Why Somalia

WHY SOMALIA? Country: SOMALIA 1. Agriculture is the most important sector, with livestock accounting for about 40% of GDP and about 65% of export earnings. Nomads and semi-nomads, who are dependent upon livestock for their livelihood, make up a large portion of the population. After livestock, bananas are the principal export; sugar, sorghum, maize, and fish are products for the domestic market. The small industrial sector, based on the processing of agricultural products, accounts for 10% of GDP. 2. Somalia is a semi-arid country with about 1.65% arable land. The civil war had a huge impact on the country’s tropical forests by facilitating the production of charcoal with ever present, recurring, but damaging droughts. Somali environmentalist and Goldman Environmental Prize winner, Fatima Jibrell, became the first Somali to step in and do a much-needed effort to save the rest of the environment through local initiatives that organised local communities to protect the rural and coastal habitat. 3. One thing that unites the Somali food is its being Halal. Therefore, there are no pork dishes, alcohol is not served, nothing that died on its own is eaten and no blood is incorporated. Diet is very limited. 4. Total area: 637 657 km2. Inland Water area: 188 384 km2 5. 58 known freshwater fish species. (http://fish.mongabay.com/data/Somalia.htm) 6. Fish exports: 2% GDP (1990). http://www.fao.org/fi/fcp/en/SOM/profile.htm 7. In Somalia, fish is traditionally eaten fresh, and until only a few decades ago, consumption was limited to the fishing families and those living close to the coastal landing places. However, during the past two to three decades, per caput- fishery product consumption has increased 10 fold at least (from 0.16 to 1.6 kg/year) 8. At national level, however, apart from urban areas of Mogadishu, and Hargeisa, where accessible local markets are always available, other outlets include: the Las Korey canning factory, cold-storage complexes in Bosaso, cold storage facilities in Berbera, and cold-storage facilities in Mogadishu. The biggest market nationally is in the capital, Mogadishu, with the highest concentration of population, about 1.5–2 million, with an estimate consumption of between 9 and 10 t per day. 9. Marketing of fishery products has improved substantially, both nationally and internationally, during the past few decades, especially between 1970 and 1990, together with improved infrastructure and transport facilities. Nationally, marketing infrastructure has improved substantially with the availability of cold-storage facilities in big cities and towns, and canning factories, ice plants, refrigerated heavy-duty trucks, etc., all contributing to improved export potential for fishery products, and increased local per capita fish consumption. Although most of the abovementioned infrastructure was completely destroyed during the civil war, some has been rehabilitated by the private sector and the process continues for the remaining infrastructure. The Las Korey canning factory has been rehabilitated completely by the private sector with UNDP support, and its canned fish products are exported to countries in eastern Africa, Europe, Canada and USA. Although marketing of other fishery products internationally is lagging, there have been some improvements during the past few years, with a few high quality processed fish products (frozen fillets or whole gutted frozen) and high quality lobster (processed as whole frozen or frozen tails) exported to the Arabian Gulf States and to Saudi Arabia. Therefore, it seems that marketing is improving slowly, although it requires heavy financial investments from the government and from international assistance sources maintaining the momentum of recovery for fishery infrastructure in particular, and for the fishery sector in general.

10. Following the civil war of 1991, which left the entire fishing infrastructure in ruins, most of the fishery cooperatives are again operational all along the coastline, but while retaining their fishing skills, most of them have lost their fishing equipment and are in a poor state, and require skills training skills and new fishing gear. Most of the artisanal fishing fleet is constrained by lack of spare parts and many small vessels are out of operation. The state of the fishery resources, on which both the artisanal and the industrial sectors depend, is mainly unknown. However, it is thought that the inshore marine resources, which are mainly exploited by the artisanal sector, are lightly exploited. In contrast, fishery resources exploited by both the artisanal and the industrial sectors have declined in the past few years, while the industrial sector’s marine fishery resources have also shown heavy decline, indicating that these resources might have been overexploited. 11. Potentially, the fishery industry has great socio-economic potential. The inshore stocks are lightly exploited, and the artisanal sector is comparatively less developed than other production systems of the country, such as agronomy and livestock husbandry. At the moment, the importance of the fishery sector within the overall economy is quite small. Exports of fishery products account for around 3% of total exports. Fishery’s share in GDP is about 2%. On average, fish provides less than one gram of protein per caput per day. 12. While major capital investments are required to re-develop the entire fishery industry, including processing and marketing aspects, there is a primary need for assisting the fishery communities to regain their means of livelihood, and strengthen their capacity to earn income and to generate employment. However, without adequate MCS of Somalian EEZ marine resources, there can be not controlled development of the fishery sector 13. There is a great scope for a possible growth in per caput consumption of fish in Somalia in the near future, especially in bigger cities, towns and inland communities if the fishery sector is developed adequately with advanced marketing infrastructure. Also, fish demand in the country seems very high most of the time, especially in inland regions, while in urban areas, especially in the capital Mogadishu, demand always exceeds supply, since fish consumption is estimated at over 9 t per day. Therefore, as a direct consequence, canned fish products have been imported, mainly from Taiwan Province of China and Japan, with local production from the Las Korey canning factory. Until the spare part and gear supply problems for the artisanal sector are solved, it seems likely that fish supply will always be inadequate for local market demand, as well as for exports. The lack of an effective industrial sector supplying national consumer markets also constrains supply. 14. Very little aid has gone to the fishery sector since the onset of the civil war of 1991, except for a few emergency supplies of fishing gear, in limited quantities, by a few international organizations, including FAO, Care International and COPI (an Italian NGO). The fishing sector has received very little attention from the international community and aid agencies, while, in contrast, the livestock and crop husbandry sectors have received more attention and more aid. Therefore it seems that the fishery sector, which could recover and develop quite swiftly given the right support, has been neglected. However, UNDP is currently (as of 2004) providing support to a number of small-scale pilot fishery development programmes (in the central and southern parts of Somalia), with the aim of poverty reduction, development of the artisanal fishery sector and accelerating recovery from the destruction of the civil wars. It is hoped that this may have a mirror effect for other bilateral, regional and international assistance agencies.