KIU, Main Campus – Abdifitah Salad Tarabi, a Master’s degree candidate in Public Administration at KIU wants to use the knowledge he has attained at Uganda’s best private university to contribute to good governance, decentralization and creation of jobs in his home country Somalia.

Tarabi, who presented his Master’s thesis on July 22 via Zoom, says he also plans on creating public administration awareness among the Somali citizens.

“I plan to help my people become a better-informed society on matters of public administration and to better achieve this, I plan to continue with my studies,” Tarabi reveals.

His thesis sought to examine the relationship between administrative decentralization and socio-economic development in Mogadishu Local Government, Somalia.

The objectives of the study were; to determine the effect of delegation on socio-economic development, to examine the effect of devolution on socio-economic development and to establish the effect of deconcentration on socio-economic development.

“The study concludes that effective transfer of responsibility for planning, financing and managing public functions from the central government to lower levels of government improves the efficiency and effectiveness of government-provided goods and services,” Tarabi says.

“It therefore recommends that the government should review and improve local economic development in Mogadishu through engaging community members,” he adds.

Finally being able to present his thesis amidst the COVID-19 chaos of the past year and a half was a proud moment for him.

“I feel happy, energized and encouraged to do more research in this field (Public Administration) so that I can achieve my goal of serving my country in a competent capacity,” Tarabi remarks.

He says he will always be proud of the choice he made to come and study at KIU because he has left a much better person than he came – personally and academically.

“KIU taught me a lot of life lessons, made me an effective team worker, good communicator and global citizen with a high level of critical thinking.”

Tarabi has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic like everybody else, saying it destroyed some of his dreams and pre-written future plans but he is not fazed because “Allah’s plans prevail over everything else.”