign aid. Amongthosedonorsat the fo re hnt of new thinkingon foreign aid to Somalia is the U.S. Agencyfor InternationalDevelopment (USAID), whichis attempting o operatiodizethesenewapproaches through its Greater Horn of AficaInitiative(GHAI). Though still in planningstagqtheGHAI isconceptually.superiortopast approaches to development aid. It

This tern encompasses the reg ion from Burundiand Tanzania in the south to Sudan in the north-azone characterized by endem ic humanitarian,political, and rehgec crises that have presented theinternational community with some of the mostchallenging complex emergencies in the world.124


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unsustainable structure. First superimposed ona statcless,predominantlypastoralsociety byItalian and British colonialism, he state inSomalia was subsequently sustained anddramatically enlarged by generous levels offoreign aid. Its growthinto the primary sourceof employment inSomalia in the 1970s

economically viable! The Cold Wartemporarily obscured this fundamentalproblem. Attracted by Somalia's perceivedstrategic importance in the Horn of Afiica-ageopolitical advantage that Somali leaders werekeen to exploit- diverse range of donorsprovided economicassistance that mayhave exceeded $5billion fiom 1960 toand 1980s,g The Somali state ...has nevernot only a bloatedbureaucmcy but also been remotely sustaina ble by 1988 and mi)itaryaid

one of subsah- domestic sources of revenue. estimated at $2.4Africa's largest billion.' In addition,armies, co&idedwith extremelyhigh levels of foreign assistancefrom a wide variety of donors during the ColdWar.Conversely, in 1989-90,whenreducedCold War ensionsenabled western donors tofreeze fm ig n assistanceto Somaliaamidstcharges of grossviolations of human-rights bythe Barre regime-an ethical luxury that thelogic of the Cold War had prevented in thepast-the Somali statequickly collapsed andhas yet to reappear. Even the prolongedefforts at nation-building by the U.N. operationin Somalia (UNOSOM) fiom 1993 to March1995 were unable to resusci tate a b m al i statebesetby powerfulcentrifugal olitical f mand a weak domestic economy that cannotgeneratetax revenues for a minimalist cen td -state structure?

It may be an exaggeration to claim that heSomali state is a creation of externalassistance,but it is indisputable that thestatehas never beenremotely sustainable bydomesticsourcesof revenue. As ar back asthe 1950s,observersworried that anindependent Somali state would notbe

h i s hesis is presented in greater detail in KenMenkhaus and John Prcndergast, "Governance andEconomic Survival in Post-Intervention Somalia"CSIS Afiica Notes (May 1999, pp. 1-12.

Somalia's endemicfood shortages, and its long-term rehgeecrisisresulting h m he drought of 1974 and theOgadenWar of 1977-78, added enormousflows of food relief and refbgee assistance intothe foreign-aid lifeline. By the mid-1980% 100percent of Somalia's development budget wasextemally financed,and a disturbiig 50 percentof its r e c m t budget dependentonintemationalloansand grantsas well.' At theheight of Somalia's foreign-aid dependence in1987, one analyst calculated that totaldevelopment assistanceconstituteda stunning6Mark Karp, The Economics ofTrusteeship nSomalia (Boston: Boston University Press, I960),pp. 146-169.Estimates given here are based on figures from theU S . Arms Control and Disarmament Agency,World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers(annual handbook), and crosscheck ed with theCIA, The World Factbook (1995) . It should benoted that total eco nom ic and military assistance isdifficult to calculate precisely. In addition toroutine problems of comparability with statistics,Somalia received a variety o f unorthod ox forms offoreign aid that did not alwa ys appea r in officialdatabases. For instance, in the late 1970s t he B m cregime unofficially received up to S300millionannually in cash from S audi Arabia as part of asweetener to brcak ties with the So viet Union.crhese figures were disclosed in an interview with aWorld Bank official in Mogadishu, 1988.

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57 percent of Somalia'sGNP.9 Somalia hadbecome "a ward of the international aidcomunity.""the institution of the state. Whole ministrieswere heavily or even totally reliant on a foreigndonor-the Ministry of Agriculture on theGermans, the Minisby of National Planning onthe Swedes, Somali National University on theItalians, he military on a constellation ofWestem donors. Throughout much of the198% Saudi Arabia supplied most ofSomalia'senergy needs for free as part of the"weaning away" of Somaliah m ts 1970salliance with the Soviet Union." Somali civilservants devoted most of their energiesto"project hopping'*-linking up to foreign-aidprojectsthat would pay viable salaries-ratherthanperforming their duties within theirministries,where they went virtually unpaid."

High levels of foreign assistancetoSomalia have hada profound effect on Somaliurbanpolitical cultureas well. Since 1960,oneof the most important roles of the Somali statehas been as a catchment point through which

This level of aid dependence transformed

9Data are from ACD A, W o r l d M i l i t a r yExpendi tures and Arms Transf i rs , cited andanalyzed in Paul Henze, The H o r n of A f i i c a : F r o mWar to Peace (New York: t . Martin's Press, 1991).p. 125. To put this figure in contex t, in 198 7foreign aid as a percentage o f GN P in Sudan was10.5 percent, and in Eth iopia 11.7 percent.%avid Laitin, "Soma lia: America's New est Al ly."(unpub lished paper, 1979). p. 8.The Saudis did, however, link the free supply ofpetroleum to deman ds that Som ali civil servantsattend regular Arabic language c lasses, anextraordinary case of cultural imperialism which theSomalis resented. But, having pragmatically soughtmembership in the Arab League in I97 3 in order tofacilitate access to new OPEC wealth, the Somalishad little recourse but to accede to the request.A civil servant's monthly pay in the mid-1 980scovered only two to three days worth of householdexpenses.

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foreign aid is h e l e d into the country. Thisunintentionally reinforceda "Mogadishu bias"in modem Somali political culture, acentralization of political life and competitionin the capital, the point at which foreign aidentered the country and was allocated. Andforeign aid continues to foster a "cargocult"among Somali political figures, n illusion thatthe reestablishment of a Somali state will againbe greetedwith ColdWar evels ofinternational largess,tobeenjoyed by whoeveris clever and ruthless enough to convince theinternational community he presides over astructure that can pass for a state. This illusionhasexacerbated the pmtracted impasse overnational reconciliationin Somalia today andhas fueled the ongoing civil war, which haslargelybeenfought over control of points ofentrance of international emergency relief intothecountry.Were there no potential foreign-aid bonanza inked to the capturingof hecentral state, it is quite likely that factionalconflict in Somalia would be far more muted.

It would be an error to project this portraitof dependence on foreign aid to the entireeconomy of Somalia Most of the ruralsector-the pastoral economy of livestockherding and the smallholderagriculturalproduction in southem, inter-riverineSomalia-has remained relatively self-reliant,despite the fact that this sectorhasbeen a majortarget of development aid since the 1960s. It isthe urban, civil-servant class that has developedan entire economy and lifestyle mund theaccessibility of foreign aid and the bloatedSomalistate it has sustained. That segment ofthe economy remains the most dysfunctionaland vulnerable in the aftermathof the collapseof the state.US.Aid during the Cold WarWithin the narrow geopolitical logic ofthe Cold War, independent Somalia found

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itself occupying strategicallyvaluable realestate in the Hom ofMca , he "softunderbelly" of the Arabian Peninsula Like itsneighbors in northeast Afrca-Ept, Sudan,and Eth iop iA om ali a was able to parley thisstrategic significance into high levels of foreignaid. Yet throughout the Cold War Somaliawasalways a consolation prize for su per p~ wenvyingfor influence in the much more mportantcountry of Ethiopia. Since Somalia's emnitywith Ethiopi- function of Somali irredentistclaims on Ethiopia's Somali-inhabitedOgadenreg ion -pm lud ed an alliance with bothcountries, the f i r s t choice of boththe East Blocand the West in the Horn ofAfiicawasEthiopia, which possesseda much largerpopulation and landmass,M c a ' s largestarmy, and far greater politicalprestige andleadershipthanSomalia"flowed intotheHorn of Micawasmilitary,helping to transform the region intoone of themost militarized zones in the Third World. Aheavy sham of the responsibility for thisweapons flow restswththe fonner SovietUnion, which fiom 1%7 to 1987 provided anestimatedH.2billion in arms deliveries to itsclients in Somalia, Ethiopia and Sudan." TheU.S. bansferred about $1 billion in military

Much of the internationalassistance which

MIDDLE ASTPOLICY, OL.V, No. 1, JANUARY 1997

128

~

Several books document the politics of Cold Warcompetition in the Horn of Africa See JeffreyLefebvre, Arms fo r t he Horn : US. ecuri ty Pol icyin Ethiop ia and Somal ia, 1953-1991 (Pittsburgh:University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991); Paul Henze.The H o r n of Af i ica: From W w o Peace (NewYork: St. Martin's Press, 1991);Steven David,Choosing Sides: Al ignm ent and Real ignment in theThi rd Wor ld (Baltimore and London: Johns HopkinsUniversity Press. 1991);RobertPatman, The SovietUn ion i n the H or n ofAf i i ca (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1990).Henze, The Horn o fA f i ica , p. 119.

