What legacy will Obama leave on the continent? On July 19, the Africa Security Initiative hosted a discussion on President Obama’s legacy in Africa, featuring Matthew Carotenuto, professor at St. Lawrence University and author of “Obama and Kenya: Contested Histories and the Politics of Belonging,” and Sarah Margon, Washington director at Human Rights Watch. Brookings Senior Fellow Michael O’Hanlon moderated the conversation.

O’Hanlon observed that Africa’s 54 countries have, on the whole, seen reasonably high economic growth rates in the past two decades. There’s been a slight decline recently, due in part to reduced demand for commodities in China. Trends in the spread of democracy have followed a similar path. The continent’s population is also continuing to grow rapidly. Security threats have eased in some places, he said, and intensified in others. Besides a few regional conflicts and human rights issues—some quite significant—the continent is arguably showing more promise than at any previous time, yet recent years have seen some reversals.

Obama’s policies in Africa

Margon highlighted some strengths and weaknesses of Obama’s policy in Africa. Strengths, in her view, include that the Obama administration:

• Improved governance and democracy through strong messaging;
• Balanced counterterrorism and civil rights, without letting the former dominate the latter;
• Made human rights and LGBT issues a clear priority;
• Carried out the Africa Leader’s Summit and the “Power Africa” electricity initiative, with modestly promising results; and
• Used social media to engage local populations.

Weaknesses, Margon argued, were that the administration:

• Focused on security assistance in ways that gave somewhat less priority to governance issues at times, at least in terms of U.S. financial resources, and aligned the United States with authoritarian regimes in several cases;
• Provided inconsistent follow-up towards crisis response in Guinea, Nigeria, and the Central African Republic, among other places; and
• Failed to hold governments accountable for human rights violations in places like Ethiopia.

A closer look at Kenya

Obama’s relationship with Africa is particularly challenging because of his Kenyan heritage, Carotenuto argued. He noted that Obama was sensitive to charges of favoritism and to critiques that he might be too focused on the continent of his relatives and his late father. In the United States, the “birther conspiracy” garnered a good deal of media attention, he said, and delayed Obama’s visit to Kenya until 2015. On the other hand, once Obama did go—he was the first sitting American president to do so—he was well-received because of his diaspora tie.

Obama has managed to nurture ties with Kenya despite the political turbulence in the country, Carotenuto continued. Kenya’s 2007 elections sparked a period of post-election violence, during which more than 1,300 people were killed. Current President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto have since been tried by the International Criminal Court for human rights violations during that time, and during their trials attempted to deflect blame by painting the ICC and the Obama administration as neo-colonial institutions favoring the opposition party. Since then, according to Carotenuto, there has been a rise in authoritarianism in Kenya, with increased restrictions on freedom of the press and a rise in human rights abuses. To further complicate matters, he added, al-Shabab has become a rising security threat for Kenya. Although the United States first began conducting drone strikes against the group in June 2011—with a Kenyan military intervention in Somalia following shortly after—there has been little effort to engage local development issues in Kenya’s northeast, where many Somalis live. This, combined with President Kenyatta’s recent decision to close the Dadaab refugee camp (which would displace 300,000 people), has caused greater insecurity, according to Carotenuto. At the same time, Kenya has made progress in other areas: for example, it passed a very progressive constitution in 2010.

Across the continent, meanwhile, Nigeria faces similar security threats from Boko Haram—but U.S. policies between Kenya and Nigeria vary greatly. Prior to Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari’s presidency, Washington put more pressure on Nigeria than on Kenya to reform, Carotenuto said. Kenya has generally not been held accountable, as the United States has continued to support its fight against al-Shabab.

Authoritarians, term limits, and popular sovereignty

As Margon explained, there has been a dramatic expansion of security assistance across the board in Africa. That can be problematic when the aid supports countries with authoritarian regimes like Rwanda and Uganda. Margon was particularly disappointed with Obama’s 2015 visit to Ethiopia. She believes Obama has failed to hold Ethiopia accountable, particularly after a 2009 counterterrorism law led to a clampdown on civil society.

Carotenuto and Margon also addressed the issue of long-term leaders like President Kagame of Rwanda, President Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and President Museveni of Uganda. All have used—and in some cases abused—the election process to allow themselves to stay in power. This has not just weakened the political system, in their views, but damaged citizens’ autonomy. Countries like Uganda, where a president has been in power for many years, see more violations of basic human rights, Margon observed. Carotenuto pointed to 2014 Afrobarometer data suggesting that Africans overwhelmingly support democracy; promoting term limits is not just an American or Western project.

Overall, the participants agreed that the effects of Obama’s legacy in Africa have not yet been fully manifested. The fact that Barack Obama was the first African-American elected to be president in U.S. history will not necessarily make his legacy in Africa particularly historic.

Note: Anne Wilcox, an intern with the Center on 21st Century Security and Intelligence, contributed to this post.

