The Fed­eral Gov­ern­ment of So­ma­lia, United Na­tions, and donor part­ners wel­comed the sign­ing to­day of six new Joint Pro­grammes through the So­ma­lia De­vel­op­ment and Re­con­struc­tion Fa­cil­ity (SDRF), within the frame­work of the So­mali New Deal Com­pact.

These joint pro­grammes di­rectly sup­port the Peace-build­ing and State-build­ing Goals of the So­mali Com­pact, and the key de­liv­er­ables of the Gov­ern­men­t’s Vi­sion 2016, with a spe­cific fo­cus on achiev­ing re­sults in the state for­ma­tion process, con­sti­tu­tional re­view, elec­toral sup­port, rule of law, youth em­ploy­ment, and in­sti­tu­tional ca­pac­ity de­vel­op­ment.

The ini­tia­tives will in par­tic­u­lar build a stronger civil ser­vice at Fed­eral and State lev­els, sup­port more ef­fec­tive de­liv­ery of jus­tice ser­vices, and pro­vide thou­sands of jobs for So­mali youth.

They will also sup­port key de­liv­er­ables in the Gov­ern­men­t’s Vi­sion 2016, in­clud­ing the for­ma­tion of new fed­eral mem­ber states in the South and Cen­tral re­gions of So­ma­lia, un­der­tak­ing the re­view of the con­sti­tu­tion, and build­ing ca­pac­ity of the coun­try to de­liver de­mo­c­ra­tic elec­toral po­lit­i­cal processes.

The launch of these pro­grammes within the frame­work of the SDRF re­flects the strong com­mit­ment of the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity and the Gov­ern­ment of So­ma­lia to work as one in or­der to im­prove the lives of So­mali women, men and Chil­dren.

This is an im­por­tant agree­ment which will strengthen the gov­ern­ment in­sti­tu­tions and it is also a mile­stone for the co­op­er­a­tion be­tween So­ma­lia and our in­ter­na­tional part­ners” said His Ex­cel­lency Ab­di­rah­man Ali Aynte, Min­is­ter of Plan­ning and In­ter­na­tional Co­op­er­a­tion.

The Eu­ro­pean Union, UK-DFID, Swe­den, Nor­way, Den­mark, and Italy have pledged more than USD 106 mil­lion over three years to­wards these pri­or­ity pro­grammes. “The sig­na­ture of the new Joint Pro­grammes is a ma­jor step in the New Deal Com­pact im­ple­men­ta­tion.

It will al­low us to em­power sig­nif­i­cantly the Fed­eral Gov­ern­ment and to sup­port di­rectly core state func­tions,” said Daria Fané, Head of Co­op­er­a­tion at the EU Del­e­ga­tion to So­ma­lia

The six Joint Pro­grammes are led by the So­mali Gov­ern­ment and im­ple­mented by UN part­ners in­clud­ing FAO, ILO, UNDP, UN-Habi­tat, UNICEF, UN­ODC, UN­OPS, UN­SOM and UN Women.

The pro­grammes will ben­e­fit all ar­eas of the coun­try, in­clud­ing Punt­land and the newly emerg­ing Fed­eral Mem­ber states.

The sign­ing of these new pro­grammes re­flects our con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to sup­port So­mali-led and So­mali-owned pri­or­i­ties,” said Philippe Laz­zarini, DSRSG.

Our col­lec­tive fo­cus now must be on ac­cel­er­at­ing de­liv­ery of tan­gi­ble re­sults to the So­mali peo­ple, and in in trans­lat­ing these pro­grammes into de­liv­ery in par­tic­u­lar at the sub-fed­eral level.”

It is the cen­tre­piece of the UN’s sup­port to a So­mali led and So­mali owned tran­si­tion to­wards peace and pros­per­ity.