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equipment and supportintotheHorn over tbecourse of the Cold War."assistancesince independencein 1960can bebroken down intothree distinct periods,corresponding roughly to each decade.'I?uoughmost of the 197Os,Somalia e m b da close alliancewiththe Soviet Union; as aconsequence, the United States providedvirtually no aid h m 970-78. By contrast, inthe 1960s and 1980% he United Statesplayed arelatively significant role as a foreign donor, butalways aspart of a much wider, multinationalprogram of assistance. Inneither the 1960snor the 1980s did U.S. bilateral economic andmilitaryassistance rank as he top sou~ce f aidforSomalia Still,U.S. i M conomic aidto Somaliah954 to 1987totaled $677million (oneof the top recipients of U.S. aid insubSaharan Africa)'' and U.S.military aid toSomalia in that periodreached $380 million."Moreover, inasmuch asU.S. ssistancewascloselycoordinatedwithother major donorslike Italy and Saudi M i a , and its policypreferences influential in multilateral lenderslike theWorld Bank and LntemationalMonetaryFund, he United States hadapowerful voice in shaping the philosophy andgoals linked to intemational aid to SomaliaThrwghout he ColdWar, merican foreignaid to Somaliawas defined and driven bystrategic rationales, often at the expense ofdevelopmentalconcerns.

Somalia's legacy of international

U S id in the 19609. The United Statesplayed a relatively subdued role in foreign~ ~

"Lefebvre, Arms or t he Hor n p. 15.'%SAID. Congressional Presentat ion. Fisc al Year1990.Annex I,Africa p. 338.Dilemmas in the Horn of Africa: Contradictions inthe US.-So mal ia Relationship."Northeast Afr icanStudies 9. 3 (19 87) p. 28.

Peter Schracdet and Jercl Rosati, "Policy7


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assistanceto Somalia in the 1960s. U.S.military aid to Somalia for the entire decadetotaled only $1 million, in conbast to $47million provided h m 1963 to 1969 by theSoviet Union." hostilities and hadPart of this low-key to be a b o r t e d due to

report described asan imposition offunction of theclose ties betweenthe United states concessionary loan s, poorly "American style"and Ethiopia in that conceived develop men t projects range management,

development consultants to understand Somalipastoral land tenure undermined a ra ng emanagement project in the southerntown ofAfhad ow. The project sparked i n t r a & n

approach was a As most of the assistance offered whatanembassyto Somalia wa s in the form o f

era, an alliance saddled Soma lia with foreign which waswhich would have "completelybeenjeopardized debt which it could n ot service. contraryto localhadtieUnited style."21StatesprovidedSomalia with significant military aid.match the Soviet Union in developmentfinancing, contributing 17 percent of thefunding of Somalia'stotaldevelopment budgeth m 963 to 1969. American assistancefocused on infnstmctud projects like portconstruCtion,highways and urbanwatersupplies,aswell as range management andrain-fed agricultural development in the inter-riverhe region." As pad of its effort to helpdevelop Somali agriculture,which waspredominantly small-holder, subsistencefarming, American aid officials pressed theSomali government to adopt modem land-tenure laws. They were believed to be aprecondition for h e r s o invest in their land,but they created a! least as many problemsasthey were tooutset, when in 1% the failure by American

The United Stateswas, however, able to

This was clear at the~

"Henze, The Hor n of Afiica p. 101.Aid-The Cas e of Somalia," The Jou rna l of ModernA r icun Stud ies 9, 1 (197 1) pp. 37-40.'6SCe Cather ine Bestem an and Lee V.Cassanelli,eds.The St rugg le o r Lan d i n Sou thern Somalia: TheWar Behind the Wur (Boulder: W cstview, 1996).

Ozay Mehmet, "Effectiveness of Foreign9

U.S. assistancealso contributedto a multilateral,Westem aidprogram aimed at training and support for theSomali national police force. Not surprisingly,the combination of Western aid to the Somalipolice and Soviet aid to the Somali military setup an internal security rivahy which wasresolved by the 1969 military coup .In keeping with thepredominant aidphilosophy of the times,other donors focusedresources on largescale infnstmctural projects

as well, including roads,agmindustrialprojects, and telecommunications, as well associal projects such as echnical schools,stadiums and theaters. The shortcomings ofthis type ofassistancewere predictable. First,donors tended to tie assistance to high-prestigeprojects that did not always coincide withdevelopmentpriorities in Som alia Second,astime passed it quickly became apparentthatmany of the infktructuml projects wereunsustainable; Somaliawas unable to financethemaintenance ofmack, airportsandagro-industries,which slowly fell into disepair.

21Frank Mahony. "The Pilot Project in RangeManagement Near Afmadu." USOWSomaliRepublic (March 1961).129


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Third, oreign assistance in the 1960s, includingU.S. aid, tended to be concentrated in the southof the country, eading to a politically sensitiveregional imbalance in development. Finally,as most of the assistance offered to Somaliawas in the form of concessionary loans, poorlyconceived development projects saddledSomalia with foreign debt which it could notservice.As early as 1968, the Somaligovernment pro@ rescheduling andrenegotiation of its debt, a harbinger of thingsto come.nUS.Aid to Somalia 197781988. In theaftermath of the 1969military coup thatbrought Mohamed Siyad Barre to power, theSomali government forged intensive ties withthe Soviet Union, em bracing "scientificsocialism" in the process. In reality, Barreunderstood M arxist-Leninism poorly, butappreciated the ideological ustification itprovided for his consolidation of power withina single vanguard partyand the suppression ofdissent within the Somali polity. Somalia'sideological conversion was an attempt tomaximize Soviet military support, whichSomalia intended to devote to its irredentistclaims on the Ogaden region of EthiopiaUnder Soviet patronage, the Som ali militarymore thandoubled in size from 1971to 1977.But in 1977,whenEthiopia was weakened byrevolution, internal political strife and multiplecivil wars, providing Somaliawith itso p m t y o capture he Ogaden, Somaliafound that itserstwhile superpower patronabandoned it in favor of a new alliancewith therevolutionary Ethiopian regime. This leftSomalia badly beatenby Soviet and Cuban-backed Ethiopian forces in the 1977-78 OgadenWar.

In response, the Barre regime was quick toabandon its revolutionary socialistslogansandembrace anti-Soviet "containment" rhetoric inan effort to gamer American military aidagainst the Soviet-backed Ethiopians. Whatensued was a pivotal debate in the Carteradministration between "regionalists,"whowere inclined toview Somalia as a diplomaticpariah state for its irredentist war for theOgaden, and "globalists," for whom Sovietmilitary adventurism in the Horn of Afiicaboded il l for ditente and had to becountered bythe United States. Despite the Carteradministration's preference for a regionalistapproach, events beyond the H om -t he fall ofthe shah of I ran, and the Soviet invasion ofSomalia's stmtegicimportance asa potential componentof anevolving American Rapid Deployment Forcefor the Persian Gulf?' In the end, Somalia wassomewhat reluctantly taken on by an internallydivided carter administrationas a client, arelationshipthat brought a tremendous wealthof foreign aid to Som alia but failed to deliverthe levels of m ilitary aid the Barre regimedesired.U.S. m ilitary and economic aid toSomalia from 1978 to 1989 formed part of asemi-coordinated,multilateral effort betweenthe U.S. and itsWestern and Arab allies,particularly Saudi Arabia Militarily, theUnited Statescould not afford the diplomaticfallout of providing an irredentist state withoffensiveweaponry. So beginning in 1980, theUnited Statesprovided Somaliawth a packageof military aid thatwas defined as defensive innature. This aid, which began at $45 millionfor theperiod of 1980-81, came to total over$ 5 0 0 million up to 1989, the largestU.S.security-assistance program ever provided to a

Afghan-

UMehmut, "Effectivenessof Foreign Aid," pp. 42-46 . "For more detailed discussion, see L efebvrc. Armsfo r the Horn, pp. 175-205.

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subsaham African state." But the"defensive" U.S. military aid constituted only asmall portion of total arms bansfers to Somaliain the 1980s. Generous financial assistanceh m audi Arabia and elsewhere enabled theBarre regime to purchase $580 million in armsbetween 1979 and 1983; most of theweaponry was imported &om Italy.uNodefensive restrictions were placed on thesepurchases, allowing Somalia to continue tobuild up its offensive capacity while shieldingthe United States h m riticism that it wasaidingthatprocess.But the real problem in fashioningmilitary aid to Somaliawasnot insuring that itwould be limited to "legitimate defensiveneeds." By the 1980%he only securitythreat ofconsequence to the Barre regime emanatedFrom within an increasingly rebellious Somalisociety,so hat the main p m u p a t i o n of theSomali military was re pm iv e internal securityoperations. Thisposeda very different type ofdilemm a for military aid donors, but one whichwas downplayed until 1988, when a full-scalecivil war broke out between the Somaligovernment and a northern liberationht,heSomali National Movement. The Barreregime's brutal treatment of the Isaaq clan inthe north o f the count^^ was carried out withweaponry supplied by the United Statesand itsallies, and by military leaders rained in theU.S. I METprogram. Many observerssubsequently faulted the West for having been

obliviousto the costs of anning a militarywhose sole enemies were its own citizens.In retrospecs ustifications for U.S.military aid to Somalia asa quid pro quo forU.S. access to the strategic airfield at Berbera innorthwest Somaliaappear unwarranted.Charged with planning a Rapid D eploymentForce capable of enforcing the car ter Doctrinein the Persian Gulf, U.S. officials sought accessto naval and air basesthroughout the MiddleEast and the IndianOcean,includingEgypt,Kenya, Oman and Diego Garcia Somalia'sairfield at Behem, the longest runway inAfrica,was viewed as an athactive additionalfacility. But even within Washington circles,questionswere raised h u t he redundancy ofthe Somali facility, especially when the UnitedStateswas initially presented with extremelyhigh " m t " requests by the Barre regime." Themargmal importance of the Berberafacilitywas demonstrated during the Gul fWar, henthe deployment of over 250,000 U.S. troops tothe Persian Gulfwas accomplished without useof the Somalia runway.was always part of a broader package, onewhich David Rawson has termed the"secuity/development U.S. econom icaid, which totaled $639 million over the courseof the decade, included roughly equal ratios ofdevelopment assistance (earmarked throughUSAID'S Development Fund fo r Afiicabudget), Economic SupportFunds

American m il m y assistance to Somalia

Ibid.. p. 14, 241. U.S. military aid during thisperiod included $128 million in Military AssistanceProgram (MAP) funds, S175 million in EconomicSupport Funds (ESF), S60 million in ForeignMilitary Sales (FM S), and S7.5 million for anlntemational Military Education and Training(IMET) program. An additional S200 million wa sreleased in FMS ash arms agreements.251bid., . 228.

