Al Shabaab Governance – peer-reviewed paper published

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How does the insurgent Somali Islamist movement Al Shabaab govern the populations it controls, and what are the implications for Somalia and the international intervention there? This is the subject of my article published by the Canadian Journal of African Studies on 18 July 2025.

Here is the link to the final manuscript as accepted by the Journal, and following is the abstract of the paper.

Presentations and echoes

I will discuss this paper as part of the presentation on my current research at Leiden University on 24 September, in a closed session to which LU staff and students are invited.

I’m organising a seminar on this topic at the Center for International Studies of Sciences Po (CERI) in Paris in the second half of October (precise date and location to follow). The seminar will be presented and moderated by my colleague at the CERI Hélène Thiollet.

An article based on my research will soon be published by the New Humanitarian, and a shorter, more divulgative article will appear in The Conversation (African edition). The links will be placed here upon publication.

I had the pleasure to discuss this paper with Guido Lafranchi, researcher at the Clingendael Institute, and look forward to other discussions with experts!

Note: the banner image is from a 2018 map depicting areas of influence. Al Shabaab = green. Not much has changed since then.

A Poisoned Gift? Israel’s Recognition of Somaliland

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This is a translation (by Claude.ai, revised by the author) of an article I published in The Conversation France on 30 December.

Israel surprised the world by recognising Somaliland on Friday, 26 December. What are the reasons behind this unexpected announcement, and what outcomes is it likely to produce?

A Diplomatic Anomaly

The republic of Somaliland, formed in 1991, is independent in all but name, yet Israel is the first sovereign state to recognise it. For all other countries and international organisations, Somaliland remains under the authority of the Somali state, from which the republic seceded after a war with genocidal characteristics in the late 1980s.

Today, Somalia’s federal government, established with international support in 2012 after decades of civil war, is beset by attacks from Al-Shabaab and the Islamic State, suffers from corruption on a record scale and experiences persistently high levels of political instability. Federal Somalia still lacks a constitution, universal elections and several of its constitutive regions refuse to submit to the federal authorities. By contrast, Somaliland is a democratic and stable haven, with its own constitution, a reasonably functioning electoral political system, its own currency, and an army.

Google Earth view of Berbera port
The UAE in 2017 entered into a multi-billion$ deal with Somaliland and Ethiopia to develop the port of Berbera (above right) and transport infrastructure – the Berbera corridor – to rid landlocked Ethiopia from its dependence on Djibouti for shipping. A military base in and around the airport (below left) was also part of the deal but never constructed. Courtesy of Google Earth

President Abdirahman Irro was undoubtedly in need of good news. After his victory on 13 November 2024, his government became bogged down in the clan conflicts it had inherited and made little progress on critical fronts such as youth employment, economic growth, and inflation. Following Israel’s announcement, jubilant crowds took to the streets of Hargeisa, Somaliland’s capital.

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Participation à l’émission “En Somalie : Al-Chabab, un Etat parallèle”

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Je suis intervenu dans le programme ‘Cultures Monde’ de Julie Gacon sur France Culture (Radio France) le 12 novembre 2025 pour parler de Al Shabaab et le défi qu’ils posent au projet de gouvernance transnationale par la communauté internationale.

https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/podcasts/cultures-monde/en-somalie-al-chabab-un-etat-parallele-2038579

It’s time to resurrect pan-Africanism

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This essay challenges conventional narratives that portray African statehood as either a neocolonial instrument or inevitable elite capture by examining how early independence leaders envisioned building states rooted in traditional self-governance within a pan-Africanist framework. But Western powers systematically suppressed African political innovation through violent intervention, the United Nations system and Bretton Woods institutions, making sovereignty conditional on conformity to rules that entrench Western hegemony. African economies were subordinated into raw material export dependence while African elites developed sophisticated adaptation strategies that kept them in power through redistribution of external support. Today, contemporary African youth movements are rediscovering suppressed political alternatives, realizing that authentic sovereignty requires breaking these patterns of extroversion by combining traditional self-governance with regional integration—a vision that remains threatening to global orders dependent on African subordination.

