Ethiopia raising minimum civil servant salary from $35 to $44 per month

[Neptune]

It also makes sense how local fishermen can earn $1,500–$3,000 a month. Their catch moves through a value chain: first sold to local processors, then to manufacturers/packagers, then to distributors, then to retailers, and finally to consumers. The same thing happens with banana farmers, who can earn around $18,000 a year (as that study showed). The key is that the longer and stronger the value chain, the bigger the income opportunities it creates. And since much of that chain is controlled by Somali businesses, the profits largely stay within Somali hands and cycle back into the economy.

A lot of the problems in the country are just lack of access to infrastructure. If you look at Eyl for example, when Netfish, a new company came and built a cold storage facility to buy and store the fish that would otherwise just go to waste, the fishermen starting making more money. One of them says he can even make up to $150-200 a day. Imagine, this is a small-time fisherman making more in a day than a doctor in Ethiopia makes in a month.

Fishermen in Puntland get back to the ocean as new company in Eyl brings work

(ERGO) - Ali Ahmed Muse has been able to send four of his children back to school after two years

radioergo.org

 

[Idilinaa]

A lot of the problems in the country are just lack of access to infrastructure. If you look at Eyl for example, when Netfish, a new company came and built a cold storage facility to buy and store the fish that would otherwise just go to waste, the fishermen starting making more money. One of them says he can even make up to $150-200 a day. Imagine, this is a small town fisherman making more in a day than a doctor in Ethiopia makes in a month.

Fishermen in Puntland get back to the ocean as new company in Eyl brings work

(ERGO) - Ali Ahmed Muse has been able to send four of his children back to school after two years

radioergo.org

Thats 4500-6000 dollars per month he is earning. Thats a lot.

It shows to be true in this report as well.

Simply introducing cold storage made them earn ten times the average income which adds up to 4700 a month.

They have done this across many parts of Somalia/Puntland/Somaliland local companies and the government set up cold chains and it boosted peoples income.

Cold chain in Somaliland makes fishing more lucrative

A growing number of people from nomadic regions and unemployed youth in Somaliland are turning to fishing as a livelihood after the government installed solar-powered cold storage facilities in six…

somalilandstandard.com

This fish processing company explaining how they have built cold chain infrastructure across various towns.

Yustan Seafood

Live Fresh Chilled and frozen Somali Seafood, specializing in Lobster and Fish. Export market to Ethiopia, UAE, China, Oman and Globally/.

www.yustanseafood.com

 

[Idilinaa]

Thats 4500-6000 dollars per month he is earning. Thats a lot.

It shows to be true in this report as well.
View attachment 372640

Simply introducing cold storage made them earn ten times the average income which adds up to 4700 a month.
View attachment 372639
View attachment 372641


They have done this across many parts of Somalia/Puntland/Somaliland local companies and the government set up cold chains and it boosted peoples income.

Cold chain in Somaliland makes fishing more lucrative

A growing number of people from nomadic regions and unemployed youth in Somaliland are turning to fishing as a livelihood after the government installed solar-powered cold storage facilities in six…

somalilandstandard.com

View attachment 372644
View attachment 372645

This fish processing company explaining how they have built cold chain infrastructure across various towns.

Yustan Seafood

Live Fresh Chilled and frozen Somali Seafood, specializing in Lobster and Fish. Export market to Ethiopia, UAE, China, Oman and Globally/.

www.yustanseafood.com

View attachment 372643

This all makes me wonder how much Somalis are really earning with all the improvements across different sectors in totalities and averages. Since 2012, there’s been a steady rise in financial inclusion through digitization, easier access to financing and capital, better market connectivity, and gradually improving transportation. Electricity has become more affordable and reliable thanks to upgraded grids, internet access has expanded, and storage and processing facilities for produce have improved.

At the same time, there’s been gradual integration with MFIs, bank loans, and credit systems all of which boost incomes.

On top of that, the service and retail sectors have expanded alongside growth in business, hospitality, and customer service skills development. Urbanization is clustering demand, raising business volumes and creating stronger income opportunities across the board

 

[Barkhadle1520]

A lot of the problems in the country are just lack of access to infrastructure.

If Somali governments weren't poor and had the lacag to provide services and build infrastructure the economy would probably double in a few years

 

[Idilinaa]

If Somali governments weren't poor and had the lacag to provide services and build infrastructure the economy would probably double in a few years

You can tell that the government faces fiscal constraints by the simple fact that it sometimes fails to pay the public sector workers because of lack of funding.

