Somali Studies: A Peer-Reviewed Academic Journal for Somali Studies,

Volume 5, 2020, pp.11-29

Somalia’s Aid Dependency in 1960-1990

Muhumed M. Muhumed

Abstract

Prompted by the unfortunate situation of the last 30 years whereby

Somalia heavily relies on foreign aid, this article aims to probe the
magnitude of the aid dependency of Somalia between 1960 and 1990. The
article finds that Somalia heavily relied on external economic,
development, humanitarian, and military aid throughout the 1960s, 70s,
and 80s. This aid mainly originated from the Western World, oil-rich
Arab countries, and the former Soviet Union. The economic and
development aid received by Somalia in this period had a negligible
positive impact on the economy.

Keywords: Somalia, aid dependency, economic aid, development aid,

humanitarian aid, military aid, grants.

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 Somalia’s Aid Dependency in 1960-1990

The net result of aid-dependency is that

instead of having a functioning Africa,
managed by Africans, for Africans, what is
left is one where outsiders attempt to map its
destiny and call the shots.

Dambisa Moyo, Dead Aid, 2009

1. Introduction

Somalia received US$2 billion official development assistance (ODA)

yearly in 2017 and 2018 preceded by a yearly average of US$1.3 billion
between 2012 and 2016 (Ministry of Planning, Investment and Economic
Development, 2019). This implies an ODA to GDP (Gross Domestic
Product) ratio of 21 percent in 2016 (Office of the Prime Minister, 2017)
and 27 percent in 2018 (Ministry of Planning, Investment and Economic
Development, 2019) which makes Somalia a highly aid dependent nation.
This could be strongly justified by Somalia’s current situation – the
country is recovering from a prolonged civil war and instability coupled
with terrorism, piracy, warlordism, and other forms of civil unrest and the
absence of effective administrations. Therefore, one could be thankful to
the generosity of the donor countries and the intergovernmental
institutions in this critical period (1991-2020).

The unfortunate situation of Somalia in the last 30 years begs the question
of whether the situation was different in Somali state’s heydays in 1960-
1990. In fact, the evidence shows Somalia remained to be a highly aid
dependent nation throughout the three post-independence decades.
Somalia largely relied on external assistance for all development projects
(Laitin and Samatar, 1984; Samatar, 1985; Mets (Ed.), 1993; Mubarak,
1996) supplemented by intermittent dependency on humanitarian and
military aid. This aid came from different countries in different times but

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 Somali Studies, Volume 5, 2020

mainly from the Western world, the Arab world and the former Soviet
Union.

However, the fact is that Somalia was not alone. Throughout the five
decades after independence, Africa received more than US$1 trillion
development aid from the developed countries (Moyo, 2009). Critics of
aid contend these huge amounts of aid have very little success to show
and rather exacerbated the existing economic and political problems in
Africa. Moyo (2009) argues that aid working in Africa is a myth and
rather caused more harm than good by leading to lower economic growth,
widespread corruption, and increased poverty levels. Similarly, Mubarak
(1996) argues that most of the development funds received by Somalia
after independence resulted in a trivial impact on the economy except
improvement of physical infrastructure. This was primarily due to the
aforementioned factors that undermined the other African economies.

Aid could be a significant foreign policy instrument and proved to be a

vital tool in the Cold War diplomacy (Hruskova, n.d.). It is also inspired
and shaped by the national interests of the countries that provide aid. On
the other hand, aid can define the position of aid recipients in global
politics. In an attempt to capture the extent of post-independence
Somalia’s aid dependency, Mets (Ed.) (1993: xviii) writes: “[f]oreign
relations [of Somalia was] characterized by tension with neighboring
states and economic dependence on aid from Arab and Western nations”.

Gaining independence in 1960, Somalia had a civilian non-military

government until 1969 and had two Presidents and three Prime Ministers.
A military regime usurped the power with a coup in October 1969 and
lasted the following 21 years. Evidence shows that both civilian and
military regimes heavily depended on foreign aid even though the first
years of Socialist Somalia recorded remarkable economic, political, and
military accomplishments.

