Sahle-Work Zewde is Ethiopia's first female president. Since coming to power in 2018, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has reorganised the cabinet to ensure that 50 percent of the government’s top ministerial positions have been given to women. Never before in Ethiopia have so many high-ranking government positions been held by women. Courtesy: UN Photo/Evan Schneider

By James Jeffrey
YORK, United Kingdom, Apr 10 2020 (IPS)

Recent gains by women in the Ethiopian political landscape offer a chance to improve gender equality around the country and put an end to long-standing societal iniquities.

Since coming to power in 2018, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has reorganised the cabinet to ensure that 50 percent of the government’s top ministerial positions have been given to women.

Sahle-Work Zewde became the country’s first female president, while Aisha Mohammed became the country’s first defence minister. Never before in Ethiopia have so many high-ranking government positions been held by women.

In 1991, the share of seats held by women in the Ethiopian parliament was under 3 percent. Today it stands at 38 percent, almost twice the ratio of women in the United States Congress.

But, at the same time, stark gender disparities persist all around the country. The hope is that improved representation in the federal government will tangibly affect and improve the status of Ethiopia’s more than 50 million women and girls.

“There is strong evidence that as more women are elected to office, there are more policies enacted that emphasise quality of life and reflect the priorities of families, women and minorities,” Katja Iversen, president of Women Deliver, an international organisation advocating around the world for gender equality and the health and rights of girls and women, tells IPS.

“Studies also show that women are more likely than men to work across party lines, help secure lasting peace, and prioritise health, education and other societal priorities key to the wellbeing and prosperity of both constituents and societies at large.”

At the same time, there are concerns that Ethiopia’s most recent female politicians are not in elected positions rather are making up a quota. 

“The women who are in power are more loyal to the prime minister than the public that is why they find it difficult to act—for fear of disappointing the person who put them there,” Hadra Ahmed, a freelance Ethiopian journalist, tells IPS.

“We can only say women are in politics when they are represented as candidates and as decision makers,” she adds.

Women in Ethiopia have long faced systemic inequities. The discrepancies begin early and often persist throughout Ethiopian women’s lives. Nearly twice as many men than women over age 25 have some secondary education. Women often face more economic constraints than men, including less access to credit and limited market access.

“Ethiopians strongly believe that women can never be as good as men and this is specially heart breaking when it comes from your mother [or] a well-educated person that you probably look up to [such as] your teacher,” Ahmed says.

“And the whole system tells you that you are not as capable through different policies like affirmative actions that lower the passing grade rather than helping girls to study and making sure they make it to school in time.”

Female genital mutilation rates remain high, with 74 percent of girls and women aged 15 to 49 years of age experiencing FGM, according to UNICEF. Child marriage still occurs, with about 58 percent of Ethiopian females marrying before they turn 18.

Eighty percent of Ethiopia’s population resides in rural areas and women provide much of the agricultural labour in these communities, while shouldering the majority of child-rearing duties.

But the contributions of women can go largely unrecognized. Fathers or husbands often restrict access to resources and community participation. One in three women experience physical, emotional or sexual violence, according to USAID.

“Ethiopian society practices negative social norms that reinforce inequality and perpetuate deep power and gender imbalances,” Dinah Musindarwezo, director of policy and communications for Womankind Worldwide, a global women’s rights organisation working in partnership with women’s rights organisations and movements, tells IPS.

“The perceptions and attitudes that women should belong to the kitchen and men in the board room are widely spread across the world. Although we have seen changes and progress towards women participating in public sphere including in political leadership, we are seeing less progress of men entering the kitchen and taking leadership in care work. Globally, women still perform majority of unpaid and domestic work.”

Ethiopia is no exception, Musindarwezo says, illustrated by the widespread expectation that women should not only be the primary childcare providers but they should also perform the majority of unpaid and domestic work.

In Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, life for the majority of women follows a traditional course, centred on family and agriculture. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

In 2017, Ethiopia ranked 121 out of 160 countries on a Untied Nations gender equality index based on various social, health and political factors.

“If you look at the experience of other countries like India, the media representation of strong women is what helped women become stronger in the society,” Ahmed says. “Seeing a stronger version of us somewhere pushes us to be better. Assigning to women a quota in government positions and exploiting them in these positions will not solve anything.”

Iverson says that in order to make sure women’s political participation is not only symbolic, governments must also fully commit to gender equality through equal pay, affordable childcare, gender sensitive budgeting and auditing, and paid parental leave.

Parental leave—including paternity leave—has proven a significant “norm changer” in improving women’s participation in the workforce, Iverson says. When men take paternity leave, she explains, it both affirms that caregiving is everyone’s responsibility, helps improve pay equity, and makes it easier for more women to be successful and climb the career ladder.

Despite the Ethiopian government’s bold moves to empower female politicians, the country’s fraught political realm—which can be dangerous for anyone, regardless of sex—still poses many hurdles for women to overcome, especially given the pernicious influence of social media.

“Women politicians face unique forms of online and offline attacks and deliberate actions to discourage their participation in politics,” Daniel Bekele, commissioner of the Ethiopia Human Rights Commission, said during the keynote speech at the “Women’s Political Participation and Election in Ethiopia: Envisioning 2020 and Beyond for Generation Equality” national conference at the end of 2019.

“This reflects how patriarchal [our] society is in its functions.”

Musindarwezo notes that in addition to having women in political leadership, it’s just as important to create an environment that is conducive for women to be effective leaders.

“Often times we expect women to magically address all the issues especially gender issues without removing structural barriers they face,” Musindarwezo says. “Women political leaders face barriers such as their voices being overshadowed by political parties’ voices, limited access to adequate resources they need to make a difference and being held to different standards to those of men. Women leaders often face biased public criticism, harassment and intimidations just because they are women.”

Bekele says that Ethiopian women face particular challenges in times of elections that seriously impact and discourage their participation. Ethiopia is due to hold an all-important national election this year, but currently it has been delayed due to the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak.

“There must also be implemented legal protections for women including laws against gender-based violence, policies regarding sexual harassment, and accessible justice systems for accountability,” Iverson says. “Countries must ditch discriminatory laws that are holding women back and enact legal frameworks that advance gender equality at work, in society and at home.”