It's also reflected in that thread you made about the progress of Somali health care sector that highlighted how public health care workers would work privately on the side and how widespread that it is. In someways it acts as if the private sector is subsidizing the public sector. Because they stay employed in the Public sector through private funding.

Now that i think about it i don't really hear often people complain about wages in the private sector or not being payed their wages. This further shows you how much wealth there actually is in the private sector compared with the public sector like we have been saying.

We can only hope that the government fully realizes their tax expansion and collection ambitions cited in the 2025-2029 national plan and it will lift the burden on households and private businesses.

 

[Barkhadle1520]

You can tell that the government faces fiscal constraints by the simple fact that it sometimes fails to pay the public sector workers because of lack of funding.

It's also reflected in that thread you made about the progress of Somali health care sector that highlighted how public health care workers would work privately on the side and how widespread that it is. In someways it acts as if the private sector is subsidizing the public sector. Because they stay employed in the Public sector through private funding.
View attachment 372683

Now that i think about it i don't really hear often people complain about wages in the private sector or not being payed their wages. This further shows you how much wealth there actually is in the private sector compared with the public sector like we have been saying.

We can only hope that the government fully realizes their tax expansion and collection ambitions cited in the 2025-2029 national plan and it will lift the burden on households and private businesses.

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[Idilinaa]

The common pattern in development/industrialization weather your talking about britian in the early 1800s or Japan and china who caught the up the fastest. Is the existence of a native merchant class. Who independently drives both economic growth and industrialization through reinvestment. For all of southeast Asia's success this is the element they lack with the situation being even worse in Africa. This is where we stand out the most in that our possession of a native merchant class we have the key element required to drive economic growth and industrialization.

One of the biggest pitfalls so many countries face is that agricultural/mineral are both subject to being taken over by either the former land owning elite or the new polticsl elite . Who then can basically put it all in the hands of a few people who extract the rents from these commodities and line their own pockets instead of reinvesting it on productive assets. This is why land reform is constantly talked about by economists as the key to development.

We entirely sidestepped this issue becuase of the mercantile nature of pastrolism/agropaatraolism where you sell your products. Instead of acquiring land and buying serfs.

You'd be surprised how much this comes up time and time again. People think it only applies to stuff like oil or maybe minerals
Without realizing countries whose economy is built off exporting stuff like wheat,coffee,timber,cocoa, etc all face this problem . Forget about Africa just look at Latin America. The reason Spanish colonalism is so terrible is that they created these large estates called hacienda's and the landowning elite that formed from this is are the ones who 500 years later their descendants still dominate the economy. Ask yourself even though they've been independent for 200 years why are these countries still not developed ? Its because all these Latin American economies are structured around the exports of these crop goods and minerals. They have been constantly stuck in the commodity boom and bust cycle since the global economy took off in the 19th century

We both came to the same conclusion. People often cite colonialism as the reason, but that’s really an oversimplification , the reality is much more complex. There are clear cultural-historical, geographical, and structural factors at play.

Spanish colonialism, for example, probably reinforced pre-existing structures like landholding elites rather than creating them from scratch. They simply inherited and entrenched those systems. That’s why today you see such rampant inequality, where a small elite controls most of the wealth while the majority live in poverty ,often in slums like the favelas.

Geography also plays a huge role. I remember watching a breakdown on why the United States became wealthier than Mexico. The argument was that America benefited from flat terrain, fertile plains, port access, and a large internal market, all of which made the movement of goods and people easier. Mexico, by contrast, pursued wealth extraction over development, with its mountainous terrain making infrastructure expansion much more difficult:

This ties into the geographical advantages Somalia has, which I highlighted in my earlier thread:

Somalia's Historical Geographical Advantages over Sub-Saharan Africa: (Summary) Part 1

I was asked to make this one last thread that i had planned, before i exit. I shared this video to @Midas in another thread, but then i came to realize that many of the setbacks and geographical disadvantages underscored in this video for Sub-Saharan Africa does not apply to Somalia at all...

www.somalispot.com

It also connects to cultural factors , the kind of high-trust social dynamics you see in places like Germany, America, or Japan, which in many ways mirror Somali society.

Look at Ethiopia: despite huge foreign investment and mega projects, the majority still live in poor housing or huts, with limited access to electricity and water, and stagnant wages. Like Mexico, Ethiopia becomes a site for outsourced cheap labor while struggling with inequality and crime. People then seek better lives abroad in Somalia/Somaliland, Djibouti, the Gulf states , just as many Latin Americans head for the U.S. or Canada.

