Rethinking State-building in Somalia

The Rift Valley Institute published a summary of a forum it held in Nairobi on 6 December 2012 titled Rethinking State-building in Somalia: Negotiated Statehood and the Realities of Hybrid Governance.

The key points are:
--The concept of a hybrid political order is useful in understanding post-conflict state formation, in the Horn of Africa and elsewhere.
--For policy-makers supporting the reestablishment of government institutions in Somalia, the example of Somaliland is instructive.
--Hybrid political orders are not an alternative model for state-building; they are the outcome of a process of negotiated statehood and a reality to acknowledge and work with.
--State-building is not simply a legal and technical undertaking but a process of negotiation that occurs in an acutely political context.
--In Somaliland, the role of elders in relation to the state has changed: the authority of the House of Elders has diminished as formal institutions of the state have become more established and powerful.