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 Somalia’s Aid Dependency in 1960-1990

This article aims to probe the extent to which Somalia depended on aid in
the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Our analysis covers the period between
independence (in 1960) and shortly before the collapse of the state (in
1990). The article relies for most of its data on existing literature. It is not
the interest of the author to scrupulously examine and evaluate the
effectiveness of aid and the performance of the governments in this period
but simply to give an overview of the aid received by Somalia, its
magnitude and achievements. Readers will be able to understand
Somalia’s aid dependency before the state collapse and whether the
situation was any different than the post-1991 Somalia.

2. Economic, Development and Humanitarian Aid

2.1. 1960s

The former Somaliland British Protectorate and the Italian Somaliland

(under UN-mandated Italian Trusteeship) united on first July 1960 after
gaining independence from Britain and Italy on 26 June and first July
1960 respectively. The financial abilities of this new country were very
weak and its own capabilities were not enough to meet its needs. In
addition, there was scarcity of skilled labor, professionals and experts. As
a result, some British and Italian technical experts had to remain in the
country after independence (Lewis, 1988) to support the continuity of the
government work.

In the first three years, the country could not function without the budget
support of Britain and Italy which contributed around 31 percent of the
nation’s national budget (Mets (Ed.), 1993), let alone financing
development activities by itself. In fact, the government completely relied
on foreign aid for development projects and received a substantial
development aid in the 1960s; these funds were invested in physical
infrastructure and industries (Mubarak, 1996). Among these projects were

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 Somali Studies, Volume 5, 2020

the establishment of canned fish and meat, milk, and fabric factories,
national theatre, the national airline, and public schools (Laitin and
Samatar, 1984). Moreover, between 1961 and 1963, the yearly average
external assistance received by Somalia was US$23.5 million – this
external aid comprised grants, technical assistance, investment, and
export subsidies (World Bank, 1964).

Not only that Somalia received significant foreign aid in the first decade
after independence, it obtained the highest aid per capita in Africa;
“Somalia received US$90 per capita in foreign economic assistance,
about twice the average for sub-Saharan Africa” (Laitin and Samatar,
1984:62). Sponsoring Somalia to establish economic relations with the
European Economic Community (EEC), Italy’s economic support to
Somalia in the 1960s accounted for one-fourth of the all international aid
received by Somalia in this period (Mets (Ed.), 1993). In spite of Italy,
Somalia also received a generous financial assistance from other
European nations and institutions including West Germany and the EEC
through the European Development Fund (EDF). Between 1959 and
1975, “the European Community has granted over 84 million units of
account in financial aid to Somalia, equivalent to over 600 million Somali
Shillings” (Commission of the European Communities, 1975:13).
Moreover, the EEC aid through EDF accounted for around 17 percent “of
the total official aid received by Somalia between 1967 and 1974”
(Commission of the European Communities, 1975:13). Furthermore, aid
from China financed factories and hospitals in the 1960s (Mets (Ed.),
1993).

From 1963 to 1969, 85.1 percent of Somalia’s overall development

spending was foreign financed – the Soviet Union was the largest
development aid donor (with 20.4 percent of the 85.1 percent) followed
by the US (with 17.2 percent of the 85.1 percent) and the European
Economic Community (with 12.9 percent of the 85.1 percent) (Mehmet,

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 Somalia’s Aid Dependency in 1960-1990

1971).1 Although sizable aid from the Arab World had to wait until mid-
1970s, Egypt gave aid to Somalia in the 1960s (Omer, 1992), while Saudi
Arabia’s aid constituted 0.8 percent of the 85.1 percent of the foreign
development financing in 1963-69 (Mehmet, 1971).

In summary, Somalia remained to be a heavily aid dependent country in

the 1960s as the aforementioned evidence shows. Evaluating the overall
performance of the civilian governments (1960-1969), Samatar (1985:31)
writes:

By the account of most Somali and external observers, the years

immediately preceding 1969 were not only replete with the jettison
of democratic practices, but also showed serious signs of economic
disarticulation and imbalance, acute external dependency, and poor
overall growth.