24 Ibid., pp. 199-200. Misreading i t s bargaining6position, Somalia initially requested $1 billion overa five year period, a package that would haveincluded advanced military equipment."David Rawson. The Somali Stale and Foreig n Aid(Washington, D.C.: Foreign Service Institute, 1993).Rawson's study is a detailed and valuable analysiso f U.S. nd Western foreign aid to Somalia in the1980s.

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(development assistancedesigned to supportstmtcgic intem ts) and commodity i m p o ewhich were channeled through he PL 480Food For Peaceprogram and the CommodityImport P r o p P Collectively, theseAmerican aid p r o w s ormed an importantpartof an enormous international aid presencein Somalia in the 1980s, a period in whichSomalia received $1.1 billion from OPECstates and $3.8 billion in Western bilateral aid,aswell as an estimated $2 billion through U.N.agencies, the World Bank and theM."

U.S. bilateral aid was delivered in twodistinct packages.One back centered onprovision of technical assistance to multi-donor projects, while the other focused oneconomic supportforpolicy reform. Project-related assistance included several agriculturalextension and training progtarns; a threeyearfeasibility study for a proposed $600- million,World Bank-- hydro-electric dam onthe Jubba River, rangeland-mangementandlivestock-marketing projects; groundwater andirrigation projects; rural health- programs;and rehgeerelated projects. But for a handhlof exceptions,nearly all of the project-relatedpackageswere deemed outright failures. Oneunusually candid USAID intemal assessmentconfirmed,"USAID projects accomplishedclose to nothing ifmeasuredagainsttheiioriginal design.'m And the U S A D mission inMogadishu was not alone on this score. Nearlyall other external donors,many of thempartnerswith USAID in multidonor projects,experienced similar setbacks.Some specific examples help tounderscore the depth of these foreign-aid

Ibid., pp. 70-8 0.CIA, The World Factbook 1995 p. 388.Melissa Pailthorp,Development before Disaster:2829I0USAID in Somalia 1978-1990 (Washington:USAID, 994), p 1.

fiuhations. In the caseof rural development,USAID and fellow donors recognized thecentral importance of a revitalized agriculturaland pastoral sector in the Somali economy, andcorrectly perceived that the underdevelopedrural sectorpossessedconsiderable potential.As a consequence, USAIDprovided assistanceto nearly every multidonor agricultural andrangemanagem ent project in the 1980s. Yetfollow-up evaluations found that virtually noneof the agricultural and pastoral projectssucceeded. Theseevaluations tended to focuson technical and operational problems oftiming and implementation, faulting inparticular the cumbersome nature of multi-donor project coordination." But therewas afar more fundamental law in these ruraldevelopment projects, rooted in the predatorynatm of the Somali state. In the absenceofan effective and legitimate land-tenure system,projects which increased he value ofmngeland or farmland often inadvertentlytriggeredstruggles for control over thatres0u~ce.f'Land-grabbing by politicallyempowered clans and civil sewantswas rife inzonesdemarcated for internationallyh d e dirrigation projects,resulting n the expropriationof tens of thousands of hectaresof riverine landfiom minority farming communities. Even theactivitiesof the A ID -h de d feasibilility studyfor the proposed B adh ere Dam riggeredspeculative land-grabbing.)' Rangelandimprovements also exacerbatedpastoral"lbid. See also the summary of these various auditsand evaluations in Rawson. The Somali Sfaf eandForeign Aid , pp. 7 1-74."The Somali had established "modem " and-tenurelaws in 1974 to replace customary tenure, but thesystem was badly abused by ci vil servants andpowerful political figures to lay claim to landfarmed by smallholders for generations."See Besteman and Cassanelli, The Struggle orLand.

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conflicts over wells and pasture,as politically Another projectcentered preoccupation ofempoweredclans such as Barres Marehan donors, including USAID, was assistance toclan) encroached on land traditionally Somalias large refbgee population, victims ofcontrolled by other clans. By the late 1980~, drought and warfire in the 1970s. Since thedonor priorities and projects in the rural sector refbgeeswere ethnic Somalis (though most ofhadunintentionallyhelped to accelerate a Ethiopian origin) and since there appeared tohistorically unprecedented wave of land be no near-term resolution to the Ethiopian-expropriation in southern Somalia, a process Somali conflict, donor strategy focused on awhich left many riverine agricultural goal of refbgee self-reliance. Ihis led to thecommunities destitute. fimding of a number of refbgee resettlementTraining projects.Programs, Though theintended to government ofbuild Somali Since governm ent and military Somalia

Proposed thesestrengthen schemes, it waspubliesector refugee aid, the regime had a stro ng ambivalentcapacity, fared interest in o verestimating the refugee about actuallyofficials were diverting much of th e

nobetter. One population a nd threatened aid officials closing downreport

refilgee camps,whichID wh o challenged their num bers.&ncluded that generatedconsiderableewer than athird of theSomalis sent to study in the United Statesreturned to Somalia, leading the author towonder whether,after spending over $21million,. . the country is better off. Thestatistics show thatAn, s spending money toproduce what may be a net brain drain ratherthan a brain gain to the country.A 1989World Bank report reached a similarconclusion: after tens of millions of dollarswere spent putting thousands of Somalisthrough training programs, the quality ofpublic-sector managementhadactuallydeteriorated in the mid to late 1980s.

Jeffrey Franks, Brain Drain or Brain Gai n? AReview of USAID Participant Training in Somalia(for USAIDISomalia, September 1986), p. 5.World Bank, Somalia: Policy Framework Paper(1989-1991). (April 1989), p. 1 I , quoted inRawson, The Somal i State and For eign Aid p. 54 .

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levels ofongoing international assistance. Sincegovemment and military officials werediverting much of the refbgee aid, the regimehad a strong interest in overestimating therefugee population and threatened aid officialswho challenged their numbers.% The camps,moreover, became importantsourcesofrecruitment for the Somali military in its battleagainstnorthern Somali insurgencymovements. This bansformed refbgeeassistance into logisticalsupport for an armyaccused of atrocities against its own people,and placed donors in a politically untenable36Docurnented n U.S. General A ccounting O ffice(GAO) study Famine in A f i i ca : Improv ingEmergenry Foo d Rel ieJPrograms (Washington:GAO, March 1986); it concluded that Somalimilitary diversion of refugee food aid was the worstin the history of U.S. food aid programs.

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position. Distuhingly, a combination ofU.S.strategic needs and UNHCR i n s t i t ~ t i ~ ~ limperatives--and a fear of criticism forabandoning refbgees- allowedrefbgee aidto continue toflowuntil 1990.The most important development goals setby the donor community in Somalia, however,were policy reforms, not projects. ?hroughoutthe 1 9 8 b Westem donors, led by USAID, heIMF and the WorldBank, ought to linkassistance o economic and fiscal policyreform: lib eralido n, privatization andfinancial stabilization.Superficially, this conditional assistanceappeared to enjoy some successes in the1980s. Under pressure h m he World Bankand he United States, the Bane regime agreedin 1981 to liberalize agricultural policies bylifting price conm ls on staple crops.Donorshoped thatthisand other b m a r k e t reforms inthed ector would provide h e n reaterincentives to expand crop production andreduce Somalias chronic food deficits.Likewise,the MF was able to press the Somaligovernment to accept stabilization schemesand Shuctural adjustmentreforms,whichincluded moving the value of the Somalishilling closer to real market value, privatizingsome state-contmlledindustriesand reducinggovernment spending. But these proved to beephemeral victories, leading to far lesssubstantive and enduringpolicy reform andoutcomesthandonorsdesired.In the caseofagricultural liberalization,policies changed butwtcomes did not.Detxpbvely, he-market reforms pushed byWestem donors did appearto triggerimpressivegrowthrates in Somaliagriculturaloutput as early as 1982. By 1987, the SomaliMinisby of Agricultm reportedthat total grainproduction had more handoubled between

1980and 1986,after a decade of Stagnafi~n,~and the World BanksWorkiDewlopmenfReport 1988 listed Somaliafirst in Africa inincreased grain production between1980and86, with an average annual increaseof7.9percent Not surprisingly, donors celebratedthis dramatic improvement in productionasclear evidence of the successof conditionalityand b m a r k e t reforms, and of the failureofprice controls, which, they contended, hadsodepressed incentives that many farmers in the1970s had reduced their efforts and workvolume to a level which simply guaranteedsubsistence. One consultantsrepottproduced for USAID went so far as o claimthat agricultural refom hadenabled Somalia tobecome more thanself-sufficient in maize andsorghum,had driven agriculturalwages abovethe salariesof government civil servants,andhad triggereda reverse Nfalexodusofcity-dwellers returning to the farms, though none ofthesecontentionswas remotely close to thebuth. The causal link betweenpriceliberalization and increased agricultd outputin Somalia,so ntuitively obvious to the donorcommunity, quickly became conventionalwisdom.not increase in the 1980s nearly asIn reality, however, agriculturaloutput did

SDR, Ministry ofAgriculture, DepartmentofPlanning and Statistics, YearbookofAgriculfuralStafisrics198tV87, prepared in cooperation withGTZ Mogadishu: State Printing Agency, 1987). h o m a s LaBahn. The Development o f theCultivated Areas o f the Shabelle River and theRelationship between Sm allholders and the State,in Somalia: Agriculture and th e W i n h of Change,ed. by Peter Con= and ThomasLaBahn(Saarbmcken: epi Vcrlag. 1986). p. 137.%ax Goldensohn, Don Harrison and John Smith.Donor Influence and Rural Prosperity: The Impactof Policy Reform on Economic Growth and Equityin the Agricultural Sector in Som alia (US AID :March 1987). pp.2-3.

