 Good afternoon. My name is George Moose and I have the honor of serving as the vice chair of the Board of Directors of the United States Institute of Peace. And it's my pleasure to welcome all of you to this important discussion of current political and security developments in Somalia. A topic which judging by the size of this audience is clearly of great interest. We are honored to have as our guest today his Excellency Hassan Sheikh Mahmoud, President of the Federal Republic of Somalia. And I would also like to welcome senior representatives from across the US government, from the State Department, the National Security Council, the Congress, as well as ambassadors and other members of the diplomatic corps and of other organizations. We are happy to be joined today as well by Ambassador Johnny Carson, a former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs and now a senior advisor here at the Institute. Ambassador Carson will moderate today's discussion with President Mahmoud. For those of you who are new to USIP, we are an independent National Institute founded by Congress over 30 years ago and dedicated to the proposition that peace is possible, that peace is practical, and that peace is essential for US and for international security interests. We pursue this vision of a world without violent conflict by working directly with partners in conflict zones, equipping them with peacebuilding knowledge, training, and tools developed and tested in the course of our years of experience. Somalia is alas a country that knows all too well the devastating consequences of sustained violent conflict. I know that from personal experience Somalia was one of the countries I visited on my very first official trip as Assistant Secretary of State for Africa almost exactly 23 years ago, at a time when the seeds of the current conflict were being sown. This weekend the world witnessed in horror one of the most tragic consequences of the continuing conflict when 200 or more Somalis were drowned in the Mediterranean Ocean as they were attempting to reach Europe. There are enormous challenges that continue to face the country, but it's also clear that we are seeing signs that peace is indeed possible and we look forward to this opportunity to hear more about these developments. The United States has been an important partner and supporter in this evolution, the Obama administration's decision to nominate an ambassador to Somalia is another important step in building a strong US-Somali relationship. For its part USIP has been working for more than 20 years across the Horn of Africa to build peace and inclusive processes through the partnerships with the US State Department, non-governmental organizations, and regional stakeholders. In that context USIP has provided education grants, training, and resources to help Somalis strengthen the institutions and skills needed to build more stable resilient societies and states. With our associated non-profit Peace Tech Lab the Institute, for example, has helped to facilitate the important review of the 2012 provisional Constitution, working with Constitution drafting bodies with civil society organizations and government representatives. We have helped to train members of the Somali police force through courses on community policing methods that have proven effective in countering violent extremism. And through our generation change program we are helping to build the capacity of civically engaged youth ages 18 to 35 as they emerge as leaders in their communities. President Mahmood has been a critical partner and a supporter of these efforts. Indeed, I think it's fair to say that he was a peace builder before he was a president. Before deciding to enter politics he studied mediation and peace building at the Eastern Mennonite University Summer Peace Building Institute based in Harrisonburg, Virginia. When the current round of conflict in Somalia erupted he remained in Somalia where he established the Somali Institute for Management and Administration and served as an advisor and consultant to a number of governments, international organizations and NGOs. These efforts led to his decision to establish the Independent Peace and Development Party and to his election to Parliament in 2012. This background is clearly reflected in the approach that he has taken to Somalia's challenges since becoming president. Your Excellency, it is our pleasure to welcome you and in my pleasure to invite you to address this audience. Bismillah, Salam alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. Ambassador Carson, Ambassador Moose, it's a great pleasure to join you today at the United States Institute for Peace, of peace. I'm honored to share with you some reflections and insights into Somalia. To discuss and talk about Somalia needs days, months and years but I will try to be very brief and summarize the most important elements that I would like to share with you as my experience. Ladies and gentlemen, almost four years ago upon my appointment as the President, I made a pledge on behalf of Somalia to pursue three imperative items, secure Somalia, democratic Somalia and progressive and prosperous Somalia. Somalia agreed to pursue political transformation by drafting and agreeing a federal constitution, adopting a federal model of governance and holding democratic nationwide elections by September 2016. We laid out this ambitious agenda knowing that we face the enormous challenge of trying to transform Somalia, which is not an easy matter. But we have specifically