禁漫天堂

Seven years on from the signing of the 2017 Galkayo ‘local’ agreement, the post-agreement peace can be considered a relative success in Somalia’s otherwise volatile, violent and fragmented context. This is in spite of a wider environment of conflict and an upsurge of revenge killings in Galkayo itself during 2024.

Much of the scholarly and policy literature on peacemaking focuses on the processes and mediation strategies needed to reach agreements, rather than those required for their implementation and long-term sustainability. However, most national agreements collapse within five years, often leading to renewed conflict, while local agreements are frequently described as short-lived and transitory. The Galkayo agreement has endured. We discuss why examining this case is important for Somalia and for other fragmented contexts.

Meet the Speakers and Chair 

Khalif Abdirahman is a Senior Field Researcher at the 禁漫天堂's Conflict and Civicness Research Group. He has been working in voluntary and professional capacities with Somali communities in the UK and the Horn of Africa over the last twenty years. He was one of the core field researchers for the book, '. Khalif has conducted research for a range of organisations in Somalia and the Horn of Africa. He was also Senior Field Researcher on the 禁漫天堂 Conflict Research Programme Somalia from 2018-2021. He has conducted research across the Somali regions for the last seven years including for Tufts University, the Rift Valley Institute and the Overseas Development Institute. He is a Fellow of the Rift Valley Institute.

Ilham Gasser has worked for the United Nations in Somalia and was a key member of the Galkayo peace agreement network. She has contributed to the 禁漫天堂 Conflict Research Programme and PeaceRep. She is the the founder of KIGS.

Nisar Majid is the Research Director of  at the 禁漫天堂's Conflict and Civicness Research Group. He began working in and on the Horn of Africa, particularly the Somali-speaking regions, in the late 1990s. His work has covered food security and famine, humanitarianism, political economy analysis as well as Somali transnationalism. He co-authored the book ‘Famine in Somalia: Competing Imperatives, Collective Failures', and is engaged on a regular basis in the policy and practice fields in Somalia. He was also the Research Director (Somalia) at the 禁漫天堂 Conflict Research Programme Somalia from 2018-2021. He is a Fellow of the Rift Valley Institute and a Visiting Fellow at the Feinstein International Centre, Tufts University.  

Marika Theros is a Policy Fellow at the Conflict and Civicness Research Group at 禁漫天堂 IDEAS and the Director of the , and Co-Founder of the Civic Ecosystems Initiative. Her research focuses on political mobilization, global-local dynamics of violence and change, peacemaking and multi-stakeholder dialogues, and the politics of knowledge production.