       

On July 19, the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence at Brookings hosted a discussion on Africa policy. Matthew Carotenuto, professor at St. Lawrence University and author of “Obama and Kenya: Contested Histories and the Politics of Belonging” (Ohio University Press, 2016) discussed his research in the region. He was joined by Sarah Margon, the Washington director of Human Rights Watch. Brookings Senior Fellow Michael O’Hanlon partook in and moderated the discussion.

       

At the same time, the government—led by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition since 1991—has been criticized for cracking down on free speech, the press, and critics. And while Ethiopia is unlikely to re-experience famine, an ongoing drought there remains a major concern.

These and other issues were the topics of conversation at a recent Brookings event, hosted by the Africa Security Initiative. Brookings Senior Fellow and Co-Director of the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence Michael O’Hanlon opened the conversation by commenting that while we don’t always hear a lot about Ethiopia in the West—often drowned out by troubling developments in Somalia, Nigeria, and the Great Lakes region—it is “one of the most important countries on the continent by almost any measure.” As Africa’s oldest independent country, it has a unique history—and along with it, a unique set of assets and challenges.

Cohesion and tension

Terrence Lyons, associate professor in the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University, acknowledged that Ethiopia is a “tough story” domestically—with a powerful single party that won 100 percent of seats in Parliament in the last election, the Ethiopian government has its share of authoritarian tendencies. At the same time, the governing EPRDF coalition has managed a series of tough political crises (not necessarily through democratic means, he said in response to a question from the audience), and the economy has grown at an incredible pace for the last decade. That said, growth will slow eventually, meaning the government will have fewer resources and jobs to distribute—that will require deft management down the road.

While there is generally peaceful coexistence between Muslims and Christians in the country, government crackdowns have at times exacerbated tensions: Last August, for example, a group of 18 Muslims was jailed under controversial anti-terrorism laws after protesting against the government three years ago. A recent plan to expand the capital of Addis Ababa into a region occupied by the Oromo people also fueled tensions, as did a cross-border cattle raid this month in which 200 people died and 100 children were kidnapped. 

Abye Assefa, associate professor at St. Lawrence University, highlighted Ethiopia’s ethnic and religious diversity: The largest ethnic group in the country, Oromo people, comprise about 35 percent of the population, with the rest divided among a variety of ethnic groups; and Ethiopians are roughly two-thirds Christian and one-third Muslim. In spite of this diversity, Abye said that there is a strong sense of an Ethiopian identity—a product, he contended, of its rich civilizational history. The central government has implemented a system of ethnic federalism that has worked well, in his view—though he acknowledged that there’s debate over whether to push for closer unification in the country or allow for further devolution. Related are challenges regarding land: While land is in some sense treated as a public good (the government owns much of it), it is also leased to private investors. Is land a commodity in Ethiopia? It’s not clear, and that’s the source of some social, economic, and political tensions.

On democracy and governance issues, Assefa expressed that while the government has its shortcomings (including the lack of an independent judiciary, among others), Ethiopian media and civil society aren’t always engaged in constructive dialogue themselves (it can be “open warfare,” he said). Across Ethiopian political culture, Assefa said, there is a “my way or the highway”-type attitude, which he argued is not constructive for improving politics. Lyons, in response, pointed out that Ethiopia will be brittle as long as it restricts free expression—a more vibrant society will strengthen Ethiopia as it continues to face new stresses.

Lyons also highlighted the severity of Ethiopia’s drought, with about 10 million people currently in need of food assistance. That said, the government has moved efficiently to respond to citizens’ needs to date, and there is no evidence that this drought will bring famine, as occurred in Ethiopia in the 1980s.

Regional security

Lyons called Ethiopia an “irreplaceable center of gravity” for the Horn of Africa. Possessing the most effective military in the region, he said that whether the region is stable or unstable depends largely on Ethiopia. Ethiopian troops are deeply involved in peace operations in Somalia and its officials are key to ongoing peace talks in South Sudan. Meanwhile, Ethiopia is home to refugees from throughout the neighborhood, particularly Somalia, Eritrea, and South Sudan.

Assefa stressed that Ethiopia is a remarkably safe place itself, in the context of its neighborhood. He added that rather than use terms like “failed state”—which in his view is a way for international actors to delegitimize certain states—we should examine how states operate within their international environment.

All the panelists agreed that there are good reasons for Ethiopia to cooperate with the United States on security issues.

       

On April 25, the Africa Security Initiative at Brookings hosted a discussion examining the security situation in Ethiopia, in broader political, economic, and regional context. Panelists included Abye Assefa of St. Lawrence University and Terrence Lyons of George Mason University. Michael O’Hanlon, co-director of the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence, moderated.

       

April 2 marked one year since the Somali terrorist group al-Shabab attacked the Garissa University in Kenya and killed 148 people, galvanizing Kenya to intensify its counterterrorism efforts. Yet al-Shabab’s operational capacities and intimidation power have grown in the past year. Many of Kenya’s counterterrorism policies have been counterproductive, and counterinsurgency efforts by the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) have at best stagnated. State building in Somalia is only creeping, with service-delivery by the federal government and newly formed states mostly lacking. Politics continues to be clan-based, rapacious, and discriminatory, with the forthcoming 2016 elections in Somalia thus far merely intensifying political infighting.

