https://xogsawir.com/ Telling Somalia's story, one chart at a time. en Sun, 24 May 2026 16:38:57 GMT https://xogsawir.com/charts/somalia-2026-budget-donor-financed https://xogsawir.com/charts/somalia-2026-budget-donor-financed Thu, 04 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT Public Finance Somalia's 2026 federal budget plans $1.37 billion in spending against $1.30 billion in revenue, a deficit of $74.9 million. About $828 million, or roughly two thirds of total spending, is financed externally through donor-funded projects and direct budget support. Domestic taxes, mostly from international trade, and non-tax revenue cover the remaining third. Goods and services and the public wage bill dominate spending. Capital spending, grants, and social benefits sit almost entirely on the donor-financed side of the ledger. That exposes service delivery to shifts in external funding priorities and disbursement risks. https://xogsawir.com/charts/horn-of-africa-solar-imports-2025 https://xogsawir.com/charts/horn-of-africa-solar-imports-2025 Mon, 03 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT Environment & Climate Solar demand is quietly rising across the Horn of Africa. In the year to September 2025, solar panel imports across the Horn of Africa more than doubled to 1.39 gigawatts, up from 555 megawatts in the previous twelve months. Kenya led the region at 572 megawatts, an annual increase of 55 percent, followed by Sudan at 570 megawatts, roughly seven times its prior baseline. Ethiopia, Somalia, and Djibouti each cleared 60 megawatts. Somalia grew 63 percent year on year, Djibouti 148 percent, and Eritrea rose from a low base. Imports from China are a demand proxy and run ahead of installation; commissioned capacity will lag the import figures. https://xogsawir.com/charts/somalia-mobile-internet-affordability-2019-2023 https://xogsawir.com/charts/somalia-mobile-internet-affordability-2019-2023 Fri, 31 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT Digital In 2019, Somalia was the 29th most expensive country in Africa for one gigabyte of mobile data, at about $6.20. By 2023, the price had fallen to $0.50, lifting Somalia to fourth in continental affordability rankings, behind Malawi, Nigeria, and Ghana. The 92 percent drop reflects sustained competition between major telecom providers and steady infrastructure investment. The methodology ranks countries on the average price of a one-gigabyte mobile plan and is sensitive to which plans are sampled. Comparable benchmarks place Somalia ahead of Kenya, Ethiopia, and Egypt for the same metric in 2023. https://xogsawir.com/charts/horn-of-africa-forest-cover-1990-2025 https://xogsawir.com/charts/horn-of-africa-forest-cover-1990-2025 Wed, 29 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT Environment & Climate Somalia lost nearly half of its forest area between 1990 and 2025, falling from 8.3 to 4.8 million hectares, the steepest decline in the region. Sudan lost 22 percent and 6.1 million hectares in absolute terms. Ethiopia and Eritrea registered smaller losses of six and thirteen percent. Kenya and Djibouti made small gains. Globally, the pace of forest loss has slowed since 2010, but Somalia's trajectory still tracks the slowest progress in the region, driven by drought, charcoal extraction, and deforestation. https://xogsawir.com/charts/somalia-bank-credit-by-sector-2024 https://xogsawir.com/charts/somalia-bank-credit-by-sector-2024 Mon, 27 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT Economy At the end of 2024, 86 percent of outstanding commercial bank credit in Somalia was tied to three uses: construction and real estate at 36 percent, trade at 32 percent, and personal loans at 18 percent. Productive sectors received the rest. Agriculture took 2.1 percent, manufacturing 1.2 percent, and the combined energy, water, and mining group 2.4 percent. The gap has widened over time. Construction credit grew from roughly $40 million in 2021 to about $170 million by late 2024, while agriculture financing stayed near zero. This imbalance highlights a deeper structural issue: credit is flowing into commerce and construction, but little reaches the sectors that generate jobs, exports and long-term growth. Until more financing supports production, diversification of Somalia's economy will remain out of reach. https://xogsawir.com/charts/horn-of-africa-gdp-growth-2025 https://xogsawir.com/charts/horn-of-africa-gdp-growth-2025 Tue, 21 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT Economy IMF projections for 2025 put real growth in the Horn of Africa on five different trajectories. Ethiopia and Djibouti remain in the six-to-seven percent range. Kenya's economy edges up to 4.8 percent. South Sudan rebounds to about 24 percent from a deep contraction tied to the disruption of its oil pipeline. Sudan returns to positive growth at 3.2 percent after a 23 percent collapse linked to its conflict. Somalia slows to 3.0 percent from 4.1 percent the year before, the only Horn economy projected to decelerate. Sub-Saharan Africa as a whole is forecast to grow 4.1 percent. https://xogsawir.com/charts/somalia-trade-deficit-2024 https://xogsawir.com/charts/somalia-trade-deficit-2024 Sun, 19 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT Economy Somalia's trade deficit reached about $8.8 billion in 2024, the widest on record. Goods imports rose sharply, led by fuel, food, and capital goods, and lifted total imports to roughly twelve billion dollars. Service exports also grew, reaching record levels and lifting total exports above three billion, but the gain was outpaced by the import bill. The gap continues to be financed by remittances and grants rather than by trade earnings. The structure has been consistent for several years: rising service exports, faster-growing goods imports, and a current account that depends on private and donor transfers. https://xogsawir.com/charts/somalia-female-youth-neet-2019 https://xogsawir.com/charts/somalia-female-youth-neet-2019 