Frontier Economy Spotlight - Scaling Partnerships in Somalia for Innovation
On February 27th, 2020, the Response Innovation Lab (RIL), along with the SomReP and BRCiS consortiums co-hosted a session at the Sankalp Forum’s 7th Africa Summit in Nairobi, Kenya. The session showcased that despite the challenges in Somalia, there are many opportunities for innovation, partnership, and investment.
The Sankalp Forum brought together an esteemed panel that shared first-hand experiences from the private sector to public-private partnerships, from mature and growing businesses to new opportunities that are entering into the market.
Over the past 30 years, the country of 15 million people has experienced a collapse of many of its key GDP contributing sectors, such as agriculture. Recurrent shocks including droughts and conflict compromise community resilience and livelihoods. At the same time, Somalis pay some of the highest prices in the world for energy and other necessary inputs to meet basic needs and foster economic growth, including in the agricultural sector. How have these needs been met, why are current practices unsustainable, and what is missing in the country/broader ecosystem?
This panel will showcase select innovations in agriculture, pastoralism, and energy while asking the innovators and entrepreneurs to reflect on how they have built national and international partnerships for scaling their critical solutions to Somalia’s development challenges.
