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Residents walk through the Bakara market area of Somalia’s embattled capital, Mogadishu, carrying on with daily life, Oct. 6, 2011. A new homegrown initiative called Fursad Fund is offering hope to young people in Somalia with promises of jobs, education and other opportunities.PHOTO: TONY KARUMBA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Nadir Sharif Maqbul loves to play soccer and has dreams of one day joining the Chelsea Football Club in London. But his reality is less bright in Somalia, where the majority of the country’s youth are unemployed. Maqbul is one of them. The 20-year-old, who has failed to find a full-time job for the past several years, needs a steady income to support his widowed mother and marry his girlfriend.
“No job opportunities exist in this country,” said Maqbul, who lives and attends secondary school in the capital, Mogadishu.
That could all change with Fursad Fund, which launched last weekend and aims to establish “Somalia’s first independent trust fund” through donations from citizens and the Somali diaspora, rather than foreign aid. The money raised is meant to help create jobs and other opportunities for impoverished and disadvantaged communities across the East African country, where youth are often otherwise lured by piracy or armed groups.
But while residents and the government hailed the homegrown campaign’s intentions, Somalia analysts were concerned about Fursad Fund’s board of directors and its links to the government. They also warned that success will ultimately be determined by the organization’s ability to deliver on its lofty promises and remain transparent in a country that has been dubbed the world’s most corrupt.
“It’s going to face the predictable challenges in a place like Somalia,” said Ken Menkhaus, a political scientist at North Carolina’s Davidson College who focuses on the Horn of Africa. “Any trust or foundation like this does run the risk of abuse if there isn’t very good governance or oversight. That falls on the shoulders of the board of directors in a country which routinely ranks No. 1 of corrupt cultures on Earth.”
Fursad Fund is targeting 5,000 Somali donors for the first year, with each one paying $1 per day, $7 per week, $30 per month, $365 per year. That will total $1.825 million in donations, and the finances will be allocated to the fund’s “three core joint targets,” as determined solely by a board of directors. These priorities will address issues nationwide in Somalia’s past, present and future: social reconciliation and trust-building encouragement, job creation and poverty reduction as well as education and infrastructure development.
It also sets out to recruit a thousand volunteers from across the country to support the implementation of proposed projects, which include a vocational training program, community infrastructure development, a teacher training program and a capacity and salary support program for various industries in both the public and private sectors.
“This is not only about money. This is about mobilizing the Somali people,” said Abdi Barud, the interim campaign manager for Fursad Fund and the executive director of Global Somali Diaspora, a nonprofit headquartered in Minneapolis and London. “It’s about encouraging and convincing Somali people of the importance of self-sufficiency, self-reliance.”
Barud said Fursad Fund is specifically pursuing donations from Somali residents and expats. Money from foreign aid organizations, such as the United Nations, will be rejected.
“We will not accept foreign aid. Why? Because the whole concept is based on ‘we can do it for ourselves’ and that defeats the purpose,” he said in a telephone interview Tuesday from Mogadishu. “Foreign aid can help but it cannot solve all your problems. Unemployment remains really high, so we’re developing our own initiative.”
People attend the official launch of Fursad Fund in Somalia’s capital of Mogadishu on Feb. 27, 2016.PHOTO: HUSSEIN MOHAMED FOR INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TIMES
Fursad Fund made its official debut at a launch party held Saturday in Mogadishu. Dozens of young people attended the event and were eager to learn more about the organization’s plans to empower youth in a country where 73 percent of the people live on less than $2 a day.
“It’s really historical to me,” said Abdel Alas, a 20-year-old Mogadishu resident. “It’s Somali-owned, Somali-led. I’m sure many Somalis like me will definitely support this.”
Sagal Bihi, another 20-year-old Mogadishu resident, shared a similar sentiment. “I’m one of the youth who grew up and got educated in the city. I’ve been very excited about this campaign,” she said. “It’s a revolution. It’s something we really want: Somali people to own their decisions, to own their future, to tell them they can be their own donors.”
The unemployment rate for youth in Somalia is one of the highest in the world. Overall youth unemployment stands at 67 percent, according to the U.N. Development Program, but that number is higher for woman and in certain areas of the country. Somalia also has one of the lowest rates of school enrollment, with more than 80 percent of primary-age children no longer in school or have never attended. These issues verge on catastrophic considering that over 70 percent of Somalia’s 10.5 million population is under 35.
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Source: IBT