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dramaticallyas donors and analysts believed.The statistics, it turned out, were flawed butwent unchallenged because they appeared toconfirm donors belief systems about policyreform and liberalization. Donors and outsideconsultants had mistakenly assumed that thesocialist Somali stateof the 1970s possessedthe capacity to capturesurplusgrain productionand enforce price controls, when in fact theSomali stateproved quite soffand relativelyeasy for farmers, merchants and even thestatesowncivil servants to evade. As a result,price controls in the 197Os, instead ofsuppressing production, had merely heled avibrant parallel grain market The result wasthat the state marketing boards statisticaldataon grain production in the 1970s wasattificially low, while the dramatic increasein grain production in the early 1980s actuallyrepresented the statistical rpappearanceof gminsales formerly hidden fiom official viewratherthan a significant upsurge in dom esticgrain production.

Ultimately, the inaccuracy of grainproduction figures in the 1980s and ofcontentions that Somaliawas approaching self-sufficiency in maize and sorghum due to priceliberalization, were exposed by dramaticincreases in Somali food imports and food aidfiom the 1970s to late 1980s. According to theWorld Banks own study, food imports in theperiod 1970-79 constituted less than 33 percentof Somaliastotal food consumption, but rose

For further detail s ee Kenneth Menkhaus, RuralTransformation and the Roots of Underdevelopmentin Somalias Lower Jubba Valley (University ofSouth Carolina Ph.D. dissertation, 1989). pp. 390-404; and International Labor Organization, Jobs andSkills Program forAfrica (JASPA), GeneraringEmployment and Incomes in Somalia (Addis Ababa:

40

JASPA. March 1988). pp. 17-22.

to an alarming 84 percent during 1980-84.Likewise, World Food Programme (WFP)records indicate that total food aid deliveries toSomalia increased nearly twofold fiom 1982 to1986-87. Somalias food crisis continued towomen through the 1980s despite Westernpolicy reforms.impactofprice liberalization is bothinstructive and puzzling. On one level, ithighlights the obvious: accurateassessmentsofthe impact of reform must bem t e d in astutepoliticalaswell as economic analysis. In thecase of Somalia, the donor communitysmisreading stemmed not from an econom ice m ut fiom political misjudgment. Themistakewas not in assuming that priceliberalization serves as an incentive forproducers, but rather in assuming that pricecontrols had been enforced by a sufficientlyauthoritative state so as to afFect productivity.. What is lessclear is whether the donorspolitical m isread ing were born of ignorance or

cognitive blinders. On the one hand, manydonors and their consultants were alarminglyfar-removed f romd a y - t d y economic andsocial life in Somalia Studies and reportswereproduced from air-conditioned offices inMogadishu, drawingon market surveys andofficial data collected by Somalicountem.nyonepossessing a passingfamiliarity with daily life in Somalia knew ofthe vibrant black market within which many ormost economictransactions took place andwould have known to factor that intoassessments of the impact of governmen t price

The donors collective misreading of the

Y. Hossein Farzin, Food Import Dependence inSomalia: Magnitude. Causes, and Policy Options(Washington: World Bank Discussion Paper no. 23 .1988), p. 14.WFP, Total Food Aid Deliveries to Somalia,1982-1 987. (Mogadishu, January 10. 1988)(mimeo).

4 1

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controls. But that level of familiarity withSomalia could not beassumed within theinsular world of intemationalaid donors in thecapital.On the other hand, ample evidence existssuggesting hat donors were well-aware of thesohess of the Somalistateand its vibrantparallel economy. In the 198Os,for instance,U S N D and the World Bank were soconcerned over the Somali governmentsinability to tax its citizens(and hence increasestate revenues)that they provided technicalassistancedesigned to enhance he revenuecollection system (to no avail). Donor reportsperiodically noted the existence of the patallelmarket in Somalia,but rarely connededit totheirmacrwnalysis of the economy.Y And itwas the major donors that monitored rapidlyrising food importsand food aid intoSomaliain the 1980s.Westem donors efforts topromote fiscalreform and stabilization faced quite a differentproblem, namely, that policy reformsNumerous published studies existed on Somaliasvibrant parallel market; see for instance NormanMiller, TheOther Somalia, Horn ofAfrica 5, 3(1982), pp. 3-19; and Boston U niversity, AfricanStudies Center, Somalia: A Social and InstitutionalProJle (Boston: Boston University Press, 1983), pp.5-6.Tw o biting critiques o f international donors inSomalia can be found in Graham Hancock, Lords ofPoverty (London: Macmillin. 1989), and MichaelMaren, The Road to Hell: The Ravaging Eflects ofForeign Aid and Infernational Charity (New York:Free Press, 1996).Pailthorp, Development before Disaster, p. 64;Rawson, The Somali State and Foreign Aid, p. 46 .Se e for instance. IMF, Somalia: RecentEconomic Developments, I 98 1 (mimeo. July 10,198 I p. 7; and John Holtzman. Ma ize Supply andPrice Situation in Som alia: A Historical Overviewand Analysis o f Recent Changes (SDR MinistryofAgriculture. Working Paper no. 5 , May 1987). pp.

44

45

4b

8-9, IS.

themselves were short-lived, casualtiesof whatRawson callsthe studied ambivalence ofSiyad [Barrelszigzagtactics. Facedwithdonor insistence on stabilization and austeritym e a s w hat threatened to undermine theentire patronagesystem on which the Somalistate was bcsed, the Barre regime resorted todelaying,agreeing, eneging and renegotiating,a strategy designed to give donors hope hat theregime was approaching stabilization schemesin good faith, but never enough to actually seethe reforms through. Four imes over thecourseof the 1980s the Somali governmententered into stand-by programs with the tMF;each ime, the government failed to meetreform targets. Twiceover the c o m e of the1980s the Somali government signed ontobroadsbuctwal-djustment pgramswith theWorld Bank. In each case, it renegedon hoseaccords aswelluWhy, then, did donors continue to return tothe negotiating table in the hope that, this time,theSomali government would carry through onits promises? On e view, voiced by DavidR a w n , attributes this to a combination offactors: the cunning tacticsof baiiandswitchon the part of the Barre regime; thebaseless optimism of the donor comm unity,which, he contends, never filly understood thatthe B m egimes agendawas divergent ffomtheir own; b m c inertia within aidagencies,wherecareetswerestaked on large-scale developmentprojectsthat officials wereunderstandablyloath to suspend; and a p p t f i i dynamic within the donorcommunity.* Another view focusesmoreexclusively on the strategic imperatives thatdrove the deliveryof aid to Somalia Pailthorp

Rawson, The Somali State an d Foreign Aid, p.1I IS.Ibid., pp. 39-45?bid.. pp. I 1S-I18.

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concludesthat despite blatant corruption,human-rightsabuses and inconsistentmperation in policy reform, donors continuedto support a

forces that lived on throughout the 1980s.Western donors in the 1980s deplored thepolitical repression and notorious human-rights

abuses but, forgovernment strategicreasons,fmanced almost Western donors in th e 1980s kept largelysilent.exclusively by deplored the political But in May 1988, asources in remession and notorious fill-scale civil warmorderto uphold erupted in northernforeign-policyagendas.m ~nther strategic reasons, kept largely government forces,hum an-rights abuses but, for Somalia,

words, success or silent. which were&lure m d n increasingly manneddevelopmentaltermswas ultimately irrelevant, since theprimary purposeof Cold War economicassistance was strategic.The End of th e Cold War and th e FmvingofForeignAid, 1987-90After decades of shrewdly playing ColdWar competitorsoffone another to maximiteits access o foreignaid, it is ironic that Somaliabecame one of the first targetsof post-coidWar political conditionalitf of aicc-thelmkage of U.S. assistanceto improvements nhuman-rights and political liberalization.Somaliawas a relativelyeasy test case.OnceSomalias perceived strategic value wasdeflated by the waning of the Cold War, theBam regimewas deprived of its sole trumpcard. Iherewas relatively littleat stake fordonon in post-cold War Somalia, a fsct whichgave them far greater leverageto link aid tohm-rights.Human-rights violationsand politicalrepression had been a hallmark of Somalipolitics since the 1%9 coup that h g h tstrongman SiyadBarre into power. In the197% East Bloc patronsof Somaliaassisted inthedevelopmentof fearsomeinternalsecurity

?ailthorp, Develop ment Before Disas ter, p. 1.

through forcedConscription,against he SomaliNationalMovement, representinga liberation h n t ofthe northemIsaaq clan. The Barre regimesresponse to theW s ttackswas brutal,including the leveling of the city of Hargeisaand the strafingof civilian refugees fleeing forsafety over the Ethiopian border. Casualtieswere so high, and unarmed civilians targeted sosystematicallyas part of the regimes tactic ofrepnsaland tenor, that some internationalobservers termed the war a campaign ofgenocideagainst the Isaaq.

