WEALTH BREAKDOWN FOR HARGEISA CITY

[Liqaye]

WEALTH BREAKDOWN

 

The current wealth breakdown for Hargeisa was obtained through interviews with 40 groups of key informants throughout the city. The participants in these interviews included `elders', section leaders and members of the community (both men and women). Wealth breakdowns were also conducted in some of the focus group interviews with particular wealth groups. Wealth breakdowns were obtained for different parts of the city (`mixed' and `poor') and then merged using a working population figure of 375,000 for the town as a whole and, within this, 60,000 for the `poor' areas.8 The first two graphics below illustrate the wealth breakdowns that were obtained for the `mixed' and `poor' parts of the city. The third graphic is a summary for the city as a whole. None of the percentage figures in these graphics should be regarded as precise - each figure is within a range - which varies from one part of the town to another.

 

In a rural setting, wealth groups are usually defined by their main productive assets, be they livestock or land holdings. In an urban setting, this definition is less relevant because large percentages of the population do not have any productive assets other than their ability to trade (often with borrowed goods) and their own labour. Wealth groups are categorised primarily by their income levels below. Key informants found it most easy to describe income levels on a daily basis when distinguishing between different wealth groups. There were a number of additional characteristics that key informants used to distinguish between wealth groups, such as specific income-generating activities and type of housing. It was difficult for key informants to make general statements about the capital assets owned by particular wealth groups, although it was clear that the poor have few assets of any sort.

 

Households earning less than SlSh 25,0009 per day in February - March 2003 were generally regarded as `poor' and households above that level were considered to be `middle'. In some interviews, the boundary between the poor and middle was SlSh 20,000, but SlSh 25,000 was the more commonly mentioned figure. The definition of the `very poor' varied from one interview to the next. The destitute, who rely almost entirely on begging or gifts from relatives and neighbours, are included within the `very poor' group, but there are also some active households10 within this group. Key informants spoke of active very poor households earning SlSh 5-10,000 per day, but once all income sources (including gifts and irregular income) were explored, these households usually ended up in the SlSh 10-15,000 per day range.

 

Defining the boundary between the `middle' and `better off' was not straightforward and key informant opinions on this varied. Some said that any household earning more than US$10 (about SlSh 67,000) per day was better off. Others said that the better off group started above US$15 (about SlSh 100,000) per day, and others still said that the boundary was somewhere in between these two figures. The team has used a cut off point of SlSh 80,000 per day (or approximately US$12).

 

In the `poor' areas of Hargeisa town (primarily the `camps' or resettlement areas), there is a much larger percentage of households falling into the very poor and poor wealth groups than in the `mixed' areas, and the percentage of households in the better off group is very small or non-existent. In the `mixed' areas, the middle is the largest wealth group, representing just over half of households. The overall wealth breakdown for Hargeisa looks more like the `mixed' area wealth breakdown than the one for the `poor' areas because of the estimated percentage of households residing in these areas of town.

 

Although the average household size for Hargeisa is roughly 7-8, at each income level it is obviously easier for smaller households to manage than households with large numbers of children. The dependency ratio within a household (the ratio of income-earning able-bodied adults to inactive children or elderly people) is a key determinant of standard of living at any given income level. But because it is very difficult for large families to live on very low incomes, families at the lower end of the income scale often send some of their children to live with relatives. The team found that households at the bottom of the wealth spectrum are smaller than those at higher levels. In this analysis, an average household size of 7 is used for the active very poor and poor, 8 for the middle and 10 for the better off. This is because middle and better off households attract additional extended family members and often have domestic staff residing with them. Destitute households tend to be smaller than the active very poor and poor (with perhaps 4-5 members