Hello and welcome. This is my first post on Somali Wa Kuma and I hope you will find it informative if sometimes provocative. My intention is to share with you some ideas, reflections on what is going on in Somalia and suggest some solutions that might help move the discourse forward.
I will start with a few articles about technology in Somalia and related issues that impact the economy and may help us understand the instability of the country. I am currently working on academic research about Mobile Money platforms used and their impact on financial inclusion initiatives in Somalia.
Lack of regulatory framework and government oversight led to the implementation of many of the unsustainable technology platforms that are in use in Somalia. This is the source of a major problem that limits innovation in the country and leads to a long-term problem that will have serious economic ramifications.
This brief article is the first of three articles that will cover my different roles in the Somali tech scene over the last two decades, the challenges, and suggestions to move forward and rejoin the international community.
Mobile Money (MM) offers the equivalent of a basic bank account to almost anyone with a mobile phone in Somalia. This many seem to agree offers a faster way to financial inclusion. However, the way in which a system of MM is implemented in a country is important, because without proper regulation and an ICT project implementation methodology it could cause inflation, overborrowing, hardship and even financial exclusion.
Through ICT‐enabled remittances and MM delivery mechanisms, the Somali diaspora provide an important lifeline to their friends and family members in Somalia. However, there are not many studies that investigate how ICT-enabled MM in Somalia was implemented and show the extent of its contribution to the country’s economic development.
Over the next few weeks, I will write about the role of MM technology and how has its’ adoption assisted by the Somali diaspora contributed to the Somali economy? I will point that the Somali MM operators’ intentions were not solely business-oriented, but were also part of a strategy to dominate the political institutions, economic and social sectors of Somalia, and ultimately, the entire Horn of Africa region.
I agree with the notion that there has been a positive contribution by ICT in the Somali MM platforms and money transfer or remittance sector. However, without the necessary government oversight and regulatory framework, there is no clear future for MM in Somalia which is using inferior technology, Unstructured Supplementary Service Data on 3G Mobile phones. I will point out that a proper ICT implementation process must be followed to implement future digital money and cryptocurrencies accessed via apps on smartphones running on 4G and beyond to replace the current systems.
More on the issue described above, stay tuned, and hope you will comment and give feedback to enable us to exchange ideas as we move into a world where money is reimagined and its role is constantly innovated.
In every post, I will also share with you projects (see below) I am working on that are aligned with these articles and the plan is to make them available to the Somali ICT students in Somalia.
I have managed to participate in Project Catalyst, an experiment in community innovation, providing a framework to turn ideas into impactful real-world projects. This is run by the #cardano foundation, see https://cardano.ideascale.com/ and also stay tuned about what Cardano foundation is doing to help Africa, see https://africa.cardano.org/
I have submitted two projects proposals and they have progressed to the 'refine level'. Will keep you informed of the outcome.
The other project proposal is about the possibility of developing a blockchain solution that can help solve the Country of Origin problem that stops many small business owners in Somalia to export products to the global markets. More on this and my failed experiment to help honey producers in Somalia export to Japan, stay tuned.