Government by social media in Somalia

Thirty years ago, making a phone call from Somalia meant crossing the border into better-connected Kenya or Ethiopia. Yet by 2004 the lawless nation had more telephone connections per capita than any other east African country. Today, the Somali state is still fragile: insecurity is rife and government services are poor. But mobile data in Somalia is cheaper than in Britain, Finland or Japan—and the signal is good, too. Jethro Norman, a Mancunian anthropologist who does research in Somalia, says he gets better mobile coverage in some of the remotest parts of the country than he does in Manchester.

How has dysfunctional Somalia managed to develop such an outstanding telecoms network? The answer lies in the state’s very weakness. Three decades of chaos and conflict have forced hundreds of thousands of Somalis to flee their country. Those who have stayed depend on them: the diaspora sends home around $2bn a year, roughly double the government’s budget. An extensive phone network was needed to handle those vast remittance flows. In Somalia’s radical free market, the invisible hand did the rest. The upside of a lack of government is that there is no need to pay for licences or to bribe corrupt officials to get the job done.

If telecoms flourished at first in the absence of the state, cheap internet is now helping to replace it. A recent research paper by Mr Norman shows how clan-based WhatsApp groups are increasingly being used to crowdsource capital from “investors” in the diaspora, and then to co-ordinate the building of schools, hospitals and roads with the money that is raised.

Social media is filling in for the failing state in other ways, too. WhatsApp groups serve as virtual courts, for instance, where clan elders, rather than corrupt or distant judges, resolve disputes. These online groups have revenue-raising powers; members are required to make monthly contributions, which are then used to offer payments if someone is short of money, or as a kind of health insurance to pay if they or a family member are ill. Those who do not pay are blocked from the groups.

The rise of this WhatsAppocracy is not without its flaws. Hate speech that deepens clan conflict is common, particularly among the diaspora. And WhatsApp groups can raise money to buy guns as well as schools. Still, for now, governance via WhatsApp seems to beat rule by warlords. Somalis are making do with what they have.

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