Shukri Haji Ismail

Shukri Haji Ismail Bandare is a Somali politician, who was serving as the Minister of Environment and Rural Development of Somaliland.

Biography Shukri was born in Hargeisa as the daughter of Haji Ismail Bandare, and she had seven sisters. Their father, who was strongly committed to educating his daughters, ensured that all of them received schooling.

After completing her primary education in Hargeisa, Shukri passed the entrance examination for the Burco Girls' School, a boarding school in Burao established by the British colonial authorities, which drew pupils from across British Somaliland and was known for its high educational standards and the care it provided for its students. In 1981 Shukri's husband was among the diplomats recalled to Somalia, but he resigned from his post and he and Shukri returned to the United Arab Emirates, where they both took up employment again. In 1997, as civil conflict in Somaliland came to an end, Candlelight added environmental issues to its programme of activities, and Shukri worked in the new focus.

In Somaliland’s first presidential election, held on 14 April 2003, the National Electoral Commission finished tabulating more than 488,000 votes, the results showed that the acting president, Dahir Riyale Kahin of the United Democratic People’s Party (UDUB), had finished just 80 votes ahead of opposition candidate Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud "Silanyo" of the Kulmiye party. Shukri later recalled that she was shocked by the narrow margin and that Kulmiye supporters outside NEC headquarters were already in a celebratory mood, convinced their candidate had won; she and her colleagues feared that if they did not announce the results quickly, people would suspect them of manipulating the count and that they "would not leave the building alive."

Environment Minister In June 2013, Somaliland president Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud "Silanyo" carried out a cabinet reshuffle, dismissing Mahamoud Said Mahamoud (Gacamey) as Minister of Environment and appointing Shukri in his place.

On 14 December 2017, newly elected president Muse Bihi Abdi announced his first cabinet. Shukri was reappointed to the same portfolio of Minister of Environment and Rural Development alongside the foreign minister, Saad Ali Shire. The former interior minister, Yasin Haji Mohamoud "Faratoon", remained in the cabinet as Minister of Education, meaning that only three of the twenty-three ministers had previously served as ministers in Silanyo's last cabinet.

In August 2018, the Ministry of Environment and Rural Development, in partnership with UNDP, launched a public awareness campaign to reduce charcoal production and consumption and curb deforestation across Somaliland. Speaking at the launch event in Hargeisa, Shukri said that learning about the environment and sharing ideas on how to protect it was the main focus of the national campaign.

In August 2019, Oxfam highlighted Shukri as Somaliland’s Minister of Environment and Rural Development who was tackling the impacts of climate change, including recurrent droughts, and as one of the founders of the environmental organization Candlelight, which had been working in partnership with Oxfam since the mid-1990s.

In December 2021, Shukri warned that plastic bags were causing severe damage to the environment and were being imported into Somaliland illegally, and she called on the public to eradicate both the use and importation of plastic bags altogether.

In May 2023, Shukri attended the opening ceremony of a factory in Hargeisa that processes the invasive tree mesquite (Garan-waaga) into charcoal, livestock feed and even food products for human consumption. Speaking at the event, she said that, as the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, they warmly welcomed such domestically financed factories that provide alternative resources.

In July 2023, Shukri announced that the government would soon inaugurate a domestically owned factory to produce a new type of plastic bag that interacts with the soil and has a shorter lifespan than conventional bags, explaining that these bags were intended to replace the banned imported plastic bags that had previously harmed the environment.

On 14 December 2024, newly elected Somaliland president Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi "Irro" appointed Abdillaahi Osman Jama (Geel-jire) as Minister of Environment and Climate Change.