Somaliland and British Council – Human Development InitiativesAbdulazez Al-Motairi
The population pyramid, also called age-sex pyramid, of Somaliland displays more than sixty percent are between 15 – 30 years. The young citizens of Somaliland eager to study, and even some sponsor them selves to learn.
Today, large number of students can be seen waiting for classes at the private and public schools. The English language privates are booming and turned the Somaliland into English speaking nation. This is part of education revolution in Somaliland where everybody is hunting the knowledge. The government schools provide excellent learning environment and curriculum for the students.
British Council, which is located in Addis Ababa, can provide first-class professional education support to the English speaking Somaliland youngsters. The council will enable the Somaliland students to attend international examinations like accounting and auditing certification courses like ACCA, CAT, and CIMA…etc. If the Somaliland Ministry of Education encourages British Council to come Hargiesa, then it will produce well-qualified English speaking professionals.
The human development in Somaliland should be a process of extending citizen´s choices, which can be achieved by expanding human capabilities and functionings. The three basic essential capabilities for human development are for people to lead long and healthy lives, to be knowledgeable and to have access to the resources needed for a decent standard of living. If the basic capabilities are not achieved, then core rights are simply not available and inaccessible.
The human development will produce highly valued people, educated and lead extra economic and social development. However, educating the citizens will provide extra self-respect, better living standard, empowerment of the community.
Somaliland government and private sector should establish institutes to prepare the students for taking up international certification examinations. This will change the Structural Procedures implemented in the country, the system will be more professional and controlled.
For example, having certified auditors or IT Professionals will enable the government and private companies to control their revenues and accounting better; the corruption will be controlled easily through the perfect accounting system. Somaliland will be established as New York of Africa.
Some of the private companies in Somaliland grow bigger day after day, and need people with international standard qualification that can implement better professional systems like accounting, environment, safety, security, IT…etc. Somaliland government should sponsor Prometric Centers for IT Certifications like MCSD, MCSE, OCP, and MCP…etc. These will produce high-tech and qualified technical engineers.
The government should lead such initiative of preparing Somaliland students for better future, because the best investment in the world is within Human Development. The Somaliland student will be competitive at international job markets that will improve the living standard of the common family because majority of the families in Somaliland receive financial support from Diaspora.
Afterwards, the government will do marketing for the qualified Somalilanders at job markets in Europe, America and Middle East.
Somaliland can turn into place to find the qualified and English speaking professionals for many countries mainly the Islamic World, who will find Somalilanders not much different than local culture of their countries. Somalilanders are part of Arab and Islamic World, and will have better opportunity in Gulf region than Indians, Filipinos…etc.
This plan can be fruitful in less than 10 years.
In 2003, during my visit to Somaliland, I realized the people of Somaliland are hungry to learn and to discover the knowledge. Somaliland students own education basics and mainly completed 12 years of schooling or university unlike other parts of Somalia. The majority of children in Somaliland attend schools.
A call to Somaliland government:
Opening British Council in Hargiesa does not need much investment from Hargiesa administration; it is about request to the British Council, especially the current relation between the UK government and Somaliland is very positive. Also, British Council will find booming business in Hargiesa and Somalilanders, usually, pay the money to learn.
The initiative will reduce the unemployment because every qualified person will be demanding and competitive in the job market in Somaliland and abroad too. Human resources are major asset of Somaliland, which is equivalent to major economic backbone of the country – livestock exports.
Recently, large number of Somaliland youth, who were immigrating to Europe for better livings, died in the sea. This is because of the unemployment in the country and people are born to demand more. It is very sad to see youth dying in search of better life, and the government remains uncommitted in solving such problems. Human being, particularly the young, is the best asset of a country, and government should not tolerate with such incidents again.
In our rich oil producing Gulf countries, we recruit foreign manpower from Asia and Africa because there is no enough manpower to serve the booming economy and development needs. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Sigh during his speech at US Congress, proudly, said India produce millions of English speaking professionals to serve the world via job markets. This is unique quality and Somaliland should take India as an example to challenge the world power.
If Somaliland produces qualified professionals to the world, the living standard of the people inside Somaliland will also improve. Because, as per Somaliland culture, the family members support each other unlike many parts of the world; at the end of the day, the professionals are Somalilanders and will come back anytime.
Somaliland will have thousands of its professionals coming back to home after satisfying their financial needs with very extensive experience from international markets. These returning professionals will share their experience in developing Somaliland.
Human Development Initiative vs. Caste based Inequality:
The Somaliland communities will be more aware of their political, social and civil rights. The current biased treatment to some Somali communities like Midgan, Gabooye and others will be eliminated. Midgan, Tumaal and Gabooye…etc are Somali tribes living across Ethiopia, Kenya, Djibouti and former Somalia; they face discrimination in marriage; they lost many of their rights due to inequality.
If the education takes roots in former Somalia, including Somaliland, will reform the understanding of the people, where education and qualification will be factor that differentiates between the people in Somaliland and Somalia. Such discrimination goes back to hundreds of years and need massive efforts to finish it.
The government, civil societies, democracy groups, political parties and people of Somaliland should work on implementing a procedure to utilize the young manpower in Somaliland and create job opportunities.By Abdulaziz Al-Mutairi
