During the first week of August, Prof. David Abdulai Executive Director & CEO of the SBL and his delegation travelled to Kenya for a meeting with His Excellency, Ambassador Boubakar Diarra (African Union Chairperson’s Special Representative for Somalia and former Minister of Labour and former Chief of Justice of the Republic of Mali). The meeting followed a Memorandum of Understanding that was signed between the two institutions in 2010 which stated that the SBL would facilitate training for seventy Somali Civil Servants in areas such as leadership, management, accounting and governance.
Prof Abdulai and his delegation were briefed on the political and humanitarian development in Somalia. The issue of the severe famine affecting the war-ravaged East-African country was highlighted. Despite this dramatic situation, positive signs were emerging with the extension of the current transitional period and the withdrawal from the capital city of extremists groups opposing the government.
“Your visit comes at the right time as we need capable and renown academic institutions to assist the AMISOM in its capacity building initiatives for the Somali Institutions and I have no doubt that we can count on the SBL to assist us in this quest. We were impressed with your training exercise of last year and we need this to be replicated again this year,” said Ambassador Diarra. Prof Abdulai reiterated the fact that the SBL is ready to continue working closely with AMISOM. “We have the necessary capacity to deliver and we are privileged and honoured to be counted among those who want to contribute to putting back Somalia on its feet,” he emphasised.
The meeting with the Ambassador was followed by meetings with the various Units Managers within the AMISOM as well as with the United Nations Support Office to AMISOM (UNSOA).
The requests to the SBL include:
- The training in October 2011 of fifteen Parliamentarians in management and leadership.
- The training of ten Senior Officials from the Office of the Prime Minister to enable them to coordinate Government activities.
- A proposal on follow up training for Senior Government Officials in the areas of leadership, project management and governance.
The SBL was also requested to develop customised programmes for the AMISOM staff to enable them to improve the performance of their duties. The identified training areas were project management, leadership in diversity and accounting.
