Where Khat Is King, But Not Much Else Works

On an expedition to the field to survey water and sanitation needs, I went to peek into the dry wells in a camp for displaced former residents of Mogadishu. The women there immediately surrounded me, shaking their empty jerry cans. I didn't need an interpreter; I knew what they wanted.

Later, I met with the head of the camp committee, who complained about the lack of school and health facilities for the displaced. As he gesticulated toward the camp, I noted that he was holding a cellphone better than the one I'd just bought to accommodate our many clan-correct SIM cards.

It struck me as ironic, because I assumed that this man earned his income in a camp for the displaced. But he set me straight -- most of his income consists of money transfers from his wife, a refugee in Nairobi. Remittances from abroad are in fact the main source of income for countless Somalis, and the transfers work amazingly well. A 2004 World Bank study on Somalia, aptly titled "Anarchy and Invention," reports: "The hawala system, a trust-based money transfer system, used in many Muslim countries, moves US$0.5--1 billion into Somalia every year."

If Somalis can deliver khat on time, establish a nationwide cellphone system to coordinate its delivery and set up a functioning money-transfer system, why can't they bring water to their taps and build latrines for their people? It would be too easy to blame these failures on the effects of khat.

Reconstruction and development would require a minimum of unity and reconciliation. But is that possible among Somalis? More than a month ago, 1,300 delegates, clan elders and warlords from various parts of the country came together in Mogadishu. Their reconciliation mega-conference is still going on, but the main effect so far appears to have been a sharp increase in violence in the capital and a resulting exodus on an order not seen since the days of Barre's dictatorship.

A failed state doesn't fail because of khat-munching alone.

anna.husarska@theIRC.org

Anna Husarska is senior policy adviser with the International Rescue Committee.