Al-Shabab: A rejuvenation

Despite internal and external threats to its effective functioning, al-Shabab is on the upswing again. It has carried out dozens of terrorist attacks within Somalia, including against hotels used by government officials as workspaces and housing, and on beaches and in markets throughout the country. It has raised fear among the population and hampers the basic government functionality and civil society mobilization.

In February 2016, al-Shabab, for the first time, succeeded in smuggling a bomb onboard a flight from Mogadishu. Disturbingly, it has been retaking cities in southern Somalia, including the important port of Merka. It has also overrun AMISOM bases and seized weapons and humvees: one such attack on a Kenyan forward-operating base was likely the deadliest ever suffered by the Kenyan military. Al-Shabab’s operational capacity has also recovered from the internal rifts between its anti-foreign-jihadi, pro-al-Qaida, pro-ISIS, and Somalia-focused factions.

Not all the power jockeying has been settled, and not all leadership succession struggles have been resolved. Moreover, an ISIS branch independent of and antagonistic to al-Shabab is trying to grow in Somalia and has been battling al-Shabab (in a way that parallels the ISIS-Taliban tangles in Afghanistan). Nonetheless, al-Shabab is once more on the rise and has recovered its financing from charcoal, sugar, and other smuggling in southern Somalia, and from taxing traffic and businesses throughout its area of operation, including in Mogadishu.

Although the terrorist violence is almost always claimed by al-Shabab, many of the attacks and assassinations are the work of politicians, businessmen, and clans, intimidating rivals or seeking revenge in their disputes over land and contracts. Indeed, with the clock ticking down to the expected 2016 national elections in Somalia, much of the current violence also reflects political prepositioning for the elections and desire to eliminate political rivals.

Kenya and AMISOM: Don’t sugarcoat it

In contrast to the upbeat mood among al-Shabab, AMISOM efforts have at best been stalled. With the training of Somali national forces going slowly and the force still torn by clan rivalries and shackled by a lack of military enablers, the 22,000-strong AMISOM continues to be the principal counterinsurgency force. Counterterrorism attacks by U.S. drone and special operations forces complicate al-Shabab’s operations, but do not alter the balance of power on the ground. In its ninth year now, and having cost more than U.S.$1 billion, AMISOM continues to be barricaded in its bases, and many of Somalia’s roads, even in areas that are supposedly cleared, are continually controlled by al-Shabab. In cities where AMISOM is nominally in charge, al-Shabab often rules more than the night as AMISOM conducts little active patrolling or fresh anti-Shabab operations even during the day. Rarely are there formal Somali forces or government offices to whom to hand over the post-clearing “holding and building” efforts. There is little coordination, intelligence sharing, or joint planning among the countries folded under the AMISOM heading, with capabilities vastly uneven. The principle benefit of the Burundi forces in Somalia, for example, is that they are not joining the ethnic infighting developing in their home country.

Ethiopia and Kenya still support their favorite Somali proxies. For Kenya, the key ally is Sheik Ahmed “Madobe,” a former high-level al-Shabab commander who defected to create his Ogadeni anti-Shabab militias, Ras Kamboni, and who in 2015 got himself elected president of the newly-formed Jubaland state. Along with Madobe and other Ogadeni powerbrokers, Kenyan Defense Forces control the Kismayo port. Like al-Shabab, they allegedly illegally tax smuggled sugar, charcoal, and other goods through the port and southern Kenya. In addition to these nefarious proceeds on the order of tens to hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars, Kenya’s other interests in Somalia often clash with those of Ethiopia and the Somali national government, including over projecting power off Somali coast and strengthening local warlords and militias who promise to keep Ogadeni mobilization in Kenya down.

At home, Kenya’s counterterrorism activities have been not only parochial, but often outright counterproductive. Post-Garissa dragnets have rounded up countless Kenyan ethnic Somalis and Somali immigrants and refugees. Entire communities have been made scapegoats. For a while, the Kenyan government tried to shut down all Somali hawala services based in Kenya as well as to expel Somali refugees and shut down their camps. Accusations of torture, disappearances, and extrajudicial killings by Kenyan Defense Forces, the police, and other security agencies are widespread. Meanwhile, despite U.S. counterterrorism training and assistance such as through the Security Governance Initiative, debilitating corruption plagues Kenya’s security forces and agencies.

Somalia’s government: Old and new mires

The Somali federal government and the newly formed state-level administrations mostly falter in delivering services that Somali people crave. Competition over state jobs and whatever meager state-sponsored resources are available continue to be mired in clan rivalries and discrimination. Unfortunately, even newly formed (Jubaland, Southwest, and Galmudug) and still-forming states (Hiraan and Middle Shabelle) have not escaped rapacious clan politics. Dominant clans tend not to share power and resources with less numerous ones, often engaging in outright land theft, such as in Jubaland. Civil society contributions have been marginalized. Such misgovernance and clan-based marginalization, as well as more conservative religious politics, are also creeping into Somaliland and Puntland, the two more stable states. Throughout Somalia and in Northeast Kenya, al-Shabab is skillfully inserting itself into clan rivalries and mobilizing support among those who feel marginalized.

