Somalia

Somalia occupies an important geopolitical position in Sub-Saharan Africa linking to the countries of Arabia. Somalia, an almost totally Muslim country, has an estimated population of 7.7 million (various sources used as UN planning guide) with a large global diaspora. Nomads and semi-nomads, who are dependent on livestock for their livelihood, make up a large portion of the population but the rural-urban drift has been exacerbated by years of resource depletion.

Somalia is among the world's least developed countries and does not appear in UNDP’s Human Development Index of 177 countries because of a lack of comparable data since 2001. Somalia was ranked 161 out of 163 in UNDPs Human Development Report in 2001. The country is highly dependent on agriculture, with livestock accounting for about 40 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and about 65 percent of export earnings. Livestock, hides, fish, charcoal, and bananas are Somalia's principal exports while sugar, sorghum, corn, khat and machinery are the principal imports. The resource based nature of conflict across Somalia, the Horn of Africa, has its foundation in the pastoralist economies and the manner of controlling key resources.

Somalia's private service sector has survived and grown since the civil war and provide many services. Telecommunication firms provide mobile and landline telephone services and internet access in all cities and offer the lowest international call rates on the continent. In the absence of a formal banking sector, money transfer services handle between US$500 million and US$1 billion in remittances annually.

Recent data indicate employment rates (as a percentage of the economically active population) remain low with an estimated 38.5% in urban areas and 59.3% in rural/nomadic areas . The unemployment rate for the country is 47.4% . There are high levels of disease and hunger and poor social and economic indicators (on life expectancy, literacy and access to clean water). However, the disparities between regions continue to be profound with the positive places offering opportunity to do development related work (albeit in challenging circumstances).

Somali is the main language, but English and Arabic are both used at university level, with Arabic also used in many secondary schools and in religious contexts.

Since 1991, regional and internal conflict and humanitarian crises have plagued Somalia. As a result, Somalia has not had an effective central government for over seventeen years. A peace conference held in Kenya to reconcile the warring factions in Somalia, ended in 2004 and produced a Transitional Federal Charter. Following the signing of the Charter a Transitional Federal Parliament was selected and a President elected. In January 2005 Transitional Federal Government (TFG) was formed. The TFG, in spite of many challenges, continues to survive and enjoy the support of the international community. However, it has yet to gain the legitimacy of the wider Somali society. The situation is one of an international recognised entity with little or no ability to offer vestiges of governance in south and central Somalia while there are inchoate signs of an administration in Puntland and an establishing structure in Somaliland.

Somaliland declared independence in 1991. It remains unrecognized as an independent country, but is addressed as a separate entity within Somalia by the international community. Apart from a dispute over territory with neighbouring Puntland, and sporadic militant attacks, Somaliland remains the most peaceful region of the area. The regional administration of Puntland, established in August 1998, sees itself as a part of the historic and future federal state of Somalia, though the political process of finalising the administrative structures and the extent of self-administration has not been fully defined. The region has set up its own, independent institutions; although gaps in capacity and hardware are still very evident.