Not far from this evaluation, Mubarak (1996) records that the 1960s
governments and their institutions were characterized by corruption,
bribery, nepotism, and poor economic performance. 1969 marks the end
of the civilian democratic rule in Somalia when President Abdirashid Ali
Sharmarke was assassinated on 15 October 1969 followed by a military
coup led by Mohamed Siad Barre on 21 October 1969 (Ingiriis, 2016).
Barre will rule the country in the following 21 years until his ousting by
the armed movements in January 1991.

2.2. 1970s and 80s

On 20 October 1970, one year since the military took over, Mohamed
Siad Barre announced that Somalia embraced socialism and became a
socialist state (Laitin and Samatar, 1984). Caught in the middle of the
Cold War and its land dispute with the neighboring Ethiopia and Kenya,
one of the reasons to adopt the socialist development strategy was

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 Somali Studies, Volume 5, 2020

because Somalia needed the Soviet Union’s assistance, chiefly military

support (Mubarak, 1996), even though Somali-Soviet relations officially
commenced in 1961 when a delegation led by the then Prime Minister
Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke visited Moscow whereby certain credit was
approved for Somalia (Ivanova, 2019).

Although Somalia allied itself with the East, it still acquired significant
development support from the West and the Arab world. This could be
perceived from the public spending; external loans and grants essentially
financed the Public Investment Program (PIP) which was the largest
component of the public investment (Mubarak, 1996). As we have seen in
the previous section, the European Community, through the European
Development Fund (EDF) provided considerable development support to
Somalia up until 1975. Despite the funding of infrastructure projects that
spanned from the 1960s to early 1970s, the European Community also
financed a massive industrial plantation project in 1975 (Commission of
the European Communities, 1975). Additionally, aid from China funded
the North-South road in the 1970s (Mets (Ed.), 1993).

As an oil importing country, Somalia largely depended on the Soviet

Union and Saudi Arabia, among other donors, for its oil needs. Thus, with
the assistance of Iraq, Somalia established an oil refinery plant with a
daily capacity of 10,000 barrels by the end of the 1970s (Mets (Ed.),
1993). Interestingly but predictably, Saudi Arabia, with the help of Iran,
offered a US$75 million aid to Somalia in exchange of Somalia
downgrading its ties with the Soviet union and again immediately
withdrew the offer when Barre declined this condition (Mets (Ed.), 1993).

In the 1970s, Somalia received more development aid from – and had
stronger trade relations with – oil-rich Arab countries (OPEC member
states) than OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development) countries. According to Laitin and Samatar (1984:70),

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 Somalia’s Aid Dependency in 1960-1990

“[b]y 1979, OPEC development aid to Somalia was about twice as high
as aid from OECD states. Also, nearly 90 per cent of Somalia's exports
went to Saudi Arabia in 1978”. In the same decade, the oil-rich Arab
countries funded one of the largest development projects in the history of
Somalia – the Marerey Sugar Factory. According to Worrall (1980), the
project received US$188 million Arab money but Ali Khalif Galaydh,
who served as the Governor of Marerey Sugar Factory in the 1970s and
Minister of Industry in early 1980s estimates the project fund around
US$400 million from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar
(Galaydh, 2017).

Somalia was in desperate need of foreign assistance in the face of crises.

This has been exposed by the two tough crises that the country
experienced in the 1970s: the 1973-74 Daba-Dheer drought and the
refugee influx resulted from the 1977-78 Ethio-Somali war.

