The United Nations’ assistant Secretary-General for Peacebuilding support has announced an additional $7 million support under the UN Peacebuilding Fund’s (PBF) to the recovering Somalia.
Judy Cheng-Hopkins announced this pledge after concluding a five-day visit to Southern Somalia and met the country’s leaders, local elders and civil society.
The new fund brings the total of peacebuilding support to $10 million. The UN Special Envoy Nicholas Kay had earlier pledged for a $3 million fund support.
“We are committed to spending $10 million very fast under the UN Peacebuilding Fund’s (PBF) Immediate Response Facility,” ASG Cheng-Hopkins said. “Somalia still has internal problems, and still has a problem with Al Shabaab and with other groups, but there are sufficient windows of opportunity in certain parts of the country where we should invest now in peacebuilding so that peace sustainability can be preserved.”
The fund is expected to boost the capacity of local government, facilitate reconciliation efforts at the grassroots level and fund public works projects for youth and other vulnerable groups, as it was described in a UNSOM statement.
Somalia is recovering from two decades of civil war.
The fund, launched in 2006, has attracted more than $275 million in pledges from 44 donors and about a dozen countries have received assistance from the fund so far, according to the UN news Centre.
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