Surroundings in Somalia

Rapid urban growth, displacement and return movements place pressure on water supply, sanitation, waste collection, drainage, energy and public space. Informal or contested land arrangements and unequal service access can separate neighboring communities. Municipalities and district administrations handle many local planning and service tasks, while federal and state authorities set policies, standards or environmental rules. Private electricity and water companies, NGOs, United Nations agencies, community-based organizations and customary or lineage systems fill many practical gaps. Somalia has no uniform nationwide level of municipal surroundings services, and access often depends on locality, security, payment capacity and project funding. Water and sanitation remain central concerns. In 2022, 58% of the population had at least basic drinking-water access, 41% had at least basic sanitation, 33% had safely managed sanitation, and 25% had basic handwashing facilities; 21% practiced open defecation. Households and communities may rely on public taps, boreholes, wells, pipelines, private vendors, water trucking, rainwater or seasonal sources. Drought, over-extraction, unreliable rainfall, flooding and waste contamination affect reliability and quality. Private water supply is often costly and weakly regulated. Emergency water and sanitation measures can take days or weeks, while boreholes, storage and network improvements usually require multi-year projects. Somalia has no nationwide electricity network. Fragmented private small-scale electricity networks, mostly diesel-powered with some solar or wind hybrids, provide much of the available supply. Estimates differ by dataset: around 50% of the population has electricity access nationally, compared with about 70% in urban areas and 32% in rural areas; roughly 62% of households have some access, while about one third use flashlights. Prices commonly range from USD 0.25 to USD 1.30 per kilowatt-hour, with a weighted estimate of about USD 0.61. Payment capacity, distance from a provider and last-mile infrastructure affect access. Waste collection, sewerage and recycling are not available through a nationwide system. Municipal, private and community collection exists in some places, while open dumping, burning and waste blocking drainage remain problems. The 2024 Environmental Protection and Management Act establishes waste minimization and recycling principles, prohibits solid-waste pollution, controls hazardous waste and applies polluter-pays and restoration principles. The Ministry of Environment and Climate Change leads national environmental work, and state environment authorities and municipalities share implementation and enforcement roles. The Ministry of Energy and Water Resources leads water and energy policy, standards, tariffs and technical capacity, with state and local bodies carrying out additional functions. Household biomass and charcoal, firewood, diesel use and outdoor pollution contribute to air-pollution exposure. The environmental law provides for ambient and occupational air-quality standards, emission controls and monitoring, but continuous local monitoring coverage has not been established nationwide. Clean cooking, solar systems, liquefied petroleum gas and other distributed-energy solutions provide functional alternatives, although affordability limits their reach. Noise and vibration standards, measurement criteria and source controls also exist in law, but Somalia has no nationwide noise map or verified universal complaint and measurement network. Green and public spaces include urban parks, shaded paths, beachfront regeneration, community gardens, ponds, wetlands, riparian buffers and nature-based flood measures. Somalia has no identified nationwide green-space entitlement or uniform municipal standard. A Berbera Batalaale pilot included pedestrian paths, shade, benches, a playground, an outdoor gym and solar lights, showing how locally funded projects can improve public use and heat resilience. Coastal and marine areas face erosion, oil pollution, waste dumping, municipal wastewater and settlement growth. The environmental law covers pollution affecting water, rivers, wetlands and marine and coastal zones, but no universal household complaint or remediation pathway has been evidenced. Safety depends strongly on place, time and current security conditions. Conflict, displacement and limited state presence outside urban centers affect access to public spaces and services. Community policing, local security assessments, customary conflict-resolution mechanisms, solar streetlights and rehabilitated police or social infrastructure can support safer surroundings. Women, children and internally displaced people often receive priority in safety and service interventions, but access remains highly locality-dependent. People can contribute through environmental consultations, town halls, focus groups, interactive mapping, community action plans, urban profiling and consultations with community organizations, elders, women and youth. The legal framework recognizes access to official environmental information and requires an Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) for projects with substantial environmental impacts. Participation is usually tied to a project or institution rather than a single nationwide channel, and travel, time, insecurity, gender and local power differences can limit involvement. Climate and spatial change affect nearly every part of the surroundings. Drought, floods, heat, coastal degradation, displacement and urban sprawl drive demand for resilient water systems, drainage, distributed renewable energy, clean cooking, waste reform, urban parks, natural buffers and early-warning systems. The National Transformation Plan 2025–2029, the National Adaptation Plan 2026–2030 and Somalia's NDC 3.0 submitted in 2025 provide policy direction. A UNDP and Global Environment Facility urban-resilience project planned for 2026–2030 covers 17 cities, but implementation capacity, finance and enforcement remain uneven.