Ihewar in northern Somalia,documented by a highly critical GeneralAcounting 0!3ce (GAO) investigationmandated by Congress,energizedcongressional callsto kezeaid toSomaliauntilhuman-rights improved? Congress,which had never exhibited great enthusiasm forThe most carefully documented acco unts includeRobert Gersony, Why Somalis Flee: Synthesis ofAccounts o$Con/l ic t f i per ien ce in North ern Somal iRefugees. Displaced Persons, and Other s (Bureaufor Refugee Programs,U.S. Department of State,August 1989), and Amnesty International, Somal ia :A Long-Term Human-r igh ts Cr is is (New York:Amnesty International, September 1988).%.S. General Accounting Office, Somal ia :Observat ions Regard ing the Northern Conf l ic t andResult ing Condit ions (May 4, 1989).

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the strategic rationales behind U.S.foreign aidto Somalia,had alteady suspended ESPfunding to Somalia in 1987. Key figures likeRep. Howard Wolpe @MI) led a chorus ofcriticism of U S. policy in Somalia, blaming theUnited States for propping up the incrediblyrepressive, conupt regime of Siad Bane. Bythe summer of 1988, the United States hadalready h z e n shipments of lethal weapons toSomalia on the advice of the U.S. ambassador,over the objections of the Pentagon. Still, theBush administration hopedto unheze the ESFh d s o Somalia, arguing for a policy ofconstructive engagement to assist in a peacehltransfer of power. But additional massacres andworsening civil war in Somalia in 1989insuredthat Congress would n d appropriatefunds to a regime with such a proven trackrecord of repression. By 1989, USAID andother donors began to wind down or suspendprojects. Amid worsening violence, the U.S.embassy in Mogadishu, a newly completed,$50 million complex replete with thnxswimming pools, a golf course, and a M o f430 (the largest n subFsahm Afiica),reduced &to fewer than 100. Diplomatscontinued to emphasize the need for nationalreconciliation and respect for human-rights, butby 1989 nearly all international donors hadsuspended foreign aid to the country. Withoutinternational supportand finding,the B mregime quickly collapsed in the faceof multipleliberation h n t s and a popular uprising inMogadishu.

Quoted in Terry Atlas, ColdWar Rivals SowedSeeds of Somalia Tragedy,Chicago Tr ibune (Dcc.13, 1992), sec. 4, . I .Rawson, The Somal i Sfate and Foreign Aid, p.1 1 1 .54

The Famine andUS.EmergencyAid, 1991-92 Somalias fall into heavily armed anarchyin 1991 and 1992 quickly provoked famineconditions in the southern half of the country,where a large urbanpopulation was trapped ina war over Mogadishu, rural farmingcommunities were subjected to endemicbanditry andassaults by roving militias, and theentire economy collapsed amidst suchextensive looting that even copper telephonelines and sewage pipes were stripped and soldfor scrap metal. By late 1991, relief agencieswamed of an impending famine of massiveproportions. But the complete breakdown ofgovernmental authorityand social structures,combinedwthoverwhelmingrefirgeeflows,warlordism and extortionate b a n d i wconstellationof crises that came to be known asa complex emergencf-presented aid donorswith unprecedented dilemmas. There is nearuniversalconsensusthat internationalhumanitarianorganizations failed to meet thechallenges the Somali crisisposed in 1931-92.This failure of the collective response provedvery costly.One problem was that key players in theaid community were virtually absent fiomSomalia h r n January 1991 (when the last setof intemational diplomats and aid workers wereevacuated)untilmid-1992, when intensivemedia coverage of the amine triggereda tidalwave of new relief agencies, food airlifts andU.N. activity. Throughout all of 1991 and halfof 1992,only the IntemationalCommitteeofthe Red Cross (ICRC ) and a small corpsofnon-governmental organizations(NGOs)

JeffreyClark, Debacle in Somalia: Failure of the5Collcctive Response, pp. 205-39, in EnforcingRestrainf: Col lec t ive Intervent ion in InternalConflicts. ed. by Lori F. Damrosch (New York:Council on Foreign Relations, 1993) .

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operated in the country,providing emergencyfood relief and medical care.Ihe UnitedNations and its agencies were generally inert,citingsecurity concerns, mandates (mostU.N.agencies do not work in active war zones) andpolitidegal complications(U.N. agencieswork through a host government, which wasabsent in Somalia).U.N. diplomatic inactionwas in no smallm a w ue to the indifference of the SecurityCouncil, which, preoccupied by moreimportant crises in IraqandBosnia, wasreluctantto address he Somali crisis. It was,moreover, the U.S. delegationthat blockedattempts to place Somalia on the SecurityCouncils agendaand watered down a January1992 SecurityCouncil resolution in order tokeep U.N. diplomatic involvement in Somaliaminimal? Top advisers in the Bushadministration, includingSecretaryofStateJamesBakerand Undersecretary of State forInternationalOrganhtion John Bolton,opposed any resolutions which mightpotentially expand U.N. peacekeepingobligationsat a time when its budget was inarrears? It wasonly in the summer of 1992that a combination of political pressures,including sudden and intensive media coverage

h i s atter issue led to a scandalous situation inwhich the U.N. Development Program (UNDP)failed to use $68 million budgeted for Somalia fornine months because it could not secure th esignature of a Somali governmen t. Ibid., p. 220.Jane Perlez, Somalia Self-Destructs, and theWorld Looks On, The New York Times (December29, 1991). p. I ; for a stinging and detailedindictment of UN inaction in Somalia, see Clark,Debacle in SomaliaRefugee Policy Grou p, Hope Restored?Human i ta r ian A id in Soma l ia, 1990-I994(Washington D C: Refugee Policy Group, November1994), p. 20. This is the most extensivereconstruction of decisions involved in humanitarianaction in Somalia, rich with interviews with topofficials.

5

of the worsening famine, stinging public:criticism by U.N. Secretary-GeneralBoutrosBoutros-Ghali(whocalled attention to thenaked doublestandard between Westernlargess in the Bosnia crisis and inaction inSomalia) and pwing, bipartisan congressionaldemands for action in SomaliaB*ll coming inthe midst of a presidential electioncampaign-which mobilized the Bushadministrationto become muchmore engagedin SomaliamUntil that time, however, U.S.government monitoring of Somalia waslimited to a single State Department politicalofficer,and a single officer of the Office ofForeign DisasterAssistance OFDA), bothstationed in Nairobi, Kenya Like othergovernments,theUnited States concluded thatSomaliawas too dangerousto reopen itsembassyandwas reluctant to give the OFDAofficersecurity clearanceto bavel even forbrief periods in thecountry.Still, OFDA wasable to channel over $21 million in emergencyassistance in 1991 through the ICRC,CAREand other NGOs working in Somalia6Monitoring the effmtive delivery of that aid tostarving populations, however, was next toimpossible, an increasingly worrisome problemas reportsgrew that much oreven most foodaidwas being diverted by militias.Within the U.S. government, agencieswere splitover the Somali famine. Thoseclosest to the crisis, like theOFDA, the State59Anexcellent chronicle of congressio nal action onSomalia is recorded in Refugee Policy Group, H o p eRestored? Annex 3-2.%e Ken Menkhau s with Lou Ortmayer. KeyDecisions in the Somali a Intervent ion. Pew CaseStudies in International Affairs, no. 46 4(Washington DC: eorgetown University, Institutefor the Study of Diplomacy, 1995), pp . 2-3.6Jan W estcott, The Somali a Saga: A PersonalAccount, 1990-1993 (Washington DC: RefugeePolicy Group, November 1994). pp . 14,22.

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Department's East Afiica ofice and theHuman-rightsBureau,rangthe a l m , foughtto maximize emergency assistance to Somalia,and pressed U.N. agencies to take more activeroles n Somalia. The director of OFDA,Andrew Natsios, testifiedto the House SelectCommittee onHunger in Januaq

of food, "OperationProvide Relief." ?hemilitary airlift was intended to be a strictlytemporary measure tocopewith immediatefamine conditions until a planned U.N. securityforce of 3,500p a k e e p e rs could take controlof the airport and seaport. Politically, it wasattractiveasan optionthat promised todeliver media imagesof U.S. militruy planes1992 hat the Somalifamine was "thegreatest humanitarian an option that promised to off-loading famineemergency in the deliver m edia images of U.S. relief while

Politically, it was a ttractive as

world'" and Publicly military planes off-loading engendering little riskto U.S. troops and nolong-termamine relief whileriticized U.N.inaction, unaware thath e u.s.delegation to engendering little risk to U.S. m i m e n & , twasthe United Nations troops and no long-term also politicallysignificant in that it

injected a militarycommitments.as trying to keepU.N. involvement inSomali limited.Later, an OFDA official admitted that "wewere going off in one directionanddidn'trealize that the political f o b were going inanother.'" But even among the "politicalfolks" in the States Depariment there weredivisions. The Bureau o f Afiican Affairs wasstymied when it tried to make Somalia a toppriority of Secretary of StateBaker, andAssistantSecretaryof StateHerman Cohen'sefforts to make OFDA hlly operational insideSomalia were blocked by Bolton and NationalSecurity Advisor Brent Scowcroft, whoopposed allocating resourcesto an areadeemedmarginal to U.S. intern."to "do something" finally olted the Bushadministration into action in August 1992,producing the high-visibility emergency airlift

