# 1. Introduction and related literature

Somalia gained independence in 1960. The collapse of Siad Barre’s post‐independence regime in 1991 led to civil war between local power factions and dismantled the central state completely. Between 1995 and 2000, regional administrations emerged across the country, as security improved and economic development accelerated.<sup>2</sup> The formation of the Transitional Federal Government in 2004 and of its successor, the Federal Government of Somalia, in 2012 marked the return of a significant central state institution. After peaceful elections in 2016, a new government was formed in 2017 committed to embark on a development trajectory (World Bank, 2017).

Though Somalia remains one of the world’s poorest countries (World Bank, 2016a, 2015), a vibrant but largely informal private sector sprouted in the absence of government, drove growth in the Somali economy, and took on the provision of services. Several economic activities including telecommunications, money transfer businesses, livestock exports, and localized electricity services grew well during this period (World Bank, 2017). Large‐scale out‐migration of skilled Somalis who sent back part of their earnings made diaspora remittances essential to the Somali economy, equivalent to between 23 and 38 percent of GDP and outweighing both international aid flows and foreign direct investment (World Bank, 2015).

Despite improvements in political stability, Somalia remains fragile. Parts of southern Somalia are inaccessible due to the presence of Al‐Shabaab, which also repeatedly carried out terroristic attacks, and violent clashes between various power factions continue to occur throughout the territory.<sup>3</sup> In addition to conflict, the cyclical El Nino phenomenon caused severe droughts in 1991/92, 2011/12, and 2016/17 which exacerbated preexisting vulnerabilities in the Somali population. Both conflict and drought have led to large‐scale internal displacement (World Bank, 2018a). The recent 2016/17 drought led to the displacement of approximately one million Somalis, adding to an existing population of internally displaced persons of 1.1 million (UNHCR, 2018).

As is typical for fragile states, Somalia is highly data‐deprived, leaving policy makers to operate in a statistical vacuum (Beegle et al., 2016). Specifically, years of civil war and ongoing conflict have eroded Somalia’s statistical infrastructure and capacity, leading to the lack of key macro‐ and micro‐economic indicators, including the poverty rate (Hoogeveen and Nguyen, 2017). The government conducted and published the last full population census in 1975, while Somalia Socioeconomic Survey of 2002 was the last country‐wide household survey (UNFPA, 2014). Most recent existing data sources are local FSNAU and FAO food and nutrition surveys, while organizations operating within Somalia implemented a range of smaller surveys. In 2014, UNFPA implemented the first nationwide Population Estimation Survey (PESS) in preparation for a national census, finding the total population to be 12.3 million, of which 42 percent are urban, 23 percent rural, 26 percent nomadic, and 9 percent are internally displaced (UNFPA, 2014).

Funded by the World Bank, Somaliland carried out a household budget survey (SLHS) in 2013, which generated much‐needed indicators, including poverty estimates, but the sample was not representative especially for the rural population and did not cover the nomadic and displaced populations. The World Bank conducted the first wave of the Somali High Frequency Survey (SHFS) in the spring of 2016, representative of the accessible urban, rural, and IDP population in 9 of 18 prewar regions as well as

> 2 Somaliland self‐declared independence in 1991.

> 3 See the Armed Conflict Location and Events Database (ACLED), Somalia, for a disaggregated overview.

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