Evaluation of the EU cooperation with the Federal Republic of Somalia (2014-2021)

The EU had supported Somalia prior to 2014, but the EU’s engagement post-2014 became strongly motivated by the broad and ambitious peace-building and state-building goals of the “New Deal” – a pledge of EUR 1.8 billion by the EU and other international partners to help Somalia end more than two decades of conflict.

During the period of 2014-2021, the time horizon examined by the evaluation, the EU’s development cooperation in Somalia was based on the state-building ambitions and objectives formulated in the “Somali Compact”, the key policy and planning document of the Somali Government when rebooting its state-building process in 2012/2013.

The EU’s strategic engagement deepened in 2017/2018 with the move of the EU Delegation to Mogadishu, a new EUR 100 million general budget support programme launched in 2018, and a shift to a more integrated approach (better linking the different EU services, sectors and interventions), making the EU’s cooperation more comprehensive and enabling it to become more of a strategic player in Somalia.

Despite the EU’s best efforts to tailor an appropriate engagement strategy, these have been overwhelmed by political and clan conflicts, unsolved constitutional issues, the conflict with Al-Shabaab and the Islamic State in the northern part of the country, and the humanitarian crisis caused by natural and man-made disasters.

As of 2022, a new momentum is unfolding in Somalia with the election of a new President, even though this has been overshadowed globally by the start of the war in Ukraine, which is shifting international priorities with unknown consequences for the future international support to Somalia.

Read the evaluation report (Volume I - Main report)