Comparing the 2005-2010 period with the half-decade just prior to the outbreak of the conflict (1985-1990), life expectancy actually increased from an average of 47 years for men and women to 54 years for men and 57 years for women [REF].
The last three decades of armed conflicts, lack of functioning government, economic collapse, and disintegration of the health system and other public services - together with recurrent droughts and famines - has turned Somalia into one of the world's most difficult environments for survival.