Complex Solutions to Local Problems

This book questions the dominant narrative used in stereotyping Africa and the status of Al-Shabaab in Somalia’s quest for peace. It trumps up local alternatives to solving conflicts on the continent and avers that it is possible to revert to these local mechanisms of governance and conflict resolution as has been done in Somaliland with positive results.

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This book looks at Indigenous alternative solutions to the conflict in Somalia that were available prior to the African Union’s (AU) peacekeeping operation – AMISOM. It argues that despite the long-standing stalemate between AMISOM and Al-Shabaab, it is not too late for the AU to source these Indigenous approaches and use them. It concludes that the longer it takes the AU to wake up to this reality, especially considering the crisis in Europe and the United States, the more likely they would lose out in the protracted war with Al-Shabaab. Problem Solving and the Conflict Tree are used as theories of analysis.