focused it on a specific agenda that we prioritized as the most important element of state building in a post-conflict environment. Somalia has been without a functioning state for some time. So in early 2013, we established the ambitious agenda or vision called the Vision 2016. That was outlining how we're going to move out of the current status of that day to a new status in 2016. We developed that vision with three parallel tracks federating the country, which was an option that has already been agreed by the Somalis, establishing a federal Somalia. The second track was reviewing the provisional constitution that was existing by the time. And the third was the democratization approach, which is making Somalia a democratic state or a country. This was the basis for the new Somalia that we have envisioned it in 2013. That was going to be done in a very difficult environment where the spaces for doing this exercise was very narrow, very limited, where the people were having much more priority, which was the security at the time. We've moved forward and today we have a federated Somalia, which I can claim that the federal Somalis structure has been put in place. Those federal units that have been established recently, they lack capacity, they lack enough resources to implement the real federation, but they are there. Somalia has been a territory that is ungoverned for a long time. Today we have someone who is responsible in a particular area of Somalia, someone who is in charge and who has full responsibility of that territory. Can he implement his responsibility enough? Can he has the capacity? All these are questions that are very legitimate. These nascent institutions are in place. They need nurturing and capacitating in Somalia. Today we have our professional constitution under review. Recently we have reviewed the constitution by technical teams. The constitution consists of chapters that has no much problem universal, some chapters that you will see in almost all constitutions, and there are certain chapters that are specific for the country in question, which needs specific attention. In Somalia there are chapters of the constitution that needs a lot of consensus building around them. Those chapters have been drafted, and last time our last meeting of the National Leaders Forum, we've discussed it. We shared the draft with the leaders of the regional states. We asked them to go back home, discuss with their people, and then next time when we get together we will discuss about the points that we need. In May 25 to June 5, a national constitutional conference has been agreed to take place in Garoepuntlan, where all Somalis of different corners of Somalia will get together and will discuss about the important chapters of the constitution. The National Leaders Forum will agree in three-day session, and then seven-day session, it's the public that will discuss at the national level. Then it will be taken back to the cabinet of the federal government and the parliament of the federal government, and then the process will wait until referendum takes place. That's where the second track, which is the review of the constitution goes on, regarding the third track, which was the elections and democratization of Somalia. Because of so many reasons that are in place until today, it was not possible to make, to achieve the goal, which was one person, one vote for Somalia in 2016. The circumstances in the ground does not permit that to happen. The challenge we had is, shall we wait and stay where we are until next term, or pragmatically we do what we can do right now, which was to do an election model that we agreed among us, and that election model is for 2016 only. We agreed also a roadmap from 2016 to 2020, on which we have clearly explained how to get out of the formula 4.5 and go to universal leverage of one person, one vote. Somalia's transition to state building, the journey started in 2010. A transitional government has been established, TNG, which was mandated two years. After two years, then we went back outside Somalia in Kenya, where a process that was going on for two years was there. Ended up in 2014 with transitional federal government, with transitional charter agreed on Somalia as a federal country. From there, the governments relocated back to Somalia, Joe Harferes, then Baydouble, then Mogudishu. And in 2012, the 8th parliament has been formed in Mogudishu by 135 members of the Somali clans, different clans of Somalia. This was a nomination, selection and nomination by these 135 elders. Now what we said is that two important things, one is that journey has to go further and take somewhere outside Somalia. If it happened in 2012 in Mogudishu in 2016, we want it to happen in different parts of Somalia, six different corners of Somalia. If 2016, the parliament was selected and nominated by 135 elders, more, a larger number of citizens to participate in the election of the next parliament, not a selection. Of course, for ease, for a pragmatic purpose, we maintained some of what was there already. The parliament, we keep the 275 seats of the parliament, which is too big for Somalia right now, but trying to reduce that number will need a lot of time and energy, which was not available right now. Keeping the formula 4.5, we maintained it for the reason being that there was no other tool or instrument readily available right now since constitution and others are in the making. So then what is different and the difference is taking the elections to different places of