Those at Women Deliver note how, to Ethiopia’s credit, it has brought in a new law that annulled previous legal provisions that gave authority to a husband over a couple’s assets and whether his wife could work outside of the home.

As a result of the legal change, spouses are now equal with regard to the administration of assets, and a husband cannot unilaterally prevent his wife from working. The World Bank estimates that this law has enabled an increase in the participation rate of women in productive sectors.

Despite continuing challenges for Ethiopian women, change is afoot beyond the political level. In the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, Setaweet is the country’s first feminist research and training company, which offers tailor-made gender equality services for schools, agencies and corporate companies. Its flagship project is a feminist curriculum for secondary school students dealing with femininity and masculinity, healthy relationships and positive self-images.

“Women are powerful agents of change, and their participation at all decision-making levels is a prerequisite for politics and programs that reflects societies and are effective, sustainable and inclusive,” Iversen says.

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Losing a part of oneself: The difficult economic situation in Eritrea means that the roads of the capital Asmara are shared by battered old cars and donkey-drawn carts. Eritreans who leave the country often explain that no matter how opposed they might be to the government, their departures are accompanied by feelings of having betrayed the ideals for which previous generations fought. Eritrea gained its independence in 1993 after a 30-year-long war—Africa’s longest—against Ethiopia. Relentless fighting caused hundreds of thousands of deaths on both sides—about 120,000 Eritreans were injured or killed (with a similar number of Ethiopians killed) meaning that virtually every family in this tiny country had someone directly impacted by the war—and led to a million Eritreans leaving.Credit:Milena Belloni/IPS

By Milena Belloni and James Jeffrey
ASMARA, Eritrea/ANTWERP, Belguim, Jun 21 2019 (IPS)

Most media narratives about Eritrea suggest an endless stream of young people fleeing the country, who couldn’t wait to escape. But the reality is far different and more nuanced—both when it comes to those who have left, and those who chose to remain.

Colossal cost: The nearly three decades since independence have not been much easier for Eritreans who remained, with continuing conflict—including a terrible two-year border war with Ethiopia from 1998 to 2000—deprivation and lack of freedom becoming part of everyday life, set against a crippled economy. “There is a limit to the sacrifice that we can make for the country,” a young Eritrean in Asmara tells IPS. “My parents’ generation has died for this country, those who have survived live in deprived conditions, young generations are still in national service unable to choose for their own lives. There is a limit to everything.” Credit: Milena Belloni/IPS

Wary diaspora: Previous years of strife mean that despite Asmara’s picturesque surroundings, when it comes to everyday practicalities, such as public transport, residents are left waiting for too few buses to service the city. Today, Eritrea’s population is about 5.2 million, while about 1.5 million or 1 in 5 Eritreans live around the globe, of whom about half a million live in refugee-like situations, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency. While last year’s peace agreement with Ethiopia—including the opening of the border for the first time in decades—has led to significant improvements in the region’s geopolitics, there has been no change in Eritrea’s political situation. Hence the diaspora continue to wait for President Isaias Afwerki to address internal affairs and the future of the country’s much-hated national service, which mandates that all citizens above 18 serve the state in different ministries or in the military for tiny salaries. Originally implemented in 1995, the conscription was meant to last 18 months. However, since the 1998 border conflict, national service became unlimited.Credit: Milena Belloni/IPS

Learning the hard way: Street-side huskers selling their wares on the streets of Asmara. Tanja Müller from the University of Manchester’s Global Development Institute explains that before the border war with Ethiopia, many qualified diaspora Eritreans from all walks of life and professions chose to return to the country. “Often they incurred financial or other losses and became disillusioned by the conduct of the war and its aftermath, turning from enthusiastic patriots to concerned citizens whose concerns were not in any way engaged with,” Müller says. It’s easier for older members of the diaspora to return—having left when Eritrea was still part of Ethiopia and therefore are not viewed as disloyal by the Eritrean government. But those who have left since the 1998 border war face more risks in doing so. Credit: Milena Belloni/IPS

Government assurances not enough: Young men often hang around Asmara’s streets with few opportunities to find meaningful work. “We accept the reality of migration, we understood how difficult it was for them to live in a country that was held in a limbo by foreign powers,” says a leading government representative who spoke on the condition of anonymity. But such statements often appear at odds with the evidence of a regime that often treats migration punitively. Hence most diaspora choose to remain abroad until a clearer tangible sign of change by the government, while those who have the resources to travel choose to reunite with families in the less risky environment of neighbouring Ethiopia.Credit: Milena Belloni/IPS

Remittances and resentment: While the diaspora maintains a strong link with families back home, especially through remittances—some estimate that about 30 percent of Eritrea’s gross domestic product is derived from money sent back to the country—stories of resentment towards family members in the diaspora are common in Eritrea. Some families remain in debt after paying for the journeys of those who left, while those abroad are seldom able to send enough money to satisfy their relatives’ desire for a substantial lifestyle change. But the fact remains that everyday survival for most Eritreans depends on remittances because of low public salaries and the high cost of living, especially over the last decade.Credit: Milena Belloni/IPS

Negative view of migration: State propaganda has been portraying migration negatively. The post-border war situation with Ethiopia meant Eritrea remained on a war footing, meaning emigration, especially that of young people, was not allowed. At the same time, much public discourse defined emigration as unpatriotic behaviour, and as selfish and destructive conduct, with no positive effect on the country and its people. But the lack of change and progress seen in Eritrea is causing some of those who have stayed to doubt their previous beliefs.Credit: Milena Belloni/IPS

Relentless passage of time: “I would have never believed if someone 10 years ago told me that I was still going to be here,” 26-year-old Jordanos* tells IPS, while sitting together in front of Adi Kaye Higher College, where she works as a university assistant. “You know how it goes, they give you something to do, they send you here and there and you don’t realise that time is passing by and that you have obtained nothing.” She explained she felt stuck with little educational and professional prospects. She is hoping to gain a legal way out of the country because having a passport can make life much easier abroad. Also, she did not want all her years of service for the country to be wasted—she wanted to leave as a patriotic citizen, she says, not as someone who escaped her duty.Credit: Milena Belloni/IPS