Media, congressional, and public pressure

"Clark. "Debacle in Somalia," p, 2 12.61Bill Garvelink, quoted in Refugee Policy Group,Hope Restored? p. 7.Mlbid., p. 20.

component intohumanitarian efforts, a rising bend in theaftermath of Operation Provide Comfort innorthern Iraq.The irlift did enjoy somesuccess- independent estimates held thatsome 40,000 lives were saved fiomAugust toDecember 1992 thanks to additional food aidprovided by the airlift.".' But problems arose aswell. First, he proposed U.N. security forcefaced innumerable political problems andlogistical delays, forcing the U.S. planners toextend the airlift. Second, the food dropped offby the airlift was supposed to bedistributed andmonitored by the ICRC nd severalN G0 s- U. S. military authoritieswere to haveno role on the grounMut thoseagencieslacked the manpower to oversee such sizableshipmentsof food aid dropped off at scatteredsites in southem Somalia InthetownofBardhere, the airlifted food attractedcompetingmilitias, riggeringepisodes offighting and looting that left target populations

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worse off than before.@And finally, mediacoverage of the famine was not sated by theairlift, but remained intense, and often critical,right through the election.Meanwhile, the hd am en ta l obstacle tothe relief effort remained security. Estimates ofthe level of food relief diverted by militiasva rie d-s om e agencies claimed less than half,others contended up to 80 percen t-but it wasclearly too m uch. It is appalling that there wasfood at the Mogadishu port but it cannot reachstarving people a few k ilometen away becauseof insecurity, argued OFD A Director JamesKunder in July 1992.People are dying in thethousands daily becauseaid workers cannotmove relief food. The world ha s aresponsibility to end that.167Militia leadersunderstood and cynically exploited the fact thatrelief agencies had institutional imperatives toget food to starving populations and wouldtolerate virtually any level of looting,extortionand even the deaths of internationalstaff to thatend.

Untilmed intervention was considered,OFDA and EU officials tried to copewithworsening problems of extottion and looting,much of it orchestrated by militia-backedmerchants in Mogadishu, by introducing amonetization scheme in which some high-value food commodities were sold tomerchants while low-value food aid continuedtobebebrought in as emergency relief. This, itwas hoped, would bothdrive down the value offood aid, which hadbecome the major itemover which militias fought and enrichedthemselves, and would give the merchants a

~ ~ ~ ~

Menkhaus, Key Decisions, pp. 5-6.Quoted in Ibid., p. 2.For critical commentaries o n NGO acquiescence to66676nextortion. see Marguerite Michaels, Lem on Aid:How Relief to Somalia Went W rong, The NewRepublic (April 19, 1993), p. 16; and Maren, TheRoad to Hell.

financial stake in security tather than looting.However, sincemost of the diverted food aidwas sold in markets in Ethiopia and Kenya, thepolicy did not have the anticipated impact onlocal prices, nor did it break the econom y ofextortion and bandiby which had developedaround international relief deliveries.Meanwhile, reports h m OFD As DisasterAssistance ResponseTeam rought backbleak news to W ashington. In Baidoa, thecenter of the famine, an estimated 75 percent ofthe children under five had already died, whileover a million more Somalis remained atimmediate risk of starvation.OAnd, despite aHerculean international relief effort, including aU.S.contribution of food and refbgee aidtotaling $95 million in fiscal year 1992,humanitarian relief remained cripp led bymilitias diverting and blocking aid convoys.Even the port in Mogadishu was shu t down by By November 1992, calls for a morefighting.

forcefbl humanitarian intervention intoSomalia were receiving favorable hearingsh m resident Bush and hi s cabinet. Somehoped to use Somaliaas a doable test case tostrengthenU.N. peaceenforcement in the post-Cold-War era for eminently pragmatic reasons.The more effective an internationalpeacekeeping capacity becomes, the moreconflicts can be prevented or contained , and thefewer reasons here will be for Americans tofight abroad, testified Under-Secretary o f

For a detailed explanation of the monetization9project, see Andrew S. Nat sios , HumanitarianRelief Interventions in Somalia: The Economics o fChaos, International Peacekeeping. vol3 , no . 1(Spring 1996). pp. 68-91.7%enkhaus, Key Decisions, p. 6.I .

Refugee Policy Group, Hope Restored? Annex C-1

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Defense Frank Wisner.R As during the Cold continuedU.S. umanitarian and developmentWar, omalia would once again attract the aid to Somalia, the U.S.-led interventionattention andmums of a superpower, not on possessedseveral featuresworth highlighting.i t s own ternsbut as part of broader strategic First, -on Restore Hope was explicitlyinterests. identified by Washington as a short-term andpurely humanitarian mission. Reflecting theOperationRestoreHope and UNOSOM, American preoccupation with avoiding193-1994 casualties,UMTAFoperationswere highlyrisk-averse.Forces were tasked with securingNovember 1992 to humanitarian relief toapprove a massive starving populations,humanitarian But end ing the famine and leavingthe problematic

The Bush administrations decision in late

issuesofdemobilization anddisarmam ent nationalintervention intoSomalia, ed by 30000U.S.room.marked a

end ing the crisis whichprovoked the famine weremi1-n; post-Cold two eparate issues. reconciliation, nation-war international building and economicrelations andtransforned the nature of the relief missioninto Som alia The details of boththe decisionto intervene and various interpretationsof whatsubsequently went w rong in the ill-fatedinterventionaremore thanadequatelytreated inother accounts. From the standpoint of

Testimony, Hearing on International Peacekeeping2and Enforcement, Senate Committee on ArmedServices, Subcommittee o n Coalition Defense andReinforcing Forces, 103rd Congress, 1s t sess., 14July 1993.There are now hundreds of articles, books, andcommissioned s tudies of UNOSOM nd OperationRestore Hope. Among he most carefullydocumented and/o r significant accounts include:Refugee Policy Group, Hope Restored?; Clark,Debacle in Somalia; Menk haus, Key Decisions;John Bolton, Wrong Turn in Somalia, ForeignAffairs vol. 73, no. 1 (Jan.-Feb. 1994), pp. 56-66;John Drysdale, Whatever Happened to Somalia?(London:Haan Associates, 1994); John Prendergast,The Gu n Talks Louder th an the Voice : SomaliasContinuing Cycles of Violence (Washington: Centerof Concern, 1994); and Walter Clark e and JeffreyHerbst, Somalia and the Future of HumanitarianIntervention, Foreign Affairs vol. 75 , no. 2(March-April 1996), pp. 70-85.

71

development to itssuccessoT, the U.N. peration in Somalia(UNOSOM). With its mission so narrowlydefined, -on RestoreHope ould not butbe an unqualified success. The militarysability to secure airports,seaports, and protect-relief convoys and feedingcentersenabled anunintenupted flow of food aid to reach faminevictims. Withinweeks, he interventioneffectively broke the back of the amine andsuspended, if not eliminated, the economy ofextortion to which aid agencies had sucum bed.U.S. mergency reliefflowed nto Somalia Atotal of $174 million was spent in 1993, mostlyin the fonn of USDA Food for Peace, as wellasOFDA p t s oNGOs and U.N. gencies,and refugee assistance. CollectivelyU.S. aidconstituted65 percentof the total food aidSomalia received in 1993,a generous andsubstantial contribution.But ending the famine and ending hecrisis which provoked the Fdmine weretwoseparate issues.Long-term, sustainable efforts14Refugee Policy Group, Hope Restored? Annex C-1.

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to help rebuild the society and promotereconciliation, public order and developmentwere needed for real success in SomaliaBecause he OFDAs mandate was limited toshort-termemergencies, it tended to share themilitarys quick response m entality, whichfocused more on immediate goals thanonsustainability. This approach was at odds withthe USAID teams, which was more attuned tolong-term development and local capacitybuilding. At the field level, it was not difficultfor individual aid officialshrn OFDA andUSAID to reconcile short and longer-termobjectives, both of which had obvious merit.Still, it highlighted one of the interventionsflaws, the yawning gapbetween the massiveresourcesand manpower devoted to emergencyrelief (as well as military outlays) and theextremely scarce findin g available for themuch more complextask of long-termrecovery.6 USAID in 1993 contributed $29.4million to a variety of development schemes,including mi ning for the Somali police forceand judicial system, demining, and rehabil-itation of water, inigation, and healthcaresystems but hadto rely on ad hoc measures byOFDA to redefine b d i n g to assist theseprograms. Like other major donors, the U S .

Refugee Policy Gr oup, Human itarian Aid inSomalia: The Role of the Of ic e of U.S.ForeignDisaster Assistance (O FDA). 1990- I994(Washington, D.C.: Refugee Policy Group,November 1994). p. 4.when i t was revealed that for every ten dollars spenton the intervention, nine was earmarked formaintaining and paying the U.N. peacekeepingforces and civilian staff, only one in ten dollars wasavailable for Somali reconstruction anddevelopment.nRefugee Policy Group, Humanitarian Aid inSomalio. Figures are drawn from a U.N. Departmentof Humanitarian Affairs situation report, November3. 1993.

