Ethiopia is not yet food self-sufficient, however, but it is slowly edging to that point. In 2004, for example, Ethiopia required 965,000 tons of food to help prevent hunger among 7 million people who lacked enough food. This year it will only require about 387,500 tons of food to aid 2.2 million people who are at risk of not having enough food.

In part, that food aid is needed due to drought in the eastern and southern parts of the country. But in the northern and western country — with Ethiopia’s war with Eritrea over for the moment — farmers were able to concentrate on improving yields with better seeds and fertilizer.

Source:

Ethiopia’s crop production up 24%. The BBC, February 2, 2005.

Ethiopia Still Requires Food Aid, But Situation Is Improving is a post from: Overpopulation.Com

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Egypt has long been the largest user of water from the Nile, but countries upstream are coming closer to more intensively using that water, which Boutros Ghali predicts will lead to conflict between Egypt and countries such as Ethiopia, Tanzania and Kenya.

Boutros Ghali noted that Egypt’s population has more than tripled over the last 50 years and is still growing, putting heavy demand on Nile water resources. Boutros Ghali told the BBC,

The security of Egypt is related to the relation between Egypt and Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya and other African countries. The real problem is that we need an additional quantity of water and we will not have an additional quantity of water unless we find an a agreement with the upstream countries which also need water and have not used Nile water until now.

But the BBC interview failed to mention a major overriding problem with water in the Middle East and Africa — it is almost universally mismanaged, since it relies on bureaucracies setting water targets and policies rather than letting markets dictate the true cost of water.

In Egypt, for example, 85 percent of water goes to agriculture, and agricultural water use is micromanaged to the point where government committees plan out a year in advanced which crops will be allowed to grow where and how water will be allocated among them. Not surprisingly the result is large-scale inefficiency and misallocation of water resources.

Mismanagement of water is almost universal, even in countries such as the United States which don’t yet have severe water problems. But places like the Middle East and Northern African simply cannot afford to protect industries or individuals from the true cost and scarcity of water. Unfortunately, doing so is likely to prove very politically unpopular, but one can always hope that developing countries might prefer transparent markets in water to conflicts between states that may lead to larger problems, while leaving the underlying problem uncorrected.

Source:

Ex-UN chief warns of water wars. Mike Thompson, The BBC, February 2, 2005.

Boutros Boutros Ghali Predicts Regional Water Wars is a post from: Overpopulation.Com

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According to the BBC, Africa as a whole only sees about $15 billion total each year. That’s just pathetic.

Moreover, even in countries where there are not ongoing wars or endemic corruption, there is plenty to trouble investors. South African president Thabo Mbeki’s close relationship and support of Zimbabwe strongman Robert Mugabe, for example, must surely give some investors pause.

Unfortunately, there seems to be no end in sight to such problems, as Africa seems unable to get itself off a vicious cycle of war and corruption.

Source:

Africa conflicts ‘scare investors’. The BBC, November 22, 2004.

You Mean Genocide and Corruption Aren’t Good for the Economy? is a post from: Overpopulation.Com

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The IMF agreed on a $190 million loan to Ethiopia in 2002 to reduce poverty in that country, and provided it with an emergency loan of $14.3 million in August 2003 to combat the effects of drought.

In a press release announcing the August loan, IMF Deputy Managing Director and Acting Chairman Shigemitsu Sugisaki said of Ethiopia’s economic performance,

Recent economic performance has been seriously affected by a severe drought in 2002, the worst in many years. As a result of the drought and a sharp drop in cereal production, real GDP declined in 2002/03, and food prices rose markedly. An estimated 12.6 million people are in need of food assistance.

Despite this shock, Ethiopia’s performance during the second annual program was broadly satisfactory. All the quantitative performance criteria and benchmarks through December 2002, as well as the indicative targets for end-March 2003, were observed. In particular, the introduction of the value-added tax was carried out in January 2003, a performance contract was signed with the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) in June 2002, and an audit of the CBE by independent auditors was completed in May 2003, after a delay of four months. The ongoing decentralization of fiscal powers to woredas (local districts), however, contributed to delays in the implementation of structural benchmarks (and HIPC Initiative completion point triggers) related to the improvement of public expenditure management.

Ethiopia apparently wants to retain a controlling interest in any utilities that it privatizes, even though at the moment the state industries represent a drain on Ethiopia’s budget.

Meanwhile, the World Bank and IMF plan to send representatives to Ethiopia by the end of November to evaluate Ethiopia’s progress in making structural changes that it agreed to in order to receive the 2002 loan.

Sources:

Ethiopia hits out at IMF. The BBC, September 1, 2003.

Ethiopia rejects IMF proposal to privatize loss-making state firms. Agence-France Press, August 31, 2003.

