The Eu­ro­pean Union (EU) has an­nounced the open­ing of an EU Del­e­ga­tion of­fice to So­ma­lia. The an­nounce­ment was made on Sun­day in Mo­gadishu dur­ing cel­e­bra­tions to mark Eu­rope Day and fol­lows the sign­ing of an Es­tab­lish­ment Agree­ment be­tween the Pres­i­dent of So­ma­lia H.E Has­san Sheikh Mo­hamoud and the EU Head of Del­e­ga­tion in So­ma­lia Mr. Michele Cer­vone d’Urso.

The agree­ment for­mal­izes the pres­ence of EU in So­ma­lia and in essence paves way for more Eu­ro­pean coun­tries to open up em­bassies in Mo­gadishu. “To­day is a spe­cial day. It is Eu­rope Day, so we wanted to move be­yond words, to con­crete deeds. So we signed an agree­ment to show that we are the biggest donor but want to be more than that. We want to be pre­sent in So­ma­lia and want to open a del­e­ga­tion in So­ma­lia,” Cer­vone d’Urso said.

As one of So­ma­li­a’s biggest donor, the Eu­ro­pean Union shut its of­fice in So­ma­lia in the flareup of war more than two decades ago. The move to re­open its of­fice fol­lows ma­jor im­prove­ments in se­cu­rity due to the in­ter­ven­tion by the African Union Mis­sion in So­ma­lia (AMI­SOM) and the So­ma­lia Na­tional Army (SNA), who have to­gether neu­tral­ized and pushed out Al-Shabaab mil­i­tants ex­cept in mar­ginal ar­eas.

Speak­ing dur­ing Eu­rope Day cel­e­bra­tions, at­tended by among oth­ers, top mil­i­tary of­fi­cials and mem­bers of the diplo­matic corp, Pres­i­dent Mo­hamoud hailed the part­ner­ship be­tween So­ma­lia and the Eu­ro­pean Union.

He said, “The EU since in­de­pen­dence has al­ways been a ma­jor part­ner of de­vel­op­ment and to­day af­ter 25 years of be­ing in a dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion still is”, and thanked the EU for its com­mit­ment to re­build So­ma­lia. He added, “Here in So­ma­lia we have never ques­tioned and we are in no po­si­tion to ques­tion at all the level of com­mit­ment the EU has on So­ma­lia”.

The EU Head of Del­e­ga­tion in So­ma­lia and the Pres­i­dent con­curred that a lot has been achieved in trans­form­ing So­ma­lia po­lit­i­cally and se­cu­rity wise, over the years.

How­ever, Pres­i­dent Mo­hamoud noted, that de­spite the achieve­ments the coun­try still faces a num­ber of chal­lenges and called for pri­or­i­ti­za­tion of re­sources, say­ing ef­forts by the donor com­mu­nity should be di­rected to­wards re­build­ing the in­fra­struc­ture.

“The needs of de­vel­op­ment and re­con­struc­tion of So­ma­lia is too many. If we try to list them, the list is end­less. The trick lies now in the pri­or­i­ti­za­tion of those needs. How do we pri­or­i­tize? What are these el­e­ments if we fo­cus on can have im­me­di­ate im­pact vis­i­ble in the eyes of the or­di­nary cit­i­zen. This time, what we need is what makes the So­mali cit­i­zen get back his life; to make him earn hon­estly and de­cently, what makes the So­mali fam­ily have their own dish,” Pres­i­dent Mo­hamoud em­pha­sized.

The EU cur­rently has three field of­fices in So­ma­lia, which they use to over­see suc­cess­ful im­ple­men­ta­tion and mon­i­tor­ing of EU funded pro­jects. The field of­fices also keep the EU Del­e­ga­tion to So­ma­lia, cur­rently based in Kenya, abreast with de­vel­op­ments in the coun­try.