You start to see a recurring structural pattern. The same thing applies to Kenya, as I explained earlier: simply pumping money into a place and emphasizing foreign investment won’t change the deep-rooted structural and cultural realities that sustain poverty.

 

[Barkhadle1520]

So SL govt workers have a higher salary than one of the so called giants of Africa 44/month is crazy. Corruption must be rampant and out in the open

Whats the salary of SL govt workers

 

[Barkhadle1520]

Exactly. You also forgot to mention Dubai/UAE. Somalis were the second biggest exporters/importers out of the ports, have a presence in real estate, finance, electronics, and other businesses, and have a large presence in the gold markets.

There, they even run multi-national corporations like MSG Group, which funnel money back into Somalia and fund development. They even hold subsidiaries in Somalia/Somaliland/Djibouti
View attachment 371739
View attachment 371740

Another example is SomGulf Real Estate. They have since moved their headquarters to Hargeisa, but they built a number of high-rise buildings in Gulf countries worth hundreds of millions.
View attachment 371734

I think a lot of businesses may have returned to Somalia/Somaliland in the past decade or so. It would be interesting to look into this further.
View attachment 371741

It’s the same in Kenya and South Africa, that you mentioned among others many hundreds of millions/billions in investments and capital generated abroad find their way back to Somalia, sometimes even through Somalis operating dual businesses, one in their home country and one abroad.

The community/private sector has a lot of wealth in Somalia; it’s the government that is poor in comparison. This is supported by the government’s own published stats, whilst it's most definitely an under-reporting of household consumption but it still shows the reality
View attachment 371729

Household consumption at only 15 million ? I expected higher

 

[Idilinaa]

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I wouldn’t take figures or numbers about child mortality at face value or with grain of salt. I’ve noticed that they are often talking about IDPs when they mention 3–4 million children out of school, 3–5 million in need of aid or food, or certain percentages lacking services. This creates a misleading picture because they don’t provide the broader context or distinction. It’s not that those services aren’t available , it’s that people lost access when they were displaced.

Luckily, there are a few surveys that actually distinguish IDPs from the broader rural and urban population to point this out:

As they say "as they have likely been deprived of the former livelihoods, assets and social networks during displacement and have limited access to services"

It's going to take time to fully rebuild their livelihoods, reintegrate and improve their access but it is happening. Once they are plugged back in they will benefit from the expanding available services in the rural and urban areas.

As for the healthcare sector, I have actually spoken about this with @Shimbiris privately about how they have been rolling out modern hospitals in different parts of the country and expanding available treatments. I also pointed out that access is the most important priority. Only when we expand access can we then start thinking about costs/affordability and quality, which can later be addressed through various means.

To me, the priority isn’t affordability but access. Ensuring that services actually reach people matters first , the questions of quality and cost come second. If infrastructure, supply chains, or institutions don’t exist, affordability is irrelevant. Even free vaccines won’t help if rural communities have no clinics nearby. Once services are physically available, affordability can then be addressed through subsidies, microfinance, or insurance.

In practice, regions and sectors with more private competition consistently deliver better services at cheaper rates, telecom being a prime example.

As for education and healthcare, the private led system can remain in place until local governments build enough capacity and resources. At that point, they could selectively nationalize some institutions while maintaining private alternatives, supported through direct public funding.

A private Somali company is building the largest state of the art modern hospital in Somalia in Garowe.

President Deni Launches Somalia’s Largest Hospital And Calls for Unity

Puntland President Said Abdullahi Deni today laid the foundation stone for what is set to become the largest hospital in

thesomalidigest.com

IHS Healthcare

ihs-healthcare.com

There is a thread on this:

Garowe Health City (IHS Hospital)

This is a critical project, and Dr Adam comes across qualified to build and manage a worthy institution.

www.somalispot.com

This is how it's basically imagined to look like, they are going create urban planned development around the hospital.

Animations:

Remember to hide this from the ''Somalis Only Build Hotels" crowd.

Even though they are opening new modern hospital in different parts of the country.

President Mohamud Inaugurates State-of-the-Art Hospital in Mogadishu – Goobjoog English

en.goobjoog.com

 

[Idilinaa]

I wouldn’t take figures or numbers about child mortality at face value or with grain of salt. I’ve noticed that they are often talking about IDPs when they mention 3–4 million children out of school, 3–5 million in need of aid or food, or certain percentages lacking services. This creates a misleading picture because they don’t provide the broader context or distinction. It’s not that those services aren’t available , it’s that people lost access when they were displaced.