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UNOSOM had to endure a storm of criticism6

budgetary process distinguishes betweenemergency relief (for which there is amplefinding and surplus foodstuffs) anddevelopment (for which firnding is scarce),creating enormous bansition problems in post-emergency settings.Ihe USAID teamthus found itselfworking with very limited fin ds to helpUNOSOM promote both political and econ-omic reconstruction. In 1993 and 1994,USAID focused especially on thereestablishment of a police and judicialsystem,which was deemed necessary toprovide Somalisa sense of security and anenvironment in which the economy couldprosper. However, USAID facsd the Sameproblem as other providersof postemergencydevelopment aid: namely, the prolongedabsence of a recognized and authoritativegovernmentto which police and judg es wouldbeaccountable and through which broaderdevelopment policies could be rationalized andarticulated. The very statelessness of Somaliaposeda firndamental challenge to donors, andpresaged donor troubles in other complexemergencies. UNOSOM and donor agencieshoped that he establishment of a SomaliTransitional National Council would serve asthe repositoryof Somali sovereignty toresolve this dilemma, but end less setbacks inSomali national reconciliation conferencesmade this impossible.RDonorswere left withthe unenviabletask of wi ng to determinewho,

ompounding this budgetary problem still furtherwas that most of the implementing agencies (theNGOs) through which AID and OFD A fun ds weredispersed were defined either as relief ag encies or asdevelopment agencies and were not structured tocope with transitions from relief to de velopm ent.For analysis of Somali national reconciliation. seeKen Menkhaus, International P eacebu ilding andthe Dynamics of Local and National Reconciliationin Somalia, International Peacekeeping, vol3, no.1 (Spring 1996), pp. 42-67.

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in the contentiousarenaof statelessSomalipolitics, constitutedauthoritative localleadership hrwgh which developmentprograms could proceed.Militia leaders,factional politicians, elders, intellectuals,merchants and clericsall laid claim toauthority, in reality, few possessed it.The scrambleby Somalisto emergeasrecognized local leaders through which aidagencies worked wasnot only an attempt touse foreignerstolegitimize heir claimsonauthority; itwas also an effort to conml thelucrative flow of foreign aid. As n the past,foreign aid during the intervention had acorrosive and distomng effkcton Somalipolitics and economic activity. Employmentand conbacts with theU.N. agencies andintemationalNGOsbecamepnzedcommodities, monopolized by factionalmafias.lhegiganticUNOSOMpresenceinMogadishu genemted an estimated 11,OOOlocaljobs,which helped Somali households inthe short-term butcreatedyet another instanceof unsustainable dependenceon i n t e m a t ~ ~ laid. And attempts by international donors tofund small projects throughlocalNGOS, aspart of a strategy of capacity-building,inadvertentlympted he collcepf as Somalifactionsandentrepreneurscfeateddo= ofbogus ocalself-help groups (all withimpressiveEnglishnamesand stationery!) thatcorneredintemationalgmntsandmisappropriated f undsand commodities.Somalis were quick to comprehendand exploitthe latestapproachesof thedonor communityin order to accesstheir foreign aid. Donorcynicism toward Somalia, alreadya legacy ofhad experiences h m he 198Os,deepened withevery new case of f i audandd o n . omalicynicism toward foreign aid deepenedaswell;local expecMionsof a foreign-aid bonanzawerehuge and unrealistic, asmany Somalisexpededthehtemamdcommunitytofhd

the reconstruction of the entirecountry.Whendevelopment aid appeared only in much moremodest amounts, Somalis suspected that U.N.and aid officials were divertingh d s nto theirownpockets.transitioned to UNOSOM in May 1993,divisionssurfscedwithin the U.S. governmentover the level of development aid the UnitedStates should commit to Somali reconshuction.Many in USAID, State, nd theNSC aw theneed to insure the success of the U.N. missionin order to strengthen U.N. capacity in peaceenforcement, and sought tomaximizeU.S.supportfor U.N. reconciliation anddevelopment initiatives.But ollce armedhostilities erupted betweenUNOSOM orcesand GenenilAideeds Somali NationalAlliance in June 1993, leading to the highlypublicized deaths of 17U.S. rmy Rangersthat October,congressional support for aid toSomalia withered, Political figuresand punditsfell over themselves to express outrageat theungratehlSomalis, and theClintonadminisbation announcedthecompletewithdrawalof all U.S. ilitary personnel byMarch 1994. A small staffof U.S. diplomatsand USAID officials stayed on untilthe closureof UNOSOM in March 1995 and oversawcontinued aid to police and judicial programs.But the fiasco n Mogadishu had badlydamaged U.N. credibility and U.S. opes ofbuilding up U.N. capacities for peaceenforcement; the prevailing sentiment inWashingtonwas simplyto let the U.N. missionquietly wind down, lace blame for the failureof the mission on the United Nations, and leaveSomalia alone. For some critics of theintewention, leaving Somalia alone was thebestprescription for the countxys recovery.

As he U.S.-led UNITAF mission

Michael Maren, Leave Somalia Now Th e New0York Times, July 6, 994, p. A l9 .

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TheGreaterHorn ofAfrica InitiativeOut of this bleak set of negativeexperiences with foreign aid to Somalia,aswell as similar fhtrations in prolongedhumanitarian and political crises in Ethiopia,Rwanda and Sudan, officials in USAID ave

begunexploring alternative approachestodevelopment assistance in theGreater Horn ofAiiica. The fust attemptto articulate a newdevelopment philosophyoccurred in themidstof a region-wide drought in 1994,when thedirectorof USAID, Brian Atwood,wasbriefedon the regions core problems: thepredominanceof man-made rather thannaturaldisasters, which suggested the need for aconflictearly-waming system to complementthe regional natureof the emergencies,especially rehgee flows, which defiedstateboundariesand rendered state-cmtered aidstrategies irrelevant; difficutties associatedwiththe relief-todevelopmentcontinuum in post-emergencysettings; and the pressingneed toenhance regional capacity andAfiicanownership of solutions to the regionsproblems. A powerful argumentput forwardby advocates of a new approach to the regionwas the grim fact that the GreaterHorn ofAfiica had become, over the comeof the past20 years, the siteof the worlds mostintractable, endemic and expensivehumanitarian crises, a cauklron of humanmisery that $4billion of internationalaidbetween 1985 and 1992 had done littletoresolve. International aid, itwas argued, m e dtodress the wounds of regionaldisasten butwas doing little to address their root causes.

famine early-warningsystemsalready in place;

Outofthesediscussions emerged whatbecamethe Greater Horn ofAfiican Initiative(GHAI).As one of Atwoods top priorities and as apresidential initiative enjoying the activeinterestand supportofPresident Clinton, theGHAI has received priority inter-agencyattention in its formulation.As of early 1997,theGHAI ha s yet tomove fiomchalkboard to the field, andopetationalizing the new approach it embodieswill be extxmefy difficult Conceptually,however, theGHAI s a considerable advanceover conventional, project-oriented aidphilosophies. Among its most significantstrengths are the following:1) Promotion of regionalcapacity-building.TheGHAIs primary aim will betostrengthen the processes by which bothgovernments and civil society in theGreaterHorn prevent oraddress conflicts andimprove food secun-tythemselves. At thegovernmental level, thishas led theGHAI oencourage the revitalization ofa regionalorganization,IGADD Inter-GovemmentalAuthority on Drought and Development)which governments in theHorn hope willserveas a central forum through which toad- regional problems. At the level of civilsociety, theGHAI eeks o strengthen the roleof local NGOs in development aid.2) Crisis prevention. A t w d has emphasizedthat oneof the primaryaimsof the Clintonadministtation istohelp societies build thecapacityto deal with the social, economic anda p t - Within theU.S. overnment, theGHAI has catalyLedan inter-agencyprocesspolitical forcesthatthreatento tear them

Interview with USAID officials. March 1996.Clintons Initiative on the Horn of Afr ica Buildinga Foundation for Food Security and CrisisPrevention in the Greater Horn of Africa: A ConceptPaper for Discussion, (November 1994),p. I .

USAID, Breaking the Cycle of D espair: President2 Discussion papers and other information on theGreater Horn of Africa can be accessed viaUSAIDs web site.Atwood, Suddenly, Chaos.145


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bringing together members of the State collaborative relationship with them. RatherDepartment, USAID,DIA, IA and other than seeking to impose structuresandagencies for periodic meetings under the rubric p m s e s on the regiowan approach whichof a Repotting, Analysis, Decision-making failed in Somalia--theGHAIwill sewe as anand Response(RADAR) eamThis has enabler, supporting structures and pwxduresimproved information-sharing mong agencies deemed most appropriate by the regionaland between embassies on emerging regional authorities themselves. Because not all of thecrises and conflicts. states in the regionIn the region, the are equallyGHAI has also Past humanitarian emerg encies enthusiastic about ahelped to set up in the region ha ve offered little regionalapproachtoaid and diplomacy

(Ethiopia,Eritreaassistance for sustainable, long-nternet llnkages

between regionalgovernments in h e term reconstruction. Of special and U g h reGreater Horn, importan ce in this regard is an strong supporters ofenabling them to effort to promote food securitybetter share Kenyaand Sudaninformationaswell. in the region.

the approach, whileare more reluctantorA significant step inestablishing crisismanagement mechanisms in the regionoccurred this spring, when governments in theIGADD met and agreed to include conflict

prevention in its charter. This will enableIGADD o formulate its own approaches oconflict-preventionmeasures,which theinternational communitycan assist as3) A regional approach to development aid.Asthe name of the initiative suggests, theGHAIassumes that crises in the Greater Horntranscend national borders andcan onlybeaddressed in a regional hewo&. Thoughaid will continue to be allocated bilaterally, theGHAI will encourage effortsto seekValueadded on bilateral projects through regionalcoordination and facilitate regional effortstoenhance food security.Again, revitalitation ofIGADDwill be central to this objective.4) African ownership of the developmentprocess. TheGHAI iscommitted toproceeding along lines prioritized bygovernments in the Greater Horn in a

requested.

suspicious),adherence to theprincipleof African ownership means that theGHAI will be slow to evolve.5 ) Emphasis on the continuum between reliefand development. Where disasters haveerupted, theGHAI s intended to helpovercome insitutitional baniers to reducetransition problems between emergency reliefand development.Past humanitarianemergencies in the region have mobilized vastresourcesfor relief but have offered littleassistance for sustainable, long-termreconstruction. Ofspecial importance n thisregard is an effortto promote food security inthe region.

