engaging fragile states - Woodrow Wilson International Center for ...

and business people. Almost all the budding systems have been shattered. Because
of the recent insecurity, the business community has been on the retreat. In the
meantime, Al-Shabaab, the jihadist militia that is currently fighting the transitional
federal government, is providing jobs. They offer about a $150 a month to
young men to fight and are tapping into foreign sources for this support. They are
also enforcing Draconian sharia laws that are quite unpopular in areas that they
can control. The question now is whether other structures of local governance—
land use, traditional and clan rulers, water rights, etc.—in central Somalia where
Al-Shabaab has less control, will survive. It is clear that some neighborhoods in
Mogadishu are forming watch groups again—some very crude and others more
elaborate. Which other structures at both the national and local levels will reemerge
or be revived is unclear.
One important question is whether the private sector and business people can
resume their earlier roles. A remarkable development in Mogadishu and other parts
of central Somalia, Somaliland and Puntland, all outside Al-Shabaab control, was
the extent to which many services that are normally associated with a state were
taken up by the private sector. These services did not reach the poorest of the
poor, reflecting a major problem of market failure, but they did reach many others.
Despite the recent instability, an effective telecommunication system is still in
place and a quasi-banking system is still operating. Private sector actors were also
operating seaports, airports, underground water systems in neighborhoods, and
local electrical grids. Beyond providing these services, moreover, clan elders served
as essentially regulatory bodies that determine the rate that could be charged per
bulb, in the interest of the local community. Just any rates could not be charged as
in a monopoly. Any consideration of contracting-out has to take these significant
developments into account.
Moreover, these communities had the potential to become growth industries.
Interestingly, over time, spoilers in these communities such as warlords were able
to accrue significant amounts of assets. In some cases, they invested those assets
and made the transition from warlord to landlord. In Somalia in a number of
instances, business and militia leaders who in the early years of the crisis were
extremely predatory, segued into more or less legitimate commercial roles and obtained
fixed assets. As a result, they developed a renewed interest in basic public
order. What this all means is that any analysis of these situations needs to recognize
the interests that emerge in these local communities. These interests can and
do change over time, and they can be influenced.
Nevertheless, these trends are not the same as an interest in reviving a state, but
rather a form of governance without government. There is a difference between
wanting to see improved public order and wanting to see a rejuvenated central
government. Reviving a central government is riskier, for it creates a potential
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