By Abdirashid Ahmed
An open policy letter to Liban Ahmed Hassan,Galmudug’s leading presidential candidate
“Good governance is perhaps the single most important factor in eradicating poverty and promoting development.”—Kofi Annan
With the incumbent withdrawing from the presidential race and no equally competitive candidate emerging, you may soon become the next president of Galmudug. This is the moment to remember an important lesson from history: executive power changes people.
Leaders sometimes forget their promises, distance themselves from trusted colleagues and lose contact with the communities that supported them. Political office brings new pressures, competing interests,and priorities that can easily take a leader off course.
Do not allow the presidency to separate you from the people.
There is also a significant difference between campaigning and governing. Campaigning is about promises, persuasion, and public support. Governing is harder. It requires discipline, difficult decisions, patience, competent advisers rather than loyalists, and the courage to resist political pressure.
Should you become president, you will inherit a state facing some of Somalia’s most serious peace and development challenges.
Galmudug remains a major hot spot for recurring intercommunal conflict. Unresolved disputes over territorial control, landownership, and contested settlements continue to fuel instability. Drought, water scarcity, and pressure on grazing land are intensifying competition between communities and increasing the risk of violence. Weak governance systems and limited trust between the population and public authorities undermine efforts to de-escalate tensions. Genuine reconciliation and durable political settlements among clans and communities also remain ad hoc and incomplete.
At the same time, many communities remain disconnected from government services, economic opportunities, and essential infrastructure. Districts and settlements far from the main road connecting central and northern Somalia are among the most neglected, and they require meaningful government attention.
Your first 100 days should therefore focus on two major priorities:
Establish the Galmudug Peace and Reconciliation Commission
Galmudug does not need another temporary committee established only after violence has begun. It needs a permanent, credible, and trusted institution that prevents conflict, supports reconciliation, and ensures that peace agreements and political settlements are implemented.
The Galmudug Peace and Reconciliation Commission should operate independently from direct political interference. Its members should include respected traditional elders, religious leaders, women peacebuilders, and other credible personalities dedicated to justice, integrity, and impartiality.
Active politicians and individuals directly involved in local, state, or national political competition should not serve on the commission.
Its mandate should focus on four responsibilities:
• Mapping existing and emerging communal conflicts and identifying priority conflict zones across Galmudug
• Mediating major disputes involving land, water, grazing areas, territorial claims, and community boundaries
• Supporting and monitoring the implementation of peace agreements
• Advising the president, vice president, Ministry of Interior,and other state institutions on reconciliation priorities.
The commission should work closely with the ministries responsible for the interior and security, including traditional leaders and district administrators. However, it must also retain sufficient independence to mediate fairly and earn the confidence of all communities.
If properly established, adequately funded, and professionally managed, the commission could become a national model for institutionalized conflict prevention, political settlement, and reconciliation.
Within your first 100 days, your administration should initiate and secure approval of the necessary legal framework, appoint credible commissioners, and identify the most urgent conflicts requiring immediate intervention.
Peace should no longer depend on emergency delegations, political pressure, or temporary ceasefires. It must become a permanent responsibility of the Galmudug government.
Establish the Galmudug Development Fund
Peace, without visible improvement in people’s lives, remains fragile. It cannot endure where communities continue to experience poverty, isolation, and neglect.
For many people in Galmudug, the state is visible only during elections, political visits, security operations, or periods of conflict. This should not be the case; government must also become visible through roads, water systems, health and education services, agricultural support, functioning markets,and economic opportunities.
The proposed Galmudug Development Fund (GDF)should become a single, transparent mechanism through which the state can mobilize, coordinate, and direct investment from the Galmudug government, the federal government, development partners, international financial institutions, the private sector,and the Somali diaspora.
Its purpose should be clear: to mobilize funding internally and externally; manage it; and ensure that development reaches communities according to their needs, infrastructure deficits, economic potential, and level of deprivation, not their political influence or proximity to centers of power.
Development must become part of Galmudug’s peace strategy
For too long, public and externally financed investments have been concentrated within accessible towns and along major transport corridors. Communities located far from the country’s main transport corridor have been left behind, experiencing the state mainly through political visits, security deployments, or taxation—not through dependable public services.
A state cannot claim equitable development when progress ends where the asphalt ends.
Before formally establishing the fund, the state should conduct a comprehensive mapping exercise to identify infrastructure gaps, service deficits, economic opportunities, and priority areas for investment.
The assessment should also provide an in-depth understanding of Galmudug’s development and financing landscape. This assessment should include identifying the sectors and geographic areas with the greatest need, assessing current and potential funding sources, and determining how much can realistically be mobilized over the next five years from government revenues, development partners, international financial institutions, the private sector, and the Somali diaspora.
The results should provide a clear five-year resource-mobilization and investment strategy showing where funding could come from, how much can reasonably be targeted, and which priorities should receive investment first. This assessment should guide the fund’s mandate, governance arrangements, investment priorities, and resource-mobilization strategy.
The GDF must not become a presidential discretionary account or another mechanism through which contracts are distributed to political supporters. It should be established through legislation, governed by professional fiduciary arrangements, and subject to independent audits and public reporting.
Within your first 100 days, your administration should complete the assessment and present the legal and institutional framework for establishing the fund.
Peace and Development Must Work Together
These two institutions should reinforce one another.
The Peace and Reconciliation Commission should identify communities where carefully designed development interventions could consolidate peace. The GDF should then support peace-dividend projects that promote long-term stability, coexistence, and shared economic opportunity.
Development alone cannot resolve political and communalconflicts, but peace without development is equally unlikely to endure.
Your Opportunity
Attaining the presidency may prove easier than governing Galmudug successfully, your legacy will not be determined by the number of officials around you, the size of your convoy, or the political alliances that brought you to office.
But rather determined by whether communal conflicts decline, young people gain hope, peace agreements hold, economic opportunities are created, public confidence is restored, and marginalized communities experience tangible improvements in infrastructure and essential services.
Do not merely inherit Galmudug’s problems. Build permanent institutions for peace and equitable development. Use your first 100 days to demonstrate that your presidency will be different.
History has given you a rare opportunity. Galmudug cannot afford for you to waste it.
Abdirashid Ahmed is Governance, Public Sector Reform & Development Expert.
