The population of Ethiopia, according to the Central
Statistical Authority, is over 80 million, making the country the second most
populous country in Africa. Around 80% of the population is living in rural
areas depending on small-scale rain-fed agriculture for its livelihood. With an
estimated 80% of the population living under a dollar a day, Ethiopia is one of
the least developed and poorest countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Adopted by world leaders in the year 2000 and set to
be achieved by 2015, Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is numerical
benchmarks for tackling extreme poverty and common end for human development
reaches everyone, everywhere and cut world poverty by half. As an effort to
meet the MDG, poverty reduction was the overriding development agenda for
Ethiopia for the last one decade. There were Plan for Accelerated and Sustained
Development to End Poverty (PASDEP) I and II covering the period 2000-2011.
According to
Ethiopia government report, encouraging progresses have been registered in most
economic and social sectors. In 2010, the government developed a 10 years
Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP), with a major aim of sustaining faster
economic growth obtained from Plan for PASDEP I and II in the period 2000-2011.
With the double digit growth of Ethiopian economy, the incidence of poverty
fell from 44 percent in 2001 to 29 percent in 2010. However the pace of change
is not adequate for Ethiopia to accelerate the progress towards achieving the
MDG. Besides there is no clear link between the 10 year poverty reduction plan
and the current transformation plan. The current plan gives much emphasis to
economic development and doesn’t give a clue how poverty issue would be
addressed. Ethiopia has still low levels of income, savings and productivity in
the agricultural sector, structural food insecurity, environmental degradation,
limited implementation capacity, high unemployment and a narrow modern
industrial sector base. The economy is threatened by the twin challenges of
inflation and sustaining the macroeconomic stability is still a major challenge
as it’s clearly indicated in the MDG Report.
Ethiopia is
still dependent on rain-fed agriculture, small-scale and subsistence farming
which is very much vulnerable to climate change. Due to lack of structural
transformation in agriculture, droughts still a major threat. Although there is
reduction in level of poverty in some rural areas there is increment in urban poverty.
The Hunger and malnutrition are still endemic problem in the country. Despite
the progress reiterated by the government, it’s clear that halving poverty by
2015 would be unrealistic. The government of Ethiopia believes that the country
is heading in the right direction to meeting the MDG targets, however according
to UN 2010 report, Ethiopia is one of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa where
little has been made in reducing extreme poverty and not expected to achieve
the MDG poverty reduction target.
Depending on the priority in the government current
development agenda, there is expansion in gross primary school enrolment.
Despite the impressive gains in primary school enrolment, the education sector
in Ethiopia faces major challenges; low quality of education, limited
resources, average pupil-teacher ratio, distance from schools, large
class-sizes, shortage of teaching materials and discouraging teaching-learning
process. These necessitate a balanced development across all tiers of the
education system, curriculum development and expansion in supply of trained
teachers. Health sector has made major expansion and has strategy to strengthen
the provision of preventative and primary health care services. However, still
Ethiopia has the highest maternal and child mortality and morbidity. As
Ethiopia’s demographic and health survey showed 25,000 women died every year
giving birth and thousands of babies died annually across the country.
Ethiopia is
beset with a range of serious development challenges including: rapid
population growth, high level of poverty, low capacity including skilled human
resources to sustain the economic growth. Periodic droughts are causing a
series of humanitarian assistance need that many million people are in need of
emergency and recovery assistance. The level of unemployment in Ethiopia is
high and poses major challenges in the context of poverty reduction. The rise
in urban unemployment reflects the urban economy’s limited capacity to absorb
the rapidly expanding urban work force. The unemployment problem is
particularly severe amongst the youth as employment opportunities for school
leavers are very limited.
Despite the
government plan for the MDG there is the rampant corruption throughout the
county, according to transparency international Ethiopia has one of the highest
corruption in Africa and ranked113th out of 176 countries. Ethiopia contributes
to significant portion of the capital fight in Arica; according to a research
conducted by University of Massachusetts in 2012 Ethiopia’s capital flight in
the last four decades estimated to be 25 billion USD. Corruption is becoming a
way of living; most government officials and institutions are involved in
government work and business. The country’s national and commercial banks are
used to enrich party-owned and endowed enterprises and individuals. This
practice is hampering the country development effort and achieving the MDG
targets.
According to
Human Rights Reports: Ethiopia, 2010: developmental aid goes to ruling party
members and the disadvantaged and poor people are not befitting form the
development effort of the county. Human right indicated that aid have been
subject to distortion for political purposes. Lack of good governance and
absence of fair play ground for all citizens and development partners are major
problems of the country. The ruling party is in power for the last two decades
and manipulating things for its own political agenda. Many people believe that
the economic growth related number and other indicators are cooked data by the
government to maintain its legitimacy. The government insists in its
developmental state ideology and hampering inclusive and multi-party political
system. The overall absence of democratic system, good governance and lack of equal
participation of all citizens are hindering the development of the country and
the country progress toward the MDG targets. Therefore considering the current
level problem and the country entwined with many sort of issues; Ethiopia will
be one of those countries which will not meet the MDG targets by 2015.