Somalia, involving or giving space, more citizens to participate in bringing the next parliament. That's what's new to this process now. Almost 14,000 citizens will participate the election. Although it's still, we're still using the clan system, but this time the clan itself, we need to be very fair within the clan and give number of different people to compete for the seat that represents the clan itself. So we have 14,000 citizens electing 275 MPs in six different locations of Somalia. The journey that started in Arta, Kenya, Mogadishu, now into the headquarters of the federal member states in 2020 is planned to go down into the district, which is the lowest level of administrative structure in Somalia, which we are planning and we put in place a roadmap that indicates what will happen when in the next four years of the new term, where the government is compelled to implement that roadmap, including local elections, state elections and national elections at the end. So that will be the end of the journey when we reach one person, one vote in all districts of Somalia. Now the elections are more of demographic, indirect college electorates and in 2020, we are expecting it will be direct elections with one person, one vote. This is the new Somalia that we are working on the political. Why I have started my presentation, the politics is we believe that so many good things the world can do for Somalia. There is only one and one thing that the world cannot do for Somalia, but can do with Somalia. When we were having famine, the world brought us food. When we have insecurity, the world brought us forces to fight with us against the terrorism or against the other evil force. But in 25 years, the world has been trying to fix the political problem of Somalia and it didn't happen it. We realized that it's only the Somalis who can fix the political problems of Somalia, the politics of Somalia. The world still can play an important role in fixing the politics, but the world cannot do that for us and that's what we have tried. In the past, the fixing political problems of Somalia, the world has been sitting in the driving seat and the Somalis were sitting in the back seat. Now is the time we decided to take the driving seat and we request our international partners to sit on the back seat to help us do that and we're doing that. The agenda for the state building of Somalia is too many, too big and too diverse. I've taken only the political one, but one which is very important and priority number one was the security. The security Somalia, as many of us know, it started in Shabab controlling all over the country in 2010 and 2011, whereby 17 districts in Mogadishu, the government was controlling only six districts out of that 17. The remaining 11 districts and the rest of south central regions of Somalia was controlled by Al-Shabab, except Somalilal and Buntilan. There is where the war against Al-Shabab started today. Al-Shabab, they do not control any significant town or location that's known. They remain as a part. The challenge is still there. The insurgents war is still there. The terrorist activities of suicide bombing, roadside bombing, targeted assassinations, all of them are still there, but Shabab is not a known fighting force that has control over a geographic location. One of the reasons why that has happened in the past was Somalia was a territory that is governed by no one. Now there is a people governing zone. The intervention of Amazon in 2007 and establishment of Somali National Army has created enough space today we're talking about elections and we're expecting that space will be further expanded to have been one person, one vote in 2017, in 2020, inshallah. On the other frontier, the war against the extremism is not military only. It has other facets, economic, social. The war in the military front has rigid some advanced stage, but the war in the front of the economy and the social services are still lacking behind. Somalia is a very rich country in terms of resources available in that country, in terms of its strategic location, but because of bad politics we've never benefited those richness and wealthy. It's time now the federal government of Somalia is diverting its attention towards the stimulating and recovering the economic aspects of Somalia and we have made a good starting on that. Today the Somali diaspora is coming back to Somalia and investing back to the country at different levels. Still the Somali government is struggling with reforming substantially the public finance management institutions of the country so that we're going to have a trustworthy institutions that can deal with the international partners. After 22 years, the IMF has produced, after 27 years sorry, the last time when IMF produced report on Somalia was 1988 in 2013 we have the next report that indicated 3.7% of economic growth in Somalia that has shown prospectus. Somalia has concluded successfully the chapter 4 review of the International Monetary Fund and we are entered last week the staff monitoring program that will go on for another one year to make sure that Somalia has access to the international financing institutions and will go into the Hibik program so that Somalia can benefit the international tools for development and reconstruction. On conclusion, I would like to say a little bit about the future of Somalia. Somalia has a very prosperous future because of its wealthiness, because of its clear direction of fixing and transforming the country in terms of politics and in terms of the