Droughts mainly led to the loss of human lives and difficult economic
conditions as they affected the livestock sector, one of the most important
economic sectors of the nation. 2 The Daba-dheer drought caught the
government unprepared and financially impotent to deal with it. The
government had to establish a fund for international contributions and
revise its budget to divert project funds to emergency spending (Mubarak,
1996). Foreign countries contributed both food and financial aid as the
drought hit the nomadic pastoralists in the North hard. There was later an
initiative to move those who lost everything to the South so they could
survive with agricultural and fishing cooperatives. Different contributions
from different countries are recorded as follows:

By January 1975, China, the United States, the European Economic

Community, the Soviet Union, Sweden, Switzerland, Sudan, Algeria,
Yugoslavia, Yemen, and others had pledged 66,229 tons of grain,
1,155 tons of milk powder, and tons of other food products. Later

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 Somali Studies, Volume 5, 2020

that year, with aid from the Soviet Union, the government
transported about 90,000 nomads from their hamlets to agricultural
and fishing cooperatives in the south. […] The KFAED [Kuwait
Fund for Arab Economic Development] and the World Bank
supported irrigation projects in these cooperatives, in which corn,
beans, peanuts, and rice were planted (Mets (Ed.), 1993: 129).

Even though the food aid significantly helped those affected, it led to
detrimental economic consequences as it affected the local production
and, consumption and saving behavior.3 The country became dependent
on food aid and food imports which replaced the locally produced food –
cereal aid was only one percent of the nation’s total consumption in 1970
but jumped to around 25 percent in 1984, not to mention that external
grants were used to import additional food (Mubarak, 1996). Throughout
the decade preceding 1988, Somalia became not only largely food aid and
food import dependent but more food import dependent than any other
sub-Saharan nation despite that the economy of Somalia was mainly
agricultural and pastoral (Farzin, 1988).

The Ethiopian-Somali War (1977–1978) led to a large refugee influx to

Somalia. Although Somalia sought support from the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other donors, the Somali
government has been criticized for exaggerating the actual number of
refugees. A United Nations survey estimated the number of refugees to
fall between 450,000 to 620,000 as opposed to the government’s
estimations of 1.3 million in the camps and an extra close to one million
dispersed throughout the country (Mets (Ed.), 1993). Not only that the
government inflated the number of refugees but it intentionally redirected
the food aid to favored individuals who sold it in the open market; this led
to a large black market around the refugee camps (Omer, 1992).
Moreover, the country relied on the aid for the refugees as a general aid
(Lewis, 2008), a plausible reason to overestimate their number in the first

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 Somalia’s Aid Dependency in 1960-1990

place. Consequently, the government repeatedly dismissed “plans to

repatriate the refugees” as that would terminate “the more than $80
million in annual refugee aid” (Maren, 1997).

The Ethio-Somali war also led to the fall out of Somalia and the Soviet
Union; as a result, the Somali-Soviet Alliance came to an end and the
Soviet Union suspended its assistance to Somalia. Ivanova (2019:85)
summarizes the nearly two-decade-long Somali-Soviet relations,
beginning from 1961, as follows: “The Somali Republic and the Soviet
Union have had a very complicated history of establishing and
developing relations: many successes and numerous failures; trust and
distrust; and friendship and hostility”.

As could be anticipated, Somalia turned to the West, the US in particular,

for development aid and military support. The US provided a significant
economic and development support throughout the 1980s and sponsored
crucial infrastructure projects. Notably, the US financed the “doubling of
the berth” and “deepening of the harbor” of Berbera port which cost
US$37.5 million and the 4500 meters extension of the runway of
Mogadishu Airport (Mets (Ed.), 1993:139).

Similarly, assistance from Finland enabled the creation of energy plants in

Kismayo and Baidoa in the 1980s; Italy also supported further expansion
to the Mogadishu Airport (Mets (Ed.), 1993). Italy was the largest donor
in economic aid and financed over hundred projects in Somalia from 1981
to 1990 with a total cost of approximately US$1 billion but the economic
achievements of these projects remained negligible due to a top-level
corruption in both Somali and Italian governments (Mubarak, 1996).

Estimations from the World Bank categorize the aid received by Somalia
into a project and non-project aid. In 1984, the total project and non-
project aid received by Somalia was about US$280 million compared to

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 Somali Studies, Volume 5, 2020

more than US$290 million in 1985; the non-project aid – cash aid, food
aid, and commodity aid – amounted to US$137 including US$41 in cash
aid mainly from oil-rich Arab countries in 1985 (World Bank, 1987).

