Poverty makes people crazy.
About 43% of the population live on less than 1 US dollar a day
- Wiki
What would you be willing to risk if you were making $1 a day?
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III. What is to be done?
In the light of the above brief analysis and in order to address the acute unemployment problem in the country, it would be advisable for the present government in Somalia (TFG) to take bold steps along the following lines:
(a) Restoration of law and order:
There is no doubt that restoration of peace, security and stability is the sine qua non condition for improving the economic situation. Without that, the millions of internally displaced people as well as Somalis in the Diaspora will not go back to their original abodes in order to earn livelihood by lawful means in addition to contributing to the reconstruction of their unlucky country – a country that has to start from scratch, as Somalia is today, in the opinion of some observers, in a much worse situation than where it was when it gained its independence almost 50 years ago.
(b) Reconstruction of the Somali Government’s institutions:
Immediate steps are required to be taken to rehabilitate and reconstruct the Somali Government’s institutions (i.e., the civil service, the police, the national army, public education and health, the essential autonomous public enterprises, etc) as soon as feasible. If this is accomplished, thousands of Somalis would, in the long-run, get a chance for obtaining decent jobs with the national government, as was the case before the collapse of the state machinery in early 1991.
(c) Provision of lawful employment to the armed militias:
The illiterate marauding armed young men whom we talked about earlier have to be disarmed, demobilized and given the opportunity to gain livelihood through lawful means. To achieve this, the Somali Government is expected to embark upon ambitious public works projects, i.e., rehabilitating and constructing schools, hospitals, water points (or boreholes), veterinary centers, roads and other infrastructure components – provided, of course, that the government obtains sufficient funds from both local sources as well as donations from friendly foreign countries and institutions.
(d) Opening up vocational training centers:
One way of improving employment chances for the demobilized ex-armed tribal militias would be to re-open the numerous vocational and technical centers/institutes, which Somalia had before the start of its tragic civil war, for the purpose of teaching them some basic technical skills or trades in such areas as: carpentry, plumbing, electric works, car repairs, etc., for a period not exceeding, say, 1-2 years. Those who don't desire to engage in these skills, usually needed by the market, could be absorbed in the national police and army forces that will be formed and consolidated in the near future to safeguard the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Somalia – and not annihilating the Somali people on tribal basis, as was the case in the past two decades or so.
(e) Encouraging the SMEs:
Another important approach for enhancing employment opportunities and eradicating poverty could be for the national authorities to encourage and promote small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to aid, particularly, the poor Somali women, many of whom have been heading families and have been their only bread-earners as their husbands were either killed, maimed or engaged in Somalia's senseless fratricidal warfare of the past 20 years or so.
To achieve this, Somali Government would be advised to revive, as soon as possible, the banking sector, especially the now defunct Somali Development Bank, in order to extend loans (preferably soft ones) to the qualified Somali citizens. Over the centuries, Somalis have been known to be naturally born entrepreneurs who are good, particularly, at engaging in trade and commerce. (It is a measure of Somalia’s disintegration and the terrible destruction of its major institutions that today, in the 21st century, there is no, for instance, a single ordinary bank or legal service available in the country. This would be something unfathomable in the civilized world).
(f) Benefiting from the experience of other developing countries:
Somalia could greatly benefit from the experience of some other developing countries like Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries in Asia, in the field of poverty reduction through micro-financing. In particular, useful lessons could be learned from Grameen Bank, the pioneer of micro-financing, and its chairman, Prof. Muhammad Yunus, the winner of last year’s Nobel Prize for Peace in recognition of his considerable contributions to this field. As some of you may be aware of, this admirable ex-academician had started his mission extending loans to the Bangladeshi poor, especially, the women, for as little as $27 per financing operation to start their own small businesses!
Finally, some people may think that the above-mentioned recommendations or remedies for Somalia's dire unemployment situation are far-fetched and unrealistic given the country's current situation. (Today, Somalia’s government is penniless and on top of that the country had accumulated, before the collapse of its state, foreign debts currently amounting to nearly US $3 billion). However, the country cannot forever remain in this senseless civil strife and sooner or later it will be incumbent upon Somalis to get serious and think about rebuilding their lives and reconstructing their devastated homeland. It is also reasonable at times to dream in order to achieve lofty goals – like tackling Somalia's current appalling unemployment situation. This is so, because as an American social worker, a lady by the name of Jane Addams, put it almost a hundred years ago: "Of all the aspects of social misery, nothing is so heartbreaking as unemployment."
May God almighty save Somalia and protect her from her own sons.
From
http://www.mbali.info/doc352.htm
