By Mohamed Ali - Technology & Digital Economy Commentary
August 27 ,2026 - Somalia’s aid system has played an important role in keeping people alive through war, drought, famine and the collapse of state institutions.
But after more than three decades, a different question is becoming harder to avoid: what happens when an emergency system remains in place long after the original emergency?
The question is not whether Somalia needs the United Nations, NGOs or humanitarian professionals. It does.
The question is whether a system built to respond to crisis can also provide the foundations for a productive economy and a stronger state.
From emergency response to state building#
Somalia’s state collapsed in 1991. In the years that followed, NGOs, international organizations and private businesses took on many functions that a functioning government would normally provide.
At the time, there was little alternative. People needed food, healthcare, water and other basic services.
But 35 years is a long time for an emergency system to remain central to national life.
Over that period, an entire professional ecosystem also developed around international assistance. UN agencies, NGOs, contractors, consultants, donor-funded universities, capacity-building programmes, research projects and stabilization initiatives became important parts of Somalia’s economy and professional class.
For many educated Somalis entering the workforce after 2000, the aid sector offered one of the clearest paths to professional employment.
That has created an important question about the country’s governing class: how much of Somalia’s post-1991 leadership was professionally shaped by a system that was originally created to compensate for the absence of an effective state?
There is no reliable figure that answers this question, and claims about a specific percentage of Somali leaders coming from the humanitarian sector should therefore be treated with caution.
But the broader pattern is worth examining.
Three systems with different purposes#
An aid organization exists to respond to human need.
A business must create enough value to survive.
A government has a different responsibility. It must create the conditions that allow millions of people and businesses to produce, trade, invest and build livelihoods.
Somalia needs all three.
The difficulty comes when the logic of one system becomes the operating model of another.
Research by the Overseas Development Institute has described Somalia’s effort to move from an aid-centred system towards a state-led model. The size of the aid sector and the incentives surrounding it are among the factors that can make that transition difficult.
This means the debate is no longer simply about how much aid Somalia receives.
It is also about how the country can gradually build institutions and economic systems that can operate with less dependence on external funding.
The difference between funding and production#
The distinction becomes clearer when comparing how aid programmes and businesses operate.
An aid programme begins with a defined need. Funding is sought, a donor approves a programme, resources are allocated, beneficiaries are identified and results are reported.
A business faces a different test.
It identifies a problem, builds a product or service, finds customers, competes with other businesses and meets its costs. If it succeeds, it creates income and jobs. If it fails, the business absorbs the loss.
The central question is therefore different.
One system asks how resources can be allocated to address a need.
The other asks how value can be created.
Somalia needs to become much better at the second question.
That does not mean reducing humanitarian assistance where people still need it. It means building an economy where fewer people depend on assistance because more people can earn, invest and create businesses.
Somalia’s jobs gap#
The scale of the challenge is visible in the labour market.
The World Bank estimates that roughly 500,000 Somalis enter the labour force each year, while only about 80,000 jobs are created.
That leaves a substantial gap every year.
The private sector already plays a major role in Somalia’s economy. According to the World Bank, private companies account for about 95 percent of jobs created in the country.
Private businesses also provide many services in sectors such as telecommunications, electricity, education and healthcare.
This creates a significant contradiction.
The private sector is responsible for most job creation, yet businesses operate within an environment where infrastructure, finance, regulation, security and other conditions remain major constraints.
The country therefore needs a stronger connection between economic policy and the people who actually create jobs.
The question around 4.5#
Somalia’s political system presents another structural challenge.
The 4.5 power-sharing formula emerged from the 2000 Arta peace talks. It gave four major clan families equal political shares, while minority communities collectively received half a share.
The arrangement emerged from a specific political context. Somalia had experienced years of conflict, and the priority was to create a system through which different groups could share political power.
But a mechanism designed to manage political representation does not automatically create an effective system for economic development.
International IDEA has noted that the 2012 Provisional Constitution does not formally establish the 4.5 formula. Despite this, the arrangement has continued to influence political representation and the allocation of senior positions.
That creates an important question about incentives.
If political advancement depends heavily on representation, negotiation and elite bargaining, the system is not necessarily designed to select people according to their ability to build businesses, create jobs, increase exports or attract investment.
This is not an argument against political representation.
It is an argument for recognizing that political power-sharing and economic development solve different problems.
When dependency becomes part of the system#
The same distinction applies to aid.
