MOGADISHU, Somalia – The speakers of the Federal Parliament of Somalia Sheikh Aden Madobe [Lower House] and Abdi Hashi [Senate] met a US official in Mogadishu on Monday.
Hamse Warfa, a senior adviser to the State Department on civilian security, democracy, and human rights paid a courtesy visit to the two speakers at their offices in the capital.
The Somali-American official thanked the speakers for the reception and pointed out that Somalia has recovered from the three-decade civil strife and is on the path of development.
Madobe praised Hamse Warfa for his journey to join the Biden administration and urged him to work on the US attention and a closer relationship between Somalia and the US.
While not the first Somali-American to join a presidential administration, Warfa is one of the highest-ranking — a senior adviser to the State Department on civilian security, democracy, and human rights. In that role, he will help develop strategies for protecting and promoting democracy at home and abroad.
The purpose of Hamse’s visit to the country is to observe the development of democracy and human rights in Somalia and at the same time work to promote the mutual interests between the two countries.
Warfa’s family fled Somalia after the country’s civil war started in 1991 and lived in various refugee camps across Kenya, he said.
After arriving in the United States as a teenager in 1994 alongside his family, he received a bachelor’s degree in political science from San Diego State University and his master’s in organizational management and leadership from Springfield College in the same city.
He moved to Minnesota in 2012 after he was recruited by the state’s largest philanthropic foundation, Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies, he explained.
