By Ali Imran
ISLAMABAD: United Nations Development Program UNDP-Pakistan and UNDP-Somalia organized a first-ever Somalia-Pakistan Ministerial Study Tour on Federalism, Devolution, and State-Building from December 20 to 27, 2022.
The team attended seminars and learning sessions and visited various institutions such as NADRA, PIPS, the National Assembly of Pakistan, and others.
The Ministry of Interior, Federal Affairs and Reconciliation (MOIFAR) of Somalia led the tour of honorable ministers representing both the Federal Government and Federal Member States including representatives of Banadir Regional Administration (BRA).
His Excellency, Mr. Ahmed Moallim Fiqi Federal Minister, Ministry of Interior, Federal Affairs and Reconciliation, Federal Republic of Somalia was the lead focal person of the study tour.
During the meeting on the last day of the study tour, the delegation met with Ms. Aliona Niculita, Resident Representative of UNDP, Pakistan, and the UNDP team and briefed them about the activities and lessons learned during the extensive exercise with Pakistani experts and state institutions.
Talking about the lessons learned, the Honorable Mr. Fiqi told the UNDP representatives that “we learned that federalism is an ongoing process, it never ends, and we keep on improving it”.
He also mentioned that the delegates learned practical things about the constitution review process and liked the ideas of “the Council of Common Interest, National Finance Commission, federal legislative lists which we will discuss with stakeholders in Somalia along with NADRA’s role in developing our civil registry system”.
On the local government issues, the delegates mentioned that they learned a great deal about it in Pakistan and want to pursue it right from the start so that the federal structure does not become lopsided.
H.E. Mr. Fiqi emphasized on the importance of bilateral enhancement of cultural, diplomatic, and development cooperation to strengthen relations between Pakistan.
He said: “I have visited many countries in Asia, but I liked Pakistan the most and we were treated with the utmost respect”.
From the Pakistan side, Mr. Zafarullah Khan and Dr. Kaiser Bengali mentioned that during their long career they never found such officials who take interest in the processes and ask thought-provoking questions.
Ahmed Osman Aden, Deputy Minister of Interior Galmudug State, said that there is great potential for Pakistan to develop business-to-business relationships with Somalia since we are interested in textile and clothing and also in rice imports from Pakistan.
Ms. Aliona Niculita, Resident Representative of UNDP, Pakistan thanked the delegates for their visit and assured them that UNDP Pakistan will continue to support such technical cooperation and knowledge-sharing arrangements as part of South-South cooperation modalities.
The most important and pertinent point came from a delegate when it was said that they were taking away every bit of sweet memories from Pakistan and that they owed Pakistanis a lot. In the end, Chairman NADRA, Tariq Malik met with the Somali delegates at the Somali Embassy.
He reviewed the progress on the civil registry assistance project of NADRA and assured the delegates that Pakistan will not only help Somalia in technical capacity building to develop and manage the civil registry but also in public policy development and deployment. “We look forward to working with federal member states of Somalia as well to assist in problem-solving at the sub-national levels”, Tariq Malik added.
H.E. Mr. Fiqi thanked NADRA for helping Somalia in developing state-of-the-art IT infrastructure and also for understanding the scope and scale of the national databases which can help rebuild state capacities for social protection mechanisms.
Honorable Mr. Fiqi and other ministers vehemently thanked the experts such as Mian Raza Rabbani, Dr. Kaiser Bengali, Mr. Zafarullah Khan, Amjad Bhatti, and others who shared their intellectual resources and time with the delegates and helped the delegation members know about Pakistan’s experience of federalism.