national institutions. It was not an easy task, a task that can be done overnight because this is a young nation that's going to rebirth again. We're changing almost every system that was existing in the country. Highly centralized governance system now is highly decentralized governance system. We were having systems that have been put in place during the Cold War now we're changing all those systems. We're getting, because of the federal system, almost every law that was existing in Somalia has to be reviewed with minor changes, major changes taking place including and starting from the constitution. With this we hope that Somalia will soon be a better place that attracts the international investment. This is a country that has the longest coastline in the African continent. Unfortunately we do not benefit that. Serious challenges we have in illegal fishing, destroying the ecology of the oceans. We have a lot of containers that have been thrown out by the sea. Those containers we don't know what's inside it, but this is a very good indicator that toxic waste has been damped in Somalia. Those containers they don't have signs, nothing written on them, we don't know the day they explode what will happen to those areas that's that. Fishing illegal fishing, billions of dollars have been estimated, the fish that illegally been taken over. All this is happening because Somalia cannot afford to protect its own resources. This is what's more important for the generations of Somalia to come and this cannot happen without having a functioning state in place in Somalia. And this is the priority, the top priority of Somali government. After a long statelessness in Somalia after a long time civil war, we do not expect the wounds will be healed overnight, but we are in the process of healing the past wounds. We are in the process of addressing the reasons for those grievances that happened in the past, building the trust among our people and building the trust of our people towards the state. This is very important. The last time Somalis went into the elections was 1969, 47 years have passed since then. Who's there in Somalia today who participated those that elections of that election of 1969 and who can do this today? One of the benefits of the electoral process that is happening this year is it's a learning process. So that in 2020, inshallah, we will be doing a perfect election. We will do the mistakes and the beautifulness now in 2016. I thank you very much. Mr. President, thank you very, very much for a great presentation. We've got a few minutes to take questions and I'm going to invite you over here to sit down. And we have a few from the audience coming in. Mr. President, Somalia under your leadership and under the leadership of your predecessor have made extraordinary progress. And as one of the former UN special representatives has said recently Somalia has moved from a failed state to a fragile state. The question I have this afternoon to start off with is do you believe that the international community and the UN who have been strong partners with you have become wary of working with Somalia? And I ask that because we've recently seen several things that have come up. The European Union has reduced its stipends for some of the Amazon troops as one indication. But do you think you're getting the continued support from the international community and the UN that you need to go the next step? Thank you, Ambassador Johnny. I think one important thing is Amisum has came to Somalia in 2007. Next year 2017 is 10 years. For a country 10 years looks like it's too long. For Somalia it's not. However, the space that we're talking today that we're going to do election is we did the first cut of the federal system of the country. All this has become possible because of the Amisum in collaboration with Somalia National Army that has widened the space that the government to exercise and do its mandate. So I think Amisum has been a very useful tool for Somalia, African problems, for African solutions. It has been an experiment that I can say is successful. Regarding the issue, yes, there is nothing that continue. This was a gift. These gifts cannot continue. The world now after all these long years investing Amisum is getting fatigue. It's very rational. What we have been asking the world is which we have say it was short of what the world was supposed to do is investing Somalia National Army or Somalia Security Forces. This has not been enough. Attention has not been given in the past. Multilaterally, unilaterally and pilaterally there are many countries who have supported our security sector enormously among which is United States. But the very small amount of what has been spent in Amisum will make a lot of difference in Somalia and that's what today we are brought that the world has realized that without having a robust, reliable, professional, well-equipped Somalia Security Forces to maintain Amisum another 10 years is not possible. So what we are expecting is a very short period of time we will have these forces and today discussions are going on on how to make sure that at the shortest period of time that Somalia Security sector and Somalia Security Forces will be developed to take over and that's going and we are I would like to say tangible changes will be seen soon. Great. Mr. President, I'm going to do this in sort of rapid fire since we only have a limited amount of time. A question from the audience. How is your administration addressing the deep-seated clan animosities that have