An Investigation of Road Construction Project Delays in Somalia

Author : Mohamed Abdirahman Abdullahi, Yoshita Kajita

Abstract :Somalia has faced many road construction problems since the central government collapsed. Road construction in Somalia suffers from chronic delays that exacerbate infrastructure gaps and stall economic recovery. The government of Somalia lacked the financial capacity to build or maintain roads during the civil war. Consequently, they sought international organizations and governments to finance the main roads, thereby providing access to the people and facilitating travel to their destinations. This study aims to identify and rank the primary causes of road construction delays in Somalia, involving stakeholders through a survey of 55 potential causes. The data was collected from the client/government, consultants, contractors, and external sources. We analyzed the data using IBM SPSS v27, descriptive statistics, frequency, and percentages, and ranked them using the Relative Importance Index (RII). The key findings are inadequate data collection before the design, lack of funding, weather-related issues such as flooding, poor communication and coordination among all partners, political interference, delayed payments, corruption, and security challenges. Based on those results, we highly recommend capacity building for workers, improving coordination among stakeholders, adopting a transparent tendering process, and prioritizing the project timeline to account for seasonal rains to speed project delivery.

Keywords :Road construction, Somalia, delay, stakeholder, relative importance index RII.

Conference Name :International Conference on Transport and Road Research (ICTRR-25)

Conference Place Doha,Qatar

Conference Date 8th Dec 2025