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The National Civic Forum is an independent, non-partisan organization founded by a cohort of Somali scholars and professionals who met on September 20th – 24th, 2004 in Nairobi, Kenya. NCF’s mission is to generate and disseminate creative ideas that may assist the Somali people in the establishment of a democratic political order, durable peace, justice, rule of law and sustainable development.
Such a generation of creative ideas and their dissemination through various media and publications is particularly crucial during the Transitional Federal Government’s mandate at a time when not only national reconciliation, social reintegration and confidence-building should be a high priority but also the supremacy of the rule of law, respect for human rights and civil liberties, social justice, economic recovery, and accountability – among others – should be systemically affirmed and enforced in earnest, thus ending for ever the rule of one-man and the rule of the gun in the Somali Republic.
The ideas that NCF generates will become the basis for a new public platform, where any and all aspects of national problems will be objectively and dispassionately debated, with a view to searching common grounds of solving them. This could be realized by NCF’s persistent and positive engagement of the nascent Transitional Federal institutions, the Somali people, the civil society organizations, and the international community, ensuring that each one of them plays its specific role in the most effective and constructive way. | | Hits: 1105
Kamar Yousuf, M.A/M.B.A
An independent consultant. She was the regional finance manager for an international NGO, which provides air transport, communication and information technology to all humanitarian organizations working in Iraq. In this capacity, she designed and implemented financial management systems for two offices based in Iraq and Jordan. Kamar earned her MBA from the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California. She worked in the Africa and Central Asia regions of the World Bank as a consultant on poverty assessment projects, and conducted gender analysis. She has also a Masters degree in Peace Studies with emphasis on International Conflict Resolution from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.
Yusuf Ahmed Nur, PhD
Professor of Strategic Management and International Business at the Department of Business and Economics, State University of New York, Brockport. He has a PhD in Strategic Management from Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. His research has been published in refereed journals, and he has presented at both the Academy of Management and Academy of International Business, two of the most prestigious management associations in the USA.
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The Somali peace conference in Nairobi, Kenya, has concluded and transitional national government has been formed. The Somali people welcome the progress made so far and hope that their nightmare will soon come to an end. These good tidings are, nonetheless, accompanied by the fact that the formal process has been dominated by self-interest and machinations of power sharing. The cost of this has been the marginalization of the country’s most civic and skilled citizens who could have made vital contribution to peace-making through formal channels. Consequently, this group of non-partisan Somalis whose sole interest is the restoration of peace, reconciliation, and democratic and effective national government has gathered again here to analyse the challenges of the transition and how both Somalis and their well wishers can best tackle those impediments effectively. This cohort has committed itself to coordinate its efforts with other concerned Somalis and members of the International Community in order to productively engage civic-minded citizens and others to ensure that the transition is as successful as it could be.