The expected 2016 national elections further intensify these clan and elite political rivalries. The hope that the elections could take the form of one man, one vote was once again dashed, with the promise that such elections will take place in 2020. Instead, the 2016 electoral process will reflect the 4.5 model in practice since 2004, in which the four major clans get to appoint the same proportion of the 275 members of the lower chamber and the minority clans will together be allotted half the MP positions that each major clan gets. This system has promoted discriminatory clan rivalries and elite interests. The 54 members of the upper chamber will be appointed by Somalia’s states, including the newly formed and forming states. This arrangement requires that the state formation process is finished well before the elections, but also problematically increases the immediate stakes in the state formation. Finalizing the provisional constitution and getting it approved by a referendum—another key item of the Vision 2016 agreed to by the Somali government and international donors—is also in question.

Perhaps the greatest progress has been made in devolving power from Mogadishu through the formation of subnational states. But there is a real risk that rather than bonding Somalis with state structures as the international community long hoped for and prescribed, the power devolution to newly formed states will instead devolve discriminatory and rapacious politics.

       

U.N. member states will convene to reassess global drug policies. Some countries, particularly within Latin America and Western Europe, see the existing policies as ineffective and counterproductive. Others, particularly in East Asia and the Middle East (as well as Russia), staunchly support them. As a result of changing domestic policies, including state-level marijuana legalization, the United States is no longer interested in playing the role of the world’s toughest drug cop.

Where we are

For the past 30 years, global drug policy has focused primarily on criminalizing drug trafficking, disrupting drug markets and supply, seizing drug shipments, and imprisoning users. During this period, Latin America has experienced staggering levels of drug-related criminal violence, while counterdrug policies have often proved politically destabilizing. Facing eradication of their crops without alternative livelihoods in place, coca, marijuana, and poppy farmers have often felt alienated from their governments. 

In East Asia, there is as much drug trafficking and production as in Latin America—but violent criminality is very low. Coupled with very different historical memories, there is thus not the same impetus for drug policy reform. Several Middle Eastern countries find themselves contending with drug addiction. But as drug trafficking there is becoming increasingly intermeshed with terrorism, the Middle East, too, is disinterested in reform. 

Where we’re likely going

The United States—the original architect of the global counternarcotics regime and for decades its chief global enforcer—is experiencing an evolution of its drug policies. It has not insisted on poppy eradication in Afghanistan, for example. Domestically, some progress has been made to adopt harm-reduction strategies, far more effective than imprisoning users and destroying their and their families’ lives, with disproportionate negative effects on African Americans. Efforts are under way to release non-violent drug offenders from U.S. prisons. Most crucially, U.S. states are legalizing recreational marijuana, something Uruguay has done—in a different way—at the national level. Even though, shockingly, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs William Brownfield recently criticized harm reduction as a back way to legalization, the United States now advocates flexibility in the interpretation of global counternarcotics treaties.

[T]he United States is no longer interested in playing the role of the world’s toughest drug cop.

The so-called “zero draft” document that’s been circulated outlines in broad language how to deal with drugs, reiterating (as the previous UNGASS sessions have done) a nominally holistic approach. However, that seeming consensus is paper-thin. To its credit, the most recent document emphasizes non-punitive policy tools that were clearly not the thrust of previous documents and puts a greater premium on human rights and public health. It also situates drugs within the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals. It hardly goes as far as some drug policy advocates prefer, but even moderate liberalization remains contentious among supporters of existing policies. Many contradictions and unaddressed issues remain: The document fails to discuss marijuana legalization and its potential spillover effects, for example, thus ignoring a key contentious issue and papering over the deep global “dissensus” about drug policy. 

In fact, the international community is heading toward not only a fractured pluralism, where countries will increasingly go their own ways on drug policy, but also a contentious pluralism, as drug policies in one country affect others. Therefore, flexibility in treaty interpretation could be difficult to sustain in practice, even though it is the best solution for dealing with the global disagreement. Hopefully, such pluralism will help bring about policies that are better-tailored toward local settings. It could also help countries learn from policy experimentation and ultimately adopt better, more humane, and effective policies toward drug trafficking and use.

Post-UNGASS, policy disagreements and opportunities will continue. Countries will seek to discern the degree to which they can experiment with their own drug policy designs. The new global consensus that might emerge is that counties will disagree with both the goals of drug policies and the methods.

       

Al-Shabaab: A Rejuvenation

Despite internal and external threats to its effective functioning, al-Shabaab is on the upswing again. It has carried out dozens of terrorist attacks within Somalia, including against hotels used by government officials as workspaces and housing, and on beaches and in markets throughout the country. It has raised fear among the population and hampers the basic government functionality and civil society mobilization.

