Complexities of State-Building in Somaliland.

This article examines the complexities of state-building in Somaliland by analyzing the coexistence and interaction of multiple capacity-building programs led primarily by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the US Agency for International Development (USAID). It highlights how these programs, including UNDP's institution-building initiatives like the Somali Institutional Development Project (SIDP) and USAID's stabilization efforts such as the Transition Initiatives for Stabilization (TIS), operate as techno-political arrangements where technical expertise and national political aspirations intersect and contest resource allocation and governance control. The study emphasizes the scalar relations among international donors, Somali diaspora experts, and local officials, showing how technical interventions become politicized and how competing models of state-building both reinforce and destabilize hierarchical power dynamics. Ultimately, the article argues that Somaliland's state-building is characterized by overlapping, sometimes conflicting programs that collectively produce new forms of governance shaped by both technical capacity-building and political claims.