Determinants of Poverty in Somalia: a Household Level Analysis

Abstract

The current set of 17 interconnected Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) puts poverty eradication as its top objective by 2030 because it continues to be one of the multidimensional-complex issues in the 21st-century world. Less-developed and developing countries, in particular, confront poverty laboriously and have developed several policy initiatives over time aiming to lower its effects. Poverty rate in Somalia is widespread, deep, and has persisted over a long-time. The economy of Somalia is recuperating from civil war and decades of conflict and still faces many threats that contribute to its high poverty level. Considering that, this paper aimed to assess the main national determinants of household poverty in Somalia and why some households are not poor or poor, while others live in extreme poverty. The study employed a logit and an ordered logit models in the analysis of the 2017/18 Somali High-Frequency Survey wave 2 (SHFS-W2) data. From the logit model, the paper found that household poverty in Somalia is more pronounced in households; headed by illiterate-females, do not have at least one economically active household member, lack electricity and public transport, do not receive remittances, drink water from public taps and/or an unprotected well/spring, live far away from a health center, and use an open pit latrine toilet facility. From the findings of all categories of the ordered logit model, the study concluded that some of the characteristics found to significantly lower household poverty include literacy of the household head, small household size, access to public transport, having electricity and at least one economically active household member, main sources of income from agriculture and small family business, receiving remittances, drinking from a piped water tap, living near a health center, and having a toilet facility with a sewer system. This study recommends strategies that promote female education, connect more households to electricity, avail clean drinking water taps, basic health, and road infrastructure to remote households that are in deepest states of poverty. Finally, the study urges investments in the agricultural sector and making access of financial and other resources inclusive for small businesses.