In February 2016, al-Shabaab, for the first time, succeeded in smuggling a bomb onboard a flight from Mogadishu. Disturbingly, it has been retaking cities in southern Somalia, including the important port of Merka. It has also overrun AMISOM bases and seized weapons and humvees: one such attack on a Kenyan forward-operating base was likely the deadliest ever suffered by the Kenyan military. Al-Shabaab’s operational capacity has also recovered from the internal rifts between its anti-foreign-jihadi, pro-al-Qaeda, pro-ISIS, and Somalia-focused factions.

Not all the power jockeying has been settled, and not all leadership succession struggles have been resolved. Moreover, an ISIS branch independent of and antagonistic to al-Shabaab is trying to grow in Somalia and has been battling Shabaab (in a way that parallels the ISIS-Taliban tangles in Afghanistan). Nonetheless, al-Shabaab is once more on the rise and has recovered its financing from charcoal, sugar, and other smuggling in southern Somalia, and from taxing traffic and businesses throughout its area of operation, including in Mogadishu.

Although the terrorist violence is almost always claimed by al-Shabaab, many of the attacks and assassinations are the work of politicians, businessmen, and clans, intimidating rivals or seeking revenge in their disputes over land and contracts. Indeed, with the clock ticking down to the expected 2016 national elections in Somalia, much of the current violence also reflects political prepositioning for the elections and desire to eliminate political rivals.

Kenya and AMISOM: Don’t Sugarcoat It

In contrast to the upbeat mood among al-Shabaab, AMISOM efforts have at best been stalled. With the training of Somali national forces going slowly and the force still torn by clan rivalries and shackled by a lack of military enablers, the 22,000-strong AMISOM continues to be the principal counterinsurgency force. Counterterrorism attacks by U.S. drone and special operations forces complicate al-Shabaab’s operations, but do not alter the balance of power on the ground. In its ninth year now, and having cost more than U.S.$1 billion, AMISOM continues to be barricaded in its bases, and many of Somalia’s roads, even in areas that are supposedly cleared, are continually controlled by al-Shabaab. In cities where AMISOM is nominally in charge, al-Shabaab often rules more than the night as AMISOM conducts little active patrolling or fresh anti-Shabaab operations even during the day. Rarely are there formal Somali forces or government offices to whom to hand over the post-clearing “holding and building” efforts. There is little coordination, intelligence sharing, or joint planning among the countries folded under the AMISOM heading, with capabilities vastly uneven. The principle benefit of the Burundi forces in Somalia, for example, is that they are not joining the ethnic infighting developing in their home country.

Ethiopia and Kenya still support their favorite Somali proxies. For Kenya, the key ally is Sheik Ahmed “Madobe,” a former high-level al-Shabaab commander who defected to create his Ogadeni anti-Shabaab militias, Ras Kamboni, and who in 2015 got himself elected president of the newly-formed Jubaland state. Along with Madobe and other Ogadeni powerbrokers, Kenyan Defense Forces control the Kismayo port. Like Shabaab, they allegedly illegally tax smuggled sugar, charcoal, and other goods through the port and southern Kenya. In addition to these nefarious proceeds on the order of tens to hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars, Kenya’s other interests in Somalia often clash with those of Ethiopia and the Somali national government, including over projecting power off Somali coast and strengthening local warlords and militias who promise to keep Ogadeni mobilization in Kenya down.

At home, Kenya’s counterterrorism activities have been not only parochial, but often outright counterproductive. Post-Garissa dragnets have rounded up countless Kenyan ethnic Somalis and Somali immigrants and refugees. Entire communities have been made scapegoats. For a while, the Kenyan government tried to shut down all Somali hawala services based in Kenya as well as to expel Somali refugees and shut down their camps. Accusations of torture, disappearances, and extrajudicial killings by Kenyan Defense Forces, the police, and other security agencies are widespread. Meanwhile, despite U.S. counterterrorism training and assistance such as through the Security Governance Initiative, debilitating corruption plagues Kenya’s security forces and agencies.

Somalia’s Government: Old and New Mires

The Somali federal government and the newly formed state-level administrations mostly falter in delivering services that Somali people crave. Competition over state jobs and whatever meager state-sponsored resources are available continue to be mired in clan rivalries and discrimination. Unfortunately, even newly formed (Jubaland, Southwest, and Galmudug) and still-forming states (Hiraan and Middle Shabelle) have not escaped rapacious clan politics. Dominant clans tend not to share power and resources with less numerous ones, often engaging in outright land theft, such as in Jubaland. Civil society contributions have been marginalized. Such misgovernance and clan-based marginalization, as well as more conservative religious politics, are also creeping into Somaliland and Puntland, the two more stable states. Throughout Somalia and in Northeast Kenya, Shabaab is skillfully inserting itself into clan rivalries and mobilizing support among those who feel marginalized.

