VERY INTERESTING: SOMALILAND

 Hello ladies and gents this is the Viking telling you that today we are talking about

UNIQUE FACTS ABOUT SOMALILAND

Somaliland is a very unique and peculiar place. For one, it is not even a recognized country. So when talking about it it pays to really understand some facts about Somaliland that make it such a fascinating place.

Let’s look at some Somaliland facts below and find out more about traveling and discovering this destination.

1. Somaliland was an internationally-recognised country for 5 days

Despite the local government’s declaration of independence in 1991, Somaliland is not an internationally recognised country. It is a self-declared republic that has been seeking recognition since.

What makes this most interesting is that, for a brief period of five days in 1960, when Somaliland became independent from the UK, the country existed as an independent state. However, it then agreed to join the rest of Somalia who had been under Italian rule until then to form a greater Somalia.

Constitutional promises made by the south were never fulfilled and the central government of Somalia proceeded to crush and oppress the Somaliland clans and population, taking unfavorable decisions that benefited Mogadishu. Eventually, when Bare’s regime collapsed in 1991, Somaliland took the opportunity to grab independence again.

Despite the complete lack of international aid, World Bank support and budgets to manage a new country, Somaliland has managed to nurture its own government, parliament, Constitution, elections, rule of law and army. The last elections took place in November 2017 and were considered democratic and peaceful.

Because the country is not recognised, neither is its passport. The Somaliland passport looks the part and has everything to be an official passport but you can’t have a passport from a country that does not exist.

Somalilanders are officially Somali citizens and so need to obtain a passport from the central government to travel internationally, although Djibouti and Ethiopia are said to let Somalilanders travel with their passport together with Belgium, the UK, France, Kenya, South Africa, South Sudan and, since early 2018, the UAE.

2. Unrecognised but safe

Despite lacking official recognition by any country, Somaliland is one of the most stable and democratic parts of the war-ridden Horn of Africa. I wrote a post about Safety in Somaliland specifically to address the topic.

As opposed to unstable and terrorist fuelled Somalia, Somaliland has not seen any terrorist attack since 2008 and crime is low. Tourists are required to be escorted by the Special Police Unit (SPU) in Hargeisa for any travels outside of the city and should be accompanied at all times. I did not feel like the police escort was going to risk his life for us but it did help in crowded places when we were getting too much attention or aggressive looks from the locals.

Although the low crime and lack of terrorist attacks may appease some people’s fears, you may still not feel fully safe as the situation could change anytime if Al Shabab decided to attack the north or the war in the rest of Somalia expanded. Safety in Somaliland seems to be pretty guaranteed at the moment.

This relative safety makes Somaliland the prime destination for those seeking to visit all the countries in the world, but is still not enough of a reassurance for the majority of the population to embark on a trip to this unrecognised state. Somaliland, together with the rest of Somalia, is at the top of the list of the least visited countries in the world.

3. Pay electronically or be a millionaire

I spent a long time working in Africa with telecom companies so I know that mobile payments are pervasive and help bridge the gap between urban and rural areas. In Somaliland, mobile payments are so important that they are estimated to account for half of the transactions and they are made in US Dollars.

While this may sound strange, there are a few reasons why this makes a lot of sense. Firstly, the Somali currency, the Shilling, is constantly devalued and suffers from inflation. So it is less and less valuable every day.

Secondly, the amount of counterfeit Shilling is so high that the World Bank estimates 98% of the currency is fake.

Thirdly, the exchange rate of the Shilling is about 8,000 per US Dollar so you only need to exchange 100 US Dollar to become an instant millionaire.

And lastly, the most common currency denomination is the 1,000 Shilling so you need to carry a bucket load of notes every time you need to pay for something more than a coffee. Seeing wheelbarrows full of stacks of cash around the Hargeisa market is not unusual.

All of the above creates the perfect ground for an electronic, US Dollar based mobile payment system to thrive. And thrive it has. Around the country you can see small khat sellers and street vendors receiving small payments with the local mobile payment systems, Zaad or e-Dahab.

What do they do with all that electronic cash in US Dollars? They go to the money market and exchange it for Shilling, if they need local currency.

The money changers display their goods on the floor, like any other seller, only in their case, we are talking about money, stacks of it amounting to $20,000 in the local currency. And just exchange whatever you need it for. How do they get it out? They then go to the telco companies who offer the service and cash out the US Dollars.

And as always have a chilled day from the Viking