The Derg was dissolved with the proclamation of the PDRE, but continued to rule de facto until September when the new government took office, three months after the June general election.

The PDRE inherited issues that ravaged Ethiopia during the Derg era including the 1983–1985 famine, reliance on foreign aid, and the decline of the world communist movement.

The regime only lasted another week before the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front entered Addis Ababa, dissolving the PDRE and replacing it with the Transitional Government of Ethiopia.

The campaign's purposes were to promote land reform and improve agricultural production, health, and local administration and to teach peasants about the new political and social order.

Western aid for long-term development of Ethiopia's health sector was modest, averaging about US$10 million annually, the lowest per capita assistance in sub-Saharan Africa.

The UN system led by UNDP and including such agencies as FAO, UNESCO, UNICEF, UNIDO, UNFPA and WHO, continued to extend assistance as they had to the Emperor's regime.

[citation needed] The World Bank also continued to provide assistance during his rule doubtless recognising the surprisingly conservative and prudent fiscal discipline the regime tried to follow.

By the early 1980s, large numbers of people in central Eritrea, Tigray, Welo, and parts of Begemder and Shewa were beginning to feel the effects of renewed famine.

By 1973 the attendant famine had threatened the lives of hundreds of thousands of Ethiopian nomads, who had to leave their home grounds and struggle into Somalia, Djibouti, Kenya, and Sudan, seeking relief from starvation.

[5] The PDRE's limited ability to lead development and to respond to crises was dramatically demonstrated by the government's reliance on foreign famine relief between 1984 and 1989.

By 1983 armed conflict between the government and opposition movements in the north had combined with drought to contribute to mass starvation in Eritrea, Tigray, and Welo.

[5] As it had in the past, in the mid-1980s the international community responded generously to Ethiopia's tragedy once the dimensions of the crisis became understood, although the FAO had been warning of food security problems for several years before the famine hit.

"[5] Also according to Human Rights Watch's reports and research,[7] the counter-insurgency strategy of the PDRE caused the famine to strike one year earlier than would otherwise have been the case, and forced people to migrate to relief shelters and refugee camps.

In late May, while peace talks were underway, Tesfaye notified American officials that he had lost the ability to maintain order, and could no longer command what remained of the army.