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How Foreign Aid Helps Ethiopia

Foreign Aid Helps Ethiopia

Though Ethiopia is still one of the world’s poorest countries, its poverty rate has been cut in half. Initially, more than 50 percent of the population living below the poverty line. This has since been reduced to about 25 percent. In the last 20 years, Ethiopia’s gross domestic product has risen from $8 billion to $80 billion. How did the once third-poorest country in the world do this?

Highly dependent on foreign aid, Ethiopia has received $3.5 billion in assistance in recent years from countries like Germany and the United Kingdom. The United States recently launched a 5-year, $40 million program, the Health Financing Improvement Program. This U.S. launched this program to invest in increasing Ethiopia’s ability to provide quality and affordable health care to its citizens. And it’s a prime example of how foreign aid helps Ethiopia. This investment will improve efforts to support maternal health, AIDS prevention and care, malaria treatment, nutrition and WASH. Programs like this have helped Ethiopia’s poverty rate fall from 44 percent to 30 percent in just over 10 years.

Below are some ways investment and foreign aid helps Ethiopia reduce extreme poverty.

Fast-Growing Economy

Many people think of Ethiopia as a country riddled with poverty. However, Ethiopia possesses one of the fastest-growing economies in sub-Saharan Africa as of 2018. In the last decade alone, Ethiopia witnessed an average economic growth of 10 percent. This growth is due to public investments in infrastructure, agriculture and education, combined with foreign aid.

Agriculture

Forty-three percent of Ethiopia’s gross domestic product comes from agriculture. Foreign aid helps Ethiopia and its agriculture sector through different programs. Feed the Future is one such program, focusing on food security and connecting vulnerable peoples to markets. Other ways foreign aid helps Ethiopia is through strengthening sustainable natural resources and watershed management, adapting to climate change and improving food and nutrition security.

Health

Foreign aid also improves health Ethiopia, which struggles with nutrition and disease. Improvements in the health sector include slashing the mortality rate of children under five by two-thirds. Similarly, between 2004 and 2017, AIDS-related deaths have dropped from 83,000 to 15,000. This focus on health reduced the fertility rate from 7.0 to 4.6 children per woman between the years 1995 and 2011. This is crucial because high fertility rates contribute to stillbirth and mortality rates. While nutrition and food security are still problems in Ethiopia, malnourishment fell from 75 percent to 35 percent from the 1990s to 2012.

Education

According to the World Bank, Ethiopia was one of the most educationally disadvantaged countries in the 20th century. This was mostly due to low access to schooling. But with the help of foreign aid, Ethiopia’s primary school enrollment rates have doubled over 10 years. Foreign aid has improved curriculum, teaching, school inspections and teaching methods. Additionally, Ethiopia has seen an improvement in the number of textbooks and other materials available.

During the creation of the United States Agency for International Development, former President John F. Kennedy said, “There is no escaping our obligations: our moral obligations as a wise leader and good neighbor in the interdependent community of free nations – our economic obligations as the wealthiest people in a world of largely poor people, as a nation no longer dependent upon the loans from abroad that once helped us develop our own economy – and our political obligations as the single largest counter to the adversaries of freedom.”

And this statement still holds true today. Powerful countries like the U.S. and China prosper, but countries like Ethiopia are still disadvantaged. Foreign aid helps Ethiopia, improving many lives, but there is always room for improvement.

– Andrea Rodriguez
Photo: Flickr

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UN and OECD Address Global Agricultural Market

Global Agricultural Market
In July 2017, the United Nations and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published the 2017-2026 OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook. The report predicted many positive developments in the global agricultural market for the next decade. Most important among these were lower food prices, increased productivity and reduced malnutrition.

According to the report, recent government initiatives and market changes are likely to create higher availability of nutritious food; stable food prices; high production rates of maize, meat and dairy; and lower demand for food. This high level of production can be achieved through significantly higher crop yields, using only slightly more land. As demand in developed countries lowers and crop yields increase, developing countries will be able to attain higher-calorie, nutritious diets.

While these predictions suggest a decade of stability for the global agricultural market, they can only be achieved with constant government upkeep and a continued focus on developing nations and environmental impact. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, about one in nine people globally were suffering from chronic undernourishment from 2014 to 2016. Additionally, many of the production techniques in developing countries are beginning to deplete natural resources. Consequently, creative and sustainable production and trade practices need more attention in order to improve food access and alleviate pressure on natural resources.

Although the Agricultural Outlook report focuses on the global agricultural market, the end of the report looks particularly at sustainability issues in Southeast Asia. The region had a significant amount of economic growth in the past few years, primarily due to the booming agriculture and fish sectors. This growth helped address undernourishment in the area.

However, such immense growth in these sectors put a significant amount of strain on the environment. Because of this, the next decade will require a scaling-back of the fishing and palm-oil exports from the region. According to the report, “improved resource management and increased [research and development] will be needed to achieve sustainable productivity growth.” For example, the report suggests expanding the rice industry to promote diversification.

Essentially, the report states that while the global agricultural market is looking towards a period of stability and low cost, maintaining this requires a watchful eye. OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría stated, “unexpected events can easily take markets away from these central trends, so it is essential that governments continue joint efforts to provide stability to world food markets.”

– Julia Morrison

Photo: Flickr

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How Irrigation Policy is Threatening Tanzanian Farmers

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For millions of people around the world, irrigation has provided a means of subsistence and economic opportunity in the form of small-scale farming operations. But for rural farmers in Tanzania’s agriculture-intensive regions, irrigation policy has become a source of controversy and economic uncertainty.

