Thus the end of 1963 saw the Somali Republic cast in the rôle of the odd-man-out in African affairs, and Kenya launched into independence with, from the Somali point of view, the N.F.D. issue unresolved, or as some British officials seemed to assume, settled by default. Yet, despite this, hitherto the Republic had followed the general Afro-Asian pattern of non-alignment at the United Nations and in her dealings with the two world power blocs. Moreover, within the Pan-Africanist camp, she had generally found herself aligned with that group of African states which included Ethiopia notwithstanding the serious local difficulties of the two neighbouring states. Clearly vital though the Pan-Somali issue was to Somali national sentiments, it could not be allowed to override the Republic’s other interests. Since independence these had prospered with generous grants of aid and capital loans from both East and West. Indeed, foreign aid has assumed such proportions by the middle of 1963 that it was possible to launch an ambitious Five Year Development Plan (1963–67) costing £70 million, of which almost half the capital was already available.

I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Som…, loc. 496