Issue No. 875

Hassan Sheikh Heads to UNGA Empty-Handed

President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has been looking for a good headline. Ahead of travelling to the 80th UN General Assembly meeting next week, the beleaguered Somali president has again been lobbying for a meeting with the Jubaland leader, Ahmed Madoobe. But despite entreats from Nairobi, the Jubaland president has privately refused, citing his farcical outstanding arrest warrant and supposed illegality in the eyes of the federal government, while insisting that any meeting must come as part of a broader national dialogue inclusive of Puntland and the national opposition. So, absent some bizarre deus ex machina, Hassan Sheikh will travel to New York without the badly needed political 'win' of a reconciliation with Madoobe to sell. The president will, no doubt, nevertheless try to spin Somalia's most challenging moment in years at the summit, seizing advantage of his country's position as a non-permanent member for 2025/2026 on the UN Security Council.

It was a major achievement for Somalia to be accepted onto the Security Council, widely celebrated by many Somalis who considered it a sign of the country returning to the international stage. And there was plenty that Somalia would be able to contribute to, bringing a wealth of knowledge and experience on issues such as the climate crisis and dealing with decades of internecine civil war. Still, the position of the non-permanent member on the Council can prove somewhat of a poisoned chalice—held in high esteem but with little real influence and forced to navigate the Kafka-esque bureaucracies of the UN system. For Somalia, with a much-diminished foreign service and limited 'in-house' experience on the international stage, these extremes are more pronounced.

And nine months into their tenure, it is not immediately clear what Somalia's delegation to the UN Security Council has prioritised thus far. Certainly, the months-long Israeli obliteration of the Gaza Strip has drawn widespread condemnation from the Arab and Muslim worlds, including from Somalia at the emergency Arab League summit in Doha just this week. To his credit, Somalia's representative Abukar Osman Baale has delivered several impassioned speeches on the topic, repeatedly condemning Israel's violation of the most basic tenets of International Humanitarian Law (IHL). Criticising Israel is a welcome change to what Baale previously threatened, which was to wield Somalia's position to undermine Ethiopia over its Memorandum of Understanding with Hargeisa to access Somaliland's coastline. But on other global themes in which Somalia has a genuine stake, such as climate change and development of the 'Blue Economy,' Mogadishu's contribution has been muted at best.

Now, the Somalia delegation will also arrive in New York with the UN—and broader multilateral world order—under siege. Further cuts from the US to the UN will mean that around 20% of the workforce will have to be slashed in the coming months to find savings, while the decline of multilateralism has left the institution at sea. Thus far, it has repeatedly shown itself unequal to the two most pressing crises of our time: the climate crisis and the savaging of IHL. At this summit, under the banner of 'Better Together' - a plea for the US and other major powers to remain engaged - the wars in Gaza and Ukraine are expected to dominate much of the noise. Amid this backdrop of rising, aggressive multipolarity and retrenchment from development spending, Somalia's federal government may hope it can perform some savvy political dealmaking on the sidelines. 

But Mogadishu swims easily in this milieu, with its politicians well-versed in selling particular-- highly profitable-- visions to different countries. At this current juncture, Villa Somalia has cast itself as a democratic state-building partner to its European allies, firmly against jihadism to the new Trump administration, anti-Somaliland and Taiwan for Beijing, and to tout its Muslim Brotherhood credentials with Ankara and Doha. And despite an ever-shrinking control of the country and a fractured political settlement, Somalia has nevertheless racked up a number of new relations in recent months, developing bilateral ties with Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Serbia, among others. Mogadishu is akin to a geopolitical chameleon, all the while playing a double hand of auctioning off its natural resources to Turkiye for a pittance while insisting upon its diaphanous sovereignty to push Ethiopia to abandon its Memorandum of Understanding with Somaliland. 

But Somalia's most egregious failure at the UN has been its inability to secure funding for the African Union peacekeeping mission -- now tens of millions of dollars in debt -- perhaps because Mogadishu invested so much time and energy insisting the mission was unnecessary, before changing its mind and demanding a dramatic ‘surge’ of AU forces. Security Council paralysis on the issue has left the mission in limbo, as the troop-contributing countries (TTCs) continue to rack up debt. The US has already dismissed the use of non-assessed contributions under Resolution 2719 to fund the debt-laden mission, and now appears likely to further draw down military support for the American-backed and trained Danab special forces. On Thursday, US President Donald Trump blasted Somalia amid a broadside against Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar, asserting that it had "a lack of central Government control, persistent Poverty, Hunger, Resurgent Terrorism, Piracy, decades of Civil War, Corruption, and pervasive Violence" on his Truth Social account, before doubling down in comments to reporters aboard Air Force One.

Against this backdrop, Somalia is quite clearly drifting towards Beijing, with senior officials—including the prime minister—having travelled to China this year, motivated in large part by a shared 'One Somalia, One China' policy. In the past year, China has simultaneously substantially amplified its anti-Somaliland rhetoric, channelling support through the federal government to SSC-Khaatumo – now 'North-Eastern State' – to undercut Somaliland’s quest for international recognition.

Two crucial issues continue to loom over Somalia's position on the UN Security Council. The first being the heightened threat of Al-Shabaab towards Mogadishu, and the second being the question of Somaliland's recognition. Both are arguably more likely during Somalia’s tenure on the Council than at any point in several years, with the jihadist group having swept across much of central Somalia earlier this year and now remaining within striking distance of the national capital. Sadly, it would not be the first time that Somalia’s mission to the United Nations was left stranded without a government to report back to.

Though prospects of Somaliland recognition through the Ethiopian Memorandum of Understanding have faded somewhat, Hargeisa seems to have won the favour of the Trump administration instead. If the US were to recognise Somaliland—perhaps in exchange for leasing a US military base or a natural resources deal—it would eventually be tabled at the African Union and the UN Security Council, where Mogadishu and China would no doubt join forces to block it.

Perhaps under a different administration, Somalia might have been able to make a genuine contribution on the UN Security Council floor, but Villa Somalia seems fixated on performance rather than substance. Even before Hassan Sheikh has reached New York, his government’s participation in the General Assembly has been overshadowed somewhat by yet another corruption saga: in a leaked list submitted to the US Embassy in Nairobi, it appeared that the president's son, daughter, and cousin were part of the swollen 32-member delegation. There is still time for Somalia's position at the UN Security Council to bring about meaningful change, but with months slipping away, this federal government has seemingly squandered yet another opportunity on the international stage.

The Somalia Wire Team