Millennium Development Goals in Ethiopia
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Schoolchildren in Adwa, Ethiopia © Niamh Burke / UNESCO / ASPnet
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With a population of almost 80 million and a position close to the bottom of the UNDP Human Development Index, Ethiopia’s
progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) could potentially bolster the broader measure of poverty reduction in sub-Saharan Africa. Some spectacular results have been achieved, especially in education where
primary school enrolment has increased from 37% in 1996 to 91% in 2005, with over 2,000 new schools built since 2002. And in the space of just 2-3 years, the government has been successful in distributing bednets to almost all of the 10 million households at risk of malaria, the leading cause of death in Ethiopia.
Less encouragingly, the transformation in structure and headline performance of Ethiopia’s economy over the last 15 years, praised by its neo-liberal institutional sponsors, has so far failed to bring the MDG poverty target within reach. Based on a national poverty line which lies between the international benchmarks of $1 and $2 per day, the rate of poverty fell from 44.2% in 2000 (the baseline year for Ethiopia) to 36.5% in 2005, with similar percentages for the proportion of people experiencing hunger. Further reduction is very sensitive to the fate of the concentration of households living just above this poverty line – over 77% of the population falls below the $2 per day threshold.
Government strategy for the period 2005-2010 is laid out in its Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty in Ethiopia (PASDEP). Progress reports consistently call for increases in the amount and consistency of development aid (as distinct from emergency or military assistance). One estimate puts the funding gap at more than $1 billion pa, a figure of similar order to existing total aid. Even allowing for the generous debt relief awarded to Ethiopia in 2004 and 2005, the improbability of gaining such additional support dampens expectations of achieving the Goals by 2015.
Food Security in Ethiopia
Until the key to food security can be found, the majority of Ethiopians will remain locked in the poverty trap. 85% of households depend on agriculture, including about 10% herding livestock, all working on land of insecure and inadequate tenure in a sector unaccountably deprived of investment. Crops are therefore almost entirely rainfed in a country synonymous with the ravages of drought. Population growth of over 2% pa creates added pressure.
Over 7 million people are classed as chronically food insecure, largely in the highlands region where drought is most unrelenting. A further 10 million are identified as prone to drought. The first category is assisted by the Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP) which provides cash in return for labour on community projects and food for those unable to work. In addition the government has grasped the nettle of a resettlement programme which aims to move over 2 million people to more productive lands. Although admired for their innovation,
both these strategies are fraught with difficulty and their sustainability is questionable.
2008 illustrates the volatile nature of food security in Ethiopia. In January the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization jointly published
a positive assessment which applauded four consecutive “bumper” harvests, predicted a satisfactory 2008 harvest and even held out the prospect of grain exports. The report implied that the core aims of the government’s Food Security Programme - increased land under cultivation, a strategic reserve for emergencies and less aid dependency – were all coming to fruition. Yet by June, the
world’s media featured images of emaciated children and dying livestock, supplemented by flashbacks to the 1984 famine. The rains had failed once again, government reserves had expired leading to an emergency appeal for $300 million to assist 4.6 million people, whilst the WFP was unable to fund or supply more than a month of emergency aid.
The reality may be more complex. Whilst drought has certainly affected what the government calls “pockets” of the south and east of the country, the dramatic rise in food prices has also disrupted response mechanisms during the June-September peak hunger season. The price of the staple teff grain has doubled within a year so that selling livestock and other assets fails to raise enough funds, cash payments under the PSNP are no longer sufficient, a new category of urban food poverty has emerged and the government struggles to prevent unauthorised exports. With two annual harvests and rainfall seasons to track, a government touchy about its aid dependency and the global media thirsting for disaster scenarios, assessment of food crisis in Ethiopia is never going to be straightforward.
Climate Change in Ethiopia
Whatever its failings, the Ethiopian government has done nothing to deserve the uncertain fate that climate change will impose on a social infrastructure that has virtually no capacity to adapt. It is the prospect of yet more uncertainty in patterns of rainfall that threatens to undermine the basis for current food security strategies. In assessing a shortlist of simple projects to respond to climate change, the government’s National Adaptation Programme of Action identifies as its top priority the innovative idea of insurance against losses caused by drought. The prospect of
offloading risk to financial institutions from countries responsible for climate change has already been explored in Ethiopia.
Health in Ethiopia
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Family collecting water from an Oxfam well in Hadawe, Ethiopia © Rachel Stabb / Oxfam Great Britain
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The UN Human Development Report 2007/08 offered a telling illustration of how climate change will impact the poor. Pointing to the forced reduction in diet of the mother, the Report observes that “children aged five or less are ..36%.. more likely to be malnourished if they were born during a drought. For Ethiopia that translates into some 2 million additional malnourished children in 2005.” In that year, 38% of children under 5 years were indeed underweight, with heightened risk of illness, especially those related to nutritional deficiency and poor hygiene. The specialist UK charity WaterAid says that efforts to achieve the Goal for water and sanitation are “way off track” with access in rural areas still just over 40%. 70,000 latrines will need to be built every month between now and 2015 to meet the sanitation target.
Due to a continued exodus of trained personnel, there are fewer than 2,000 doctors in Ethiopia, the ratio of one per 43,000 people being one of the lowest in the world. The government has completed the training of 17,500 out of a
planned total of 30,000 Health Extension Workers to bridge the gap. Nevertheless, the proportion of births attended by skilled personnel was only 16% in 2005 and the rate of maternal mortality – 673 deaths for every 100,000 births - is exceptionally high.
