Somaliland President Irro is urged to build an asset-backed financial architecture using Berbera revenues, gold, foreign reserves and strategic U.S.-Israel partnerships
An open letter to Somaliland President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi “Irro” proposes an unconventional strategy for strengthening the territory’s economic sovereignty: build a monetary system backed by liquid assets and future revenues from strategic infrastructure, while forging deeper commercial and technological ties with the United States, Israel and Gulf economies.
The proposal, described by its author as a roadmap for “sovereign balance-sheet independence,” argues that Somaliland’s political stability over more than three decades should be matched by a financial architecture capable of reducing its dependence on external recognition, conventional multilateral lending and foreign monetary systems.
“For over thirty-five years, the people of the Republic of Somaliland have demonstrated a rare civil discipline,” Ben Avraham writes, citing what he describes as Somaliland’s record of maintaining internal stability, conducting elections and securing its Gulf of Aden coastline despite regional upheaval.
But political stability, he argues, is not enough.
“True sovereignty requires an enduring financial architecture.”
Beyond diplomatic recognition
The letter challenges the assumption that Somaliland must first secure broad international recognition before it can develop sophisticated sovereign financial institutions.
“Waiting indefinitely for bilateral diplomatic recognition or multilateral debt facilities,” Ben Avraham writes, “has proven to be an incomplete path.”
His proposed alternative is to use the territory’s existing and prospective economic assets to construct a stronger sovereign balance sheet.
The framework would combine monetary reserves, gold, foreign currencies and revenues generated by infrastructure and natural-resource concessions. At its center is a proposed statutory trust designed to separate liquid monetary reserves from the commercial risks associated with long-term development projects.
The author argues that such an architecture could allow Somaliland to pursue greater financial autonomy even while its international status remains contested.
The Somaliland shilling dilemma
Currency stability is central to the proposal.
Ben Avraham portrays an unstable domestic currency not simply as a monetary-policy problem but as an issue affecting household purchasing power and economic confidence.
“A debased or unstable currency is not merely a technical defect,” he writes. “It acts as an invisible tax on ordinary families, merchants, and public servants.”
The letter argues that Somaliland’s economy has already adapted to the extensive use of the U.S. dollar in high-value transactions, remittances and digital commerce, while the Somaliland shilling remains more prevalent in smaller cash transactions.
Rather than endorsing full dollarization, however, the proposal calls for preserving the national currency while strengthening the reserves behind it.
“The standard recommendation from external observers” of formal dollarization, the author argues, would amount to surrendering monetary autonomy.
“Dollarization does not create sovereignty,” he writes. “It leases stability at the expense of long-term autonomy.”
Drawing on historical monetary experiments
To support the concept, the letter points to several historical examples in which governments sought to restore confidence in currencies through dedicated reserves or claims on productive assets.
These include Alexander Hamilton’s financial reforms in the early United States, Germany’s Rentenmark stabilization in 1923, Estonia’s post-Soviet currency regime and Hong Kong’s exchange-reserve framework.
The examples differ substantially in their historical circumstances and institutional design, but the letter uses them to advance a common proposition: monetary credibility can be strengthened when currency issuance is supported by identifiable and legally protected assets.
For Somaliland, Ben Avraham proposes adapting that principle to a modern legal and financial structure.
The proposed statutory trust
The centerpiece of the proposal is what the author calls the Master Statutory Trust Architecture.
The letter proposes establishing an offshore Delaware Statutory Trust or a DIFC-based holding structure that would manage specified future revenues and concession-related cash flows.
The suggested entity would be a Somaliland Concession and Development Trust, structured into separate, legally ring-fenced series.
The first, Series A, would serve as a currency stabilization and reserve pool. It would hold liquid assets, including U.S. dollars, UAE dirhams, selected sovereign securities and allocated physical gold.
The second, Series B, would hold revenue streams associated with long-term infrastructure and natural-resource concessions.
These could include revenues linked to Berbera Port, maritime services, bunkering rights, mineral off-take agreements and infrastructure corridors.
The proposed mechanism is designed to create a financial relationship between the two pools: productive assets would generate revenues that replenish the liquid reserves supporting the currency.
The letter argues that separating the pools would prevent commercial liabilities from affecting the monetary reserve base.
Berbera as a financial asset
Berbera occupies a central position in the proposed architecture.
