Gedo - Economy

Economy

The most populous towns in Gedo are Bardera and Beled Haawo (Balad Xaawo or Buulo Xaawo). Beled Haawo is Gedo's commercial gateway as well as that of neighboring regions, while Bardera is Gedo's breadbasket. Agricultural products from Bardera's fertile lands, which include maize, potatoes, sorghum, tobacco, onions, sesame, fruits such as papayas, mangoes, watermelons and bananas, are shipped to many different parts of the country.

Commerce in the Gedo region is mostly dependent on two sectors: agriculture and livestock. A growing third sector is the services sector, mainly financial and telecommunications industries. Those who live on the fringes of district seats or outside of large cities such as Garbahaarreey, Bardera, Luuq and Beled Haawo, generally keep either a farm on the river banks or herds of sheep, camel or cattle. There are significant farmers around towns and cities alongside the Jubba River and this has made close to half of the region's population, city dwellers since the breakout of the civil war in 1991.

The economy mostly depends on livestock and farming but the Gedo region has strong interregional and international cross-border trade with Kenya and some extent with Ethiopia. Trade between Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia allowed the Gedo region to be econonomically stable for the years before the UN intervention and afterwards. 1998 Nordic Fact Finding Mission prepared a report in Gedo region and found some encouraging economic figures. Davidson College assistant professor, Keneth Menkhaus asserted that, "Traders in Gedo region made more profit than, for instance, those in Hargeisa, in north-western Somalia." Trade going through the border between the three countries were ongoing despite the raging civil war in Somalia for much of the 1990.

The town of Beled Hawo is the commercial gateway to Mogadishu and parts of Kenya. Large manufactured goods cross both sides of the border everyday going to and coming from the rest of Somalia. Buuloxaawo is part of Beled Hawo, Luuq, and Doolow Tri-District commerce activity region. Both Luuq and Doolow have sizable agriculture output.

The Gedo region is famous for its agricultural production in the south. The farming land is mostly concentrated in four towns and these are Doolow, Luuq, Buurdhuubo and Bardera. During the peace years, produce from Bardera farms used to reach as far north to Djibouti on the Gulf of Aden.