Challenges achieving human security

Somalia has been affected by both human-made and natural disasters for over four decades. The most recent international community’s intervention in the country occurred in 2007, when the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) was established. As Somali government and AMISOM were combating al-Shabaab, the country experienced another regional drought (2010) and subsequent famine (2011), which cost an estimated 258,000 lives. At the same time, Somali government and AMISOM succeeded to expand its area of control from several districts of Mogadishu in 2010, to large parts of central and southern Somalia by the end of 2014, while al-Shabaab was pushed to remote rural areas. Considering such significant shifts in the balance of power and the humanitarian situation, this book examines how international community’s intervention has impacted the state of human security in the country between 2010 and 2014. Drawing on experience of two international interventions in Somalia (in the early 1990s as well as the current one), this book makes recommendations regarding how recent gains in human security can be sustained and enhanced.