Luckily, there are a few surveys that actually distinguish IDPs from the broader rural and urban population to point this out:

As they say "as they have likely been deprived of the former livelihoods, assets and social networks during displacement and have limited access to services"
View attachment 372702

It's going to take time to fully rebuild their livelihoods, reintegrate and improve their access but it is happening. Once they are plugged back in they will benefit from the expanding available services in the rural and urban areas.

As for the healthcare sector, I have actually spoken about this with @Shimbiris privately about how they have been rolling out modern hospitals in different parts of the country and expanding available treatments. I also pointed out that access is the most important priority. Only when we expand access can we then start thinking about costs/affordability and quality, which can later be addressed through various means.

There’s also a BS article on Hiraan that got re-published elsewhere, where the journalist completely misleads people. I saw it quoted by someone else under HornAristocrat tweet, trying to frame Mogadishu as having a housing crisis. But the whole piece is written from the perspective of an IDP complaining they can’t afford or access housing. Then it jumps to accusations about speculation, which I’ll explain below is not true at all.

Thats a really good idea. To do this for various towns in Somalia so that people can see the growth and have a retrospective look at it. It will surprise many. Also going through those Somali Archive accounts that show old videos of various towns would help as well, that's what i plan on showing when i talk about the cross regional housing and construction boom.

It's literally striking the how much mogadishu has developed, rebuilt and grown in a decade or so;


The post i made that showed Borama's growth:

@Midas @Neptune and @Barkhadle1520 , I’ll add this last point that really needs to be highlighted. There’s something uniquely interesting about Somalia’s real estate and construction sector compared to most places: it’s demand-driven, not speculative, and it’s financed directly instead of being fueled by debt.

It’s not controlled by wealthy landowners monopolizing land to exclude others or drive up prices for profit. Housing in Somalia is community-driven and demand-led people build homes to live and work in, not to create ghost towers. In other words, Somali housing reflects capital formation, not speculation.

Take Rugsaan Village, for example. Some people here wrongly criticized it as some kind of luxury diaspora project, but in reality, it was built to meet the growing demand in Hargeisa from the expanding middle class. The developers even said themselves: “Waxa aanu dhisaynaa guryo ardayda jaamacaduhu iibsan karaan” (we are building houses that university students can buy). They also explained how it’s meant to relieve overcrowding in Hargeisa by expanding housing into new areas, designed so students could purchase once they enter the workforce.

Here’s the video (3:00 mark):


Similarly, as @Barkhadle mentioned before, one developer of a high-rise in Mogadishu explained in an interview that nearly all the units had been reserved before construction was even finished. That shows just how strong middle-class housing demand really is.


This also helps explain why most urban Somalis live in improved housing today, as surveys have shown, the sector is directly tied to real demand, not speculation.

Another thing that shows urbanization in Somalia isn’t chaotic, unplanned/ informal is that most people actually hold registered land certificates. That legal framework helps explain why housing in Somali cities is usually laid out on a dense, fine-grained grid, with proper zoning and even green spaces or courtyards built into neighborhoods:

This is from an article written years ago that describes how most suburban houses in Somali cities are villas, many of which follow designs that go back to the pre-1991 era. It also highlights how housing has generally been built on properly allocated plots of land:

I spoke about it with when talking about the housing in Ogaden suburbs how there is a stylistic uniformity and formation across Somali regions:

It's a localized blend with diaspora influence.

Some of it is a combination that developed into this style starting back in the 1980s and 1990s in places like Hargeisa, Beledweyne, and Mogadishu like the use of cement block walls and ornamental iron gates.

The layout, with big courtyards, walls for privacy, and open rooftop spaces, is something that's deeply rooted in Somali cultural values.

And then there’s also the compound system (a house within a fenced perimeter), which has always been common in Somali architecture. It’s meant to provide security and define social boundaries.

The more modern diaspora influence is easy to spot things like tiles, domes, gold-colored gates, water tanks on rooftops, the angled red roofs, symmetry, and modern window designs.

A better definition close up from 2022 video.

You can also see they built storm water pipes under the roads and passage ways that they are going to tarmack, that will properly drain the water. Instead of a rain water run off like what you see in most other towns that redirects the water flow.

And lastly Somalia’s construction industry is almost entirely powered by a domestic labor force, local expertise, and a supply chain of materials produced inside the country. They don’t rely on importing most materials or bringing in low-wage foreign workers like in Singapore, the UAE, or Dubai, where entire parallel societies of underpaid poor migrant laborers live in cramped, exploitative conditions.

