ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how, why and for whom Mogadishu works. It addresses the best way to make the city's streets safer, but it takes the issue one stage further than most analyses by focusing on the interactions between formal and informal actors and processes, as well as between Somalis and donors. A small unit of US counterterrorism advisers was in Mogadishu in 2016-17 and soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division led a train-and-equip mission in 2017. The chapter presents the city's security management as a single analytical field, rather than dividing it into separate categories. It explores the links between three significant issues that are usually kept separate in scholarly debates: 'hard' and 'soft' security as found in counterterrorism and community safety; formal and informal policing provision; and international and local perspectives on security. The chapter draws on analyses conducted in Somaliland, Puntland and Mogadishu in 2011, 2015 and 2016.