Eritrea will always be home: Even if migration remains a common desire for many young Eritreans, explaining they want to see the world and pursue further education to make money to help their families, at the same time most discuss it as a temporary solution. They emphasise that Eritrea is their home and they want to return eventually. “I cannot see myself living abroad forever,” says Jordanos. “I will build a house in my father’s land. By then the village will be a city with schools, and good services.” Credit: Milena Belloni/IPS

Diaspora potential lost:About 80 percent of Eritrea’s population depends on agriculture for their livelihoods, with many scarping through as subsistence farmers. Most commentators on Eritrea argue that by maintaining a punitive approach to those who escaped in the last 20 years, the Eritrean government is wasting an opportunity to harness the huge size of the diaspora and its potential to direct important human and economic capital back to the country. Eritrea, the experts say, has much to gain from embracing a more liberal emigration policy and promoting circular migration. They also note that while the past strict emigration policy has had little effect on the outflow of young people from the country, it has impacted on their chances to go back for regular visits and to reinvest back home, leading, as a result, to more impoverishment and hence more emigration. Credit: Milena Belloni/IPS

Deep rooted problems must be addressed: Old boats and decrepit buildings at the port city of Massawa that many hope could be revitalised by new trade with Ethiopia. But the hope and jubilation that accompanied the opening of the Eritrea-Ethiopia border last year is already receding. Recently all the reopened border crossing points between Ethiopia and Eritrea were closed without official explanation. While most observers say this is likely a temporary measure while the two governments sort out trade and visa regulations, many also express serious doubts about what can be achieved while the Eritrean government maintains the same authoritarian stance. “Diaspora investment is also not the Holy Grail it is often made out to be,” Müller says. “[The problem] is about much more than emigration policy, it is the capture of the economy by the Eritrean government that hinders diaspora contributions, but also fear.”Credit: Milena Belloni/IPS

When war broke out in 2013 in South Sudan, refugees poured into neighbouring Gambella. Today, 485,000 South Sudanese refugees lived in the Gambella region, according to UNHCR, the United Nations refugee organisation. Some displaced Nuer brought arms across the border, destabilising an already tense region. “The fact that the Nuer and Anuwak exist on both sides of the border makes it easy for people of both communities to pass backwards and forwards, taking with them their conflicts both between the two tribes but also at the national level,” says John Ashworth, who has been working in South Sudan and the surrounding region for the last 30 years. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By James Jeffrey
GAMBELLA, Ethiopia, May 6 2019 (IPS)

Right up against the border with South Sudan, the western Gambella region of Ethiopia has become a watchword for trouble and no-go areas as its neighbour’s troubles have spilled over. But now there may be reason for optimism on either side of the border.

The brown waters of the Baro River meandering through the Ethiopian city of Gambella—from which the surrounding region takes its name—coupled with an atmosphere of tropical languor creates an almost cliched archetype of the Western idea of an African river port. Except for the fact that there is not a single boat on the river. The 2013 outbreak of civil war in South Sudan, whose border lies 50 kilometres from the city, put an end to the thriving trade that once plied this waterway between Gambella and Juba, the South Sudanese capital. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

It is hard to visit Gambella and not be struck by the height of many locals, some with horizontal scarification lines across their foreheads. The Nuer are one of five ethnic groups populating the region. Close ties and tensions between the Nuer and Anuwak, the two largest ethnic groups, representing about 45 percent and 26 percent of the population, respectively, date back centuries. The modern border between the two nations does not delineate where either group lives nor is movement across the South Sudan-Ethiopia border a new phenomenon. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

When war broke out in 2013 in South Sudan, refugees poured into neighbouring Gambella. Today, 485,000 South Sudanese refugees lived in the Gambella region, according to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN refugee organisation. Some displaced Nuer brought arms across the border, destabilising an already tense region. “The fact that the Nuer and Anuwak exist on both sides of the border makes it easy for people of both communities to pass backwards and forwards, taking with them their conflicts both between the two tribes but also at the national level,” says John Ashworth, who has been working in South Sudan and the surrounding region for the last 30 years. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

This is the closest you will come to finding a boat in Gambella nowadays. “The river used to be full of boats and trade before 2013 and the war broke out,” one Gambella local says of the Baro River and its tributaries flowing across the border. Nowadays the most urgent traffic around the city comes from the plethora of white SUVs, plastered with the logos of almost every NGO to be found in Ethiopia. Some locals are employed by NGOs as drivers and translators, but the vast majority of locals struggling to get by see little of the money generated by Ethiopia’s refugee industry. In 2018 the budget required for Ethiopia’s total refugee population—around 900,000 people—was estimated at 618 million dollars. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Gambella city has an intriguing modern history, in which the Baro River plays a crucial part. In the late 19th century, Britain came knocking, seeing the Baro’s navigable reach to Khartoum as an excellent highway for exporting coffee and other produce to Sudan and Egypt. The Ethiopian emperor granted Britain the use of land for a port and Gambella was established in 1907. Only a few hundred hectares in size, this tiny British territory became a prosperous trade centre as ships from Khartoum sailed regularly during the rainy season when the water was high. The Italians captured Gambella in 1936 but it was back with the British after a bloody battle in 1941. Gambella became part of Sudan in 1951, but was reincorporated into Ethiopia five years later. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Here a woman sells fish in a small market. Everyday life appears slow and peaceful. But the Gambella region has gained a reputation as a no-go area among foreigners and Ethiopians alike. Back in 1962, the first of several civil wars broke out next door in Sudan at the start of a 50-year quest for South Sudanese independence, and from which Gambella could not remain immune. The stigma attached to the region hasn’t been helped by the Ethiopian government’ tendency to take a dismissive view of the region, underscored by a prejudice—one that extends throughout Ethiopian society—that the blacker one is the less Ethiopia you are, says Dereje Feyissa, a senior advisor at the Addis Ababa-based International Law and Policy Institute. “The Ethiopian centre has always related to its periphery in a predatory way,” Dereje says. “This is not only because of the geographic distance but also the historical, social and cultural differences which the discourse on skin colour signifies.” Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Local men carrying wrapped-up dried fish on their heads walk through an Anuwak village. The Gambella region is something of an anomaly in Ethiopia, displaying stronger historical, ethnic and climatic links to neighbouring South Sudan. “This was not the Ethiopia of cool highlands and white flowing traditional dress, but Nilotic Africa, in the blazing southwestern lowlands near the Sudanese border,” recalls Steve Buff, a former Peace Corps Volunteer. “This was much closer to our childhood National Geographic images of Africa than any place we’d seen before in Ethiopia.” Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Since the latest peace agreement between South Sudan’s warring factions late last year, the indications seem more promising than with previous peace agreements that fell apart. By December 2018, the security situation in South Sudan had significantly improved, stated Jean-Pierre Lacroix, head of United Nations Peacekeeping. And by February this year, David Shearer, head of the UN Mission in South Sudan, told reporters in New York that political violence has “dropped dramatically.” Shearer added that the success of the peace agreement will be partly measured by the extent to which people return to home towns and villages. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