IMF to send experts to review EthiopiaÂ’s achievements. Tamiru Geda, CapitalEthiopia.Com, September 29, 2003.

IMF Completes Review Under Ethiopia’s PRGF Arrangement and Approves US$14.3 Million Disbursement. Press Release, International Monetary Fund, August 28, 2003.

Ethiopia and the International Monetary Fund at Loggerheads Over Privatization is a post from: Overpopulation.Com

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“If that was a nightmare,” Zenawi told The Scotsman, “then this will be too ghastly to contemplate. We can’t cope on our own with the requirements of the current drought.”

United Nations World Food Program spokesman Wagdi Othman told The Scotsman,

There are six million people in need of food aid now and we think hat number will increase dramatically next year to ten to 14 million. A lot of people are already hungry and they are threatened by starvation. We will have a clearer picture by next year, but we can’t wait for those figures to come and we have been ringing alarm bells since June. No-one can say that they weren’t aware of this.

Neighboring Eritrea is also hard hit by the droughts, poverty, and continued hostilities between the two countries. At the moment the Eritrean government says that 1.4 million people will face food shortages through the end of next year, and that number is likely to climb to 2.3 million in a country of around 4 million people.

Interestingly, The Scotsman highlights a main problem with international relief efforts, quoting officials who admit that the 1984-inspired relief efforts didn’t even make a dent at long term structural changes in Ethiopia. The Band Aid and Live Aid fund raising efforts raised more than Pounds 110 million, most of which was spent on basic technology,

. . . and Penny Jenden, the former Band Aid chief executive, has since admitted that Africa is littered with the remains of tractors or drilling rigs that nobody knew how to mend.

Current aid efforts aren’t likely to do any better. Until Ethiopia and Eritrea decide to end all hostilities, reform their governments, and tackle poverty and other issues in earnest, the best donor nations can do is simply feed people who would otherwise starve and forget grandiose notions about preventing future famines.

Sources:

Threat to 15 million as new famine hits Ethiopia. Gethin Chamberlain, The Scotsman, November 12, 2002.

Eritrea: Fear of hunger sets in. UN Integrated Regional Information Networks, November 10, 2002.

More Warnings about Hunger in Ethiopia and Eritrea is a post from: Overpopulation.Com

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Abortion is illegal in Ethiopia except in cases where the mother’s life is in danger, but illegal abortions are easy to obtain and widespread. According to WHO, the death rate from illegal abortions in Ethopia is a staggering 1,209 per 100,000 abortions. In the United States, by contrast, the death rate from legal abortions is about 1 per 100,000.

A number of factors help to make the death rate so high, including a lack of access to contraception, a very low literacy rate among women (only about 14 percent of women are literate), and Ethiopia’s poverty which leads to ony about US $1.50 per person being spent on health care resources annually.

Source:

High Death Rate from Illegal Abortions. UN Integrated Regional Information Networks, October 28, 2002.

Teens Pay The Deadly Price Of Religious Taboo. Tewedaj Kebede, Panos, July 2001.

Many Ethiopian Teens Dying from Illegal Abortions. Women’s E-News, November 4, 2002.

Illegal Abortions a Major Killer of Women in Ethiopia is a post from: Overpopulation.Com

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In the Horn of Africa alone, 14 million people face starvation unless the World Food Program begins receiving donor aid soon. Ten million of those at risk are in Ethiopia which, like other countries in the region, has been hit hard by drought. According to WFP executive director James Morris,

At least 10 million people will need food aid just in Ethiopia. But if this month’s rains stop early, up to 14 million people there will require urgent assistance.

These figures are large and dramatic and the international community should take notice. Unless we come to grips with this problem very soon we face the real possibility of witnessing a devastating wave of human suffering and death as early as next year.

Morris chalked up the Horn’s problems simply to drought, conveniently ignoring the destabilizing effect of ongoing hostilities between Ethiopia and Eritrea which has made it difficult to sustain an agricultural industry in either country.

Source:

Aid please as Horn of Africa raises hungry to 40m. James Astill, The Guardian, October 29, 2002.

Forty Million in Danger of Starvation is a post from: Overpopulation.Com

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Populated by a nomadic people called the Afar, this area has been hit by drought for most of this year, leaving the pastoralist nomads with many dead livestock.

Ethiopia is one of the least developed countries in the world and leads the world in levels of malnutrition. At the end of July, Ethiopia’s government warned that as many as 8 million people were facing food shortages and would require aid.

Sources:

Ethiopia: Over 8 Million In Need Of Food Aid. United Nations, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Press Release, August 1, 2002.

Ethiopia Facing Ongoing Crisis is a post from: Overpopulation.Com

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