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Posted Date : 09 Aug, 2020, 11:56 AM

The unexpected success of Somaliland By Kieran Pender

For some time now, our global landmass has been neatly divided into the 193 member states that make up the United Nations. Cartographically, the world has remained remarkably static in recent years, with just one new member admitted to the club of nations in the past decade (South Sudan) and only three in the decade before that.

In When There Was No Aid: War and peace in Somaliland Sarah Phillips considers a particularly peculiar example. Once a British protectorate, Somaliland enjoyed a fleeting week of independence in 1960 before merging with its southern neighbour, Italian Somaliland, to form Somalia. It was an unhappy union. Famine and oppression from the south ultimately precipitated civil war, and in 1991 (northern) Somaliland unilaterally declared independence.