I would agree with that completely.
We did a lot of work on taxation this year, as I mentioned. The universal response from local inhabitants who had to conduct trade, such as truck drivers and businessmen, was that they prefer to deal with al Shabaab rather than take routes that would take them through government checkpoints. That could be either SNA—whatever the SNA is, which is often, as Dr. Menkhaus said, just militia that answer to their clan chain of command—or regional forces, which will set up checkpoints haphazardly on an ad hoc basis and essentially serve as extortion rackets.
Al Shabaab is an extortion racket as well, but it's a predictable one and one that honours its own system. That is extremely worrying.
In essence, I agree completely that the top-down approach has led to the greatest waste of donor money in Somalia.