Econ 1320 - Sub-Saharan Africa and Civil Wars

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While war ravaged through Somalia, foreigners and the United Nations tried to aid civilians as best they could. Whether it was supporting the fight against the rebels, delivering food, or injecting resources into a largely substance devoid economy, there was aid going Somalia’s way. However, due to the successful efforts of the rebels and warlords, all of these aid attempts were driven away from the country. The most famous instance of this is when two United States black helicopters were shot down above Mogadishu, and the United States pulled away its aid efforts. This was a huge blow to Somalia, as the United States forces coupled with the United Nations Peace Corps had kept their unstable government in check for two years; where the country was allowed to prosper. It got even worse in 2001 when the United Nations withdrew its aid workers in response to violent acts and kidnappings. The final global blow to Somalia’s foreign aid was in 2005, when the United Nations repealed their food and aid programs in response to theft and piracy. Piracy has become a serious problem in Somalia since 2005; it has made reaching the country through water very difficult and incredibly dangerous. Adding onto that, with no strong government in place to stop Somali pirates, there’s really nothing to stop them from hijacking and robbing vessels at sea, especially food ships. Being a pirate is easy, profitable, and not even really illegal. It’s not a surprise attacks are still on the rise. To combat piracy, the United Nations issued a plea to the world’s navies to help get food onto Somali soil. A ship is not allowed to leave Port Mombasa without a warship guarding them, as it is too dangerous to go about East African waters unarmed. Most governments are against direct violent contact with the pirates unless absolutely necessary; this is for a few reasons. One being they put the hostages the pirates capture at risk. The second reason is Somali pirates usually don’t kill anybody, as a live human is worth a lot more to them than a dead one. This makes the situation very sensitive when a naval force is called upon to defend shipping companies. It’s easy to see why these pirates do what they do, most of them are men who need money, and are reaping the benefits of a destroyed country.

The number one factor that makes Somalia so unstable since the outbreak of the civil war is their lack of a strong government. Since Sian Barre had been displaced from his rule and ultimately exiled, power has largely been in the hands of warlords and their armed forces. There have been numerous attempts at re-inserting a government into Somalia through efforts of other African countries, and at one point the United States/United Nations. But usually, these governments had to run in other countries out of exile (mostly Kenya; until 2007, when Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed took back control of the Transitional Federal Government). But even with a government authority figure in position, Somalia has no strength or backing from its authority figures, and is still very much at the mercy of warlords and their armies. The problems that stem from not having a government are really hard to overcome for Somalis. The main problem of not having a functioning government is, as I’ve already discussed, the inability to police the state; with laws such as murder, rape, and theft to go completely unpunished (Piracy is technically not illegal because of this). The second main problem in the lack of a strong government is a limp and lifeless economy. Without a government to initiate communication with other countries, regulate trade, or police markets, Somalia is left with very few markets to keep its citizens out of poverty. The two main moneymakers in Somalia are money transfer companies, and agriculture/livestock raising. When taking into account just how often droughts occur in Somalia, and how bad they can really be (the horn of Africa is the most susceptible area to droughts in the world), relying on livestock and agriculture can very often be a lost cause. Many citizens of Somalia live in villages of self-sufficiency (that’s being generous) where they have clear leaders, and fend for their own food, water, and external goods. In a world that is constantly moving towards globalization, with every nation in some respect trying to catch up, these tribes are doomed to fail; and these rural tribes make up more than half of Somalia’s population. All of these issues stem from lack of a functioning economy, which itself stems from no government control. The Somali Civil War has truly destroyed Somalia, and there is very little hope in their future for recovery.

Part V: Are Other Civil War-Torn Countries This Worse Off?

The short answer to this question is yes. Though it should be noted that Somalia is truly a special case in that it lacks any kind of structural government, and is almost totally devoid of an economy. However, when you look at the particularly poor countries of the world, specifically Africa, you’ll see a lot of these countries suffer from the same war-born problems Somalia does. Of the top 10 most devastated by war countries in the world, 8 of them are African. These countries are Sierra Leone, Chad, Mozambique, Somalia, Zimbabwe, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Central African Republic. The respective GDPs per capita of these countries respectively rank 204th, 192nd, 210th, 225th, 227th, 182nd, 228th, and 222nd in the world. The average GDPs per capita of these nations is 1,162 USD per capita, which would put them at 212th in the world. The combined GDP per capita of these countries (9300 USD per) would not even put them in the top 100 countries in the world. These horribly low GDP per capita numbers indicate a few things, including very poor overall economic productivity, and extremely limited growth rate of the country’s economy. I will now examine each of these countries on their own, relative to Somalia, and find out why they are at such extreme poverty rates.

- Sierra Leone-Devastated by a Civil War that ended in 2002, Sierra Leone is currently the poorest country in the world. Civil war, like Somalia, displaced a lot of the country’s citizens, effectively destroying their way of life and economical stability. Many people in Sierra Leone live in rural areas, where crop production has been on the decline for years, and the percentage of people in extreme poverty is an unthinkable 80%.

- Chad-Chad has been the victim of internal conflict for over 3 decades. Political unrest and instability has caused an already impoverished nation to fall even further down the ranks, where they have a poverty percentage of over 54%. This displacement of citizens (where as 80% of Chadians rely on agriculture), and constant conflict over the scarce fertile land