After observing the famine of 1974, he became involved in poverty reduction and established a rural economic program as a research project.

Emphasizing the need to address the crisis bearing in mind the importance of the transition from relief to development, and acknowledging the underlying structural causes for the recurrent famine in Ethiopia,

The bombings were an attempt to eliminate American soldiers on their way to Somalia to take part in the international famine relief effort, Operation Restore Hope.

As observed during earlier meetings, millions of people in Africa continue to bear the brunt of famine, extreme poverty and pandemics, and they survive each day in squalor.

AIDS is also having long term economic effects on agriculture by reducing the available workforce, and is creating new vulnerabilities to famine by overburdening poor households.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says that unless adaptive measures are taken, climate change is projected to approximately double by the 2050s the percentage of its population at risk of hunger and associated health effects.

Noting with grave concern the high mortality rates of over 80 per cent of livestock in the worst affected areas of the Sool and Sanaag plateau of Somalia and the high risk of starvation of Somali nomads,

Bearing in mind the 2003 appeal for emergency assistance for Ethiopia, launched on 6 December 2002 by the United Nations and the Government of Ethiopia, to respond to the looming famine situation and to prevent the imminent humanitarian crisis,

Nomads have been victims of famine, violent conflict, and circumstance, accounting for a significant share of the deaths as many as one million caused by 22 years of civil war, and of the 260,000 Somalis who died of starvation in 2010 2012.