This year the UNHCR has reported spontaneous movements of South Sudanese refugees from various Gambella-based camps heading toward South Sudan, an estimated 5,000 since mid-December. Perhaps a good sign of what Shearer discussed? Interviews with the refugees, however, indicated they were returning to South Sudan for fear of retaliatory action following clan-based conflicts in camps, while some said they were going to visit their families, and would eventually return to the camps in Gambella. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

“This time it is different, as the international community is involved,” a South Sudanese refugee in Gambella remarked while reading Facebook posts on his smartphone about the latest peace deal. At the same time, the time it has taken to overcome the animosity of the past and get to the current stage of the peace process suggests there will be South Sudanese refugees in Gambella for some time yet. Meanwhile, the Baro River will flow on undisturbed by river traffic through a land of limbo caught up in the surrounding troubles, its seemingly placid surface deceiving to the eye. “There are plenty of crocodiles, though you won’t see them as the water is high,” a local man says. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

A pair of combines harvesting soybeans in the US. Courtesy: World Resources Institute.

By James Jeffrey
WASHINGTON, D.C., Apr 17 2019 (IPS)

Water supply has long been a key issue in California. Today it is no less critical, especially given the years of drought that California is experiencing, lending additional impetus to assessing the impact of agriculture on water.

The conventional estimate is that 80 percent of the water used in California flows into the state’s multi-billion-dollar agricultural sector.

But it goes way beyond water. As in California, agriculture in the United States is dominated by large, specialised crop and animal farms that focus on short-term productivity, often at the cost of creating other environmental problems, as well as public health issues.

Increasingly, there is recognition that societies need to work towards an agriculture that is greener, cleaner, and provides better quality, more nutritious food that not only feeds people but improves their diet. This is not a new idea, rather one that has been ignored in our impatient, on-demand society, as well as one that has had to compete against a food and diet industry valued at 66 billion dollars in the U.S., with all the vested interests that go with it.

“It is not necessarily the size of holdings or the level of mechanisation and industrialisation that is a problem, rather it is the way agriculture is practiced, when this has unintentional impacts on the environment,” Jean-Marc Faurès, a former senior advisor on sustainable agriculture at the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), tells IPS.

“In the past, we have looked at productivity as the sole metrics to measure success in agriculture. Measuring agricultural sustainability forces us to go beyond productivity only and include other dimensions, like the environmental, but also the social dimension.”

To better help people understand where the problem areas are occurring, the Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition Foundation (BCFN), a non-profit research centre studying the causes and effects on food created by economic, scientific, societal and environmental factors, has produced a food sustainability index profile for the U.S. and another 66 countries.

Each country profile focuses on three pillars—food loss and waste, sustainable agriculture, nutritional challenges—each of which is broken into multiple relevant categories that are rated green, yellow or red, to indicate progress: green being good, red being bad.

The U.S. score for sustainable agriculture was average due to the land category having repeatedly low scores across indicators such as the impact on land of animal feed and biofuels, agricultural subsidies and diversification of agricultural systems (the U.S. earned a high score for the food loss and waste pillar, but only performed moderately well in terms of nutritional challenges).

“A major issue in the U.S. is the low proportion of land set aside for organic farming as opposed to the large amount used for bio-fuel and animal feed,” BCFN’s Katarzyna Dembska tells IPS. “The large demand for animal feed is directly linked to the meat supply in the country: the additional 225 grams of meat available per capita per day—compared to the recommended intakes—makes the U.S. availability of meat for consumers among the highest in the world.”

Lack of diversification is another problem in the U.S., and around the world, with people fed from just a very limited basket of crops and animals, Faurès says. This increases the vulnerability of agricultural systems to unexpected events—climatic, pests, or market related—but also means that people eat food that is not diversified and is too rich in carbohydrates and not enough in vitamins.   

“It is a paradox in a way that many developing countries show much more diverse production systems than developed countries,” Faurès says. “This is in part due to the imperative need for farmers to diversify sources of income and reduce risks related to shocks.”

He emphasises, however, that he isn’t recommending turning to be more like those farming models, which have many of their own problems.

“Moving towards more sustainable agriculture takes different shapes according to your starting point,” Faurès says. “In poor, unproductive areas, the focus is on increasing productivity and reducing vulnerability; in more advanced, input-intensive systems, sustainability implies a move towards greener production systems that make better use of the resources that our ecosystems offer and progressively reduce their negative impacts on the environment.”

Food subsidies in the U.S. are often called out for sustaining problems, scoring a red in the food sustainability index profile.

“The bigger issue with subsidies is what they have failed to do, and how they are underachieving in terms of what they could be doing,” Timothy Searchinger, a research scholar at Princeton University and for the World Resources Institute, tells IPS. “Agriculture has been grossly under regulated and under incentivised on the environmental side.”

The result has seen environmental costs incurred and opportunities missed for the likes of improving land use.

“Even though the U.S. is blessed with an abundance of farm-friendly country, it’s still limited,” Ari Phillips, an environmental journalist, tells IPS. “Agricultural land is extremely unaccommodating for wildlife and can lead to nearby chemical contamination issues.”

There are good examples of countries succeeding in cutting back on such environmental consequences, Searchinger says. Costa Rica has made significant progress in reducing deforestation that was occurring as a result of subsidies paid for grazing, while New Zealand has basically gone “cold turkey” on subsidies and as a result improved land use and agriculture.