The most recent controversy was born out of the Tanzanian government’s plans to ban economic activity, including small-scale farming operations, from taking place near reservoirs and other “listed water resources.” The ban is an attempt to reduce competition for water in reaction to a recent drought-induced hydropower shortage.

The recent drought has struck a major blow to the country’s national power grid, 57 percent of which is generated by hydropower. The drought alone has been devastating for Tanzanian agriculture: of the country’s 29.4 million hectares of irrigable land, under 600,000 are currently being irrigated. Combined with the government’s recent ban on reservoir-sourced irrigation, many farmers face the prospects of lost livelihoods.

“I have been farming in this area all my life,” said Eliudi Samizi, a rice farmer who relies on irrigation from the Great Ruaha River. “If someone asks me to stop fishing or farming, what else can I do to feed my family?”

The government’s decision to limit water usage is a reaction to state-run power company TANESCO’s request to evict local communities that it claims overuse the water resources near its hydropower plants. Last year, President Jakaya Kikwete called for the eviction of farmers in the Uluguru region, reversing a decision made six years ago during a similarly problematic period.

While bans on irrigation have been temporary in recent years, TANESCO’s request would make those bans permanent, resulting in total uncertainty regarding the future income of Tanzanian farmers.

In 2006, farmers were threatened with eviction from the Uluguru Mountain, having been accused of damaging the environment and threatening the availability of urban water. They were allowed to stay only after an appeal to President Kikwete, but today their future remains uncertain, as demonstrated by the government’s recent compliance with eviction efforts from private investors and entities like TANESCO.

According to Elizabeth Harrison and Anna Mdee, development researchers at the Universities of Sussex and Bradford, these policy proposals are part of a broader trend throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, one that has seen the prioritization of large-scale commercial operations at the expense of small-scale communities.

“The politics of irrigation development in Tanzania sadly mirrors this: the favouring of large schemes that attract significant donor support, coupled with the problems of managing this at a local level,” they wrote in an article for The Guardian. “Unfortunately for farmers like those in Choma, it seems that no matter how significant the social or economic benefits of their less formal practices, the politics is likely to continue to lead to them being dismissed by those in authority.”

Indeed, large-scale operations driven by private investment are often sold on the claim that they will serve to benefit the most vulnerable Tanzanian farmers. But a recent resettlement process led by KPL, a subsidiary of British-based agribusiness giant Agrica, resulted in the displacement of 230 farmers, many of whom were vastly undercompensated. Some were given merely $17 per acre, a fraction of the $600 for which an acre can be purchased in neighboring Zambia.

“When they came here, they told me that if I provided land for KPL they would build me a new house,” said a villager from Tanzania’s Kilombero District. “But they did not do that; they just threw us out of there and gave us a little money in order to survive.”

Millions of dollars of aid contributed by countries like England and the United States continues to subsidize corporate investment in operations like that outlined above. The current politicization of irrigation in Tanzania represents an opportunity to alter the flow of aid in favor of operations that will prioritize the well being of the small-scale farmers whom donors claim to help. It also provides an opportunity for investment in renewable energy alternatives, like the Lake Turkina Wind Project in Kenya, which would relieve Tanzania’s allocation of water to its national power grid. Until that happens, rural farmers will continue to face economic uncertainty at the hands of corporate interests.

– Zach VeShancey

Sources: The Guardian, News 24, Reuters, New Internationalist
Photo: The Guardian

Self-Sustaining Agriculture for Nigeria?

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In a country where 60% of the population are employed as farmers, it is a disheartening fact that Nigeria is not agriculturally self-sustainable. Not only does the country lack the level of food production needed to feed its growing population, but the shortfall is so great that Nigeria is the world’s largest importer of rice, spending $11 billion a year on food importation.

Despite some 100 million farmers, out of a population of 167 million, the majority practice subsistence farming. Less than half of Nigeria’s arable land is currently being used for food production, and some sources claim less than 10% is used optimally. Additionally, many of these farmers still aren’t employing modern methods and tools.

Without government intervention, this is unlikely to change soon. For one, the farming population is aging, despite 70% of Nigeria’s total population being under the age of 30. Youth are moving to the cities rather than remaining in rural areas, and this demographic shift takes a toll on farms as the potential workforce is depleted. Additionally, banks are reluctant to lend money to farmers, as returns on investments are slow. A system of government aid or microcredit may be necessary to allow farmers to update their equipment and buy fertilizer, and so increase their yields.

However, it is a lack of infrastructure in the country that might be the biggest contributor to the constant shortcomings in food production. Roads are often unsuitable for transportation, and water and electricity provision are inconsistent. The lack of suitable roads leads to a huge amount of waste as crops are unable to be transported in a timely manner. According to Nigeria’s Farms Minister, Akinwumi Adesina, 45% of the country’s tomato crop is lost every day, simply because farmers are unable to get them to the market.

The problems in agriculture stems partly from the discovery of oil in Nigeria in the 70s, and the subsequent shift away from farming. But more often it appears to be inefficient methods and insufficient workers. Crops often go unharvested, or yields simply aren’t high enough to provide a surplus.

Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, has targeted 2015 to eliminate the need to import rice. With Nigeria’s population quickly swelling, though, it will take more than a simple increase in yields to meet the demand. Infrastructure will need to be improved, and a modernization of the industry must take place.

With the country set to surpass the population of the United States before 2050, this revitalization will be crucial to its future success.

– David Wilson

Sources: The Economist
Photo: IFAD