Economist: Nice beaches and good shopping. The rejuvenation of Somalia’s capital is a hopeful sign

[Carafaat]

http://www.economist.com/node/21556976 DESPITE the obvious risks, Badel Sheikh Mohamed is buying glass windows to replace the metal shutters on his print shop, Sign Jet, near the central K4 roundabout. It is a small act of faith in the future of the war-torn Somali capital that would have been unthinkable until recently. Inside, the printers are busier than ever before, turning out colourful hoardings to advertise new enterprises. Shopkeepers, restaurant owners, travel agents and remittance brokers are his best customers, many returning from abroad after decades in exile. Existing businesses have started to replace handwritten signs with laser-printed ones. “A year ago there was nothing opening,” Mr Sheikh Mohamed says, before warning against taking progress for granted in a city where war has long been the norm. “We think it will be peace and better than peace, but there’s no guarantee.”

 

Heavy bombing was always rare in Mogadishu but small-arms fire incessantly chiselled away at the city after the 1991 collapse of the central government under Mohamed Siad Barre, a socialist strongman. The destruction of buildings and roads is pretty comprehensive. And yet hope survived. It is ten months since Islamic militants, called the Shabab, withdrew their forces from the seaside capital in what they called a “tactical” retreat. In reality, they were chased out by an African Union force that has continued to push the al-Qaeda-affiliated group farther away from Mogadishu.

 

 

There are few official figures to illustrate the city’s economic revival but anecdotal evidence is compelling. Somalia’s largest money-transfer company, Dahabshiil, reports that financial flows into the capital have risen by 20% since the start of the year. Somalia’s splendidly durable currency has strengthened from 32,000 shillings to the dollar last September to 22,000 this month. Mogadishu’s airport, refurbished with Turkish aid, now receives up to three international flights a day rather than two per week. They are often overbooked. The influx of money and people has pushed up rents in the city threefold in the past six months.

 

Public markets are thriving. Italian pasta and Indian rice are sold alongside milk powder from Dubai and reminders of recent aid dependency in the form of cooking oil from the World Food Programme. Mogadishu’s gold traders, traditionally women, have returned to their corner of the Hamarweyne market, some in burkas and others in headscarves. According to Ambora Hassan, whose hennaed fingers are weighted down by the rings she is selling, peace has brought a flurry of weddings and thus new business. “Everyone who has gold is selling it so they can rebuild their homes,” she says. The price per gram has come down from $55 to $50 in heavy trading.

 

Signs of reconstruction abound. Parts of the city are cocooned in wooden scaffolding. Many off the buildings on the main Maka al-Mukarram avenue leading to parliament boast fresh concrete and loud new colours, with pink a favourite.

 

Metal posts along main roads, paid for with Norwegian aid, are awaiting new solar panels and lights. Mogadishu’s mayor, Mohamed Nur, says they will be switched on before the end of the month. He recently went to Nairobi, the capital of neighbouring Kenya, to see an exhibition called “Mogadishu Then and Now”, featuring vintage photographs of the city’s boulevards, mosques and cathedral before the fighting. For nearly two-thirds of the Somali population, those born after 1990, such black-and-white images are all they can know of the pre-war city—once ranked among Africa’s most attractive. “As well as security we needed a mental change,” said Mr Nur. “People believed nothing was possible. But Mogadishu can come back again the way it used to be.”

 

Although they no longer hold territory in the city, the Shabab have not gone away altogether. In April a suicide bomber killed ten people at the National Theatre just a short walk down a hill from the mayor’s heavily guarded residence. South and west of Mogadishu the extremists still control large chunks of territory. Security and commerce are undoubtedly improving in the liberated parts of the country. But even there politics remains tricky. The mandate for Somalia’s UN-backed transitional federal government expires in August after eight years of squabbling and rent-seeking.

 

A complex plan for replacing the government calls for a council of elders to choose a constituent assembly which would in turn ratify an interim constitution and appoint a leaner parliament with half as many members. The new MPs would then vote for a speaker and president in a “selection not election” process that lends itself to horse-trading or “outright banditry”, according to one close observer. Previous attempts at government reform were hijacked by greedy influence-peddlers. The rivalry between the current president, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, and the parliamentary speaker, Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden, complicates things further. Under the “two Sharifs” the government has misplaced $120m in aid money in the past two years alone, according to a recent World Bank report.

 

But for once the international political momentum is working in Somalia’s favour. Johnnie Carson, America’s assistant secretary of state for African affairs, came to Mogadishu on June 10th for the first visit by a senior American official since the 1980s. He warned that “spoilers” would face sanctions if they held up the political transition. On his next visit Mr Carson ought to see the city’s Lido beach. Long a no-go area, it now draws big crowds after Friday prayers. The sand and surf are filled with people. Girls in full dress splash about next to boys who have put down their guns to learn to swim.

[Wiil Cusub]

At last good news from Mogadisho. ALLE ha ugu wado.

[Wadani]

^ Ameen

[Carafaat]

Indeed maanshallah. I booked my ticket, can't wait to see the city again.