UNDP and Hormuud Salaam Foundation partner to create sustainable green and blue jobs in Somalia

Mogadishu’s new bet on green and blue jobs aims at a generation shut out of opportunity

MOGADISHU — On a warm morning in the Somali capital, officials and bankers gathered under a tented pavilion to unveil a project that reads like a roadmap for a country trying to turn deep challenges into opportunity. The United Nations Development Programme and the Hormuud Salaam Foundation announced an 18-month partnership designed to funnel training, digital tools and finance into Somalia’s “green” and “blue” economies — and, crucially, into the hands of young people and women.

It is the kind of pragmatic, locally led initiative that development actors have long touted but that remains rare in a place still wrestling with conflict, displacement and fragile institutions. “This initiative shows how government, businesses, and international partners can unite for a common goal,” Deputy Prime Minister Jibril Haji Abdi said at the launch, summing up the public optimism.

A program built around three linked bets

The partnership targets more than 2,000 young people and 360 small and medium companies over the next year and a half, with at least half the beneficiaries women or women-led businesses. It combines three elements many development plans promise but few deliver at scale:

• Digital platforms and training: A Shaqo-Abuur (job-creation) platform to connect verified vacancies with jobseekers, plus mentorship and skills courses in digital literacy, business planning and green technologies.
• Incubation and testing: An innovation lab to pilot businesses in renewable energy, fisheries and aquaculture, and circular waste management, accompanied by an accelerator to take the strongest ideas to market.
• Finance and regulatory reform: Sharia-compliant microloans through Salaam Somali Bank, a digital investment vehicle for local and diaspora investors, and a push to streamline registration and licensing for small firms.

“With HSF providing financial backing, Hormuud Telecom driving digital innovation, and Salaam Somali Bank facilitating Islamic finance, this partnership exemplifies Somali-led development,” said Lionel Laurens, UNDP’s resident representative.

Young, urban and impatient for change

Somalia’s demographics are stark and insistent. More than three-quarters of the population is under the age of 30, and youth unemployment is estimated at roughly 67 percent. In a country where formal jobs are scarce and the informal economy dominates, that statistic is not just a number: it is the daily reality of markets crowded with vendors, small repair shops and fresh-faced graduates who cannot find careers that match their training.

Across the capital’s cafes and co-working spaces, young Somalis talk about two frustrations: access to finance and access to markets. Women business owners say the barriers are harder to navigate. While women reportedly own about 60 percent of small businesses in Somalia, many operate informally, without credit histories or the certificates that banks ask for. The new program’s emphasis on Sharia-compliant loans and simplified registration is meant to address that gap.

“We don’t need charity,” Abdullahi Osman, CEO of the Hormuud Salaam Foundation, told the launch. “We need opportunity.” The language echoed through the crowd: this is about enabling entrepreneurship rather than delivering aid.

Why green and blue economies matter here

Somalia is not just another development setting. The country stretches more than 3,300 kilometres of coastline, offering fisheries and aquaculture potential that, if properly managed, could sustain coastal communities and power exports. There is also abundant sun and wind — renewable energy resources that can be harnessed at relatively low cost, given the country’s sparse grid and high costs of diesel. On top of that, Somalia boasts some of the most affordable mobile data prices in Africa, a boon for digital platforms linking labor and capital.

Globally, governments and investors are shifting attention to green jobs as carbon-constrained economies retool. For Somalia, where climate shocks, droughts and floods increasingly threaten livelihoods, training a generation in solar installation, sustainable fisheries, and waste recycling presents a way to build resilience while creating income.

Practical questions and the hard test of delivery

The plan’s ambitions will be tested in the practicalities. How will microloans follow through into viable enterprises rather than simply covering household expenses? Can a nascent digital job platform verify employers across rural and urban Somalia in a way that avoids fraud? Will the innovation lab produce ideas that scale beyond pilot projects?

Those are not academic queries. In recent years, development projects have faltered when the pipeline from training to capital to market remains leaky. The inclusion of a digital investment platform aimed at Somalis in the diaspora is a smart lever — diaspora remittances already dwarf official aid flows — but it depends on trust, transparency and a consistent legal framework.

There are signs the partners are aware of the risks. The initiative includes efforts to reform regulatory bottlenecks and to design programs tailored for displaced communities and people with disabilities. Such measures are essential in a country where mobility, land tenure and state capacity are uneven.

Beyond Mogadishu: what success could look like

If the program achieves even a fraction of its aims, the ripple effects could be visible. Imagine solar installers trained in Kismayo powering clinics and shops; small fisheries cooperatives exporting dried fish with hygienic processing; women-led salons and tailoring businesses formalizing, accessing loans and hiring apprentices. Those are granular shifts that could sum to macro change: broader tax bases, more formal employment, and social cohesion built around economic opportunity.

But the bigger question is political as well as economic: can locally driven, public-private partnerships like this be scaled and sustained amid Somalia’s volatile politics? And can young people, who are often the first to be disenfranchised, be integrated into the civic life of a nation rebuilding itself?

Those are ambitions far larger than any single project. Still, for a country with an abundance of coastline and an abundance of untapped youthful energy, the new UNDP–HSF initiative offers a practical answer to a universal question: how do you turn potential into livelihoods? The launch in Mogadishu was less a conclusion than an opening — a promise that will be judged by businesses started, jobs created, and the voices of young Somalis who find new paths forward.

By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.