BEING appointed Britain's new ambassador to Somalia could easily feel like the diplomatic equivalent of being a Second World War soldier sent to the Russian front.

That said, Matt Baugh, Britain's latest envoy, will most likely find himself confined to the comparative safety of the neighbouring Kenyan capital, Nairobi, until the security situation in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, allows his permanent presence at any embassy there.

Mr Baugh's appointment, coming as it does in the wake of Foreign Secretary William Hague's visit this week – the first by a British minister to Somalia since 1992 – is perhaps the first sign of a shift in British foreign policy towards this volatile Horn of Africa nation. If indeed that proves to be the case, then it will be long overdue.

Britain's latest diplomatic initiative comes at a pivotal political moment for Somalia, and just ahead of a crucial London conference this month aimed at establishing measures to tackle Somalia's al Qaeda-linked insurgents al Shabaab and the problem of piracy off the country's coast.

Mr Hague clearly senses a strategic opportunity in a country long perceived by the West to be the basket case state in a basket case continent. This, after all, is a nation that until recently has largely been without a central government since clan-based warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. Since then, as one British foreign office report put it a few years ago: "Somalia has completely collapsed as a functioning state."

It's no coincidence Mr Hague's visit to Mogadishu comes as Somalia is being subjected to a major Kenyan military incursion and a continuing African Union military mission (Amisom) in support of a vulnerable and, if recent history is any measure, probably unworkable Government.

Many things in the past have prevented real progress towards political stability in Somalia. Perhaps the most significant of these recently has been the lack of real understanding and urgency at the heart of any Western diplomatic and strategic response.

I well remember back in 2001 interviewing Mogadishu city and clan leaders who warned of how Somalia would inevitably slip into the grip of Islamic extremists should the West fail to invest in helping rebuild the country's physical and political infrastructure.

With the West then duly failing to do just that, the way was clear for the rise to power of Somalia's Islamic Courts Militia, mirroring that of Afghanistan's Taliban in the 1990s.

Somalia was "full of terrorism", declared George W Bush around that time. For once he was right. But long before the al Qaeda variety to which he was referring, there existed across Somalia a much more familiar type of everyday African terror comprising a dangerous marriage of hunger and guns.

Combating that axis of evil would have been a battle worth fighting and, who knows, might have prevented the inexorable rise of those Islamist extremists who today, in the shape of al Shabaab, are part of the al Qaeda franchise capable of exporting jihadist fighters across the world, including – according to Mr Hague – the UK.

With al Shabaab recently outgunned by Amisom soldiers in Mogadishu and facing military offensives by Kenya, the situation on the ground is rapidly changing. The diplomatic scene is shifting too and the opening up of international missions offers the best chance in years of helping Somalia on the tentative road to stability and recovery. This time round, though, these initiatives cannot afford to be undermined by the same ill-conceived thinking and poorly executed planning typified in the past by the now infamous Black Hawk Down episode.

Above all, the West must avoid the mistake of moves to impose the sort of strong centralised authority so beloved of past colonial rulers.

Time and again efforts by outsiders to mould Somalia's inheritor governments into a form at odds with the country's clan-based and pastoral political culture has proved disastrous, creating resentment rather than reconciliation.

Speaking of his visit to Mogadishu and the impending London conference, Mr Hague was at pains to point out that one of the meeting's key objectives is to strengthen counter-terrorism co-operation, so disrupting terrorist networks and financing.

"We need to step this up. We are not complacent about it," Mr Hague said, describing Somalia as "the world's most failed state".

Britain is right not to be complacent about Somalia's terrorist threat. But being constructive when it comes to the country's economic problems and ensuring Somalis themselves have the chance to come up with political solutions and strategies is equally important.

To ignore such things would only serve to repeat past mistakes and prolong the suffering this country has too long endured.