Somalia Improves in Global Peace Index, Still Ranks Near the Bottom

Somalia inches up the Global Peace Index — but the peace dividend remains out of reach

In Mogadishu, markets open before sunrise, as vendors arrange tomatoes beneath corrugated roofs and scan their phones for security alerts with the same routine as checking prices. That small, practiced caution has defined Somali life for a generation. This week, a global metric offered a sliver of encouragement: Somalia has improved slightly on the 2025 Global Peace Index, edging to 151st out of 163 with a score of 2.983 — its first dip below 3.0 in nearly two decades.

It is progress, and it matters. But it’s also fragile — the kind of step forward that’s easy to miss if you’re not looking closely, and easy to reverse if pressure eases. For Somalis, and for the broader Horn of Africa, the question is not whether the country can climb a rankings table. It’s whether these incremental gains can be converted into daily safety, functioning institutions, and a real economic payoff — the “peace dividend” that has eluded so many post-conflict societies.

A long, uneven climb from the bottom

Somalia’s trajectory on the Global Peace Index (GPI) traces a story many in the country know by heart. Tracked since 2008, Somalia sank toward the bottom of the list during the height of the insurgency, reaching 162nd in 2012. Since then, the fight has shifted away from all-out urban warfare toward a more diffuse, grinding insurgency. The IEP, the Sydney-based institute behind the index, says fatalities dropped by more than 70 percent in 2023 compared with the year before, following offensives launched in 2022 by government forces and allied community militias.

That’s one reason the overall score improved from 3.023 to 2.983 this year. Yet the country remains just outside the world’s 10 least peaceful states — ahead of Burkina Faso, Mali and South Sudan, but behind Nigeria and the Central African Republic. Only war-scarred nations like Yemen, Afghanistan, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo score worse. For a government that has campaigned on restoring security and reining in al‑Shabaab, the rankings are a sober reminder of how far there is to go.

What the numbers are really saying

The GPI measures three broad areas: societal safety and security, ongoing conflict, and militarisation. Somalia’s breakdown helps explain the disconnect between modest improvements and a still-tense reality:

• Safety and security: 3.134 — little change, reflecting persistent terrorism, displacement, and frail policing.
• Ongoing conflict: 3.542 — a modest improvement in line with falling fatalities, but insurgent capability remains.
• Militarisation: 1.811 — seemingly “better,” but largely because of limited defense capacity and spending, not because the security environment is safe.

That last point is easy to misread. In a country where the state is still rebuilding, a lower militarisation score does not mean widespread demobilisation or reconciliation. It simply indicates that the military footprint — in budget and equipment — is relatively small. In practice, it can leave large pockets vulnerable, especially as African Union forces continue their phased drawdown and Somali units take on more front-line responsibility.

The heavy price of violence

Even incremental peace should be measurable not only in lives saved but in money freed for schools, clinics and roads. Somalia’s ledger remains punishing. The GPI estimates the cost of violence at 24.71 percent of national GDP in 2024 — among the six worst ratios in the world. Globally, violence drained $19.97 trillion last year, or 11.6 percent of GDP, roughly $2,455 per person. Since 2008, the bill for conflict-related deaths, GDP losses and displacement has more than tripled.

In Somalia, you see that cost in food prices that refuse to come down even when harvests improve, in transport surcharges that ripple from port to checkpoint to market, and in a national budget stretched thin. The World Bank’s 2020 Somalia Economic Update found that the security sector accounted for roughly one-third of federal spending in 2019 — about US $107 million — and nearly half the wage bill. Those proportions leave little room for health or education, the very sectors that help inoculate a young population against unemployment and radicalisation.

Somalis have a saying, “Nabadi waa nolol” — peace is life. It’s also the cheapest development program ever invented. When roads are open and predictable, remittances go further. When communities don’t fear night raids or roadside bombs, entrepreneurs return with risk capital. The index’s nudge upward hints at such possibilities — but it’s not the same as a functioning peace economy.

A region in flux

Somalia’s score of 2.983 compares unfavourably with its coastal neighbors — Kenya at 2.392 (127th) and Djibouti at 2.276 (122nd) — and only slightly better than South Sudan (3.117, 156th) and Mali (3.061, 154th). The Sub‑Saharan Africa regional average is 2.299; in other words, Somalia still lags the neighborhood. The region overall saw a 0.17 percent deterioration last year, driven by political unrest and terrorism in the Central Sahel. Three of the world’s 10 least peaceful countries are in Sub‑Saharan Africa, a stark indicator of how transnational threats — illicit arms flows, climate shocks, mercenary activity, and the spread of extremist groups — have blurred borders and battered institutions.

For Somalia, geography cuts both ways. A coastline that links Africa to the Gulf and beyond can be a highway for trade and a magnet for maritime insecurity. Cross-border clan, pastoral and commercial ties are a source of resilience — and occasionally tension — especially as droughts and floods force people to move. The arc from the Red Sea to the Great Lakes is being reshaped by shifting alliances, ports and logistics competition, and the militarisation of rivalries. Stability in Somalia is not just domestic policy; it’s regional statecraft.

Where could a real peace dividend come from?

Somalia’s incremental gains will matter most if they unlock investing in people. That begins with the basics: predictable security operations that protect civilians; justice and policing that are seen as fair; and a steady handover of duties from external missions to professional, accountable Somali forces. But it also depends on the “quiet” sectors that often get overshadowed by security headlines:

• Education and skills for a youth bulge that needs jobs, not just training certificates.
• Climate adaptation — from flood defenses to drought-resilient agriculture — so shocks don’t erase progress.
• Trade corridors that turn ports, roads and customs into engines of growth rather than tollbooths for predation.
• Local governance that channels clan authority into service delivery, not parallel sovereignties.

The government’s push to expand digital payments, clean up customs, and raise domestic revenues is part of that picture. So is deepening cooperation with neighbors and diaspora investors who have capital and a long view. Every time a Somali business can ship goods on schedule or a family can cross a district without bribing three roadblocks, the peace index’s data points become lived experience.

Reading the index — and reading the street

Global indices can miss nuance. They don’t tally the neighborhood committee that quietly mediates a land dispute. They can’t capture the confidence felt when a popular cafe reopens on a street long avoided. But the GPI’s message this year is both simple and sobering: Somalia is moving in the right direction, slowly; the space for progress exists; and the economic and human costs of failure are enormous.

That leaves a question for policymakers in Mogadishu and partners abroad: will the next 12 months deliver enough tangible safety and justice to turn a statistical improvement into trust? Because trust — not just territory retaken — is what ultimately crimps recruitment for armed groups, grows tax bases, and keeps kids in school. The index suggests it’s possible. Now comes the harder part: making peace routine.

By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.