Table 1
Exports, Imports, and Official Grant Aid Somalia
(in Millions of US$)
Year Exports Imports Official Grant Aid
1975 88.6 162.2 100.2
1976 81.0 176.1 39.7
1977 71.3 256.9 105.9
1978 109.5 275.5 78.0
1979 106.0 394.2 58.1
1980 134.2 461.0 143.0
1981 114.0 422.0 150.0
1982 136.9 484.0 157.0
1983 100.7 450.0 148.0
1984 62.0 406.0 174.0
1985 92.5 362.0 179.0
Source: World Bank (1987)

The table above demonstrates the trade balance of Somalia and the
official grant aid received in 1975-85. The data reveals that Somalia was
in trade deficit in the entire decade but fortunately received considerable
grant aid to finance this deficit. From 1975 to 1985, Somalia received a
total official grant aid of over US$1.3 billion. Although not depicted here,
the country also used foreign loans and credits to finance the trade deficit.

Despite foreign aid and grants, Somalia heavily relied on foreign loans
and credits throughout the 1970s and 1980s, although loans are often
considered as a component of the official or systematic aid. By 1979,
Somalia’s total foreign debt amounted to four billion Somali Shillings,

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 Somalia’s Aid Dependency in 1960-1990

equivalent to 75 years’ total earnings of the banana exports (Laitin and

Samatar, 1984). Somalia’s debt totaled US$600 million – equivalent to
four times of the export revenues – by the early 1980s (Samatar, 1985).
Furthermore, Somalia’s external debt ratio – total external debt divided by
the GDP – increased dramatically from 40 percent in the early 1970s to
189 percent (around US$2.2 billion) in 1989 (Mubarak, 1996).

In the early 1980s, Somalia turned to the World Bank and International
Monetary Fund (IMF) for Structural Adjustment Loans. The 1981
Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) agreement signed by the Somali
government with the World Bank and IMF, which invested the Banana
Industry, did more harm to the Somali economy than good – banana
production and exports increased but foreign interests gained 75 percent
of the export earnings (Samatar, 1993). Throughout this period, the
Somali government relied on the instructions of the World Bank and IMF
for running the economy (Laitin and Samatar, 1984). The trustworthiness
and effectiveness of the technical assistance from these institutions to the
developing countries has been doubted and lambasted (Muhumed and
Gaas, 2016).

In the late 1980s, the fighting between the Somali National Army and the
armed rebel movements intensified and the regime’s human rights
violations increased. As a result, most of the donors suspended their aid to
Somalia. The US for instance, suspended its economic and military aid in
1989 (Mets (Ed.), 1993).4

3. Non-Economic Assistance

Somalia also received substantial non-economic aid mainly technical

support, scholarships5, and military aid throughout the 1960, 70s, and 80s.
For instance, Somalia received technical training scholarships and
printing presses from the Soviet Union in the 1960s (Mets (Ed.), 1993). In

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 Somali Studies, Volume 5, 2020

addition, the Soviet Union (offering diverse scholarships) remained to be

a top destination for Somali students, including those in military training,
from 1961 onwards (Ivanova, 2019). Somali students received
scholarships from Western and Arab countries as well. Since Somalia
joined the Arab League in 1974, an increased number of Somalis acquired
tertiary education opportunities from Arab countries while many others
were employed by oil-rich Arab countries-funded projects (Laitin and
Samatar, 1984). On the contrary, numerous Somali students went to study in
the US in the 1980s; the shift of Somalia’s alliance from the East to the West
might have caused this.

