Training of Legal Advisors for the Legislative Branch of Government in Somalia
The Max Planck Foundation held the final Training-of-Trainers Workshop for legal advisors for the legislative branch of government in Somalia. Conducted in Nairobi, Kenya from 24 to 29 April 2024 under the two complementary projects funded by the EU (Legal Capacity Building and Advice for the Legislative Branch of Government in Somalia) and the German Federal Foreign Office (Capacity Building and Legal Advice for the Federal Member State Legislative Assemblies in Somalia), the workshop brought together the legal and technical advisors for the Federal Parliament (EU funded project) and the five Federal Member State Legislative Assemblies in Somalia (German Federal Foreign Office funded project). Following a change to the mode of project implementation, this workshop was organised for lawyers and administrative support staff of the Foundation’s local implementation partner, SomLaw – the Somali Center for Rule of Law and Good Governance, who now employs the local project team in Somalia.
The six-day training program included topics related to decentralisation and federalism, ensuring women’s rights and interests in law-making, as well as parliamentary administration. The following topics were presented from a comparative perspective and reviewed the experience of other countries to draw lessons and options for the improvement of the situation in Somalia with respect to these topics: (1) Intergovernmental Relations in Federal Systems; (2) Security Sector Organisation in Federal Systems; (3) Legal Systems and Legislative Drafting Standards; (4) Research Methodologies and Standards; (5) Representation of Women Interests in Constituency Work; and (6) Effective Filing and Document Storage Systems.
The second part of the workshop was then dedicated to the training on administrative procedures and standards for local project implementation in terms of employment of local project staff, contractual arrangements for the local project infrastructure, and documentation of local project activities such as the provision of technical and legal advice or the organisation of capacity building workshops for local project partners.
On the basis of the feedback and comments received from the legal and technical advisors, the workshop materials will now be adjusted and fine-tuned to better fit the Somali context and the needs of local project partners. These will then be translated into Somali and utilised for project activities in Somalia. The SomLaw administrative support staff was trained on how best to support the project and the implementation of these local project activities in Somalia. The workshop was therefore very successful in strengthening the collaboration between the Foundation and SomLaw and the communication and cooperation within the project team.