Whenever Somalia's 'development' is brought up and I hear two buzzwords as solutions I switch off: Centralisation and industrialisation.
As for model nations to copy, one of the first things taught in Development 101: Every country has its unique set of challenges, opportunities, land size, population, culture, geopolitcal interests. That's to not mention that city-states aren't replacable to countries. The region of Bari is larger in size than the whole of Qatar.
At best, we would probably be most similar to one of the South East African countries (relative level of stability and economy, nothing outstanding in terms of political or economic output). We as Somalis think way to highly of ourselves (which too an extent is good, a Somali unlike their biddable and obedient neighbours Kenya can never have the inferiority complex towards Caucasian, and to the West we are too civil to eat raw meat and live side by side with Gaal - so the high esteem doesn't stem from nowhere), but we do need to rain it in a bit.
I'm just curious for those who sincerely think we would be a powerhouse in the region (on the assumption that we have not taken over DDS & NFD), what basis can you make that claim? Population? Size? The only way, in an alternative history, we have any hope of being the main power in the region is if we had won the Shifta wars and the Ogaden war. From Gambela to Lamu, that would be a formidable force (1.3 million km2 of land).