Nevertheless, military aid constitutes the largest non-economic aid

received by Somalia in this period. Focusing on the military aid is based
on the notion that a strong and independent economy will be able to
independently manage its military budget; an acute military aid
dependency may reflect on, though not always, weak and aid dependent
economy. According to Mubarak (1994), shortly after the 1964 Ethio-
Somali War, the Soviet Union signed a deal with Somalia to assist them
to build a strong army of 5000 soldiers which later increased to 17,000
soldiers. Up until 1977, Somalia received sizeable technical and military
aid to Somalia including “Soviet specialists and technicians to teach
Somalis” in Somalia (Ivanova, 2019:73).

In 1980, Somalia and the US signed a deal in which Somalia would

receive a US$40 million military aid in the following two years while
Somalia would let the US use its ports and airstrips in Berbera, Kismayo,
and Mogadishu. This was followed by an annual US military aid to
Somalia of US$21.2 million in 1983; US$24.3 million in 1984; US$80
million in 1985; US$40 million in 1986, and US$37.1 million in 1987
(Mets (Ed.), 1993). From 1978 onwards, Italy was leading the military aid
provided by the Western countries to Somalia while West Germany
offered assistance to the security services and police totaling DM12 6
million between 1985 and 1987 (Mets (Ed.), 1983).

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 Somalia’s Aid Dependency in 1960-1990

4. Conclusion

This article explored Somalia’s aid dependency throughout the 1960s,

70s, and 80s. Somalia heavily relied on external economic, development,
humanitarian, and non-economic aid. This aid mainly originated from the
Western World, oil-rich Arab countries, and the former Soviet Union. In
addition, Somalia largely depended on external loans and credits and the
country’s total debt in this period got out of control.

The existing literature underscores that the economic and development

aid received by Somalia had a negligible positive impact on the economy
and rather led to a detrimental economic consequence such us retarding
the local production and changing the saving and consumption behavior
of the consumers – the Somali people became largely dependent on food
aid and food imports. The Somali economy suffered from rampant
corruption coupled with “institutional weaknesses, poor management,
scarcity of trained personnel, and poor capacity for economic policy
analysis” (Mubarak, 1996:162) throughout these years.

One reason that many of these development projects did not materialize
was that the money never reached Somalia, the recipient country. As
mentioned earlier, Italy approved over hundred projects for Somalia in the
1980s. A staggering fact, though peculiar, is that in 1978, the Somali and
Italian Governments opened a Chamber of Commerce Office in Milan,
Italy, in which, most of these projects were arranged. The Chamber got a
commission from every approved project while implementing partners
who were awarded to carry out the projects paid millions of dollars of
kickbacks to Italian politicians. Therefore, millions of dollars were looted
before the aid money reached the government accounts (Achtner, 1993;
Maren, 1997). Due to serious corruption allegations against the then
Italian Government associated with this Chamber of Commerce Office, a
law suit was filed in 1989 against Bettino Craxi, the Prime Minister of

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 Somali Studies, Volume 5, 2020

Italy from 1983 to 1987 and his brother-in-law, Paolo Pillitteri who
headed the Office (Achtner, 1993). 7

According to Omer (1992:72-73), donor countries were not interested in

the appropriate use of the aid they offer “so long as their own interests
were not endangered”; the Western media will sometimes pick up the
squandering of their taxpayer’s money in which Somalia was several
times represented as “the graveyard of foreign aid”. The aid was often
used for personal interests by the government officials and anyone else
who could be involved in managing the funds based on the “attitude of
easy-come-easy-go”.

Calls from the West to suspend the economic and development aid to
Somalia intensified in the late 1980s but the Foreign Minister of Italy
Gianni De Michelis and the US Ambassador T. Frank Crigler insisted
that as Somalia became more dependent on aid, suspending aid will
result in complete disaster and will not only hurt Mohamed Siyad
Barre but will mean the end of Somalia (Maren, 1997). Therefore,
although foreign aid, refugee aid in the 1980s in particular, delayed
what would otherwise be the immediate fall of Barre’s regime, we can
conclude that external aid contributed, in one way or another, to the
collapse of the Somali state.

