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Paper short abstract:

This paper traces the history of Somaliland’s post-war electricity infrastructure from 1991 to the mid-2010s, tracing how private businesses established an electricity grid for Hargeisa after the city's infrastructure was destroyed.

Paper long abstract:

This paper traces the history of Somaliland’s post-war electricity infrastructure from 1991 to the mid-2010s, tracing how private businesses established an electricity grid for Hargeisa after the city's infrastructure was destroyed. At first, a highly fragmented makeshift system of provision developed, based upon small, limited grids supplied by diesel engines. Over time, micro-grids merged, and the geography, economy and politics of electricity provision in the city was reshaped. By documenting the history of the city’s electricity network, I examine how local companies in Somaliland's electricity sector mobilized local connections and transnational ties to protect their market power and status as service providers. I examine how companies on the one hand worked to delegitimize potential new entrants to the market while maneuvering to ensure their own access to globally sourced finance and expertise. By altering their corporate structure, merging, and asserting the importance of actively proving commitment to local communities, successful companies worked to ensure donor and investor capital was used to further embed their power as locally grounded entities. Amidst the contemporary focus on foreign investments in the electricity sector across the African continent, my paper assesses the importance of electricity's multidimensional status as a public service, a commodity, and part of an infrastructural base in shaping capital flows into electricity markets.