ETHIOPIA: Aid Alone Isn’t the Answer

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Ricardo Grassi

ROME, Jun 4 2003 (IPS) - The Ethiopian annual emergency is back, punctually. This year 12.5 million people face starvation unless the international community provides assistance soon, Georgia Shaver, the United Nations WFP (World Food Programme) Director for Ethiopia told IPS on phone from Addis Ababa.

But Ethiopia needs more than an annual rescue act, she says. An approach to Ethiopia’s problems needs long-term planning, Shaver says after 18 months on the job in Ethiopia. "Which is different from development aid," she added.

"We have to stop the annual billing, agree that it is a chronic situation, and produce something new," she said. "We have to know that five million people won’t eat 12 months per yearàeven if it rains. We need more programmes in order to tackle that group of five million people in this big country, where a lot goes on structural issues that cause hunger."

It was a real fight last year to get the emergency resources, Shaver says. "It was really hard. Even by September we were still struggling."

Shaver says this annual approach does not address the fundamental problems. Some of the "big issues", she says, are education, access to food, access to markets, lack of roads, issues around water, forests, and security of land. "On top of that you have drought," Shaver says.

The government of Prime Minister Melles Zenawi has not yet addressed the structural problems, though it is now more transparent, she says.

"The scale of need is huge, and it is getting worse," Shaver warns. "But there is nothing going on collectively to meet that need, for which we must start now a debate on the contents of aid, how big it should be, what the government can meet, what else should still come from outside. I look forward to seeing this." Otherwise "emergency will continue being annual with no long-term impact. We have to know this."

A WFP release from its headquarters in Rome says food insecurity is endemic in Ethiopia, mainly due to high population density, underdeveloped agriculture, a poor early warning system and unfavourable climatic conditions. The Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR) where approximately 20 percent of the country’s 67 million population live is worst hit.

The WFP, the world’s largest humanitarian agency, is appealing to donors for 90 million dollars in assistance to cover the emergency operation this year. The WFP will need 619,000 tonnes of food supply, but is still short of 230,000 tonnes.

Several months of food shortage has led already to increasing malnutrition among the vulnerable, the WFP says. Besides food shortage, the situation in Ethiopia is exacerbated by lack of clean drinking water, widespread seed shortage, and poor sanitation, nutrition and primary health care, it says.

In addition to drought, parts of Ethiopia have seen flooding. This has destroyed food stocks, and exposed people to hunger and increased threat of disease, the WFP says.

"We have not had enough support to give out a complete cereal ration in Ethiopia and we and our partners have been forced to reduce it from 15 kilos a month to 12.5 kilos," James Morris, Executive Director of the WFP told the annual meeting of the executive board last Friday. "Currently we have commitments of about half of what we need for the new emergency operation. A threat of a pipeline break in September remains."

Morris said: "I assure you cutting rations is an action we and our partners only take in desperation. Once again, because governments have failed to provide the aid needed, WFP is forced into an exercise in triage. Who will be fed? Who will go hungry?"

Live Aid campaigner and rock star Bob Geldof told a press conference in Addis Ababa last Sunday after a two-day visit to the northern highlands that "what I saw was worse than I imagined." He said British and U.S. leaders were in a position to help but were "ignoring" the needs.

Ministers of finance, planning and economic development from 53 African nations began a three-day meeting of the African Development Bank in Addis Ababa Tuesday. The meeting follows their annual meeting where they said inadequate aid flow to Africa was a major concern.