Making Mogadishu Safe

This Whitehall Paper explores the ways in which Mogadishus inhabitants try to stay out of harms way, from security officials in the presidential compound of Villa Somalia to the citys powerful district commissioners, from patrolling policemen to the women road-sweepers in the rubbish-filled alleyways of the Waberi district. Its central proposition is that security is best understood as a coherent relationship or activity based on the need for physical safety today, rather than in the future. It uses the neighbourhood-watch schemes developed in certain districts of Mogadishu - most notably Waberi - to understand the ways in which the citys inhabitants respond to the security models promoted by international advisers.