The Role of the African Union Mission in Securing Somalia: AMISOM - Peacekeeping Success or Peacekeeping in Regress?

This report is a follow-up study to a report written on AMISOM by FOI in 2008. It seeks to explore the improvements made to the security situation in Somalia since 2010 and the role of AMISOM in bringing these about. The study outlines the major changes made to the mission since 2008 which have enabled it to contribute to the security achievements, as well as the conditions and circumstances, external to AMISOM, which have facilitated the improvements. Finally, the report makes an assessment of the validity of describing the AMISOM model, which uses Western resources to support African boots on the ground, as a prototype for effective peacekeeping. The report argues that AMISOM has had some success in its contribution to the stabilisation of the situation in Somalia, but that AMISOM has been far from the only contributory factor. In addition, it is too early to make an assessment of the overall success of AMISOM because the security achievements that have been made are far from consolidated and because many security-related challenges still remain, not least the continued presence of al-Shabaab throughout the country. Given that AMISOM has required very extensive support from partners to become a viable force, combined with the fact that the mission still remains overstretched and under-resourced, the report also argues that the validity of the AMISOM model can be questioned.