He notes that when considering all this, it should be borne in mind there are different ways of defining progress and hence it should not be forgotten that agriculture has achieved what it set out to do.

“There’s been stunning progress in making food—the advances really have been staggering,” Searchinger says. “Twenty-five years ago, many people in China were desperately hungry—that’s been turned around, though with gigantic environmental consequences.”

The implications globally are clear enough to cause grave concerns. The UN has predicted that as soon as 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population could be dealing with water scarcity. Increasingly in the news are stories of water-starved communities around the world—from Houston to Puerto Rico to Cape Town—indicating that our trust in the tap is far less dependable than we assume.

“Drought-prone states like Texas and California were already water stressed before climate change came around,” Phillips says. “Overcoming the combined challenges of population growth and reduced precipitation in a limited amount of time will be tough. Agriculture will have to play a big part in this transition. If it gets bad enough, there could be permanent water rationing.”

Tackling these sorts of problems, and how agriculture influences them, is highly complex due to all the interlinking factors.

“People need to be better educated about the water embedded in the food that they eat and the products that they use,” says Jack Ceadel with Global Water Intelligence. “We need to adopt new technology and invest properly in our water infrastructure and making our cities more efficient and resilient.”

At the same time, it requires better appreciation of the sorts of hard data provided by the likes of Barilla’s food sustainability index profiles, rather than being swayed by what might look good. Searchinger notes that though people may prefer more traditional farms that appear more in harmony with the surrounding environment, even those types of farms have transformed the environment significantly, while larger, more ugly farms may have less impact environmentally per tonne of food produced.

Commentators note that changing the food culture of any country like the U.S.—in its case with 328 million keen and diverse appetites—will require redirecting, reframing and sometimes remaking traditional habits, expectations and the physical environment, as well as what is taken as normal and acceptable in people’s lives.

“The first thing is to feed people,” Searchinger says. “But you have to do it with more environmental sensitivity.”

Central Texas Food Bank distributing food. Photo courtesy Central Texas Food Bank.

By James Jeffrey
AUSTIN, United States, Apr 9 2019 (IPS)

There’s much to think about regarding food this month. April is Reducing Food Waste Month in the United States, as efforts mount here to reduce food loss and waste, while globally Sunday Apr. 7 was World Heath Day.

In dustbins across America, food is the single largest type of daily waste. More than one-third of all available food in the U.S. goes uneaten through loss or waste, a proportion replicated globally.

Increasingly there is an acceptance that when food is tossed aside, so, too, are opportunities for economic growth, healthier communities and environmental prosperity. The hope is that this can change through partnership, leadership and action, underpinned by education and outreach.

“There is increasing recognition of the need to sensitise and educate consumers, particularly in urban centres, to value food and reduce food waste,” Florian Doerr from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations tells IPS. “Recognising that children and young people are the consumers that will shape the food waste scenario of the future, investing in their education to reduce food waste will help in creating a culture of change toward sustainably stemming the problem.”

Hence the work being done by the likes of the Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition Foundation (BCFN), a non-profit research centre studying the causes and effects on food created by economic, scientific, societal and environmental factors.

It has produced for the U.S.—as well as for another 66 countries—a food sustainability index profile that dives into all the relevant sectors, ranging from the likes of management of water resources, the impact on land of animal feed and biofuels, agricultural subsidies and diversification of agricultural system, to nutritional challenges, physical activity, diet composition and healthy life expectancy indicators.

“We want to provide tools for all the stakeholders involved, ranging from those deciding policy to students becoming better informed,” BCFN’s Katarzyna Dembska tells IPS. “The goal is to enable people to make more informed choices, both nutritionally and in terms of the impact on the environment.”

The stakes are high. Food production is the largest contributor to climate change (31 percent), exceeding the heating of buildings (23.6 percent) and transportation (18.5 percent), according to global estimates.

The consequences of climate change on agriculture and human health are one of the most significant problems we will face in the coming years, says the World Health Organization (WHO), due to the increase in temperatures and atmospheric pollutants. According to recent estimates, air pollution in Italy causes the death of over 90,000 people a year, a record in the European Union (EU).

“People are starting to realise that the food system is built into so many other sectors,” Brian Lipinski from the World Resources Institute tells IPS. “Agriculture has implications for land use, what we eat, and so many other aspects of our lives.”

The double food and environmental pyramid model developed by the BCFN Foundation emerged from research and an evolution of the food pyramid, which forms the basis of the Mediterranean diet. Photo courtesy BCFN.

Given the differences in food and agriculture systems and various inputs across different countries, Dembska notes that it is important users of the food index try to dig deeper and explore the underlying thematic pillars and indicators to learn more about how each income group performs within individual areas of food sustainability.

“When people are inserted into an overall food system that is not sustainable, it makes making sustainable choices harder,” Dembska tells IPS. “We want to draw attention to issues that may be well known to those in areas such as public health but might not be as appreciated by policy makers, but who are connected to the relevant sectors—then there can be more of an integrated approach.”

While much of the discussion about food wastage focuses on developed countries, the situation is more complicated.

“In poorer countries there is not so much food waste at the consumption end, rather it’s more a case of food loss at the farming and storage stages, as they don’t have the required infrastructure yet,” Lipinski says. “Rather than singling out countries for blame, it’s more helpful to look at and think about the trend of how as incomes increase as countries develop, the wastage shifts downstream to the consumer end.”

In addition to the educative likes of BCFN’s food sustainability index to shed light on these sorts of trends, other practical measures are gaining traction. Increasingly shops are opening up to selling lower-quality foods, such as fruits and vegetables—sometimes called “ugly” because they do not meet high quality standards such as size, colour and shape but are safe to eat—at reduced prices.

Other initiatives—including social media and other public awareness campaigns—are focusing on providing more information about safe food handling, proper food storage in households and better understanding about “best before” dates in order to prevent and reduce food waste.

“There’s three parts to why food sustainability is important,” Lipinski tells IPS. “It’s good for you, it’s good for others, and it’s good for the world—it’s good for you because you save money; it’s good for others if you redistribute food that otherwise would have been wasted; and it’s good environmentally because then all the resources that went into getting the food to you aren’t being thrown away either.”

