By Goth Mohamed Goth
Hargeisa – The Vice President of the Republic of Somaliland and Acting President, H.E. Mohamed Ali Aw Abdi, took part today in a summit dedicated to the development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and cooperatives — a gathering centred on the contributions these businesses make to economic growth, employment generation, and the expansion of communities’ economic potential.
Held at the Hotel Serene Sarovar Premiere in Hargeisa, the summit drew together government ministers, agencies with mandates tied to trade and enterprise development, members of the national business community, representatives of cooperative societies, and delegates from a range of other civic groups. Discussions placed particular weight on widening the commercial opportunities open to small and medium-sized businesses and on building a durable framework through which they can steadily expand their output.
Participants also examined the obstacles confronting SMEs, the openings currently available to them, and practical routes to improving access to finance. Training and skills development featured prominently on the agenda, as did measures to reinforce cooperatives so that they might serve as a dependable pillar of community economic development.
Addressing the summit, the Vice President described small and medium-sized enterprises as an indispensable segment of the national economy, citing the outsized role they play in generating employment, strengthening domestic production, and stimulating economic activity within communities.
He further observed that cooperatives constitute a valuable mechanism for bringing communities together and pooling the economic resources of citizens — particularly those working in production, agriculture, livestock rearing, handicrafts, and a variety of service industries.
The Vice President emphasised that nurturing small and medium-sized enterprises is central to growing the community’s economy, creating jobs, and raising domestic output. He urged business owners to seize the opportunities before them and to organise collectively in pursuit of durable economic strength.
He concluded by reaffirming that the government remains firmly committed to encouraging and supporting small and medium-sized enterprises.
Wider Context and Analysis
The Hargeisa summit amounts to a notable policy statement from Somaliland’s leadership, signalling an explicit acknowledgment that small and medium-sized enterprises — together with cooperative structures — form the economic backbone of the territory. That the Vice President attended in his capacity as Acting President lent the event considerable political weight, lifting private-sector development to the upper reaches of the government’s agenda.
The format of the summit itself reflects a deliberately multi-stakeholder approach. By convening ministers, regulators, entrepreneurs, cooperative representatives, and civil society under a single roof, organisers sought to open a collaborative channel aimed at loosening the constraints that hold back SME growth. Access to finance stood out among these constraints — a long-standing difficulty in Somaliland, where formal bank lending remains scarce — alongside vocational training, institutional capacity-building, and the strengthening of cooperatives as economic actors.
The Vice President’s remarks drew attention to the dual character of SMEs: they are simultaneously engines of economic output and instruments of social empowerment. Beyond their contribution to GDP and employment, such enterprises are increasingly viewed as vehicles for grassroots development, especially in agriculture, livestock, crafts, and services — sectors where cooperatives can bring scattered individual producers together into more competitive units. His appeal to businesses to “organise collectively” hints at a policy preference for cooperative and associational models over isolated enterprise.
Seen more broadly, the summit fits into Somaliland’s continuing effort to present itself as a credible destination for trade and investment, notwithstanding its unresolved international status. Development economists generally treat a robust SME sector as a precondition for sustainable job creation in settings where the public sector is small and informal activity predominates. The government’s stated commitment to “encouraging” SMEs suggests that follow-up measures may be in the pipeline — potentially tax relief, streamlined registration, or dedicated credit lines.
That said, the value of such gatherings is ultimately measured in implementation. Stakeholders will be looking for concrete outcomes: whether the recommendations produced in Hargeisa are converted into programmes that reach enterprises well beyond the capital. The focus on cooperatives raises especially pointed questions about how the government intends to support these bodies in legal and financial terms, given that cooperative law and governance in Somaliland are still at an early stage of development.
Taken as a whole, the SME and Cooperatives Development Summit functions both as a forum for dialogue and as a gauge of the administration’s economic priorities. The Vice President’s presence underscores a desire to be seen as a partner to the private sector. Whether that partnership translates into tangible backing for the small businesses and cooperatives that underpin Somaliland’s economy remains the decisive question.
