Understanding the Connections between the EU Global Strategy and Somali Peacebuilding Education Needs and Priorities
| Author | Alexandra Lewis,Neil Winn |
| Published date | 01 November 2018 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12573 |
| Date | 01 November 2018 |
Understanding the Connections between the
EU Global Strategy and Somali Peacebuilding
Education Needs and Priorities
Alexandra Lewis
University College London
Neil Winn
University of Leeds
Abstract
This paper examines the connections between identity politics and European Union (EU) aid effectiveness in peacebuilding
education in Somalia. It engages with a severe educational challenge, which is that a lack of capacity in rigorous educational
design and/or implementation across Somali Ministries in the South Central Zone, Somaliland and Puntland has led to the
importation of multiple foreign curricula into the country simultaneously that do not address Somali history and contemporary
conflict drivers and that frequently clash with local values as well as with each other. We critique this from a ‘new barbarism’
perspective, arguing that Somali voices and educational priorities have not been provided a sufficient space for expression in
the EU debate on the global and therefore also the national development agenda.
Policy Implications
•EU and international interventions in the Horn of Africa have focused in recent years on stabilisation through develop-
ment. However, these reforms have not taken into consideration the unique problematics and opportunities presented by
the Somali case, and they have failed to conceptualise the delivery of education as an aggravating factor exacerbating
conflict.
•In order to promote genuine societal transformation, we need to be moving away from peace education delivery that
aims to make people less violent or less barbarian, towards peacebuilding education that aims to question the critical role
of education in society in order to overcome social injustice.
•Such education should not only question the impact of culturally distinctive structures like the clans on the peace process,
but also the role of the internationally community in propping up, formalising and legitimising the inequalities caused by
these structures.
•Ultimately, however, it should move away from understandings of EU and Western values as being universal or culturally
neutral towards a strategy that critically assesses the role of all educational actors regardless of identity in order to pro-
mote the development of a peacebuilding educational strategy that is relevant to and respectful of Somali society.
•Significant EU funding has now been channelled into creating a unified curriculum for a unified Somali people. Yet this
has not translated into consolidation of the education sector as a whole. Without critical reflection on the importance of
ideology in curriculum design, there is a danger that the EU will continue to inadvertently legitimise attacks on schools
and educational institutions in the Somali conflict. Local development needs to be at the top of the policy-makers list not
at the bottom.
Introduction
Since the collapse of the Somali state under Siad Barre in
1991, the Horn of Africa has become mythologised by the
international community as a chaotic and ungovernable
region: a quintessential failed state (Uma~
na, 2013) or ‘the
most failed state in the world’(Jones, 2013). Most Western
literature on the subject begins by noting in some capacity
that the Somali case offers ‘the longest-running instance of
complete state collapse in postcolonial history’(Menkhaus,
2007, p. 74). Meanwhile, Somaliland-based authors are quick
to point out the stability of their unrecognised state within
Somalia, distancing themselves culturally and historically
from their Southern Somali neighbours (Ali, 2013), under-
scoring Somali violence through the politics of difference
(Winn and Lewis, 2017). In short, there is a large body of lit-
erature concerned with highlighting the interconnections
between violence, politics and identity in Somali context. It
has been advanced by some authors that the Somali conflict
is so entrenched that it can only be resolved by ‘external
Global Policy (2018) 9:4 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12573 ©2018 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Global Policy Volume 9 . Issue 4 . November 2018 501
Research Article
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