Development Cooperation with the international friends
International cooperation both bilateral and multilateral is one of the key priorities of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. MFA is engaged, and dedicated to fostering robust bilateral and multilateral cooperation with the international community, investors, and other relevant actors and institutions. Promoting regional economic integration, transnational trade, international investments, and economic, and development cooperation.
Currently, increasing regional economic integration is one of the important factors motivating and driving changing regional dynamics and contestations. Somaliland has many attributes, and avenues that should allow it to play a major role in this regional and international cooperation, and this will also help many countries in the world to use Somaliland as a gateway since Somaliland is located in a very strategic position in the Horn of Africa, along with the Gulf of Aden – Red Sea, Indian Ocean, the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, and Suez Canal, where is 37% of the global trade passes in every year.
Somaliland’s development history has evolved out of a process of 30 years of grassroots peacebuilding and state-building. Over time, a resilient institutional structure has taken shape in which modern and traditional institutions, religious authorities, the private sector, and civil society worked together in order to effectively ensure peace, stability, and delivery of social services.
The Government of Somaliland and the international community’s development cooperation was mainly begun earlier when both sides cooperated with development and humanitarian assistance that was provided to Somaliland since in 1991 when the Republic of Somaliland reinstated its sovereignty, and this cooperation expanded to many fronts of economic development, infrastructure, promoting regional economic integration, and facilitation regional trade expansion.
This international cooperation has stimulated, and promoted the Government of Somaliland to produce, for the first time in its history- a Somaliland Vision 2030 alongside Somaliland National Development Plans embedded with SDGs, and this has paved the way for Somaliland to create bilateral and multilateral relations with the countries and international institutions.
The Government of Somaliland also fostered its commitment to development and international cooperation most notably the well-organized High-Level Development Coordination Forums under are periodically held under the guidance of the Partnership Framework for Somaliland which the government of Somaliland and the international community endorsed in 2022.
Through this growing cooperation and mutual engagement, Somaliland has made significant progress in its development efforts and prioritization. The establishment of the Somaliland Development Fund (SDF) is a testimony to enlarging this beneficial relationship between the Republic of Somaliland and the international community. Throughout the years, the government of Somaliland, together with its international development partners, laid the foundation for cooperation and partnership. The SDF is Somaliland’s one of the international cooperation modalities that are jointly coordinated with the government of Somaliland and the international community.
Eventually, the Government of Somaliland is conscious of adopting good practices and implementing agreed-on international development principles that flourish such cooperation in a more robust manner. The adoption of aid effectiveness principles such as the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (2005), the Accra Agenda for Action (2008), and the Busan Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (2012) obligates Somaliland and the international partners to materialize and scale up their cooperation and partnership. The Republic of Somaliland also reaffirms the international trade laws, policies, and instruments
The Government of Somaliland is committed to promoting the attainment of better international cooperation with bilateral and multilateral stakeholders in a reciprocal manner. As a democratic country that respects universal and international conventions, Somaliland is a better choice and reliable partner for all sides of international cooperation, international diplomacy, trade diplomacy, international peace, and security.