Opinion: My Birthday Is My Postcode — and a Parked Red Motorcycle Is My Address

“A physical address with a postcode is a gateway to global opportunity, the very thing that separates inclusion from exclusion.”Abdinasir Ali Mohamed

In Mogadishu, as in many of our beautiful cities, giving a visiting guest directions usually goes something like this: “Tell your driver to go behind the big mosque. You’ll see a blue house.

Turn left there, then drive down that road until you see a red motorcycle parked on the left.” Then, of course, the visitor’s phone dies and the motorcyclist rides off.

You are left sitting there waiting for your guest while your primary “address” has just disappeared. A landmark that seemed perfectly clear a few minutes earlier has suddenly become impossible to find.

It is easy to laugh at a “moving address” when you are waiting for a friend to arrive for tea. It is quite another matter when an ambulance is responding to a medical emergency or a fire engine is racing through unnumbered houses and unnamed streets, where every second counts.

The same applies if you run a business and want to receive goods ordered from Amazon or a parcel from Alibaba. Without a clear address, reliable delivery becomes a serious challenge, even when a seller and a customer are ready to do business.

What seems like a minor everyday annoyance is, in reality, a direct driver of systemic economic exclusion, with consequences far beyond a missed cup of tea.

Even the finest homegrown mobile money innovation you can dream of, laudable as it is, cannot by itself guarantee access to an international e-commerce checkout. It serves important local needs, but that does not necessarily make it compatible with every overseas merchant or financial institution.

International trade depends on global marketplaces and the payment systems that underpin them. You either meet the requirements of those systems, build interoperable alternatives, or risk being left out of the game. A dependable addressing system is part of that equation.

Some may discount the importance of physical addresses by pointing to commercial banks offering Mastercard and Visa debit cards and claiming that “we deal with the world”. That may be true.

However, cardholders can face difficulties when shopping on major international marketplaces that require buyer information, including a postcode.

Without a widely recognised address system, buyers in the same building may resort to entering different dummy codes. Some enter 00252 or 25261; others enter their dates of birth.

Imagine two residents of the same apartment block entering entirely different postcodes for what should be the same physical location. Inconsistent or unverifiable billing information can complicate checks and, in some cases, result in perfectly legitimate transactions being declined. Having an internationally recognised bank card is not always the same as having a usable online address.

This brings us to the central question: how do you prove your physical address to a financial, educational or technological institution on the other side of the planet if your building has no number, your street has no name or your area has no postcode?

A functional physical address relies on two related elements: building numbers and street names to identify the actual location, and postal codes to support mail routing and use in digital services.

The UK offers a useful example, not to be blindly copied but to learn from: “8 Park Road East, London, SW10 8SD”. The house number and street name tell someone where the property stands.

The postcode narrows the destination further, making the whole address easier to process and verify. House numbers and street names are typically managed locally, while postcodes form part of a nationally coordinated system.

 In Mogadishu, an equivalent approach could identify locations from Wardhigley down to Buur-Hindi and Laamiyaraha Geed-Jacayl. For illustration, a code could use an area identifier such as SW, a neighbourhood identifier such as 10, and an additional local identifier such as 8SD.

The exact letters and numbers are less important than having one consistent, officially published system that everyone can use.

With a recognised address, an online buyer can provide consistent billing and delivery information, making verification easier where the payment provider supports address checks.

It will not guarantee that every international transaction is accepted, but it removes one avoidable obstacle. An address can become an important digital credential, providing the same details to the customer, the bank, the merchant and the courier instead of forcing each of them to guess.