Min­is­ters/​Mem­bers of par­lia­ment Ladies and Gen­tle­men There is a So­mali proverb that says, ‘Sticks in a bun­dle can­not be bro­ken.
For too long, our na­tion has been bathed by the spilling of blood.

Each one of us has been touched by hatred, by violence, by conflict. Each one of us made decisions based on the need to survive: whether that was to leave, or stay- we have all come from a common place of needing to fight to live.

But this is not the way of our future. Somalia has invested a generation of lives in conflict. We must now invest a generation of lives in peace.

Peace does not au­to­mat­i­cally fill the vac­uum left by con­flict. Peace is a de­ci­sion, a choice, an act of will. Peace comes not just through putting our weapons aside, but choos­ing to join our hands in friend­ship. Peace comes by choos­ing for­give­ness over re­sent­ment and re­venge. Peace is built on the back of progress; it rests on the shoul­ders of pur­pose and pros­per­ity.

We have walked a long way to­wards peace and pros­per­ity over the past three years. We have set some am­bi­tious goals, en­cap­su­lated in Vi­sion 2016: a new Con­sti­tu­tion, a new na­tional struc­ture through the cre­ation of for­mal fed­eral states, and the op­por­tu­nity for all to elect their cho­sen rep­re­sen­ta­tives in na­tional elec­tions in 2016.

To make these things hap­pen is to craft a na­tion, and a na­tion can only be crafted through the will of its peo­ple.
So­ma­li­a’s fu­ture de­pends not only on whether Vi­sion 2016 is achieved, but on how it is achieved. Par­tic­i­pa­tion, in­clu­sion and good gov­er­nance will be crit­i­cal to both the va­lid­ity of the process and the re­sults. The lead­er­ship and vis­i­bil­ity of the Gov­ern­ment in putting to­gether the plans, man­ag­ing the ac­tiv­i­ties and re­port­ing on re­sults will be cru­cial.

We have the op­por­tu­nity now to en­sure the broad par­tic­i­pa­tion that is a hall­mark of a func­tion­ing democ­racy. The FGS must seize the ini­tia­tive now to lead the dis­cus­sion, and en­sure the voice of So­ma­lis at the pop­u­la­tion level.

I am de­lighted to hear of the dis­cus­sions that have taken place here over the past two days. I am very pleased to hear that work has been un­der­taken to agree on a joined up ap­proach to na­tional so­cial rec­on­cil­i­a­tion and civic di­a­logues.

Com­mu­ni­ties must un­der­stand why Vi­sion 2016 is the way for­ward, and un­der­stand the tan­gi­ble po­lit­i­cal trans­for­ma­tion ben­e­fits aris­ing from it: voice, par­tic­i­pa­tion, rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

Clearly, there is much dis­cus­sion of the na­tional 2016 elec­tions- what form will they take, how will they be man­aged and what re­sults will they de­liver.
The Fed­eral Gov­ern­ment- at var­i­ous lev­els, and led by the Na­tional Lead­er­ship Fo­rum, is dis­cussing how best to en­sure that we have na­tional con­sen­sus on the modal­ity of the 2016 na­tional elec­tion.

We are com­mit­ted to es­tab­lish­ing a modal­ity that sup­ports po­lit­i­cal in­clu­sion, re­sult­ing in free, fair, cred­i­ble and de­mo­c­ra­tic elec­tions. This means that we need to con­sider mod­els that en­sure all voices are heard in the dis­cus­sions that are held to de­cide on that modal­ity. We must demon­strate that the Fed­eral Gov­ern­ment is re­spon­sive, and com­mit­ted to the prin­ci­ples pub­lished in the So­mali Com­pact of in­clu­siv­ity through bot­tom-up ap­proaches.

This is why a So­mali-led, na­tion­ally co­he­sive process around civic di­a­logues is es­sen­tial. Civic di­a­logues will al­low the Fed­eral Gov­ern­ment to ‘take the tem­per­a­ture’ of the pop­u­la­tion and use that in­for­ma­tion to in­form an elec­tion process that is seen as valid. They can be used to move groups of peo­ple to­wards con­sen­sus, based on their own in­put and en­cour­age and make peo­ple feel safe to give their opin­ion.

I recog­nise too, that we must fos­ter rec­on­cil­i­a­tion at all lev­els: so­cial, po­lit­i­cal, across all strata of our so­ci­ety. So­cial rec­on­cil­i­a­tion re­quires a real di­a­logue about the past, con­ducted in a safe set­ting, to en­able peo­ple to come to terms with their ex­pe­ri­ences, and re­con­struc­tion of the chan­nels of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and in­sti­tu­tions that will al­low peo­ple to live har­mo­niously to­gether.