The port has become one of Somaliland’s most important economic and strategic assets, linking the Gulf of Aden with the Horn of Africa and providing a potential gateway to regional markets.
Under the proposed model, revenues from port concessions and associated maritime infrastructure could become part of a broader sovereign financial strategy.
Rather than simply treating infrastructure as a source of annual government revenue, the framework seeks to transform predictable future cash flows into an institutional asset that could support monetary reserves and attract investment.
That approach would, however, require rigorous independent valuation, transparent concession agreements and legal safeguards to ensure that future revenues are not pledged beyond the state’s capacity to repay.
Keeping ownership in Somaliland
The author anticipates concerns that placing concession revenues in an offshore structure could compromise sovereign control.
The letter explicitly rejects that interpretation.
“The Trust is a custodial cash-flow structure rather than a transfer of physical territory,” Ben Avraham writes.
Under his proposal, Somaliland would retain ownership of its land, coastline and mineral resources, while the trust would receive defined rights to concession royalties and lease revenues.
The framework would also establish what the author describes as a dual-custodial structure involving Delaware and UAE financial hubs alongside a Somaliland Sovereign Board of Protectors.
The objective would be to combine internationally recognized legal structures with domestic oversight and veto authority.
Bringing the private sector into the architecture
The proposal also envisions a role for Somaliland’s established private sector.
Rather than treating telecommunications and remittance companies as competitors to state financial institutions, the letter suggests incorporating them into a national clearing and reserve framework.
The author proposes allowing major private firms to participate as “equity clearing stakeholders,” potentially linking their corporate balances to sovereign-backed returns.
The proposal reflects the important role that private telecommunications and remittance networks already play in Somaliland’s economy.
It would nevertheless require substantial regulatory work, particularly around systemic risk, corporate governance, deposit protection and the independence of monetary authorities.
A U.S.-Israel strategic bridge
The proposed financial architecture is also explicitly geopolitical.
Ben Avraham calls for stronger economic connections with American institutional capital and Israeli technological capabilities.
On the U.S. side, he proposes direct engagement with institutional investors, family offices and enterprise networks interested in logistics, infrastructure and mineral development in East Africa.
On the Israeli side, he envisions cooperation in areas including arid agriculture, solar power, desalination and maritime security.
The broader objective would be to transform the Berbera corridor into what the letter describes as a technologically integrated trade gateway for the Red Sea region.
The proposal therefore goes beyond monetary reform. It treats financial architecture as a means of accelerating strategic partnerships even in the absence of a fully established international diplomatic consensus around Somaliland’s status.
Building a reserve for economic shocks
The proposed trust would also include a counter-cyclical reserve intended to provide the government with emergency liquidity.
Under the framework, surplus revenues during periods of strong trade could be set aside for drought relief and other economic emergencies.
That mechanism is intended to reduce the need for emergency monetary expansion during periods of crisis.
The author also proposes using future concession revenues to attract initial institutional capital, potentially supported by political-risk insurance.
Such an approach would depend heavily on the credibility of the underlying revenue forecasts, the enforceability of concession agreements and investors’ willingness to accept the legal and political risks associated with Somaliland.
A proposal awaiting institutional scrutiny
Ben Avraham acknowledges that a financial structure of this scale would require detailed examination by Somaliland’s government and financial institutions.
He calls for an executive working session involving President Irro, the finance minister, the governor of the Bank of Somaliland and senior economic and legal advisers.
The proposed meeting would examine the trust’s legal covenants, asset valuations and implementation mechanisms.
The letter ultimately frames the initiative as an effort to redefine the relationship between sovereignty and finance.
“Success is a projected vision,” Ben Avraham writes, “greatness is achieved by building institutional architectures that outlast geopolitical friction.”
His closing argument is more direct:
“Somaliland’s sovereignty is not a gift to be negotiated; it is an enterprise to be capitalized.”
The proposal represents an ambitious vision rather than an established policy. Its viability would depend on legal, monetary and financial analysis well beyond the claims made in the letter itself. Questions surrounding sovereign asset protection, currency convertibility, reserve adequacy, investor protections and the legal status of offshore structures would all require independent assessment.
But the central proposition is clear: Somaliland should not view financial independence merely as an eventual consequence of diplomatic recognition. It should, the letter argues, begin building the institutional balance sheet of a sovereign state now.
