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Rift Valley Institute

Making local knowledge work

Mogadishu Forum: Planning for the London Somalia conference

On 27 April the Nairobi Forum became the Mogadishu Forum, when it hosted a consultation in Mogadishu about the forthcoming Somalia Conference in London. The meeting was convened by Yusuf Garaad and opened by Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Mohamed Nur Gacal. Over 60 women and men from the Somali business community, parliament, civil society, and the media gathered to listen to representatives of the government of Somalia explain the purpose and expectations of the conference. This was followed by a discussion around the challenges and opportunities facing Somalia. A second pre-conference meeting, chaired by Hon. Mohamed Affey, was convened in Nairobi on 2 May. The Head of the Somali government’s technical committee, Abdulrahman Abdishakur, Somalia’s Ambassador to Kenya, Mohamed Ali Nur, and Deputy Head of Mission for the British Office for Somalia, Mark Bryson-Richardson, explained the reasons why the UK and Somalia governments had taken the initiative to convene the conference and their expectations of it. This was followed by a discussion, chaired by Yusuf Garaad, on the role of the Somali diaspora in Somalia’s recovery. A meeting report is available here.

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