I was en­cour­aged to hear from you to­day about the range of con­ver­sa­tions that have been held across the past three days, and the ex­ten­sive work be­ing un­der­taken to de­velop a uni­formed and con­sis­tent na­tional frame­work for so­cial rec­on­cil­i­a­tion and civic di­a­logue ac­tiv­i­ties across the dis­tricts in So­ma­lia, en­sur­ing that these ac­tiv­i­ties match up with re­gional and na­tional level ef­forts.

I have heard to­day – and I am pleased to hear – that the pro­posed so­cial rec­on­cil­i­a­tion and civic di­a­logue bot­tom up pro­gram is based on the premise that com­mu­ni­ties can­not share per­ma­nent lo­cal ad­min­is­tra­tion or re­sources when they see each other as the en­emy. I agree that so­cial rec­on­cil­i­a­tion will help to un­lock the deep-seated mis­trust be­tween di­vided com­mu­ni­ties.

It is clear that com­mu­nity-dri­ven so­cial rec­on­cil­i­a­tion is im­per­a­tive to cre­ate space for peace­ful civic di­a­logues that fos­ter agree­ments on co-ex­is­tence, and po­lit­i­cal ac­com­mo­da­tion across all com­mu­ni­ties.

It is es­sen­tial that this di­rect en­gage­ment with the pub­lic through di­a­logue and planned, mon­i­tored in­ter­ac­tion builds and re­stores trust and con­fi­dence across So­ma­lia in the gov­ern­ment. It is es­sen­tial that we are able to to­gether tan­gi­bly demon­strate that we are com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing a peace­ful, par­tic­i­pa­tory process that re­sults in a uni­fied So­ma­lia.

I con­grat­u­late the Min­istry of In­te­rior and Fed­eral Af­fairs for their com­mit­ment in pro­mot­ing this So­mali- led agenda.

Over the past two and a half years, So­ma­lia has in­vested in build­ing the mech­a­nisms, processes and sys­tems that will un­der­pin a func­tion­ing state. Turn­ing what has been dis­cussed over the past two days into con­crete ac­tiv­i­ties will be the proof that we are ma­ture enough to plan for and safe­guard the de­mo­c­ra­tic tran­si­tion of power within that state.

I am de­lighted that the Fed­eral Gov­ern­ment has been front and cen­tre in these dis­cus­sions. We must be clear in our lead­er­ship, in our agenda-set­ting. We must be com­mit­ted to ro­bust po­lit­i­cal progress.

The Fed­eral Gov­ern­ment has been very ac­tive in en­sur­ing that po­lit­i­cal ac­tiv­ity is So­mali-owned and led. With any large-scale po­lit­i­cal en­deav­our that re­sults in pro­found change, we must be sure that those changes, and the process we ar­rive at that change through do not cre­ate the very con­flict it is de­signed to pre­vent in fu­ture.

In par­tic­u­lar, this phi­los­o­phy and ap­proach ap­plies to the process of state for­ma­tion, or, form­ing a fed­er­alised So­ma­lia. Over the past al­most three years, I have led a process of di­a­logue and ne­go­ti­a­tion through which two in­terim re­gional ad­min­is­tra­tions have been cre­ated.

Hold­ing rec­on­cil­i­a­tion con­fer­ences in dif­fer­ent re­gions of So­ma­lia is a model that has worked very well in build­ing the foun­da­tions of sta­ble in­terim re­gional ad­min­is­tra­tions, in prepa­ra­tion for more for­mal es­tab­lish­ments when var­i­ous pieces of na­tional leg­is­la­tion and the Fed­eral Con­sti­tu­tion have been com­pleted.

It is tes­ta­ment to the progress So­ma­lia has made that to date, the es­tab­lish­ment of in­terim re­gional ad­min­is­tra­tions has been ac­com­plished peace­fully.

Over the com­ing months, the Fed­eral Gov­ern­ment will seek to sup­port the cre­ation of the re­main­ing in­terim re­gional ad­min­is­tra­tions. The task then is to prop­erly equip and re­source them, so that they are strong ex­am­ples of good gov­er­nance and are able to be­gin fa­cil­i­tat­ing pub­lic ser­vice de­liv­ery to the pop­u­la­tion.

Ladies and gen­tl­ment: I opened my re­marks to­day by draw­ing your at­ten­tion to a So­mali proverb: Sticks in a bun­dle can­not be bro­ken. Our achieve­ments and progress to date have been made pos­si­ble by the de­ter­mi­na­tion and re­silience of the So­mali peo­ple, and the part­ner­ship of the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity. We have proven we can­not be bro­ken, and we must con­tinue to stick to­gether.

Ul­ti­mately, suc­cess in So­ma­lia will be mea­sured by the im­pact on the life of So­mali peo­ple. With your on­go­ing in­ter­est and sup­port, we look for­ward to mak­ing this pos­si­ble.