Around the world, one in 10 people is estimated to have to choose between spending money on food or healthcare, a conundrum that many Americans face due to mounting living costs.

“In a city like Austin, there is increasing prosperity, but at the same time there are people being left behind,” Angela Henry, from the Central Texas Food Bank, part of Feeding America, a nationwide network of 200 food banks providing hunger relief across the U.S., tells IPS. “There’s a viscous cycle of food insecurity and health disorders—lack of nutritious food leads to stress and makes it difficult to cope and manage your illness, which leads to more complications personally and professionally.”

At the same time, America and many other countries are facing increasing levels of obesity, a major cause of non-communicable diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and respiratory illnesses, which are estimated to cost the world economy two trillion dollars per year (2.8 percent of global GDP).

Despite the overall scale of the challenge, those such as Dembska note that it doesn’t necessarily take drastic actions to achieve eating in a more sustainable way, as all the guidelines are out there already, as illustrated by the “food and environmental pyramid” model.

This highlights the extremely close links between two aspects of every food: its nutritional value and the environmental impact it has through the stages of its production and consumption. Healthier foods that people often don’t eat enough of, such as fruit and vegetables, tend to have lower environmental impact, while foods with a high environmental impact, such a red meat, should be consumed in moderation because of the effects they can have on our health.

“In almost every country of the world, the multiple burdens of malnutrition include caloric deficiencies, micronutrient deficiencies—hidden hunger—overweightness and obesity are putting ever-growing costs on health care systems,” Doerr says. “The majority of wasted foods are perishable, nutrient dense foods like fruits, vegetables, dairy products and fish, which can help tackle all these forms of malnutrition.”

At the same time, another important aspect is to start to look at things differently, says Lipinski. He notes how when people throw away food that has become squishy or mouldy they don’t necessarily look on it as wasting food.

“But you did something, whether it was buying too much food which meant you didn’t eat it in time, or that you forgot about at the back of the fridge,” Lipinski says. “So there are many different points where change can occur.”

As the numbers show, food and the health of ourselves and the planet are deeply connected and impact the financial costs we pay for medical care, as well as potentially deeper costs in terms of a viable future for humanity.

“The main message is that if you want to be sustainable then choose a healthy diet,” Dembska says.

Excerpt:

Even the Afar can be shy: Here a young Afar woman consents to be photographed, though only after covering part of her face. Afar women often have intricate frizzed and braided hairstyles, and wear bright coloured bead necklaces, heavy earrings and brass anklets. Many Afar women cover their heads in public. This helps ward off the relentless sun. At the same time, the vast majority of Afar are Muslim. Despite Afar’s ancient trade links with the Christian highlands to the west, Islam was widely practiced in the region as early as the 13th century. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By James Jeffrey
ADDIS ABABA, Mar 6 2019 (IPS)

Once made infamous through explorers’ tales of old, Ethiopia’s remote northeast Afar region both conforms to and contradicts stereotypes.

Tough neighbourhood: Ethiopia’s remote northeast Afar region contains the Danakil Depression—the hottest place on earth where temperatures in the naked plains frequently soar above 50 degrees centigrade, exacerbated by the fierce blowing of the Gara, which translates as Fire Wind. Such inhospitable conditions haven’t stopped the Afar, who regard themselves as the oldest of Ethiopia’s ethnic groups having occupied their arid homeland for at least 2,000 years. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Armed but amiable—fortunately: Here a young Afar man unsheathes the sword he carries attached to his waist. Historically, the Afar menfolk gained a reputation for ferocity and intolerance of outsiders, including the habit of cutting off the testicles of any foreigner found in their territory. The reality now is far removed from the stereotypes of travellers’ tales—the majority of Afar that the author met proved friendly, as well as patient about his photographic requests. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Less on the move nowadays: A kite bird of prey rests on a rooftop in the town of Asaita overlooking the Awash River, beside which can be seen distinctive dome-shaped Afar homes. Traditionally the Afar are nomadic pastoralists, living in light, flimsy houses which they transport from one location to the next on camel back. Recent decades have seen a trend towards an increased dependence on agriculture in the fertile and well-watered areas around the likes of Asaita. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Pastoralist past not forgotten: Here a woman weaves palm frond into the matting used to cover traditional Afar homes. Afar women are typically responsible for constructing a family’s nomadic home from the ground up when a family moves to another location. Despite a visitor encountering friendliness, you still sense a robust mentality among the Afar, shaped by that tough nomadic pastoralist past, and which still continues, evidenced by the camels continuing to plod across the desert, and the clusters of domed houses dotting the parched plains. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

