Authors
Ayan Mohamed Jama, Nashad Farah Mohamud, Mohamud Osman Hamud, Abdullahi Mohamud Hassan, Abukar Sheikh Mohamed
Published in
Frontiers in artificial intelligence. Volume 9. Pages 1928521. Epub Oct 16, 2026.
Abstract
Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly recognized as a determinant of national productivity and competitiveness, yet the conditions required for its beneficial adoption, infrastructure, institutions, and human capital, remain unevenly distributed across the globe. Somalia, a fragile and conflict-affected state undergoing a prolonged process of institutional reconstruction, exemplifies this unevenness: a young, digitally engaged population and a strikingly dynamic private telecommunications and mobile-money sector coexist with weak public institutions, fragmented higher education, and chronic graduate unemployment.
This paper reports a systematic literature review with theory-informed framework development, conducted in accordance with the PRISMA 2020 reporting guideline, that synthesizes peer-reviewed evidence on organizational and national AI readiness, digital-skills development, and workforce productivity, with a specific focus on Somalia and comparable fragile, low-connectivity, Sub-Saharan African contexts. Using the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework and human capital theory as complementary lenses, the review synthesizes findings from 31 sources identified through a structured search and screening process.
The evidence indicates that Somalia's AI readiness gap is not primarily a technological deficit but a multidimensional one, spanning fragmented digital infrastructure, weak institutional governance and data ecosystems, a persistent mismatch between higher-education curricula and labour-market needs, and the absence of coordinated national AI or digital-skills policy.
Building on these findings, the paper proposes a four-pillar conceptual AI readiness framework intended to guide future empirical assessment and policy discussion, encompassing digital infrastructure and access, institutional and governance readiness, human capital and skills development, and labour-market integration, together with a phased implementation roadmap for government, higher-education institutions, the private telecommunications sector, and development partners. The review provides a literature-grounded, context-specific synthesis of AI readiness for a fragile Horn of Africa state and offers a transferable analytical approach for similar settings.
PMID:
42964340
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 31 Oct 2026.
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