Some of the
factors that contributes why Ethiopia is not meeting the MDG targets:
Highly polarized political system:
‘ethnic-state, ethnic-politics and ethnic-federalism’
The current ruling party, from minority population of
Ethiopia, has been in power for the last two decades. Many Ethiopian believe
that there is no free and fair election which is one of the ingredients of
sustainable development. The majority of people are marginalized from the political
system and there is no fair play ground for all citizens. Highly educated and
competent Ethiopians are living in exile as a political asylum. Due to the
current political philosophy of developmental state, democratic system building
as a means of achieving sustainable development is neglected by the government.
According Dr Birara, an Ethiopian economist who worked at World Bank for more
than 30 years, in his new book entitled, Endemic Poverty That Globalization
Can’t Tackle But Ethiopians Can, stated that “legalization and
institutionalization of an ethnic-state, ethnic-politics and ethnic-federalism
tearing the Ethiopian society apart and destroying a sense of ownership’’. He
also said that the political system was “designed to serve the ethnically-based
ruling class and leftist single party is unlikely to care for the poor”. Thus
in order to achieve sustainable development including meeting the MDG targets
in Ethiopia there has to be equal participation and inclusive political system.
Lack of good
governance and ownership among community
According to Robin Broad and John Cavanagh “Poverty is
not simply an absolute condition; it needs to be understood as a dynamic. It is
necessary to look at the social, economic, and political interactions of poor
people with the elites. It is not a matter of "cleaning up" disease”.
There are
immense efforts in order to alleviate poverty and mitigate its impact.
Government and different development actors are playing pivotal role however
the government didn’t build a sense of ownership among the community and there
is no common understanding. The government does things in a campaign like
“cleaning up” disease and there is no long term plan. Most government officers
are short sighted and took office by political commitment not by professional
competency. Most government offices are poorly equipped with both human and
infrastructure. Ethnic representation is the main criterion for managerial
position of most government office which is jeopardizing effective system and
development in the country.
Ethiopian
land policy
In Ethiopia the government owns the land; as most
literatures shows absence of land ownership discourage individuals and farmers
motivation of productive and remain on subsistence farming. Ethiopia’s economic
and social problem resolving and sustainability can be achieved if there is a
modification in the ownership and management of land. According to Birara, with
the recent land grab close to 600,000 hectares of Gambella’s farmlands have
been leased and number of farmers and households have been forced to move and
work for the new investors at wages below poverty level (less than a dollar a
day). According to OXFAM the new tragic land grab phenomena is described as
"This buying up of land is negating all attempts to build sustainable
agricultural development, it is an attack on Africa's food, its water sources,
the nutrition of its children, its women and on its states." This shows
how land ownership issues disempowered local people and made them vulnerable to
wrong government policy and adversely affecting sustainable development in
Ethiopia.
Ineffective
use of aid
According to Word Bank, official Development
Assistance (ODA) that Ethiopia received in the last 2 decades is estimated to
be around 35 billion USD. World Bank stated that there is development in
Ethiopia but not structural change to alleviate poverty and make basic changes.
ODA assistance that the current regime has received over the years has not
reached the common people, failed to achieve minimal growth and made Ethiopia
to be dependent on foreign aid.
According to
human right report the government use development aid as a political
instrument. Ethiopia is still unable to achieve food self-sufficiency. All
forms of foreign aid that has been flowing to the country directly to the
government won’t improve wellbeing and reduce poverty. Foreign aid will not
transform Ethiopian society from poverty to a sustainable and equitable
prosperity unless the government is committed to the poor and with the right
policy measures.
Lack of
coordination among development partners
In Ethiopia development partners are contributing
their share to the national effort of development and MDG targets. Donors,
local and international CSOs/NGOs and other development partners are involved
in poverty reduction, health, education, HIV/AIDS, Gender and other development
interventions. However their intervention is not clear and visible. Efforts for
addressing the problems are not well coordinated to avoid duplication of
efforts and contribute towards common goal. Besides they are not put in the way
that can galvanize actors engaged in the development of the country to fill
missing gaps and enhance better contribution. There are no standard tools to
measure, quantify and show their contribution. There are no means to capture
data from grass-root level, bring to a national level and advocate for common
goal. Even the geographic areas of intervention are not well known and defined,
the areas of specialization are not visible to others and concerned
stakeholders working in the area.
Overambitious
plan
All development plans PASDEP, GTP and sector
ministries plan are over ambitious, as the government itself confirmed. The MDG
target are not well tailored with the existing situation of the country and
were not planned based on realistic data and figures on the ground. Thus
meeting the MDG targets would not be realistic.
The attainment of MDG needs change in the country
political system and good governance. Other economic targets will largely
depend on right policy, coping mechanism with weather conditions and effective
utilization external aid. The country’s development needs to be about effective
voice and equal participation of all citizens in the development and political
process of the country. Based on current trend and in the remaining 2 years,
only universal primary education of the MDGs targets is likely to be attained.
Thus in order to achieve the development of Ethiopia and poverty reduction even
after the MDG target, 2015, Ethiopia needs to do:
• Change political system: inclusive government, equal
participation and voice of all citizen, all ethnic group and space for
multiparty system,
• Good
governance and effective government system,
• Reform the land policy,
• Develop effective mechanism of using aid and coordination
among development partners
• Further
effort in the participation and empowerment of girls and women,
• Addressing the issue of climate change.
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