What’s that shimmering in the heat haze?: In the plains surrounding Asaita an enormous sugar factory towers over surrounding Afar homes, evidence that there appears to no longer be any part of Ethiopia immune to the country’s ambitions to develop. In recent years the government has made a concerted effort to establish sugar factories to meet growing local demand, create jobs and boost economic growth. This has included locating factories in remote areas instead of being concentrated in one region. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Even the Afar can be shy: Here a young Afar woman consents to be photographed, though only after covering part of her face. Afar women often have intricate frizzed and braided hairstyles, and wear bright coloured bead necklaces, heavy earrings and brass anklets. Many Afar women cover their heads in public. This helps ward off the relentless sun. At the same time, the vast majority of Afar are Muslim. Despite Afar’s ancient trade links with the Christian highlands to the west, Islam was widely practiced in the region as early as the 13th century. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Renowned for distinctive hairstyles: It’s not just Afar women who embrace eye-catching hairstyles. Afar men often wear their hair in thick Afro style or equally distinctive long curls, and dress in a light cotton toga. While these two men aren’t armed, Afar men rarely venture far without a sword or dagger, and these days the traditional knife can be supplemented or replaced by an AK-47 slung casually over the shoulder. Such weapons are still frequently put to fatal use in disputes between local clans. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Trading salt and more: The main thoroughfare through the city of Logiya sees a constant stream of trucks on the way to and from ports across the nearby border in Djibouti. At the same time more modern goods are being taken into Ethiopia to sustain the growing needs of its developing population, the Afar continue to load up camels with bars of salt, cut out of the desiccated ground, to transport to the region of Tigray along the ancient caravan routes. Until modern times, the Afar region effectively served as Ethiopia’s Mint, producing the amoles—salt bars—that served as the main currency in the highlands. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Beguiling mix: At Asaita the Awash River cuts a green swathe through the desert, evoking images of Egyptian pastures watered by the Nile. As the sun begins to set over Asaita, the muezzin can be heard calling the faithful to prayer, while electric lights start appearing in the sugar factory in the distance. It’s a striking impression of old and new, tradition and modernisation co-existing together. “Things are simpler here,” Yohannes, a young man in Logiya, says about the local way of life. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Still embracing the low-tech way of life:
Despite Ethiopia undergoing great changes as it rapidly develops, the nomadic lifestyle lives on in Afar away from its urban centres. Afar men can be seen driving their precious camel herds alongside roads, or as small specks in the distance stretching out across the sands before finally disappearing in the hot horizon. Traveling around Ethiopia and the likes of the Afar can leave a visitor pondering what countries in the Global South might teach more developed countries rushing headlong into a high-tech-focused future about better balancing tradition and modernisation. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Shared bonds and styles: “We have a strong affinity with Eritreans,” says Mekelle resident Huey Berhe, noting how most Tigrayans have Eritrean relatives, and vice versa. “We are the same people. I can feel the agony of isolation they have endured; I have lots of friends whose families were separated by the war.” Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By James Jeffrey
ADDIS ABABA, Feb 6 2019 (IPS)

The sudden peace between Ethiopia and Eritrea, and the opening of their previously closed and dangerous border, sent shockwaves of hope and optimism throughout the two countries. But a new issue has arisen: whether Eritreans coming into Ethiopia should still be classed as refugees.

“Asmara! Asmara! Asmara!” There is a new cry from the boys leaning out of minibuses picking up customers in the cities of Ethiopia’s Tigray region, which straddles the border with Eritrea. Here a minibus stops for a lunch break during its 300-kilometer journey between Mekelle, the Tigray capital, and the Eritrean capital, Asmara. The historic shift in Ethiopia-Eritrea relations means Eritreans can cross one of the world’s former most dangerous borders without a passport or permit. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

More nuanced reality: Eritreans cuing at the Eritrean border check point, before heading north to Asmara, illustrates how not all Eritreans want refugee status in Ethiopia, despite most media narratives leaving out the nuances and portraying an endless flow of feeling Eritreans. “I went from Addis Ababa to Asmara after the border opened to see my father for the first time in 26 years—he died 10 days after I arrived,” says Senait, an Eritrean who moved to the Ethiopian capital after marrying an Ethiopian but wasn’t able to visit her family after war broke out in 1998 between the two countries, thereby closing the border. “Now I am going back to take his brother, my uncle, to live in Asmara. It will be better for him to be with family there than in Addis. But I will return to my family in Ethiopia.” Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Long awaited freedom of movement: The wide palm tree-lined avenues of Mekelle, and its marketplace, have seen a rush of Eritreans coming to reunite with family and enjoy the more vibrant social life and shopping scene, before returning to Eritrea. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Long awaited freedom of movement: Once known for hosting convoys of camels carrying salt from the Danakil desert, Mekelle’s bustling market has lately seen an increase in sales of cereals, construction materials and petrol. “In Eritrea they are limited to how much they can take out of the bank each month, but here they can get money sent by relatives abroad,” says Teberhe, a Mekele entrepreneur. “They are taking back construction materials in case building restrictions are reduced at home.” Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Shared bonds and styles: The back and forth over the border is helped by many people in Eritrea and Tigray having shared the same language, religion and cultural and social traditions going back centuries before Eritrea’s independence from Ethiopia in 1993. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Shared bonds and styles: “We have a strong affinity with Eritreans,” says Mekelle resident Huey Berhe, noting how most Tigrayans have Eritrean relatives, and vice versa. “We are the same people. I can feel the agony of isolation they have endured; I have lots of friends whose families were separated by the war.” Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Peace—but also prosperity?: “Business is pretty good,” says Tesfaye, who usually works at the cement factory outside Mekelle but at the weekend earns extra money by exchanging Ethiopian birr and Eritrean nakfa for travelers crossing the border. “It’s a good opportunity while the banks aren’t changing money yet.” The open border has seen merchandise and trade flowing freely both ways, and merchants in Tigray cities and in Asmara profiting by the uptick, with talk of only more economic activity to come. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Motoring to Mekelle: Tired-looking cars with the distinctive Eritrean registration plate beginning ER1 can be seen joining minibuses on the main road through Tigray to the border or parked around Mekelle. “We’ve had lots of Eritreans staying,” says Ruta who owns Lalibela Hotel in the center of Mekelle. There’s also been a surge in room rentals in Mekelle thanks to Eritreans looking for work. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Refugee process still continues: A worker photocopying refugee application forms at the Tigray office for Ethiopia’s Administration for Refugee and Returnee Affairs, known as ARRA. “Ethiopia is a signatory to the Geneva convention on refugees, so for now there is no change in their refugee status,” says Tekie Gebreyesas with ARRA. “The relationship between the two countries has improved, but the internal situation in Eritrea is still the same.” Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Glued to the reforming prime minister: Lunchtime diners watch a broadcast showing Ethiopia’s popular new leader, Abiy Ahmed, who shocked all by offering peace to Eritrea. The dilemma that Ethiopia now faces over Eritrean refugees reflects a challenge at a global level to better understand the realities of refugee life. “Refugees are always portrayed as victims,” says Milena Belloni, who has researched Eritrean refugees for a decade. “It misses the reality, that they have capabilities and come with dreams, desires and aspirations.” Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Refugees and peace not a contradiction: The Tigray city of Shire, not far from the border and where the UNHCR’s regional office is, has also seen its fair share of Eritrean arriving. A UNHCR worker who wasn’t willing to be quoted noted that around the world almost all countries receiving refugees do so while at peace with the country refugees are leaving—hence there is nothing unusual about Ethiopia and Eritrea reconciling while the refugee flow continues. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Travel opens eyes: Ethiopian airlines has restarted flights to Asmara, though Ethiopians often choose the cheaper option of taking a domestic flight between Addis Ababa and Mekelle, before continuing by bus. The overall situation and options available remain fluid, and there could be even more changes ahead. “I don’t think there is any way back now for the Eritrean government,” Teberhe says. “Eritreans are experiencing freedom—the genie is out of the bottle.” Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

*Some names have been changed or omitted due to the requests of those interviewed.

