MOGADISHU, Feb. 19 (Xinhua) -- Somalia and the UN have launched the UN Secretary-General's Peacebuilding Fund (PBF) to help support the country's peace building with focus on State-building projects.
Peter de Clercq, deputy representative of the Secretary-General and UN Resident Coordinator for Somalia said the Fund will support five new projects focusing on stabilization, internally displaced persons, reconciliation and state-building processes, land for peace and the leveraging of the contribution of women to peacebuilding and promoting gender sensitivity in the national program on disengaged combatants.
"These programs are intended to be catalytic, which means that we are trying out risky approaches towards peacebuilding, especially where donors would not necessarily put their money because they think it is too risky to invest," de Clercq said in a statement issued in Mogadishu on Monday evening after the launch.
The UN and Somalia has earmarked 14 million U.S. dollars for support of new state-building projects in the country.
De Clercq noted that the fund was intended to provide a coherent and coordinated approach by the government, the UN and other partners to provide durable solutions to a number of problems caused by conflict and extreme weather conditions.
He said there is a need to support the stabilization and reconciliation efforts in Somalia by comprehensively tackling the problem of displacement.
"This country is fast urbanizing not just in Mogadishu but in other towns like Baidoa and Bosaso, and it is very important that we support that urbanization process fueled by internally displaced people, either as a result of drought or as a result of conflict," he added.
The Fund aims to address Somalia's peacebuilding priorities as outlined in the Peacebuilding Priority Plan, the National Development Plan, the National Stabilization Strategy, the Wajadir Framework and the National Reconciliation Framework.
Abdi Mohamed Sabrie, minister of interior federal affairs and reconciliation said Somalia has more than 2.5 million internally displaced persons, most of them living in the major cities, who need help to access basic necessities like food, water and shelter.
