President Siad Barre's forces withdrew to Gedo following the collapse of the Somali Democratic Republic in the early 1990s.

[9] The militant religious group al-Itihaad al-Islamiya (AIAI) also rose to power in the region later, taking over the city of Luuq as its headquarters.

All of Gedo region's high school graduates attended the Somali National University or affiliated institutions in Mogadishu.

[citation needed] Since the civil war in Somalia, Gedo became one of half dozen regions which have restarted higher education institutions in the country.

[14] The economy mostly depends on livestock and farming, but the Gedo region has strong interregional and international cross-border trade with Kenya and to some extent with Ethiopia.

Trade across Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia allowed the Gedo region to be economically stable for the years before the UN intervention and afterward.

The 1998 Nordic Fact Finding Mission prepared a report on the Gedo region and found some encouraging economic figures.

Davidson College assistant professor Ken Menkhaus said that "Traders in Gedo region made more profit than, for instance, those in Hargeisa, in north-western Somalia.