Doctoral student Monica Fagioli (The New School University), under the supervision of Dr Janet Roitman, will conduct research on the participation of diaspora populations in state processes and programs in their countries of origin. The researcher will focus on the case of the Somali diaspora in a United Nations Development Program and International Organization of Migration (UNDP-IOM) project, the "Qualified Expatriate Somali Technical Support- Migration for Development in Africa" or QUESTS-MIDA. The central research question addresses the relationship between transnational governance and state-making processes: how is transnational governance enacted in practice in places like Puntland and Somaliland, where a sovereign central state has not existed for nearly twenty years?
This project will include twelve months of multi-sited fieldwork in five key sites: Washington D.C. (U.S.A.), London (U.K.), Nairobi (Kenya), Hargeysa (Somaliland) and Garowe (Puntland/Somalia). The research will use participant observation, unstructured interviews and archival work and will be divided into two phases. In the first phase, data will be collected on a) the processes of mobilization of the Somali diaspora; and b) the ways in which the opportunities offered by QUESTS-MIDA are taken into consideration by Somalis in the U.S. and the U.K. In the second phase, evidence will be collected on a) how QUESTS-MIDA defines the skills which should be transferred to Somaliland and Puntland and how its priorities of intervention come into being; and b) how Somali diaspora and Somali civil servants involved in QUESTS-MIDA projects actually enact their daily duties and pursue their official tasks within the institutions that UNDP-IOM has targeted for capacity building.
The importance of this study lies in its contribution to expanding an understanding of state-building processes. Further, the study provides a critical understanding of what policy-makers call the "migration-development nexus," the recent redefinition of migration as an instrument for national development. Funding this research also supports the education of a social scientist.
Somaliland and Puntland have emerged, respectively, as independent and semi-autonomous states in the aftermath of the collapse of the Somali state in the 1990s. This study looks into the processes of state-making and reconstruction that are taking place in Somaliland and Puntland by focusing on the role of the Somali diaspora in these processes. By asking questions about the relationship between the Somali diaspora and state-building programs, this study looks into the nature of state-building in practice. From Non-governmental and International organizations’ headquarters in Nairobi to the offices of Ministries, Civil service commission, and the public hospital in Hargeysa (Somaliland), the research juxtaposes the design and the ideas of capacity-building initiatives to their actual implementation in the field. The research shows that there is a gap between the design and the enactments of such programs. The initiatives undertaken in the field by different international donors - such as the UN, the Finnish government, the World bank, and others – have often different priorities, which can also reflect competing understanding of how a state should become effective and stable: state-building multiplies in practice. This research documents how formal and informal processes of capacity-building operate in Somaliland and Puntland. Internationally funded state-building programs can create tensions between existing practices by local civil servants and the new technical expertise brought in by the Somali diaspora. In some cases, these programs are criticized by the same Somali diaspora who partake in them. Standards of governance transferred via these projects are often impossible to enact locally. The Somali diaspora transfer their knowledge, skills, and assets locally tapping into their personal experiences and providing their own vision of capacity-building , adapting to or challenging local practices. These practices are not necessarily anticipated by the design of the programs remotely controlled from Nairobi. This study also takes a critical stand against what scholars have recently named a "migration-development nexus", a combination of scholarly and policy-making debate on the recruitment of migrants as resources for development in their country of origin. Findings of this research reveal that European governments’ interest in investing in the Somali diaspora has less to do with state-building or development in Somaliland, and is more about their concern to deal with migrants and refugees population in Europe. Moreover, the research shows how programs of state-building in Somalia are not to be considered part of a new orientation of international migration policies. Rather, they are to be understood along the historical relationship between governments and their emigrant populations, which now involves new actors, such as International Organizations, NGOs, and diaspora groups. Somaliland and Puntland are a unique platform of observation of such a history of engagements between a surrogate government and its emigrant community, with the new involvement of international organizations.
