Health, Islam and Alternative Capitalism. Three possible Key Factors in Developing Somaliland

The main aim of this paper is to investigate the socio, political and economic dynamics that have occurred in Somaliland in the last decades. Even though this country is still unrecognized by the international community, Somaliland’s economy has undertaken an enduring growth, above all in the private entrepreneurial sector. The author argues that religion has had an important role in the Somali cultural and social identification. According to this assumption, the article analyzes the Islamic factor by showing how it has led to the creation of many alternative connections supported by mutual trust and religious solidarity among involved communities. These connections are somehow fulfilling the absence of political legitimacy while progressively substituting conventional routes of intra-national negotiation, like diplomacy. To confirm this tendency, specific arguments are drawn from Somaliland’s health sector. The health care system is considered a preferential index to evaluate the level of national development. Above all, the private non-profit sector gives some evidence of the Somali capacity of running competitive private businesses while multiplying simultaneously their resources and suppliers with a consequent increase in autonomy and efficiency. This successful compromise bears the fruits of Somali engagement and can be identified by their inexhaustible adaptability to adverse conditions and their ability to avoid, not deny, the rational rules imposed by external actors and their ostensible, insurmountable interests.