Significantly, this general approach toforeign aid issharedby most regionalgovernments in the Horn ofAfrica, andincreasingly by other major donors. Thecoordinatingbody for emergencyassistancefrom European Community states(ECHO),orinstance,has ernbracedthe approach andcoordinates policy with USAID n the region.And the U.N. DevelopmentProgrammehas

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launched a $25-billion development programfor Afiica that centers on capacity-building.This broad consensus among the main donorsand states in the region is critical in preventingthe initiative fiom being perceived as anexclusively American agenda.For all of itsappeal, however, theGHAIand the ideas it embodies face num m us andpotentially debilitating challenges. First, one ofits central objectives, conflict prevention, is aninherently elusive goal. Fostering regionalintegmtion via IGADD may help reduce inter-state conflict in the long run, but most of theconflicts provoking humanitariancrises in theregion are nfru-state in nature, which IGAD Dis much less equipped to address. second,IGADD is problematicas a regional forumserving as he engine of the initiative. For onething, it does not include several of thesouthern-tier members of the GreaterHorn ofAliica, including Rwanda and Burundi. TheGHAI s thus o f questionable relevance to twoof the most pressing political and humanitariancrises in the region. Somalia, meanwhile,remains unrepresented in IGADD as it lacksthe essential prerequisite, a recognizedgovernment In addition, a key member ofIGADD , Sudan, is virtually at war withneighbors Uganda, Eritreaand Ethiopia.IGADD can either serve as a regionaldevelopment agency or as a coalition againstSudan, but not both.u Still,observers concurthat there are no institutional alternatives toIGA DD however imperfecf it is all weve gotin the region.A third challenge relates to the GHAIsprinciple of African ownership of aid

French, Donors of Foreign Aid Have SecondThoughts.Indeed, some observers suspect that U.S.enthusiasm to revitalize IGADD is animated in partby a strategic desire to strengthen regionalcontainment of Sudans radical Islamism.

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prioritization, which begs a hndarnentalpolitical question in the Horn of Afiica: whichAfricans are to own the process, governm entsor civil so ci ev Put another way, is thepolitical crisis in the GreaterHorn due toparasitic and oppressive state authority, to beremedied by decentralization and thechanneling of assistance away fiom cenbalgovernmentsto grass-motsorganizations?Or,conversely,are pmbacted political andhumanitarian crises in the region a function ofthe collapse of effective governance, to beremedied by the strengtheningof stateauthor iw A compellingcase can be made forboth arguments. A case can also bemade forthe simultaneousstrengtheningof both stateand societal organization asmutuallyreinforcing processes. But in the context ofdisputed authority, civil war and scarceresources in the GreaterHorn,ontroloverrelief and development is viewed by localprotagonists in starkly zero-sum terms. Statesin the region are distrustfid of both internationaland local NGOs, of rhetoric embracing thestrengtheningof civil socie ty and of anycircumvention of sovereign states control overrelief and development aid within theirbordersu

On paper, theGHAI ppears to embraceboth a topdow n and bottom-up approach inthe region.On the one hand, USAID claims tobe committed toworking to strengthen civilsociety. As Brian Atwood notes:We cannotprevent failed states with a topdown approach.No amount of international

resourcesor organizational capacity can Serve asa substituteforbuilding stable,pluralistsocietiesNew partnerships and new tools are

For a fresh look at the limits of sovereignty inzones of crisis, see Francis Deng et al. , Sover eigntyasRespomibiliw: Conflict Management in Africa(Washington: Brookings, 1996).

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needed tostrengthen he indigenouscapacityofpeople tomanage and resolveconflict within theirown societies.

f i s dvocacy of a grass-rootsapproach tocapacity-building coincides with the views ofmost internationalNGOs, hich for years haveserved asvital conduits of emergency aid in theGreaterHorn and which possess considerablepolitical clout. Their distrust ofcentralstateauthority is the result of yearsofexperience inwhich states have often been the primarysourceof conflict, corruption and humanitariancrises. In one GHAIworkshop in October1995, for instance, a top NGO representativewent so far as o conclude that the governmentof Sudan constitutedan enemy stateinhumanitarian terms. In the field,NGOs havesometimes challenged the principle of statesovereignty, refusing to recognize real oralleged state authority. In Somalia, where nostate exists,USAID has resolved thesovereignty issue by funneling aid throughinternationalNGOs to local communities,essentially sub-contracting a thorny diplomaticissue toactors or whom the issue is lessproblematic.the rule. Elsewhere in the Horn, U.S.diplomacy hastilted strongly towardsaccommodating entral governments and theirdemandsfor ownership of developmentpriorities and allocation.Thishas meant that

But Somalia is the exception rather than

Atwood, Suddenly, Chaos.A few NGOs have long ignored the authority ofthe government of Sudan n their work in southernSudan. In Rwanda, 39 NGOs were expelled forrefusing to register with and pay customs taxes tothe new RPF government in 1994; in Somalia,General Aideed sought unsuccessfully to useinternationalNGOs o shore up his claim ofsovereign control over Somalia by kidnapping aidworkers in the town of Baidoa on the grounds thatthey had not obtained visas from his government.

a786

colloboration within the GHAl has been almostentirely between donors and states. At theinsistence of regional states, international andlocal NGOs have beengiven marginal roles toplay in the GHAI, a fact which has not sat wellwith NGO officials; indeed, representativesofinternationalNGOs omplain that they werenot brought into planning discussions of theGHAI until a year after its genesis. But as longas regional governments continue to distrustdevelopment rhetoric that embmxsempowerment of civic society, seeing suchagendas asmeddling in M u nternal affairsand potentiallyeroding heir ownoften shakyauthority, it is unlikely that the GHAIwill beable toeffectively implement a two track policyof capacity-buildingat both state and locallevels. Meanwhile, the dilemma forUSAID sthat misjudgments overthechanneling of aidcaneasily lead to accusations ither ofstrengthening a centml statescapacity forrepressionor a local politys capacity forsecession.

The final and most potent threat to thesuccessof the GHAI s budgetary. Though theGHAI s not premised on large allocationsofforeign aid,adequatedonor resourcesare stillessential. The decline of Cold War strategicinterests in the region, which has freedUSAIDto pursue more sustainable and thoughtfulinitiativesthere,has simultaneously eliminatedthe rationale thatjustified aid in the first place.Ironically, aid resources for he region may dryup at the very moment whena promisingphilosophy of assistance is being developed.This is precisely the constraint faced byUSAID in Somalia, where a paucity offimdinghasdramatically reduced both thecapacity and influence of American assistance

19John Prendergast,Fron t -L ine D ip lomacy :Humani tar ian Aid and Conf l ic t Prevent ion in Af i ica(Boulder: Lynne Rienner Pub., 1996).

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programs. The vacuum created by theshrunken USAID mission has been filled by arobust European Com mission, which nowdominates donor policies and priorities in theSomalia Aid Coordination Body (SACB),aconsortiumof donors, U.N. agencies, andN O S perating in Somalia For instance, U.S.contributions o food monetization pmgrams, acritical instrument in the shaping ofrehabilitation priorities in Somalia, wasdominanth r n 1992 to 1994, but by 1996 haddropped to only $4million, compared to $48million fiom the EuropeanUnion. Indeed, thetotalUSAID budget proposal for Somalia forfiscalyear 1998,includingthecategories ofdevelopment assistance, emergency feeding,food-for-work, monetization and disaster-assistance funds, comes to a mere $15.4million, and it is likely that request will not behlly funded. As a result, U.S. aid officialshave had a much harder time shaping donorpolicy in the SACB, and American influenceover political as well as economicdevelopments in the countryhave beenmarginalized."

Figures based on discussions with UN , EC. andUSAID officials in Nairobi, Kenya, August 1996.90

For Somalis, the real external powerbroker ha s become the European Commission,which, armed with a large budget and anextensiveteamof European technical advisersand consultants, constitutes a virtual surrogategovernmentbased in Nairobi, Kenya"Given these constaints, there is, somecritics predict, a real possibility that the GHAlwill remain an attractive set of principles thatwill prove difficultto operationalize n theturbulent Greater Horn. On the other hand, pastapproaches have so clearly failed the regionthat no justification can be made for continuedbusinessas usual. Without ambitious andcreative departuresh m pastpractices, andwithout reasonable levels of h d i n g fromdonors, the region will again beconsigned toanother generation of endemic crises, and theUnited States will continue to spend hundredsof millions of dollars on reactive humanitarianassistance to preventable crises.

As o f August 1996, the EC Somalia Un it included1one special envoy, three delegates, ten technicaladvisers, and 25-40 short-term consultants;collectively they prioritize, oversee, and evaluate allEC-funded aid projects in Somalia, which currentlytotals about $6 0 million. While this figure i sexpected to drop significantly in the coming twoyears, it at least temporarily giv es the EC specialenvoy and his team imperial authority over the weakand fragmented Som ali societ y.

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