In an attempt to flex the TFG's political muscle, the prime minister, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed Farmajo, announced in late March that all of the UN agencies working on Somalia should relocate from Nairobi, where they are currently based, to the Somali capital, Mogadishu. The prime minister made the reasonable argument that staff working on Somalia would understand the situation in the country better if based there. This suggestion has been dismissed before as impractical, given the huge security risks in the city. However, Mr Farmajo has cited the recent gains made in Mogadishu by TFG troops and the African Union Mission in Somalia (Amisom) as proof that the security situation has improved enough to relocate UN staff there.

The announcement is likely to irritate the UN and other international agencies that continue to regard the Somali capital as too unsafe for permanent expatriate staff. It also highlights the gap between how the TFG is portraying its strength and how it is viewed from the outside. The regime is entirely dependent on Amisom for its survival and still only controls parts of Mogadishu, while the main Islamist insurgent group, al-Shabab, controls the majority of the south and centre of the country. Ultimately, there is little the TFG can do if the UN agencies refuse to relocate.