Somalia is in a recovery and reconstruction stage today. Thus, it is

indispensable to learn from the history and avoid the nation’s economy
to become primarily dependent on external aid. Obviously, the
phenomenon of aid dependency occupies the minds of the Somali
leaders while Somalia is a rich country in terms of mineral resources,
oil, gas, livestock, agricultural land, and with better governance
system, have a better future.

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 Somalia’s Aid Dependency in 1960-1990

Notes

1
The author adds some specifications about this data: “[…] these figures are
subject to important qualifications. The U.N. and the Italian shares are almost
certainly understated, since the recurrent costs of technical assistance as well
as fellowships are excluded, as is the Italian budgetary aid. Also excluded
from Table I are technical assistance from the U.A.R. [United Arab Republic]
[Obviously from Egypt] for education and health, and emergency aid from a
number of countries during the famine of 1964-5.” He adds that the data
“includes only those projects for which financial agreements exist” (p. 37).
Therefore, USSR was not necessarily the largest donor in this period.
2
Somalia has been a victim of recurrent major droughts in every 10-15 years
and medium droughts in every 4-6 years (Mubarak, 1996). These droughts
hugely affected, and still affect, the lives of the nomadic pastoralists who rely
on livestock for their lives as well as the national economy who depends on
export earnings and national revenue for livestock, among other things.
3
For more on this, see: Farzin, Y. H., (1988). Food Import Dependence in
Somalia: Magnitude, Causes and Policy Options. World Bank Discussion
Papers. The World Bank. And Mubarak, J. A. (1996). From Bad Policy to
Chaos in Somalia: How an Economy Fell Apart. Greenwood Publishing Group.
4
In fact, the East-West rivalry on Somalia came to an end in 1978 when Somalia
and the Soviet Union parted ways. Therefore, Somalia had no choice but to
associate itself with the West.
5
Scholarships can be considered as an economic assistance if we consider them
as a component of human capital. However, in this article we consider
education as a social component and thus scholarships are categorized as non-
economic assistance. The technical assistance mentioned in this section mainly
associates with military aid and technical trainings, and is therefore
categorized as non-economic assistance as well.
6
Deutsche Mark (DM) was the currency of West Germany between 1948 and
1990 and that of United Germany from 1990 to 2002. Germany then adopted
the Euro in 2002.
7
The corrupt relationship between the Somali and Italian Governments traces its
roots back to the 1970s and thrived when Bettino Craxi came to power in 1983.

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 Somali Studies, Volume 5, 2020

In this period, Somalia received quite significant economic, development and

military aid from Italy.

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of African and Asian Studies, 28, 39-49.

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 Somali Studies, Volume 5, 2020

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 About the Author

Muhumed Mohamed Muhumed, aka Khadar, is a researcher based in

Hargeisa who holds MS in economics and MA in political science and
international relations. His research interests are mainly on Somaliland
economy and politics and he previously taught at the University of
Hargeisa’s Hargeisa School of Economics. He is the author of “Kala-
Maan: Bilowgii iyo Burburkii Wadahadallada Soomaalilaand iyo
Soomaaliya” [Kala-Maan: The Rise and Fall of the Somaliland-Somalia
Talks], a recent book published in 2018 in Somali language, as well as a
number of academic articles. Muhumed can be reached at Email:
[email protected]

About this Journal

Somali Studies: A peer-reviewed academic journal for Somali studies is a broad

scope multidisciplinary academic journal devotes to Somali studies; published
annually by the Institute for Somali Studies in print and online forms. Somali
Studies aims to promote a scholarly understanding of Somalia, the Horn of
Africa and the Somali diaspora communities around the globe. Special
consideration will be given to issues which are critical to the recovery and
rebuilding of Somalia, a country emerging from a devastating civil war. Somali
Studies is open access journal and all articles are freely available to read, print
and download from the website of the institute, www.isos.so.

Disclaimer: All views and opinions expressed in the article(s) published in

Somali Studies: A peer-reviewed academic journal for Somali studies are the
sole responsibility of author(s) of the article(s). It does not necessarily reflect
those of the editors, the Journal, nor the Institute for Somali Studies.
Published by Institute for Somali Studies
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