been built up over the decades in Somalia? One thing I do agree with the person who asked that question. There is a level of mistrust among Somali and this mistrust is a quality that's always available to any post-conflict environment. As I said the wounds of the Civil War has not been healed completely and has not been healed well but the healing process is a process that takes time. We started with and healing cannot have been it isolated. I've been working in beast-building reconciliation at the local level for 15 years before I became the president and I would like to share my experience with you is that even beast is not possible without institutions in place. As far as when a criminal kills someone we call it that person criminal or murder but in a post-conflict environment that killer or murder become not a criminal that killed an innocent citizen but he becomes clan X who killed clan Y. As far as we isolate the responsibility of the crime to the individuals committing this type of trust and animosity will keep continuing and that's possible only when we have a functioning institutions in place but the other way around someone can claim how can we get a functioning institution without having trust first of all trust is started somewhere it's not something commodity that can be purchased from the supermarket but it has to be built the federal government of Somalia has started that and right now we are very much involved in integrating the Somali national army making them a national forces that have national character and in other time there has always been reconciliation conferences going on in many places we believe the healing process have started it has been achieved a tremendous progress but there is a long way to go yet to have restored fully restored trust within the society and the society and the state takes a little more time. Mr. President you have two large powerful and influential neighbors both of whom have large Somali indigenous populations they both have been countries that have contributed to Amazon and the efforts to bring about stability I'm thinking of Ethiopia and I'm thinking of Kenya how are your relations with those two neighbors? First of all in Kenya we don't have a long history with Kenya our history with Kenya started at the time of independence in 1960 before that there was no long because Kenya was not independent we were not independent colonial powers were dealing among them there was clan conflicts and wrestling of life so it is traditional but what we have a long long history is Ethiopia history of 700 years is there in history and most of this history is not a good history history of conflict history of crusade history of jihad that's been very difficult history for that couple of centuries that history ended up in 1990 both Somali state and Ethiopian state collapsed because of the the difficult problems that we are having and we making the other one to fail we failed both of us. Ethiopia may be for different reasons it took three years to bring back the state at the beginning and they keep continuing building still they are in the process of state building after 20 more than 20 years Somalia it took longer for its own odd reasons but what we have realized is that both Somalia and Ethiopia has no choice or option other than to peacefully coexist and to do that we need to make some shared interests among the two nations this itself is not something that can happen overnight but we started and that discussion has rigid a very good level at the political level there are still difficulties I will not say that this is going to happen this good relationship that we're looking forward is not going to happen in one term or two term or short term but it is it has a beginning and we begin Somalia has realized that at the political highest level discussion with Ethiopian government they also see that they don't have any more appetite to continue that old history yes today Somalia there are Kenyan forces there are Ethiopian forces Ugandanist, Brundianist all of them came to Somalia with the good intention of supporting Somalia to defeat this international agenda of al-Shabaab and I do believe that one is that is out of place and they will not be in Somalia it is the responsibility of the Somalis to do whatever possible that makes Somalia a peaceful place if that is to give the final defeat of al-Shabaab if that even causes to negotiate al-Shabaab peacefully whatever makes Somalia a very stable country that's our duty and we do believe that those forces will leave Somalia sooner rather than later Mr. President our time is up this afternoon but I want to take this opportunity to thank you again to for coming to USIP and to compliment you and your colleagues and your fellow citizens on the enormous progress that has been made over the last six or seven or eight years in rebuilding and strengthening Somalia bringing it back so thank you again for your presence here this afternoon and I'm sorry that our time has exhausted I know you've got a busy schedule thank you Mr. President thank you very much and I will give my apology to my friend we would have taken more time but we will have time is we have a very hectic schedule and to run early I apologize and I thank you very much for coming and giving me this opportunity to present to you Somalia I hope many of you I'm I'm selling Somalia but many of you I'm not selling Somali from you but you are also selling Somalia I thank you very much all of you thank you we hope to have you back again thank you very much