Wed, 15 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT Health & Demographics Half of Somali women aged 15 to 24 are neither in school, in work, nor in training. Among women aged 15 to 19 the rate is 40 percent, rising to 64 percent for women aged 20 to 24. Comparable figures for men are 34 percent and 45 percent. The gap widens with age, suggesting that early school-leaving is followed for women by a labour market that does not absorb them. Survey design captures formal training and education but understates unpaid household work, which is concentrated among the same cohort. The data underline the unfinished work of converting school enrolment into adult employment. https://xogsawir.com/charts/somali-women-in-microbusinesses-2024 https://xogsawir.com/charts/somali-women-in-microbusinesses-2024 Mon, 13 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT Health & Demographics Somali women hold 70 percent of jobs in micro firms, the country's largest category of establishment at 48 percent of all firms surveyed. Their share falls to 45 percent in the informal sector and 28 percent in formal enterprises, showing that women's participation in wage work shrinks as firms grow. Micro and informal businesses together employ more workers than the formal economy, but their jobs pay less and offer fewer protections. The gradient between micro and formal mirrors the gradient in credit access, registration costs, and contract enforcement, which are concentrated in the segments where women already operate. https://xogsawir.com/charts/usaid-cuts-horn-of-africa-2025 https://xogsawir.com/charts/usaid-cuts-horn-of-africa-2025 Thu, 09 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT Public Finance USAID funding to the Horn of Africa fell sharply through 2025, with country-level cuts ranging from below ten percent to about two thirds of prior allocations. Ethiopia lost the largest absolute amount, around $387 million, despite a smaller percentage cut. Uganda absorbed the steepest proportional reduction near 66 percent and saw $307 million withdrawn. Kenya and Tanzania each lost more than $200 million, and Somalia about $113 million. These reductions directly hit the services most vulnerable to sudden shifts in foreign aid: emergency humanitarian response, local healthcare systems, and stabilization efforts in conflict zones. National budgets can only absorb a fraction of this shortfall, meaning many of these programs will simply shut down. https://xogsawir.com/charts/somalia-external-debt-2024 https://xogsawir.com/charts/somalia-external-debt-2024 Tue, 07 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT Public Finance At the end of 2024, Somalia's external public debt stood at $1.52 billion, equal to 9 percent of GDP. The ratio has fallen from 64 percent in 2018, driven by completion of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries process in December 2023 and bilateral cancellations through 2024. The remaining stock is concentrated in obligations to Arab Funds, including the Arab Monetary Fund, the Abu Dhabi Fund, the Saudi Fund, and the Kuwait Fund, with the IMF, the OPEC Fund, and the Islamic Development Bank holding the multilateral residual. Roughly two thirds of the outstanding amount is in arrears. https://xogsawir.com/charts/somalia-extreme-poverty-by-region-2022 https://xogsawir.com/charts/somalia-extreme-poverty-by-region-2022 Sat, 04 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT Health & Demographics In 2022, the share of Somalis living on less than $1.16 a day ranged from 11 percent in the capital region of Banaadir to 55 percent in Middle Shabelle, followed closely by Bakool at 46 percent. The data reveals a stark geographic divide: drought-exposed rural regions across the south and central belt carry the heaviest burden, while areas with urban labour markets, better services, and concentrated remittance flows post the lowest poverty rates. (Note: No data is available for Middle Juba). These figures are based on the Cost of Basic Needs approach from the 2022 Somalia Integrated Household Budget Survey, the baseline for current poverty analysis in the country. https://xogsawir.com/charts/somalia-gdp-growth-2024 https://xogsawir.com/charts/somalia-gdp-growth-2024 Wed, 01 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT Economy Somalia's economy grew 4.1 percent in 2024, driven primarily by household spending (which contributed 11 percentage points to growth), exports (10.2 points), and investment (5.5 points). However, this expansion was heavily offset by imports, which subtracted 23.8 percentage points, leaving net trade as a massive drag on output. The data illustrates an economy fueled by remittance-backed household demand rather than domestic production, where a large share of every shilling spent flows directly abroad to pay for imported fuel, food, and capital goods. https://xogsawir.com/charts/somalia-child-immunization-dtp3-2008-2024 https://xogsawir.com/charts/somalia-child-immunization-dtp3-2008-2024 Mon, 29 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT Health & Demographics Somalia's immunization story is turning a corner. In 2024, about 70 percent of children completed the critical third dose of DTP3, up 28 points since 2012, with the fastest gains occurring after 2019. This rise reflects tangible system improvements: a steadier vaccine supply, solar-powered cold chain facilities, wider outreach, and targeted catch-up campaigns. Progress is real, but two hurdles remain. First, Somalia's national average still lags behind the 2024 global benchmark of 85 percent, and a gap between first-dose and third-dose uptake shows that series completion is the next major bottleneck. Second, national averages mask stark inequalities between federal states and districts. To understand the full equity picture, the Ministry of Health must regularly publish granular, district-level data: revealing exactly where children are being missed and which communities are being left behind.