Welcoming new Somali Roadmap to peace, Ban calls on world to provide more aid

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called on the international community to provide additional resources to Somalia’s transitional leaders following their adoption of a plan to bring unity, peace and stability to a country that has been torn by factional strife for the past 20 years.The fact that the consultative meeting that adopted a detailed plan for completing the current transitional period took place in Mogadishu, the capital – until last month the scene of daily violence with Al-Shabaab Islamic militants – was an encouraging step forward, he said in a statement issued by his spokesperson.The Roadmap, agreed on yesterday at the end of the UN-backed consultative meeting, spells out priority measures to be implemented before the current transitional governing arrangements end next August, in the areas of security, writing a constitution, reconciliation and good governance.

The Transitional Federal Government (TFG) is called upon to lead the implementation, working with the Transitional Federal Parliament (TFP), regional entities, and all sectors of society, including women, the business community, religious leaders, elders and youth.

Early last month Al-Shabaab insurgents withdrew from Mogadishu under pressure from the 6,200-strong UN-backed African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), a move that provided what Mr. Ban’s Special Representative for Somalia, Augustine Mahiga, called an “extraordinary moment” of opportunity for progress in a country that had not had a functioning national government since Muhammad Siad Barre’s regime collapsed in 1991.

Mr. Ban also welcomed the signing of the ceasefire accord between the Puntland and Galmudug administrations, two of Somalia’s semi-autonomous regions that had clashed over a border dispute last week.

Mr. Mahiga noted earlier this week that Puntland and Galmudug are “on Somalia’s front lines in the ongoing fight against violent extremists that increasingly are relying on terror tactics to try and disrupt the peace process.”