The fight against HIV/AIDS has made more encouraging progress. Prevalence and incidence rates have been stable for a number of years at just over 2% and 0.3% respectively. There has been a major increase in the number of centres offering testing, preventative and treatment services as part of the Plan of Action for Universal Access by 2010. Provision has so far been made for about 35% of those requiring antiretroviral treatment although concern has been expressed that a quarter of the beneficiaries are
allowing the treatment to lapse. Whilst generous funding has been provided by the US PEPFAR scheme and the Global Fund, there remains a significant funding gap between their grants and the estimated cost of achieving universal access.
Politics in Ethiopia
In 1991, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) toppled the Marxist junta that had ruled the country for 17 years. The EPRDF has since remained in power, acquiring increasingly authoritarian tendencies under its leader Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. Lethargic progress towards democratisation and the empowerment of civil society was painfully illustrated in the debacle of the May 2005 general election which plunged the country into violence and political chaos. The main opposition group, the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD), protested that the poll "won" by the EPRDF was unfair, a claim subsequently upheld by a European Union report which identified
irregularities in vote counting. Student and opposition supporters took to the streets in protest but heavy-handed action by police and troops resulted in many deaths and thousands of detentions. A core group of
38 opposition leaders, journalists and civil rights activists received long prison sentences for "outrages against the constitution" and were eventually released only after signing letters acknowledging blame for the riots.
Government paranoia over the potential for civil society to stir up political trouble is betrayed in the draft
Charities and Societies Proclamation bill which envisages arbitrary registration of NGOs and intimate scrutiny of their activities. Branches of foreign human rights organisations would be banned and local groups involved with human rights unable to receive foreign funds.
A more creative approach to social order is the unique division of the country into 9 states defined by their ethnic profile, this federal structure reinforced by real budgetary and political power at regional level. Local elections thereby acquire much significance and in 2008 the EPRDF further imposed its domination through
intimidation and procedural obstruction of opposition candidates.
Conflict in Ethiopia
The ideals of Ethiopia’s ethnic federalism are constrained by the presence of more than 80 ethnic groups within the 9 states together with intensifying competition for land and resources, especially oil. Disputes between groups and with the central government are inevitable and there may be as many as 200,000 conflict-related internally displaced persons in Ethiopia. The most serious tension is found in the Ogaden region of Somali state whose people feel little cultural affinity with Ethiopia and express their desire for independence through the rebel Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF). After an ONLF attack on a Chinese oil installation in 2007, the government launched a counter-insurgency operation, the aim of which appears to have been to destroy the local economy and deter further ONLF activity by means of torture and extra-judicial executions. Human Rights Watch has published a report which
describes the atrocities as war crimes.
Despite its poverty, Ethiopia possesses well-trained army and air forces, willingly equipped by the global arms trade and engaged on no fewer than three fronts, diverting public spending from poverty reduction and health care. Ethiopia’s backing for the internationally recognised transitional Somali government emerged dramatically in 2006 when it led attacks to
eject Islamist forces from their Mogadishu power base. Indiscriminate shelling of residential areas of the city prompted a mass exodus and was condemned by human rights groups. Having originally promised a swift withdrawal, Meles has become bogged down in Mogadishu, unable to act until a peacekeeping force can be assembled by the African Union.
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Ethiopia - Eritrea border
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Accusations of Eritrean support for Ethiopia’s opponents in both Somalia and Ogaden is an undertone to these conflicts which have potential to spiral into a proxy war. Conflict with Eritrea has been a dominant and painful experience for Ethiopia since 1962 when former emperor Haile Selassie annexed what was then an autonomous region established by UN resolution. Eritrea fought successfully for its independence in wars which resulted in over 100,000 deaths and the continuing presence of two million landmines in Ethiopia. The ceasefire agreed in 2000 is threatened
Ethiopia’s refusal to accept the binding recommendations of an independent boundary commission for delineation of the border. After years of fruitless negotiation, the commission closed down at the end of 2007, ordering that its decision is final. The UN’s subsequent decision not to renew the mandate of its monitoring group, the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) creates a vacuum which
is bound to increase the risk that two major armies camped within a “football pitch” of each other will stumble into hostilities.
Human Rights and Media in Ethiopia
Ethiopia’s human rights record is tainted with police brutality, torture, illegal detention, repression of political parties and abuse of ethnic minorities. A national Commission of Inquiry into the 2005 post-election violence found that, despite 193 deaths of innocent bystanders, the police and security forces acted within the law. However, the original chairman, Woldemicheal Meshesha, resigned and fled the country, accusing the government of
putting unreasonable pressure on the commissioners to exonerate government forces from their excessive behaviour.
That journalists were amongst those undergoing trial after the election is little surprise as defamation or "false news" is a crime under Ethiopian law and the country has a long history of
suppressing opposition media. Half of the newspapers in Addis Ababa have been closed down since the 2005 election. The government retains control of all electronic media, blocking any critical websites and blogs.
For Meles Zenawi, a member of the prestigious Africa Commission which placed so much emphasis on high standards of governance, the shortcomings of democracy and freedom of speech in Ethiopia, combined with the transgressions of the military, are acutely embarrassing. Norway has broken off its funding and other donors are under pressure to impose conditions. The country’s major donors, the US and UK, have remained supportive, allowing principles to be overridden by the
strategic value of a relatively stable ally in a region increasingly influenced by extremist Islam.
The OneWorld Ethiopia Guide was first published in May 2005 with a text written by Volunteer Editor Mahlet Yifru
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