The expected 2016 national elections further intensify these clan and elite political rivalries. The hope that the elections could take the form of one man, one vote was once again dashed, with the promise that such elections will take place in 2020. Instead, the 2016 electoral process will reflect the 4.5 model in practice since 2004, in which the four major clans get to appoint the same proportion of the 275 members of the lower chamber and the minority clans will together be allotted half the MP positions that each major clan gets. This system has promoted discriminatory clan rivalries and elite interests. The 54 members of the upper chamber will be appointed by Somalia’s states, including the newly formed and forming states. This arrangement requires that the state formation process is finished well before the elections, but also problematically increases the immediate stakes in the state formation. Finalizing the provisional constitution and getting it approved by a referendum – another key item of the Vision 2016 agreed to by the Somali government and international donors – is also in question.

Perhaps the greatest progress has been made in devolving power from Mogadishu through the formation of subnational states. But there is a real risk that rather than bonding Somalis with state structures as the international community long hoped for and prescribed, the power devolution to newly formed states will instead devolve discriminatory and rapacious politics.

This piece was originally published by
The Cipher Brief
.

       

Yet the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) states still cling to hardline drug policies, an approach that is also supported by Russia and many Asian countries.

On March 7 in Doha, we met with police and military officials, NGO representatives, and academics from across the Middle East to discuss the rising drug challenges in the region and the increasingly contested global regime. We found the Middle East and North Africa are grappling with intensifying drug problem—increased use, spread of drug-related communicable diseases, and widening linkages between drug production and smuggling and violent conflict and terrorism. And there is a growing sense that the repressive policies against illicit drugs long-applied in the region have not been effective in counteracting these negative trends.

Ugly trends, ugly policies

MENA countries have by and large not taken an active or vocal role in global drug discussions. Many governments do not collect or disclose data on levels of drug production, trafficking, and use. Drugs are a social taboo, with little public or government attention to the problem. In fact, the region’s drug policies are most notable for extraordinarily high levels executions of accused drug traffickers—in the hundreds per year in Saudi Arabia and Iran. This policy is increasingly rejected by the international community, even by the stringent International Narcotics Control Board. Even very small possessions of medications such as codeine can be deemed illegal in the region, such as in Dubai, and result in imprisonment or worse.

Despite poor data, there is nonetheless a sense that drug use is on the rise in MENA. The abuse of Captagon in Saudi Arabia has been known for years, and for decades Iran has been among the world’s largest consumer countries of opiates. Drug use could well be on the rise elsewhere in Iraq and Syria, although records are kept poorly or not at all. Bored, unemployed, frustrated young people and war-traumatized dislocated populations are understandably vulnerable to the temporary escape offered by drugs. 

[R]ecords are kept poorly or not at all.

Refugees pose a new challenge for states designing policies to address drug use. Immiserated, segregated, and lacking legal economic options, some in the refugee populations may find employment in the Middle East’s long established drug smuggling networks. Badly-integrated and highly marginalized diaspora communities often have small segments that become crucial vectors of international smuggling. Unfortunately, some governments in the region have responded by denying—wrongly—humanitarian non-governmental organizations’ authorization to distribute crucial palliative and mental illness medications for fear that these will be diverted into the illicit economy.

Prevention policies have been largely ineffective in containing rising drug use. Drug treatment is underprovided throughout the region. In the Gulf, even relatively progressive Qatar established its first drug treatment center only in the past few years. Conservative societies in the region tend to stigmatize users, so few seek out help. Consequently, the spread of HIV/AIDS and hepatitis among intravenous drug users has not been contained. 

Badly-integrated and highly marginalized diaspora communities often have small segments that become crucial vectors of international smuggling.

Cash for militants, cash for the poor

In the Middle East, drug production and trafficking has long funded violent conflict. In Lebanon, for example, Hezbollah and various sectarian militias taxed the cultivation of marijuana and opium poppy in the Bekaa Valley beginning in the 1970s. ISIS now appears to be smuggling local weed too. Efforts to eradicate the crops and provide alternative livelihoods for the valley’s poor farmers have ebbed and flowed, depending on pressures from international community. Alternative development policies have often been cast too narrowly and have relied on questionable substitute crops such as tobacco. 

Synthetic drugs are also a problem for the region, particularly where poorly governed or ungoverned areas provide cover for laboratories. The production of Captagon is increasing in Lebanon and it is even more widely produced in Syria, where it is smuggled and taxed by ISIS for revenue. ISIS fighters are also alleged to consume Captagon to increase their fighting prowess and brutality (echoing amphetamine-fueled violence by West African fighters in the 1990s). Drug trafficking has funded terrorists and militias in Libya, most notably Mokthar Belmokthar’s terrorist group. This group has taxed a broad range of smuggled goods, but its narcotics that captures the headlines. 

Alternative development policies have often been cast too narrowly and have relied on questionable substitute crops such as tobacco.

The region also experiences problems with legal drugs, such as qat in Yemen. While qat is culturally acceptable, it decreases productivity of users, increases family indebtedness, and causes severe overexploitation of scarce water resources to support its cultivation. Yemen’s water scarcity is one of the largest in the world. For many women in Somalia during the Shabab era (and today in places such as Djibouti), peddling qat was the only source of livelihood even as it made their husbands unproductive and drove households into high debt.

