External sector dynamics and food production in Somalia: implications from aid, foreign direct investment, trade openness, and remittances

Food production is central to food security in Somalia, where low agricultural productivity, recurrent shocks, and dependence on external inflows constrain sectoral performance. This study examines associations between food production and official development assistance (ODA), foreign direct investment (FDI), trade openness (TO), remittances (REM), population growth (PG), rainfall (RF), and temperature (TEM) using annual data for 1984–2020 and the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach. Long-run results indicate that trade openness is positively and significantly associated with food production, whereas ODA and FDI are negatively and significantly associated. Remittances are positive and significant in the baseline model, but historical discontinuities warrant interpretation as a conditional association rather than a stable production elasticity or agricultural-investment mechanism. Short-run results reveal significant contemporaneous or lagged associations across external inflows, population growth, and climatic controls. Rainfall and temperature coefficients cannot establish climatic mechanisms because annual national averages obscure seasonal variation, timing, dry spells, extremes, and crop-stage heat exposure. The error-correction term is negative and highly significant, although its magnitude varies across specifications. FMOLS and DOLS robustness checks support the principal external-sector associations. Findings suggest strengthening productive trade integration and improving the measurement and sectoral reporting of remittances, aid, and FDI.