Anyone who has lived abroad for years and returned to Somalia, or even visited Mogadishu after a long absence, can see one thing immediately: the capital is changing.
The change is not abstract. It shows in rebuilt roads, brighter streets, busy markets, new construction, growing public confidence and a city slowly reclaiming its place as Somalia’s political, economic and social heart.
For decades, Mogadishu carried the image of destruction. It was a city of checkpoints, ruined buildings, displacement, fear and unfinished recovery.
Today, the capital tells a different story. It still faces serious challenges, and no honest observer should deny them. But Mogadishu no longer stands only as a symbol of survival. It is becoming a symbol of renewal.
Much of that momentum has taken shape since Dr Hassan Mohamed Hussein Muungaab returned as Governor of Banaadir Region and Mayor of Mogadishu on 28 May 2025. His appointment brought back a leader already associated with reconstruction, public service and a practical understanding of the city’s needs.
A city seeing its taxes at work
What makes Mogadishu’s current recovery important is not simply that officials announce projects. Residents can increasingly see where public money goes.
Muungaab has linked local taxes to visible services, arguing that people must see results through better roads, improved health centres, cleaner neighbourhoods, stronger sanitation and more secure public spaces. That message matters in a country where years of conflict, weak institutions and poor service delivery damaged public trust.
Government becomes meaningful when people can point to a road, a light, a clinic, a school or a drainage system and say: this came from our contribution. That civic contract is exactly what Mogadishu needs.
Road reconstruction has become one of the clearest signs of this approach. Across several districts, the Banaadir administration has expanded interlock roads, repaired damaged routes and improved streets that had long slowed movement and weakened local commerce.
These projects are not only about concrete. A good road helps a mother reach a clinic, a trader keep a shop open, a student reach school and a neighbourhood feel connected to the wider city.
The expansion of solar street lighting has also changed how parts of Mogadishu feel after sunset. Better-lit roads support movement, help businesses stay open longer and give residents a stronger sense of security. In a city where darkness once carried fear, light has become part of recovery.
Leadership that delivers
Muungaab’s strength lies in a simple point: his administration has chosen visible delivery over empty rhetoric. Mogadishu has heard enough speeches in its modern history. It needs leadership that works street by street, district by district and service by service.
That is why the focus on roads, lights, drainage and public facilities matters. These are not abstract development slogans. They are the daily foundations of a functioning city.
The administration has also paid attention to drainage and flood-prone areas, an issue that directly affects residents during the rainy seasons. Drainage work rarely attracts the same attention as a new road, but it shows serious urban management. A capital cannot function if rain paralyses streets, damages homes and cuts off neighbourhoods.
Where residents have raised complaints over earlier work, the decision to send contractors back to repair problem areas reflects a welcome principle: public works must serve the public. Mogadishu does not need temporary projects built for cameras. It needs durable infrastructure built for the people who live there.
Services beyond concrete
The most persuasive part of Muungaab’s record is that his administration has not treated development only as construction. It has also invested in social services.
Health support has become a visible priority. The Banaadir administration has supported hospitals, mother-and-child health centres and community health services, with particular attention to mothers, children and vulnerable families.
That focus is essential. A city cannot call itself modern if poor families cannot access basic health care. Roads matter, but so do maternity centres, child care, emergency support and district-level clinics that serve ordinary residents.
The administration’s support for children with serious heart conditions deserves particular praise. For families unable to afford specialist treatment, such help is not politics. It is life. It gives parents hope and gives children a chance that poverty might otherwise deny them.
Education has also received attention, with efforts to improve public schools, repair learning centres and widen access to better education for children in the capital. Mogadishu’s future will not be built only through roads and buildings. It will be built through children who can learn in safer classrooms and grow up with more opportunity than the generation before them.
The administration has also pushed reforms to modernise tax collection. A more transparent system can strengthen accountability, raise local revenue and support public services. That matters because Mogadishu cannot depend forever on emergency responses or outside support. It needs a functioning local government with the capacity to finance its own priorities.
A capital choosing the future
Mogadishu’s progress carries deeper meaning because of the weight of its past. The city endured destruction on a scale that is difficult to explain to anyone who did not witness it. Whole neighbourhoods emptied. Public institutions collapsed. Death and displacement became part of daily life. The capital of a proud nation became a symbol of national failure.
But the people of Mogadishu have refused to remain trapped in that history.
They rebuilt shops where walls had fallen. They reopened schools where fear had spread. They returned to markets, beaches, homes and workplaces. They invested their money, labour and hope in a city many outsiders had written off.
That public resilience is the foundation of everything happening today. Muungaab’s administration deserves credit because it appears to understand that leadership in Mogadishu must work with the people, not above them. The strongest projects are those that connect local government, business communities, district authorities and residents.
The administration has also supported wider efforts to strengthen public participation and local governance, including the push towards one-person, one-vote politics in Banaadir. Whatever political disagreements surround the process, the principle remains powerful: residents of the capital should have a direct voice in local governance.
A modern Mogadishu cannot be built only through administrative orders. It must also grow through participation, accountability and public ownership.
Muungaab’s moment
Muungaab now has an opportunity few Somali leaders receive: the chance to turn visible progress into lasting transformation.
His first year back in office has shown energy, direction and a practical understanding of what residents want. They want safer roads. They want cleaner neighbourhoods. They want functioning clinics. They want better schools. They want drainage that works. They want taxes to return as services. They want a capital that reflects their dignity.
The work remains unfinished. Mogadishu still faces insecurity, congestion, poverty, poor planning, land disputes and pressure from rapid population growth. Serious leadership does not mean solving every problem overnight. It means setting a direction and proving, through action, that progress is possible.
On that measure, Muungaab has given Mogadishu something valuable: momentum.
The city that once represented Somalia’s collapse is now showing signs of becoming the city that represents its recovery. That recovery belongs first to the people of Mogadishu. But leadership matters, and in this period, the Banaadir administration under Governor Muungaab has helped turn public hope into visible public works.
Mogadishu is not only rebuilding its roads. It is rebuilding its confidence.
If this momentum continues, the capital can become what Somalis have always believed it could be: a safe, modern and proud city worthy of the nation it represents.