Stabilising Somalia - Telegraph Opening yesterday's high-level conference in London on the future of Somalia, David Cameron claimed that the world has "an unprecedented opportunity" to improve the fortunes of this utterly failed state. Somalia is a nation - as Mr Cameron said at Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday - that has been "more blighted by famine, disease, terrorism and violence than almost any other in the world." The resulting instability has spread far beyond its borders, whether that be via the piracy that has become such a significant threat to world trade, or the activities of the Islamist al-Shabaab militia and its allies across the Horn of Africa. Yet there are, at long last, some small grounds for optimism. Peacekeepers from the African Union have reclaimed the capital, Mogadishu, and established something approaching stability there. The imminent increase in their numbers and the provision of air support from Kenya should do much to drive al-Shabaab back further. Britain has signalled its willingness to invest heavily in the rebuilding effort, on top of its leading role in funding the detention and prosecution of those pirates captured at sea. America, too, is taking a keen interest. Such a diplomatic and financial effort is welcome - but Somalia has already received billions of dollars in aid and investment from the outside world in recent years. Rather than using that money to benefit their constituents, the country's parliamentarians appear to have spent most of their time maintaining grandiose residences in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi. For the unfortunate inhabitants of Mogadishu, the state is either invisible, or actively malign. Until this basic lack of capacity can be addressed, the green shoots that Mr Cameron discerned yesterday are likely to wither and die.