Beyond Rhetoric Somali youth ‘empowerment’: 5 meaningful ways to support youth

Somalia is one of the youngest countries in the world. With more than 70% of its population aged between 15 to 35 years, the country has one of the youngest populations in Africa. Yet again, the country paradoxically suffers from the least available opportunities and resources for its young generation.

Missed potential

Somali youth face unique critical challenges hindering unleashing their potential. Youth unemployment is at alarming level with over 65% unemployed, which makes them vulnerable to engage unlaw activities including being recruited by extremist groups for violence. For nearly three generations since 1991, the collapse of the Somali government, these circumstances are unfortunately becoming status quo for the youth, yet their governments are still behind the schedule to tackle these challenges; therefore, breaking these pattern problems into pieces attention, intervention and leadership.

However, as the world has been celebrating International Youth Day in the Month of August, it’s more relevant than ever before to celebrate & reflect on challenges as well as demand a robust and radical plan to chart opportunities for these young people and unlock their full potential to build back a better Somalia that stands on its feet and resumes its key role in contributing to the global peace, security, and stability. 

To achieve this, here are five practical steps I hope Somali governments should manifest to shape positive change for its young people to build back a better Somalia.

1. Create space for intergenerational dialogue

The leadership, decision-making bodies and resources are in the hands of the few, the elites, while the majority of the country is hosting the burden of the few with their heavy conglomerates. The business as usual ‘Somali Youth empowerment’ rhetoric should be turned into actual action. The youth need to be heard so they can be understanding their contextual patterns for policy planning. By establishing a common ground and dialogue space between the generations, the youth will be able to deeply understand and learn practically the past, present, and future. This improves the contribution of the young changemakers by avoiding reinventing the wheel. The youth will embrace improving the model of change and become better leaders and ancestors. 

2. Nurture Innovation and Entrepreneurship 

Somali people are innovative and entrepreneurial by nature. Their entrepreneurial spirit is unmatched. This needs to be taped by improving the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the country. Encouraging youth entrepreneurship has a development multiplier effect by tackling unemployment, creating more jobs, and contributing the economic growth and its transformation. Also, supporting entrepreneurship is a goldmine option for reducing the staggering figures of employment in the country which is 67%, the largest rate in the world. For now, thousands of Somali youth graduate from universities every year, and there are not thousands of job opportunities available for them. The supply and demand forces of the labour markets are not balanced. Therefore, fostering entrepreneurship could be a game changer to address the issues. For my first-hand experience in working for and with the young people in startups and Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises( MSMEs) at SIMAD Innovation lab, we identified and document more real impacts in entrepreneurial training than in almost any other field. Incubating or accelerating MSMEs will not only create a job for Its founder but also create job opportunities for many others.

Furthermore, there is a growing revolution of emerging Entrepreneurial Supporting Organizations (ESOs) across the country which is a significant indication of where the country puts its feet on development. Almost every major city has either a fully-fledged innovation hub, or ESOs that is supporting youth innovation and entrepreneurship, but the working condition of these innovation hubs are quite restricted with limited availability of resources and lack favourable policy environments. The Somali government should support these existing Innovation hubs to incubate and accelerate MSMEs through sponsoring programs and enacting enabling policy environment. 

In August 2021, in celebration of International Youth Day, I hosted a panel discussion under the theme “Lobbying Legal Framework for Startups in Somalia: Unlocking Market Opportunities’’. This was aimed to improve the environment for businesses to thrive and prosper by lobbying the enaction of encouraging regulations, accessible sound investments, and protected from monopolies to create jobs and boost the economy. To mention a few, if SMEs and Startup Acts are introduced by benchmarking from the best-performing countries, Somalia could have taken a progressive step toward building back better its economy and addressing Its development predicaments. 

3. Establish a National Youth fund  

Access to finance has been a major bottleneck to starting, scaling and growing business and social initiatives in Somalia. For the last 3 years of working with social entrepreneurs, I have learned most startups and youth initiatives are short-lived due to limited available funds. Traditionally, most founders raise capital from family and friends which usually is not enough while few have limited access to loans from the bank. But the challenge with banks remains alarming. Banks don’t offer enough capital to start a business and the cost of doing business in Somalia is extremely high, also the banks avoid taking risks in investing ideas or early-stage businesses which demotivates the young innovators to advance solutions for the communities. 

Creating a dedicated National Youth Fund- with strict accountability mechanisms will accelerate the motivation and the innovation to start a business and seek formidable innovative solutions for the most pressing challenges in Somalia. For the start, the government can budget only $1 million to award through open, transparent competition across the nation. National Innovation competition would be hosted across the nation with a specific theme that reflects the need of the community on annual basis. The themes should be also aligned with the 9th National Development Plan and Sustainable Development Goals so the country can achieve them both not only from a top-down policy approach but also from bottom-up youth-centred contributions.  

Additionally, since Somali women represent most of the Somali population and the majority of MSMEs in the country, 50% of the national youth fund should be allocated to women-led entrepreneurs to accelerate Nobel community contributions. As the number of entries for the competition grows in number year after year, resources should be mobilized through a multistakeholder approach by bringing together the public, private, civil society, academia, and the media to fundraise and manage the funds. By embracing the multistakeholder approach it would create sustainability, increase the sense of ownership, and build trust among the young people and Somali people at large. 

4. Include young men and women in Decision Making 

Building a new peaceful and prosperous Somalia requires engagement and participation by all key stakeholders more importantly the largest segment of the population, the young people.

Unfortunately, the youth mechanism and institutions are not well placed in Somalia. For instance, the national youth council has not yet been established in Somalia. To better protect, represent and reflect the voices, interests, and rights of youth across the government, youth must be part of the decision-making and public policy process. Ensuring the youth’s political participation is not a privilege but rather a political fundamental right which should protect the provisional constitution. Additionally, a national youth Act should be passed through parliament to instrumentalize youth issues including the creation of youth quoted in the parliament and the creation of the National youth council from the district level to the national. 

5. Appoint Special Youth Envoy 

Establishing the office of special envoy for youth affairs would bring closer the youth to their government and promote their voices on the national and global stage to address their needs and right since they are the majority of the population but least represented across government spheres. The office would work closely with existing various ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) to protect, promote, and empower the interest Somali youth at the national, regional, and global levels, by securing their participation role in various layers of the government with a special focus on the most marginalized youth.

The office of the special envoy should harmonies and coordinate all youth-related programs at the national level to ensure every program run by either local youths, international organization or public and private sectors are aligned to national development priorities, sustainable development goals (SDGs) and Africa Agenda 2063. Additionally, the special envoy would serve key youth advocates by reforming or introducing national youth policies and programs to create a conducive environment for young people to thrive personally and professionally. It’s clear the significance and potential value of this office might add to the lives of the Somali youth if it’s established with rightful personal, resources and political will from all the branches of the government.