Somalia begins national consultation workshop to finalize 2025–2030 Digital Transformation Strategy

Somalia’s Digital Pivot: A Two-Day Workshop With Long-Term Stakes

On a quiet Sunday in Mogadishu, in a hotel meeting room that could be anywhere in the world, Somalia’s tech regulators and telecom bosses sat down with United Nations experts to sketch out how the country will go digital—properly, and for good. The agenda was modest on paper: a two-day national consultation to validate Somalia’s Digital Transformation Strategy for 2025–2030. The stakes are anything but.

Somalia’s new digital strategy is not just another planning document. It is an attempt to harness what’s already happening on the streets and in the markets—where a street-side tea seller is as likely to flash a QR code as to handle a fistful of shillings—and to extend that promise to schools, clinics and public services that have long struggled to reach the people they’re supposed to serve.

“It highlights the power of strong partnerships between government, the private sector, and development partners,” said NCA Director General Mustafa Yasin Sheikh, framing the plan as a joint project rather than a top-down decree. Mustafa Almahdi, of the ITU’s Arab Regional Office, pledged continued support for the effort, while Somalia’s communications minister, Mohamed Adan Moallim Ali, cast the blueprint as a national framework for every ICT initiative that comes next.

Leapfrogging from the margins

Somalia is often described as one of the most cashless economies on Earth. Anyone who’s bought a minibus ticket in Mogadishu or paid school fees in Hargeisa knows why: mobile money has become the bloodstream of daily life. Studies by the World Bank and GSMA have repeatedly ranked the country among the world’s most mobile-money-reliant societies. Hawala networks, diaspora remittances, and a resilient telecom sector—rebuilt from the ruins of war—accelerated this shift, turning phones into lifelines.

This is leapfrogging born of necessity. A national banking system frayed by conflict left a vacuum that telecoms filled. Fiber connections via regional submarine cables have gradually improved bandwidth, spurring e-commerce and education platforms. When a major cable cut plunged the country into a weeks-long internet blackout in 2017, it was a stark reminder: connectivity isn’t a luxury here; it’s oxygen for commerce and family remittances.

Now comes the harder part—moving from grassroots ingenuity to public systems that can scale, interoperate and protect people. A strategy that merely celebrates mobile wallets won’t be enough. Somalia needs digital identity, secure data handling, reliable power, and rules that telecom firms and startups understand and can trust.

What this strategy is trying to solve

From conversations with officials and the document’s outline, several priorities stand out:

• Governance: Clear roles for regulators, ministries, and federal member states, so ICT policy isn’t pulled in seven directions at once.
• Infrastructure: Reliable, redundant connectivity—urban and rural—with attention to fiber resilience, last-mile coverage, and affordable data.
• Inclusion: Closing the digital gender gap and reaching displaced communities and rural areas, where devices, literacy, and electricity can’t be taken for granted.
• Digital government: Moving key services—civil registry, licensing, health records—online, with one-stop citizen portals and strong authentication.
• Private-sector innovation: Sandboxes and open APIs to help Somali startups plug into payments, logistics and identity safely and cheaply.
• Trust and security: Data protection, cyber incident response, consumer protections and SIM registration that respect privacy while combating fraud.
• Regional alignment: Somalia joined the East African Community in 2023; joining its digital single market ambitions requires compatible spectrum, roaming, and data rules. The African Union’s digital agenda provides another anchor.

Politics, power and public trust

The technical roadmap is the easy part. The real stress test will be political: whether federal ministries and member states can coordinate, and whether citizens trust public digital systems enough to use them. A robust national ID—under pilot in recent years—could underpin payments, voting rolls, and social protection. But if people suspect it’s a tool for surveillance, or if enrollment is patchy, the whole edifice wobbles.

There’s a fine balance to strike on SIM registration and KYC rules too. Over-regulate, and you risk cutting off people who depend on remittances and day-to-day mobile cash flows; under-regulate, and you invite money laundering and fraud. That tension isn’t unique to Somalia. But the consequences here can be existential, because substitutes are limited.

Another constraint is power—literally. Reliable electricity comes dear in many parts of the country. You can roll out 4G and cloud platforms, but if small shops and schools can’t keep devices charged, the digital promise frays. That’s why a smart strategy in 2025 must include off-grid solutions and climate resilience; one flash flood can knock out a tower and isolate a district.

Where the money will come from

Funding can make or break five-year plans. Somalia’s strategy nods to “funding mechanisms,” donor partnerships, and private capital. The details matter. Blended finance can work for backbone infrastructure; universal service funds can push coverage to marginal areas; targeted grants can help local entrepreneurs solve local problems—in Somali, for Somali users. But money without measurable outcomes tends to melt in the heat of good intentions.

One encouraging trend is the creativity of Somali tech founders—from logistics apps to micro-insurance—who’ve built for low-data, low-trust environments. Give them predictable rules, fair taxes, and modern payment rails, and they’ll do as much to digitize the country as any ministry can.

Why this matters beyond Somalia

Somalia’s experiment is bigger than Somalia. If a country that has endured three decades of conflict can build a functioning digital state on the back of private mobile money and public buy-in, it challenges assumptions about how development works. It suggests that leapfrogging isn’t just a buzzword; it’s a real path, provided rules and rights keep pace.

There’s also a regional dividend in play. The East African Community is edging toward a common market for data and digital services; joint spectrum policy, lower roaming costs, and cross-border payments could lower costs for Somali consumers and expand markets for Somali firms. Aligning with African Union standards can draw in investment and lower the risk of balkanized systems that can’t talk to each other.

What to watch by 2030

• Digital ID and civil registry: Does enrollment reach women, nomadic populations, and displaced families? Are privacy safeguards real?
• Spectrum and 5G: Clear, credible auctions and coverage obligations can keep prices fair while expanding capacity.
• Cyber readiness: Incidents will happen. The test is whether Somalia stands up a 24/7 response, shares threat intel, and protects critical infrastructure.
• Interoperable payments: Will a merchant in Kismayo accept a transfer from any wallet, instantly and cheaply? Will fees stay low for the poorest?
• E-government that works: If getting a driver’s license or a school certificate is faster online than in line, trust follows.
• Local language content and AI: Somali-language interfaces, voice tools, and education platforms will decide who is included.

By the time this two-day workshop wraps, there will be a slicker slide deck and a cleaner roadmap. The real measure will come later, at a clinic that can pull up a patient’s records on a tablet, at a border where trucks cross with one e-document, and at that tea stall, where a teenager pays for a glass of shaah with a tap and thinks nothing of it. The question for Somalia—and for partners cheering from the sidelines—isn’t whether to go digital. It’s whether the country can build digital systems that earn trust, lower costs, and survive the shocks that are sure to come.

Those aren’t questions a workshop can answer. But it can set the tone: careful, inclusive, and pragmatic. And that’s a decent place to start.

By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.