But suppressing production and trade may not be politically or economically sustainable, as even the terrorist group al-Shabab learned in Somalia when it tried to disrupt qat trading. Like with its 1990s predecessor al-Itihaad, prohibition of qat use and trade caused al-Shabab to lose crucial support from influential business leaders and clan chiefs, undermining the political entrenchment of the group. 

Bright spots?

There are some positive counter-examples in the region. Recognizing that its highly punitive policies have failed, Iran has adopted some important harm-reduction measures even while clinging to executions and even though many treatment centers, especially for women, have to operate hidden from view. Along with Morocco, it has been experimenting with methadone maintenance, needle exchange, and other harm reduction measures as well as ways to improve the effectiveness of treatment. Some 420,000 Iranian addicts are reported to receive methadone maintenance and 76,000 buprenorphine treatment. Morocco’s vibrant drug policy conversation even includes civil society voices favoring the legalization of marijuana use and possibly even cultivation, which would a return to the policies in place in the early 20th century. Turkey has been a model since the 1970s of how to produce medicinal opiates and prevent their diversion into the legal drug trade. With the help of U.S. legislation in the 1970s that guaranteed Turkey and India that the United States buys 80 percent of opium for medicinal purposes from these two countries–and with the implementation of very good control practices, such as the use of so-called poppy-straw concentrate method—Turkey eliminated illegal poppy cultivation while keeping its farmers employed. Local militants such as those in the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) or Turkish criminal groups have never been able to penetrate the legal medical production and instead fund themselves by smuggling opiates from Afghanistan. 

In North Africa, Morocco has witnessed a reduction in marijuana cultivation. So there are some cases where well-designed policy responses can have an impact on drug production. Looking further abroad, Thailand—once a major source of drugs in the infamous “Golden Triangle”—offers another positive model for how to wipe out poppy production humanely through a combination of strong economic growth and rural development. MENA governments might look to Thailand for lessons.

[S]ocial taboos, traumatized dislocated populations, state fragility, weakness and corruption of law enforcement, rivalrous geopolitics, and intense conflict all inhibit effective drug policies.

Breaking the cycle

In the Middle East and North Africa, social taboos, traumatized dislocated populations, state fragility, weakness and corruption of law enforcement, rivalrous geopolitics, and intense conflict all inhibit effective drug policies. 

If governments and civil society in the region do not start thinking deeply about drug trends and policies, the threats and harms will grow much more intense. Governments and NGOs need to start gathering and disclosing data on drug use and better map drug smuggling. Drug use should be depenalized: Throwing users into jail will not stop use and may facilitate radicalization. Use should be destigmatized and better treatment provided, while public health approaches should also be adopted. If governments force eradication before effective alternative livelihoods are in place, it is likely that farmers will only be further pushed into the arms of militants (and such policies should not be intensified in the Bekaa Valley, for example). 

There is no easy way to disrupt terrorist drug funding, the eternal dream of governments around the world. But interdiction can more effectively target the drugs-terrorism nexus. The first step, before all else, is to acknowledge drug challenges are on the rise in the Middle East and that repression is not stopping them. 

       

Scale is a major contributor to this complexity. As cities grow, their vulnerabilities grow—often in nonlinear ways. A megalopolis of 20 million does not simply face ten times the challenges of a city of 2 million. Whole new patterns often emerge, largely because size creates opportunities for criminals and extremists through anonymity in the large and often weakly governed spaces that emerge in these massive places.

Another factor is resource scarcity. As populations (and population density) increase, resources for emergency services don’t always keep up. In 2013, for example, Nairobi had a population of 4 million—and a single working fire truck. Water is increasingly scarce, partly due to climate change effects as well, in large swaths of the Middle East and Africa. In many places, urban migration is marked by the poorest and most vulnerable in society moving into huge slums, not well-heeled neighborhoods.

At the same time, urbanization means that cities are a key engine of global economic growth. Trade, foreign direct investment and globalization enhance prosperity. But the same movements of people, goods and ideas also create vulnerabilities and make it imperative that metro areas collaborate on security.

That’s why, together with colleagues at Brookings and JPMorgan Chase, we have launched Securing Global Cities, a project of the Global Cities Initiative, a joint effort by Brookings and JPMorgan Chase.

Our year-long project is just beginning, but a few principles are already emerging.

First, like counterterrorism and counterinsurgency, the security of cities involves far more than armed forces. Not only military, intelligence and law enforcement organizations, but also law and criminal justice systems, schools, businesses and NGOs are crucial players. Cities need to coordinate how they handle immediate crises, how they anticipate and preempt future challenges, and how they improve conditions in places that are breeding grounds as well as transportation and communications hubs for the world’s criminal and extremist movements.

Second, most of the world’s natural disasters of the last twenty years, as terrible as they have been, have affected “finite-sized” populations—the Haiti earthquake of 2010, the Japanese tsunami of 2011, the Philippines typhoon of 2013, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014, and recent Pakistani and Nepalese earthquakes. Even the terrible tsunami of 2004, as tragic as its effects were, primarily demolished small cities and fishing villages in Indonesia and South Asia. The next “big one” could hit Karachi or Lagos or Rio or some other city with multiple times as many people. Even those cities that may seem to have the capacity to handle a future disaster or other type of security challenge on their own could be overwhelmed if their infrastructure fails and millions are left in the dark or cold, without water or food or medical care. Major natural disasters could easily hit cities already engulfed in various kinds of violence.

