Strengthening Somalia’s Systems Smartly: A Country Systems Risk Benefit Analysis

Somalia’s donors are unambiguous: statebuilding is a key, if not the key, goal of their development assistance. This paper examines donors’ decision-making about the use of country systems (UCS), an internationally recognized tool for statebuilding, exploring both the perceived and actual risks and benefits associated with it. UCS refers to a variety of ways in which international partners can engage with national counterparts to deliver aid ranging from alignment with national priorities to direct implementation by government. While using country systems comes with risks, so do alternative delivery  modalities. Considering the risks and benefits both of UCS and its alternatives side-by-side may help in achieving a mix of delivery modalities that better serves donors’ and government’s shared statebuilding objectives.