The Somali Policy Institute (SPI) is pleased to publish its latest policy briefing, “The Security Financing Trap: Can Somalia Sustain Its Security Transition Without Permanent External Subsidies?”
Somalia’s security transition is increasingly framed around the transfer of operational responsibility from international actors to Somali security institutions. Yet this transition raises a more fundamental question: who will finance the security system once external support declines?
This briefing argues that Somalia’s principal challenge is not simply the availability of security assistance, but the structural mismatch between the growing recurrent costs of security, Somalia’s limited domestic revenue base, and the pace at which external financing is being reduced.
The paper introduces SPI’s “security financing trap” framework: a situation in which international security financing declines faster than domestic fiscal capacity can expand to absorb the resulting recurrent obligations. Under this framework, Somalia risks inheriting security responsibilities without possessing the fiscal capacity required to sustain them.
The analysis highlights several critical pressures. Somalia’s domestic revenue remains exceptionally low relative to GDP, while security responsibilities are expanding. At the same time, the financing architecture supporting AUSSOM and UNSOS remains heavily dependent on international contributions. The paper also identifies fragmented security financing, incomplete fiscal federalism, limited visibility of off-budget assistance, and the absence of a consolidated national security expenditure framework as major structural constraints.
SPI’s analysis finds that the sustainability of Somalia’s security transition depends on three dimensions advancing together:
Operational capacity — Somali institutions must be capable of providing security.
Institutional ownership — Somali authorities must govern, oversee and manage the security sector effectively.
Fiscal ownership — Somalia must develop the predictable domestic resources required to sustain core security functions.
The paper examines alternative transition scenarios through 2029 and concludes that a calendar-driven transfer of responsibilities carries significant fiscal and operational risks if it moves faster than domestic revenue growth and institutional reform.
Rather than advocating an abrupt withdrawal of international assistance or indefinite external dependence, SPI proposes a Predictable Security Transition Compact. The proposed framework would establish a multi-year financing envelope, link reductions in external support to measurable domestic fiscal and institutional progress, improve transparency over the full cost of security, and provide mechanisms for absorbing major security or economic shocks.
The briefing ultimately makes a broader policy argument: security transition should be treated not only as a military or institutional transition, but as a fiscal transition. Sustainable national ownership requires Somalia and its international partners to align responsibility transfer with the country’s actual capacity to finance, govern and sustain the institutions being transferred.
Key policy recommendations include:
- Developing a costed, multi-year Medium-Term Security Financing Plan.
- Producing a consolidated national security expenditure statement covering on-budget, off-budget and major in-kind assistance.
- Linking external financing reductions to measurable domestic revenue and institutional benchmarks.
- Strengthening payroll, procurement and public financial management systems within the security sector.
- Clarifying intergovernmental fiscal responsibilities for security financing.
- Establishing a predictable, multi-year financing mechanism involving the Federal Government, African Union and international partners.