Nobody needs to assume that Somalia’s political leaders deliberately want citizens to remain dependent on assistance.
Political systems rarely work that simply.
Dependency can emerge from incentives even when nobody explicitly designs it.
A political system based on patronage can create relationships in which access to jobs, services or opportunities depends on political connections.
A large aid system can create another form of dependency when government institutions remain reliant on external funding to provide basic services.
The result is a system in which political actors distribute resources, donors finance programmes and private businesses are still expected to create most of the jobs.
That arrangement can function for a period.
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It becomes harder to sustain when the country needs rapid job creation and long-term economic growth.
Aid cannot be the permanent measure of development#
The World Bank has reported that Somalia remains heavily dependent on foreign aid for basic services.
Its analysis also found that aid reductions contributed to slower economic growth, with GDP growth estimated at about 3 percent in 2025 and real GDP per person showing little improvement.
Another figure highlights the scale of the dependence.
External support accounted for about 60 percent of Federal Government spending in 2024.
That means roughly six out of every ten dollars spent by the federal government came from external sources.
Somalia still needs international assistance.
The issue is not whether donors should disappear.
The issue is what successful development should eventually produce.
If assistance is helping a country build stronger institutions, productive businesses, jobs and domestic revenue, dependence should gradually decline.
If the same dependence continues for decades, both donors and Somali policymakers need to examine whether the existing model is producing the intended transition.
Somalia needs a broader mix of economic experience#
This does not mean replacing humanitarian professionals with businesspeople.
Running a company does not automatically qualify someone to run a government.
Somalia needs diplomats, teachers, doctors, economists, security experts, constitutional lawyers, public administrators and humanitarian professionals.
But economic policymaking also benefits from people who understand what it means to build and operate a business.
That includes people who have created jobs, attracted private investment, exported products, managed payrolls, built companies and competed in regional or international markets.
The questions asked of senior economic policymakers could therefore be broader.
What have you built?
How many permanent jobs have you helped create?
How much private investment have you attracted?
What have you exported?
How many Somali businesses have become more competitive because of your policies?
How much dependence on external support has your work reduced?
These questions would not replace political experience or public-sector expertise.
They would add another measure of performance.
Somalia’s private sector has already shown what is possible#
Despite the weakness of state institutions, Somali businesses have developed in difficult conditions.
Telecommunications expanded despite the absence of a strong central government.
Money-transfer companies connected Somalia to its large diaspora through trust-based networks at a time when the formal banking system struggled to serve the country.
Private schools expanded.
Transport networks developed.
Mobile money became widely used.
Businesses continued operating despite serious security, infrastructure and regulatory challenges.
These examples point to an important fact.
Somalia does not lack entrepreneurial capacity.
The bigger problem is that the state has struggled to create the infrastructure and institutions needed to scale that capacity.
That includes reliable electricity, roads, finance, regulation, education, security, access to markets and systems that allow businesses to grow beyond local markets.
The next national project may need to be economic#
Somalia’s next phase of development cannot rely only on new ministries, donor conferences or five-year plans.
The country needs more economically independent households and businesses.
That means expanding participation in the AI economy and technology sectors while also developing factories, commercial agriculture, fisheries, energy, financial services, construction, logistics, regional trade and exports.
It also means creating an environment where thousands of small businesses can grow into employers.
Foreign assistance will remain part of Somalia’s development story.
But Somalia’s most important economic resource is its own population.
The country already has evidence of what Somalis can build under difficult conditions.
The policy challenge is turning that individual and private-sector resilience into a wider economic system.
From 4.5 to a more productive political economy#
The debate about Somalia’s future does not have to reject the political arrangements that helped the country move away from conflict.
The 4.5 formula served a political purpose.
The humanitarian system served a humanitarian purpose.
Both need to be understood in the context in which they developed.
But systems built for survival cannot automatically become systems for long-term economic development.
The next phase requires a stronger focus on production, investment and jobs.
That means moving:
- From representation alone to economic participation.
- From beneficiaries to producers.
- From projects to sustainable businesses.
- From appointments to measurable performance.
- From asking what the international community can give Somalia to asking what Somalia can produce and sell to the world.
The central question is no longer whether Somalia can survive another crisis.
It is whether the country can build an economy in which more people have the income, businesses and institutions to withstand the next one without depending on an emergency response.
That is the transition Somalia now has to confront.