The Ministry of National Planning and Development,Somaliland UNDP and UNSOM jointly organized a one-day workshop on Sustainable Development Goal 16, Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions, as part of wider coordination efforts by the Government of Somaliland. Around 30 stakeholders from the Government, civil society and UN participated in the meeting.

The Minister of Planning Mr. Awale Ibrahim Shirwa, Attorney General Hassan Ahmed Adan and Jeff Sims, UNSOM Strategic Security Adviser opened the meeting at Ambassador Hotel. Rose Foran, and expert from UNDP provided detailed presentation on SDG 16.

The workshop focused on how best to measure SDG 16, which is crosscutting goal that embraces all other SDGs and is aligned with Somaliland National Development Plan II.

“All Government stakeholders are very serious about the implementation of SDG 16 which is aligned with Somaliland’s peace, justice and institutional building goals of NDP II. I think we are so far the only country that has NDP that is fully aligned with SDGs” Minister Shirwa said.

The Minister added that reforms that are related to SDG 16 are already underway in Somaliland. However, he underlined that there is data gap for measuring the progress of SDG 16 and that there is a room for UN and civil society to contribute to make the measurement comprehensive and more accurate.

Jeff Sims of UNSOM mentioned that UN is delighted to discuss with the Government on how to put SDGs and NDP2 forward.

“SDG 16 is cross cutting goal, understanding how to monitor is critical because of the need to inform decision makers within both the Government, civil society and international community” Mr. Sims said. He added that International Community is willing to finance projects in NDP2.

Somaliland Attorney General Mr. Hassan Ahmed Adan who also provided speech during the opening session emphasized importance of SDG 16 for the justice and judiciary sector of Somaliland.

“UNDP already provided a lot of support to the justice sector including infrastructure development and capacity building projects. I don’t think there is an organization that supported us more than UNDP. We are grateful for their partnership” Attorney Adan said.

Mr. Adan also commended the national budget of Somaliland. “Though we receive good support from the international community, we primarily rely on the national budget. We get all running costs as well as many infrastructure improvements from the National Budget. However, the national budget has no capacity building projects, that is why we need the support of international community to further strength justice intuitions.”

Civil society organizations including SONSAF, Safer World and Fathi Initiatives also provided presentations related to Somaliland progress on SDG 16 and NDP2.