Soviet funding drove most Somali infrastructure projects in the early 1960s

Evidence

Public Works was the lead ministry in expanding the nation’s extremely modest infrastructure. It managed many development projects, mostly funded by the USSR. These activities required administrative capacity well beyond that of the ministry. Hussen met with the only foreign consultant, a British citizen, and reassigned him to work as an operation officer, a responsibility more in the thicket of everyday activities. Next Hussen conferred with the Soviet ambassador and the Russian technical advisor to the projects in Somalia. He impressed on them that the operation officer of the ministry, despite his British nationality, was to be seen as a critical figure in the implementation of projects under the ministry’s purview. — Abdi Ismail Samatar, Africa’s First Democrats, 715