Designing federal–state coordination mechanisms that actually work
Somalia's federal model depends on coordination bodies that most donor programmes treat as a formality. This note sets out what we have learned supporting intergovernmental coordination in practice, and what separates mechanisms that hold from those that exist only on paper.
The problem is rarely the architecture
Nearly every coordination failure we have observed was diagnosed, at some point, as a design problem: the wrong committee structure, an unclear terms of reference, a missing secretariat. The proposed remedy is usually a redesign. In our experience the architecture is rarely the binding constraint. Somalia has no shortage of coordination bodies with sound terms of reference. What it lacks is coordination bodies whose members have a reason to keep showing up.
A federal-state coordination mechanism works when both levels of government extract something from it that they cannot get elsewhere: access to resources, a veto over decisions that affect them, political cover, or information. Where a mechanism offers none of these, attendance decays within three to six months regardless of how well the structure is drawn.
Anchor the mechanism to a decision that matters
The most durable coordination structures we have supported are anchored to a recurring decision with real stakes: the allocation of a grant window, the endorsement of a sector investment plan, the certification of readiness for a programme tranche. When the mechanism is the place where that decision is made, participation becomes self-enforcing.
This has a practical implication for programme design. Do not build a coordination body and then look for content to feed it. Identify the decision first, then build the smallest structure capable of making it legitimately.
Secretariats: small, permanent, and paid for locally where possible
A coordination mechanism without a secretariat produces meetings without memory. But the common donor response, embedding a large internationally financed secretariat, creates a different failure: the mechanism becomes a project, and dies with the project.
The workable middle ground is a small permanent secretariat of two to four staff, hosted inside a government institution rather than beside it, with running costs that a ministry budget can plausibly absorb at handover. We have seen this model survive two electoral transitions; we have not seen the large parallel secretariat model survive one.
Design for asymmetry
Federal member states are not equally staffed, equally resourced, or equally interested in any given sector. Mechanisms that assume symmetrical capacity produce asymmetrical resentment. Practical accommodations, rotating chairs, differentiated reporting requirements, and travel support budgeted from the outset, cost little and remove the most common early grievances.
Above all, treat coordination as a political process that produces technical outputs, not a technical process that manages political inputs. The distinction sounds semantic. In implementation it is the difference between a mechanism that survives its first serious disagreement and one that does not.
- 01Coordination bodies endure when they control a decision both levels of government care about.
- 02Identify the decision first; build the smallest legitimate structure around it.
- 03Prefer small, government-hosted secretariats a ministry budget can absorb.
- 04Budget explicitly for asymmetry between federal member states.