The current world economic structure created by the advanced nations in their bid to achieve their
imperialistic desires led to the division of the world into the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’, the latter been
where Africa belongs to despite been blessed with abundant human and material resources. Africa
has witnessed a lot of socio-economic challenges since the end of colonial rule. A continent, which
at the point of her countries’ independence, had a bright economic future. What went wrong? It is
on this axiom that this paper examines the role socio-economic factors have played in the
development of Africa with focus on Somalia. Adopting historical methodology which encouraged
ample utilization of primary and secondary resources, this paper will be limited to the use of
secondary sources. This will be based on the use of facts and sources reviewed and retrieved from
the existing literatures by scholars and diplomats made available for this study. These facts will be
retrieved from the following secondary sources; textbooks, journals, magazines, library materials
and extensive use of internet sources. The extensive use of these materials would aid the authors
with much needed information to make this paper a success. Findings however reviewed that the
once celebrated social institutions in Somalia collapsed as a result of bad leadership and outbreak of
the civil war in 1991. These have continued to hamper the much expected growth and development
in the country. Recommendations were therefore provided on how to solve the problems identified
in this study