Third, changes in technology provide new opportunities for securing cities. Alas, they also provide new, secret ways of doing business for transnational criminal and extremist organizations. Cities will need to be supple, and evolve best practices as technologies and political conditions change. Even as they do so, they must remember that securing cities will remain manpower-intensive.

Of course, even as cities are getting bigger, and a higher fraction of the world’s population is moving into them than ever before, the globe is also getting smaller. That leads to the fourth point: communications and transportation technologies connect us in unprecedented ways. The very manifestations of much of the planet’s growing wealth and sophistication leave us vulnerable in new ways—with San Bernardino, the opioid and meth drug crises and the Zika virus being just three of the latest examples to affect Americans directly.

A fifth and final principle is this: collaboration is central to our research strategy and to solutions to the underlying problem. Cities around the world have already developed many best practices. Much of the challenge is to disseminate them, while sharing insights on how to adapt core principles to various specific circumstances from one region and one metropolitan area to another. Doing so is an important step for strengthening urban security and economic development across the globe.

This piece was originally published by The National Interest.

       

But amidst this, Nigeria completed its first peaceful transition of power nine months ago—to Muhammadu Buhari, who has since made some progress in reforming the military, sacking corrupt leaders, and injecting energy into the counter-Boko Haram campaign. 

On February 29, the Africa Security Initiative at Brookings hosted a discussion on the current state of Nigeria, featuring EJ Hogendoorn of the International Crisis Group, Madeline Rose of Mercy Corps, Mausi Segun of Human Rights Watch, and Amadou Sy from Brookings. Brookings’s Mike O’Hanlon moderated the conversation.

As O’Hanlon argued at the start, Nigeria is one of the most important countries in the world, but appears little in policy debates. Nigeria is sub-Saharan Africa’s largest economy, and security risks emanating in the country can have spillover effects. All of the participants stressed that Nigeria should factor more centrally in conversations about international security, economic development, and humanitarian issues.

Nigeria’s ups and downs

O’Hanlon started by framing three overlapping challenges in Nigeria:

• The struggle against Boko Haram, which is more complicated than a pure terror group, but has also pledged loyalty to ISIS.
• The question of reform, to include the army, the police, and the entire government.
• The state of the economy, since Nigerian livelihoods need to be improved if there is any hope to handle the first two situations. 

Hogendoorn praised the peaceful transition of power to President Buhari, calling it a “stunning achievement” for the country and those who helped from the outside. However, the problems facing Nigeria—namely the insurgency in the Niger Delta, declining oil prices, and corruption and government mismanagement (at state and federal levels)—are large, he said. He argued that declining oil prices and income are impacting the government’s ability to fulfill promises, and that state governments are powerful and difficult to reform. He praised some anti-corruption institutions in Nigeria, as well as a number of effective governors who have changed corruption situation dramatically over a short period of time. But in the end, he said, it comes down to good leadership. The Nigerian people must demand accountability. 

Rose detailed how things have changed in Nigeria since Mercy Corps became heavily involved in the area in 2012. Mercy Corps’ main missions there include violence reduction, education, and creating opportunity for young girls, as well as humanitarian response. While there has been progress on chronic violence in Nigeria, particularly in the northeast of the country, Rose stressed that there is much to be done. She concluded that there is not enough attention to the human element of the crisis. For example, Rose noted that displacement is common across the Northeast. The displaced are mainly women and children. In the displaced groups, the eldest becomes de facto head of household—sometimes forcing leading adolescent girls to turn to selling sex for food or money for food. Rose called on the government to address this. 

Segun agreed that the focus needs to change regarding crisis response in Nigeria. In the past, the focus has been almost entirely on a military response. This has not been a workable plan, she said, partly because the “military operates above the law.” The reforms in Nigeria must have a social component, Segun argued. Lack of access to opportunity, economic problems, and desertification of major water bodies have all combined to drive farmers and fisherman from the Northeast and into the heart of the conflict. 

Sy returned to the importance of economic interests in resolving the crises in Nigeria. He reminded the audience that the country is the largest economy of sub-Saharan Africa, and that is important for the entire continent. Since two-thirds of the government revenue comes from oil, the oil shock has dealt a huge blow. But there is hope for Nigeria, Sy noted. One reason is stimulus via investment outside the oil sector. There has been an increase in infrastructure spending, as well as on human development (namely in education and health). In both cases, he said the biggest issue will be implementation. Sy gave four recommendations to the Nigerian government: 1) increase infrastructure expenditure, 2) make government more lean and cost-effective, 3) increase taxation in non-oil revenue items, and 4) reduce corruption. 

Overall, the participants expressed cautious hope for Nigeria despite the problems it faces. The government there still has a long list of to-do’s, but there is reason to believe that it is on the right general track.