Some of the early inspirers of pan-Africanism, including Americans. From left to right, 1st Row: Patrice Lumumba; Marcus Garvey; Malcolm X; Assata Shakur; Kwame Nkrumah. 2nd Row: Audley “Queen Mother” Moore; Huey P. Newton; Amílcar Cabral; Robert Sobukwe; Omali Yeshitela. Image source: African Skies blog.
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Book presentation: Het Continent van de Toekomst

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On 18 September I will engage the author Daaf Borren in an interview at Boekhandel Douwes in The Hague, at 19:00, in a session open to the public. You are welcome!

Daaf Borren’s book ‘Het Continent van de Toekomst: Jongeren over Africa” explores what young (mostly educated) Africans think about their own continent, its challenges and how to resolve them. It is an energizing book that keeps the ‘Africa Rising’ discourse at a distance, and describes how many young people refuse victimhood narratives, while remaining critical about (neo)colonial patterns of domination.

One of the themes that struck me was the revival of the pan-Africanist ideal among young Africans desperate to get rid of corrupt elites held in power by Western extractive and security interests.

Banner image: part of Frantz Zéphirin 2007 – The Slave Ship Brooks as photographed at the 2022 Venice Biennial

Exploring a new approach to development

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Governments of rich countries are increasingly reducing development budgets. The massive cuts by the current US administration to USAID, amounting to a sudden reduction in global aid budgets by over 20%, are echoed by cuts in other traditionally generous donor countries such as Germany, the UK, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and Australia. Although both development and humanitarian aid budgets are hit, the following text focuses on development assistance.

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Working for the FAO in Afghanistan

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From November 2023 to July 2024 I served as FAO Afghanistan’s Head of Communications, Strategy and Resource Mobilization. I plan to write about it and will edit this post soon. For the time being, here is a short movie shot by Barmak Akram that we edited together into a 6 minute teaser.

It follows me as I travel through Northern Afghanistan speaking with farmers about climate change and what can be done to adapt to it/mitigate its effects.

Barmak is a talented and versatile filmmaker; he shot this on a new iPhone and barely intervened in my activities (except by fixing and removing lapel mics and occasionally asking me to repeat a movement or introduction). He managed to catch most of his footage on the fly. We’d like to make a full length movie on climate change in Afghanistan. Any producer interested can get in touch with him (or me).

YouTube player

Is It Time to Recognize the Taliban Government?

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Robert Kluijver. Published in The Conversation (France): December 1, 2024 and in The Conversation (English) on December 29, 2024.

Other language versions of this article were published in the World & New World Journal in Arabic, Russian, Spanish and German.

Is it justifiable to continue not recognizing the Taliban government, which has been in power for more than three years? This stance does nothing to improve the situation of Afghan women and prevents the international community from fully engaging with other critical issues playing in the country.

Selfie by the author with two senior Taliban officials (Director of International Trade and Head of Fairs and International Exhibitions)
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Publication de chapitre sur l’enquête en zone de conflits

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Ensemble avec Emmanuel Al Miah et Dércio Tsandzana, j’ai écrit le premier chapitre du livre ‘Enquêter en Terrain Sensible’ (Presses du Septentrion). Le livre examine les difficultés inhérentes aux études de terrain dans les zones liminaires – soit parce qu’il y a la guerre ou d’autres types de violence, soit à cause des politiques institutionnelles d’acteurs qui sont habitués à la discrétion, soit encore à cause du positionnement du chercheur face à son objet d’enquête.

Un grand merci aux directeurs de l’ouvrage pour l’initiative qu’ils ont pris, voici il y a deux ans, et leur patience pour mener ce projet à sa fin. Les autres contributions, y compris l’introduction à la première partie du livre par Roland Marchal, sont aussi très intéressantes.

Notre chapitre décrit comment on peut faire, malgré les difficultés, des recherches dans les zones de conflit, en prenant la Somalie, l’Irak et le Mozambique comme exemples.

Self-Governance plan of Sudan’s resistance committees

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Sudan’s resistance committees are still active – by necessity, because they are the only networks supporting the people of Sudan, taking care of public services while the state has failed nearly completely. We should support these democratic popular forces in whatever way possible.

In January 2022 the resistance committees of Khartoum state (the urban agglomeration of Khartoum, which holds between a third and half of Sudan’s population) published a Charter for the Establishment of People’s Authority. This charter is an open source document, and it leaves most specifics of the transitional governance structures open to be decided in a democratic way. But some of its principles reveal what self-governance coordinated by resistance committees may look like:

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