Somalia.

In a 17 June press briefing on recent developments regarding Somalia, the Head of the United Nations Political Office for Somalia, David Stephen, said there might eventually be a change in the approach of the international community towards the country. Having lost patience with the warlords, the seven nation Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) was abandoning its "top-down" approach and looking instead at approaches that rewarded regions for maintaining peace.

"Somalia was a country without a State. There was no war, but no peace either. Sporadic hostilities continued, along with banditry and clan warfare in some parts of the country."

There was talk of a new "bottom-up" approach, whereby instead of centralist agreements among leaders, regions would be invited to do their best to form peaceful administrations. It was a system of rewarding those who brought peace to their regions. There were already several regions that were largely at peace, for example, the northwest - "the self-styled Somaliland" - and the northeast, which was forming an administration with a constitution. "Those could be the building blocks of a new federated Somalia", Mr. Stephen said. The international community would be invited to support those regions that reached peace. There was also a move to concentrate more on the institutions of civil society, away from the exclusive concentration on warlords.

At the same time, however, Mr. Stephen expressed concern about the lack of funding for United Nations humanitarian operations in Somalia. The $100 million consolidated inter-agency appeal for 1996-1997 for projects in the country had raised only $38.9 million, he said.

In a press briefing on 14 May, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative for Somalia, Dominik Langenbacher, said Somalia was a failed State in crisis, where military and political problems were exacerbated by floods. He expressed concern about the situation in Mogadishu, noting that since the hostage situation in April, the area had remained closed for UNDP operations; past experience showed that after several weeks of keeping such operations closed, the humanitarian situation there tended to deteriorate.

The good news on Somalia, he said, was that UNDP and other United Nations agencies had reached a point where they could start early development work in two northern areas where circumstances allowed the United Nations to begin longer-term efforts. UNDP was also looking into problems facing those regions in the immediate post-conflict time, such as demining, demobilization and building a police force.