I'd say we're in a fortunate position in the Somalia and Eritrea monitoring group in that we often have to provide criticism and point out where things are going wrong, and often aren't asked for solutions.
I have a few personal thoughts. I think that in general, the change of tack over the last four or five years by the international community towards Somalia in terms of supporting regional administrations, or what used to be called the “building-block solution”, instead of solely going through the federal government, has been a very positive step. I think the last few years have proved that regional forces, which have much more of a local buy-in—so that is either clan militias or the regional forces of now federal member states—are much more effective at fighting al Shabaab, and not just fighting al Shabaab necessarily, but also encouraging their own clan members and subclan members within al Shabaab to leave the group. It is a much more effective way of fighting al Shabaab than from the top down, from the federal level. I think the support for regional forces, regional governance, and to some degree local and regional fighting forces has been a positive step.
I think what remains a serious problem is that the federal government remains the only entity that consistently legally imports arms through the partial lifting of the arms embargo, which occurred in 2013. The problem is there's such fundamental mistrust between the federal government and the federal member states that the federal government has not been willing to arm or equip regional forces. In essence, regional forces continue to be equipped by regional member states, including Ethiopia and to some degree Kenya.
The concern is that with that fundamental mistrust between the federal government and federal member states, the overall security sector architecture remains completely unclear. It remains completely unclear how regional forces are to be supported, armed and equipped in the face of the realization that the Somali National Army has been a complete failure through the years. Millions of dollars have been poured into it by the United States, by the United Arab Emirates, by Turkey, and by other partners. They have put considerable resources into training and paying salaries and stipends to the army. It is nowhere near being in a position to take over for AMISOM. I think that remains the fundamental problem faced by donors.