Local Governance through Decentralization Policy and Institutional Arrangement for Peace, Governance and Service Delivery in Somaliland

Most African countries have started transfer of power, resources and responsibilities to their sub-national governments during the past decade. This is based on the premise that decentralized governance provides a structural arrangement and a level playing field for stakeholders and players to promote peace, democracy, and development. The Somaliland policy frameworks (the Constitution, Law 23/2002, Decentralization Policy etc) underscore the intention to devolve authority and responsibility to local governments to promote improvements in local governance quality that can contribute to peace consolidation, development and equitable services. However, a large gap exists between the Constitutional subsidiarity principles on one hand and the implementing secondary laws, institutional arrangement and government's capacity on the other hand. Therefore, this paper provides an overview of the experiences and challenges associated with the Somaliland decentralization policies and the strengthening of local governments to provide adequate service delivery. Within this context, the paper examines the government's policy framework, institutional arrangement and capacity in implementing decentralization within contexts of peace building, governance and development in Somaliland. Both primary and secondary data were used in this study. Secondary data were gathered thorough related secondary source and to gather primary data, the study followed a qualitative research design.