 

[Neptune]

There’s also a BS article on Hiraan that got re-published elsewhere, where the journalist completely misleads people. I saw it quoted by someone else under HornAristocrat tweet, trying to frame Mogadishu as having a housing crisis. But the whole piece is written from the perspective of an IDP complaining they can’t afford or access housing. Then it jumps to accusations about speculation, which I’ll explain below is not true at all.




@Midas @Neptune and @Barkhadle1520 , I’ll add this last point that really needs to be highlighted. There’s something uniquely interesting about Somalia’s real estate and construction sector compared to most places: it’s demand-driven, not speculative, and it’s financed directly instead of being fueled by debt.

It’s not controlled by wealthy landowners monopolizing land to exclude others or drive up prices for profit. Housing in Somalia is community-driven and demand-led people build homes to live and work in, not to create ghost towers. In other words, Somali housing reflects capital formation, not speculation.

Take Rugsaan Village, for example. Some people here wrongly criticized it as some kind of luxury diaspora project, but in reality, it was built to meet the growing demand in Hargeisa from the expanding middle class. The developers even said themselves: “Waxa aanu dhisaynaa guryo ardayda jaamacaduhu iibsan karaan” (we are building houses that university students can buy). They also explained how it’s meant to relieve overcrowding in Hargeisa by expanding housing into new areas, designed so students could purchase once they enter the workforce.

Here’s the video (3:00 mark):


Similarly, as @Barkhadle mentioned before, one developer of a high-rise in Mogadishu explained in an interview that nearly all the units had been reserved before construction was even finished. That shows just how strong middle-class housing demand really is.


This also helps explain why most urban Somalis live in improved housing today, as surveys have shown, the sector is directly tied to real demand, not speculation.
View attachment 372713

Another thing that shows urbanization in Somalia isn’t chaotic, unplanned/ informal is that most people actually hold registered land certificates. That legal framework helps explain why housing in Somali cities is usually laid out on a dense, fine-grained grid, with proper zoning and even green spaces or courtyards built into neighborhoods:
View attachment 372714


This is from an article written years ago that describes how most suburban houses in Somali cities are villas, many of which follow designs that go back to the pre-1991 era. It also highlights how housing has generally been built on properly allocated plots of land:
View attachment 372716
View attachment 372717

I spoke about it with when talking about the housing in Ogaden suburbs how there is a stylistic uniformity and formation across Somali regions:




And lastly Somalia’s construction industry is almost entirely powered by a domestic labor force, local expertise, and a supply chain of materials produced inside the country. They don’t rely on importing most materials or bringing in low-wage foreign workers like in Singapore, the UAE, or Dubai, where entire parallel societies of underpaid poor migrant laborers live in cramped, exploitative conditions.

I've always liked how the suburban neighborhoods are built in a planned way. A wall around the home clearly delineating land plots. Enough space in between to not overcrowd. Even other Africans have noticed how Somalis build in an organized fashion.

 

[Idilinaa]

I've always liked how the suburban neighborhoods are built in a planned way. A wall around the home clearly delineating land plots. Enough space in between to not overcrowd. Even other Africans have noticed how Somalis build in an organized fashion.

Some houses have even have soccer field built into them. In many of the new housing projects and neighborhoods you see them build amenities, supermarkets, schools , masjids and businesses near or next to the neighborhoods creating some type of local economic activity that sustains a community through income and creates jobs.

They even create these garden parks in the nearby areas, its becoming more common in different towns.

All of this actually reflects capital formation and how the wealth is more spread out, they build them with the purpose that these are places where people will live and work. In many other African , South Asian and Latin American countries formation of chaotic crowded disorganized informal/poor housing in large parts is because of poverty and inequality. We've even seen that this is a feature of poverty with the IDPs.

 

[Zak12]

And how people were arguing about how it didnt equate to the size of the economy being bigger ?

I think a factor to consider is that Kenya's government actively rebases its GDP whereas FGS simply does not. All these IMF reports you see are always dependent on the data governments give them so even though Kenya and Somalia have mobile transactions making up a huge portion of their economy, the "official" numbers articles like that espouse will be inaccurate.

I also found out that many African countries make significant use of mobile money transfers so it wasn't something unique to Somalia yet Somalia somehow stands out from the crowd in that regard.

 

[Hotchick12]

The entry level salary for degree holders will also be going up from $49 to $82. The maximum salary has been raised from $158 to $286.

no wonder they come to somalia