UN and African Union warn Somalia mission could collapse without urgent donor funding

At UN Week, Somalia and Allies Sound Alarm Over Funding Gap for AU Mission

NEW YORK — Inside a packed conference room just off the United Nations General Assembly floor, Somalia and its closest partners issued an unusually blunt warning: if the world does not step up with reliable money, hard-won security gains against al-Shabab could begin to unravel within months.

The urgency is not abstract. The African Union Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM) — the AU-led force that helps secure towns, main roads, and recently recovered districts — is operating on fumes. Several troop contingents have gone without allowances for roughly 15 months, officials said. “Financing the mission is not an abstract exercise,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres told the high-level financing event Thursday. “It means confronting al-Shabab, protecting civilians, enabling humanitarian access, and ensuring upcoming elections proceed securely.”

A funding scramble in the UN’s busiest week

Co-chaired by the Somali government, the African Union Commission, the United Nations, and the United Kingdom, the meeting gathered a mix of donors and security partners on the sidelines of the General Assembly’s annual diplomatic marathon. Before Thursday, Guterres said only $24.6 million had been pledged toward the $196 million needed to sustain AUSSOM through 2025 — a fraction of the mission’s requirements.

Fresh pledges did materialize in the room. The AU announced $20 million for next year and promised additional personnel and logistical support to shore up operations. The UK followed with £16.5 million — about $21 million — and a promise of continued burden-sharing. Italy, Japan, South Korea, and Spain signaled contributions in the pipeline; the European Union said it would announce support for AUSSOM’s military component “in the near future.”

Even if all those pledges land, the gap remains wide. And while diplomats traded figures and timelines, one stark fact hung over the meeting: troops from several African countries — who patrol remote roads, secure election sites, and stand up under near-daily mortar fire — have done so without mission allowances for more than a year. “Troops have remained deployed without any allowances for 15 months — essentially subsidizing the mission. This is untenable,” Guterres said.

What’s at stake in Somalia’s transition

AUSSOM, which succeeded the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS), is built around a simple bargain: AU forces push and hold alongside Somali units while Mogadishu rebuilds its army, police and local administrations. The plan — endorsed by a broad coalition at the 2023 Somalia Security Conference as part of the Somalia Security Development Plan (SSDP) — envisions a gradual handover of responsibilities to Somali authorities.

That handover is already underway in some districts. Participants at Thursday’s meeting praised AUSSOM’s role in opening supply routes, stabilizing newly liberated areas, and backing Somali forces as they claw back territory from al-Shabab, the al-Qaeda-linked group that has waged an insurgency for more than 15 years. In places where government flags have been raised again, local elders have restarted councils, and aid convoys have begun to move.

The fear expressed in New York is that a funding shortfall could stall or reverse those gains. Security vacuums rarely stay empty for long in Somalia’s central and southern regions. If patrols thin and salaries go unpaid, the risk is not just tactical setbacks, but a broader loss of confidence among communities who are already hedging their bets between state and insurgent authorities.

Somali ownership — with a safety net

All sides emphasized the principle of Somali leadership. The country has logged milestones few imagined a decade ago: debt relief milestones with international lenders, payroll reforms to pay civil servants and soldiers more transparently, and new ground governance in areas retaken from al-Shabab. The arc is positive enough that Somalia, once a byword for state collapse, has been elected to a seat on the UN Security Council beginning in 2025 — the “voice on the Security Council” Guterres cited as a symbol of change.

But Somali ownership, officials stressed, cannot replace predictable funding for an AU mission still needed in the short term. “The success of AUSSOM is not only a Somali imperative but central to regional and global security,” President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said in remarks delivered on his behalf. The message was clear: in an era of transnational threats — from piracy to terror finance to displacement — a security setback in Somalia radiates outward to the Horn of Africa and beyond.

The case for predictable, not patchwork, support

At the heart of the debate is how to pay for peacekeeping-style operations that are not UN missions. Security Council Resolution 2719, adopted late last year, set the legal foundation for providing predictable UN-assessed contributions to African Union-led missions when authorized by the Council. Guterres urged member states to move from principle to practice, lamenting delays that have left Africa-led operations reliant on ad hoc pledges that ebb as global priorities shift.

The fairness question is resonant across the continent. In mission after mission, African troops have shouldered the risk while budgets are stitched together one donor conference at a time. An “equitable financing model,” as Somali and AU officials framed it, would reflect those sacrifices with steady, multi-year support — not one-off grants that leave commanders guessing how to plan operations quarter to quarter.

Numbers, and a narrowing window

The math sharpened the mood. The $196 million required for 2025 covers allowances, logistics, medical evacuation, armored mobility, communications, and the backbone systems that let battalions hold ground. Before Thursday, only $24.6 million was secured. With the AU’s $20 million and the UK’s $21 million, and more hints from partners, the hole may shrink — but not nearly enough.

Behind the numbers are practical consequences: a convoy that doesn’t roll because the fuel contract is frozen; a field hospital that lacks critical supplies; a police unit that cannot rotate home on schedule. Battlefield momentum is fragile. Once lost, it is costly to rebuild militarily and politically.

What to watch next

• Whether the EU details the “near future” support it signaled — and how fast it arrives.
• Implementation of Security Council Resolution 2719: can member states agree on parameters for assessed contributions to AU missions this calendar year?
• Follow-through from Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain and others that signaled interest. Pledges mean little without disbursements.
• Somalia’s progress on security sector reforms — from payroll integrity to command-and-control — which donors say will unlock wider support.

UN week in New York is famous for its contrasts: motorcades and barricades along First Avenue, handshakes and hallway huddles in midtown hotels. Thursday’s Somalia session had some of that theater, but it also had a homespun quality: officials from countries with far bigger crises at home taking turns to ask wealthy capitals to make good on a promise. The promise is not to transform Somalia overnight; it is to ensure that a mission holding the line against a determined insurgency does not run out of runway just as the political transition gathers speed.

“Somalia has come too far and sacrificed too much to see progress unravel,” Guterres said in closing. The question now is whether the world’s attention, so intensely focused on this city for one week in September, can be converted into the steady, unglamorous funding that keeps soldiers fed, vehicles fueled, and elections safe.

By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.