Norwegian-Somali Relations

Abstract

Since the 1950s, Norway has engaged in international development aid and developing countries have sought development aid from Norway. Norway was and is a small country and at the start of its involvement in international development aid had very limited resources. A select few countries was chosen as partner countries where Norway focused its aid. Many countries wanted to establish a partnership with Norway in the first decades of Norwegian development aid, but did not get chosen. One of these countries was Somalia. Things have changed since the 1960s and currently Somalia is a partner country. However Norwegian interest and engagement in Somalia from 1960 and until 1993 has not been researched. Recent Norwegian white papers tell of bilateral relations between Norway and Somalia ever since Somalia’s independence. This thesis explores and elaborates on Norwegian-Somali relations in this period and finds that Norway did not have any significant interest in Somalia. For the first decade of Somalia’s existence as an independent state, Norway barely gave Somalia any thought. From 1972 until 1993, Norway kept Somalia at arm’s length and rejected any requests from Somalia for direct bilateral development aid. However, Norway did contribute humanitarian aid earlier than what is currently thought. Aside from a lukewarm Norwegian attitude towards Somalia, the thesis goes into why Somalia was not chosen as a partner country in the 1970s and explore the possibility that Somalia could be a representative case to show how Norway interacted with countries that sought partnership with Norway but got rejected.