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Somalia ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, 1960-69
At independence the Somali economy was at a near subsistence
level, and the new state lacked the administrative capacity to
collect taxes from subsistence herders and farmers. The state
could rely on the customs taxes from international trade, which
were easier to collect, but tariffs failed to meet the needs of a
government with ambitious development goals. Somalia therefore
relied on Italian and British subsidies, which funded about 31
percent of the new nation's current budget in the first three
years of independence.
Somalia also received grants and loans from countries in the
East and the West, which made possible the articulation of an
ambitious development plan by 1963. A five-year plan with a
budget of more than US$100 million in grants and loans, it
focused on investment in infrastructure. The plan's thesis was
that plantation crops and livestock exports would increase if
there were better roads, transportation facilities, ports, and
irrigation works. Another large investment was made in the
creation of model farms to attract farmers from around the
country, who would learn improved techniques to apply on their
own farms. Model farms in Baidoa in the Bay Region, Afgooye near
Mogadishu, and Tog Wajaale, west of Hargeysa, were established
during this period.
In the pastoral sector, the Livestock Development Agency,
formed in 1965-66, emphasized veterinary services, the provision
of water and of holding grounds for cattle while they were
undergoing inoculation, and transportation. Somali pastoralists
responded with enthusiasm to the prospects for wealth by entering
the international market for livestock. In the early 1960s, the
value and number of exported livestock approximately doubled, and
livestock soon surpassed bananas as Somalia's leading export.
There were therefore some notable successes among Somalia's
early development projects. The nation became nearly selfsufficient in sugar, and banana exports grew, albeit haltingly.
Livestock exports increased, and investments in roads and
irrigation facilities resulted in some genuine improvements.
But the 1960s also yielded great disillusionment. The country
could not overcome its dependence on foreign assistance, even to
meet its current budget. Moreover, imports of foreign grains
increased rapidly, indicating that the agricultural sector was
not meeting the needs of the growing urban population. The modern
agricultural techniques of state farms had little influence on
traditional farming practices. Because of a boom in livestock
export from Hargeysa, cows, goats, and camels were becoming
concentrated in northern Somalia, much to the detriment of
rangelands. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
foresaw the dire effects of the 1974 drought in a 1967 report
that noted the severe range deterioration. Finally, and perhaps
most important, many Somalis were enervated by the feeling that
political incumbents, through electoral manipulations, were
squandering the nation's economic resources for their private
benefit
(see The Igaal Government
, ch. 1).
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