5 Shillings

Somalia's 1978 shilling series was printed while the country was still absorbing the economic shock of the Ogaden War, a disastrous 1977–78 conflict with Ethiopia that collapsed the national finances and triggered significant IMF intervention. De La Rue had been producing Somali notes since independence, and the continuity of that relationship masked how severely strained the issuing authority actually was at the time these notes entered circulation.

The P#21 is among the more common survivors of the series, largely because the shilling's rapid devaluation through the early 1980s drove hoarding of physical notes rather than spending them.