Excerpt:

Ethiopia is not an industrialised country but is looking at alternative economic activity that allows a low-carbon economy and means of living. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By James Jeffrey
ADDIS ABABA, Oct 15 2018 (IPS)

As Ethiopia undergoes a period of unprecedented change and reform, the Global Green Growth Institute(GGGI) is partnering with the Ethiopian government to try and ensure this vital period of transition includes the country embracing sustainable growth and avoiding the environmental mistakes made by Western nations.

The basis of this effort comes from GGGI supporting the Ethiopian government in the development and implementation of its Climate-Resilient Green Economy (CRGE), a strategy launched in 2011 to achieve middle-income status while developing a green economy.

As elsewhere in Africa where GGGI is partnering with other member countries—Ethiopia was the first country to sign up among the current group of 10—the goal is to act now to enable countries to have a future comprising economic growth and poverty reduction while building resilience, promoting sustainable infrastructure and ensuring efficient management of natural resources.

“Countries like Ethiopia aren’t industrialised, so they have a chance to leapfrog in their development that means they wouldn’t follow us and make the mistakes we did when we industrialised,” Dexippos Agourides, GGGI’s head of programmes for Africa and Europe who is based in Addis Ababa, tells IPS. “We are talking about an alternative economic activity that allows a low-carbon economy and means of living.”

The global effort toward green growth gained momentum after the Paris Agreement in which signatories agreed to collectively tackle climate change through the mechanism of implementing nationally determined contributions (NDC), a country’s tailored efforts to reduce its emissions and enable it to adapt to climate change-induced challenges.

“The government has made big commitment and set very ambitious targets, so even if they only go halfway to their targets that would still be a significant achievement,” Agourides says. “There are big gaps in the plan, which is where we come in to accompany the government in this ambition.”

Hence GGGI’s 12-person team in Addis Ababa providing embedded expert and advisory technical support and capacity building to the Ethiopian government.

Their main effort is to ensure CRGE strategies and financing go toward six sectors identified as key for green growth: energy, reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation, agriculture (land use and livestock), green urbanisation and cities, transport, industry and health.

Ethiopia’s goal is to act now to enable it to have a future comprising economic growth and poverty reduction while building resilience, promoting sustainable infrastructure and ensuring efficient management of natural resources. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

One example of how this looks on the ground is Ethiopia’s programme of building industrial parks becoming greener, through schemes such as waste sludge from factories being used by other industries.

Another example is Ethiopia’s ambitious programme of reforestation and management of existing forest cover, which had reduced from covering about 35 percent of the country a century ago to around 3 percent in 2000—it’s now back up to around 15 percent.

GGGI is also working with the government on adaptation plans for areas prone to drought and flash flooding that appear increasingly volatile due to climate change.

“We look at past patterns and predict who suffers and how, so we can make plans so people are not hit,” says Innocent Kabenga, GGGI’s country representative for Ethiopia.

At the same time, Kabenga notes, methods such as reusing water, hydro-power, wind and solar are all being considered as means of mitigating Ethiopia’s carbon footprint. Such a plethora of renewable energy options comes from Ethiopia having one of the most complex and variable climates in the world due to its location between various climatic systems and its diverse geographical structure.

When it comes to the often-contentious issue of more foreign funds going to Ethiopia—already one of the world’s biggest recipients of overseas aid—those at GGGI point out that it is not necessarily a case of more funds but making sure existing funding go to the right place.

At the same time, there is no getting around the financial costs involved, both for Ethiopia’s green growth goals—in 2017, GGGI helped Ethiopia access USD 135 for its programme reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation, as well as access the Green Climate Fund—and for GGGI. Its budget comes from a mixture of developed and developing countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, Mexico and Indonesia, a geographic spread reflecting the nature of the challenge that GGGI is engaged with.

“These are issues that have no boundaries, that no one country can solve, which is why we need to implement these national agreements that will help the world to survive,” Kabenga says. “Western countries have more money, and it their actions [contributing to climate change] that have affected the developing world.”

Despite governmental willingness, those at GGGI acknowledge much more is needed to turn words into concrete actions, especially within the complex context of Ethiopia’s federal democracy that devolves significant power to each region.

Furthermore, each ministry involved in the CRGE must do its job, and the government policy at the federal level must be successfully transmitted to Ethiopia’s regional governments—who must then do their bit.

Tying all that together—and as the country is going through one of its most significant political upheavals in 27 years as a new prime minister attempts to initiate significant reforms throughout government and society—is no easy thing, Agourides acknowledges. But if it can be done, then the economic and environmental benefits for Ethiopia could be huge, while allowing it to avoid the pitfalls elsewhere of growth at any cost that has done untold damage to this precious planet.

“Ethiopia stands at the top of least developed countries in terms of commitment, engagement and awareness,” Agourides says. “But implementation is the issue given the size and complexity of the country.”

Women living in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, which is particularly prone to drought, say how hard it is to live off the land and support their families. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By James Jeffrey
ADDIS ABABA, Sep 24 2018 (IPS)

Faced with worsening droughts due to climate change, Ethiopia is joining an international initiative seeking to build global resilience against the problems caused by it, and enable developing countries to become part of a united solution to the ongoing problem. 

Funded by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Green Climate Fund (GCF) was established to help developing countries achieve national efforts to reduce national greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and adapt to the unavoidable impacts of climate change.

The GCF is part of a united global response fuelled by the urgency and seriousness of the climate change challenge. That clarion call gained momentum worldwide after the 2015 Paris Agreement in which signatories agreed to collectively tackle climate change through the mechanism of implementing nationally determined contributions (NDC), a country’s tailored efforts to reduce its emissions and enable it to adapt to climate change-induced challenges.

Ethiopia is taking this multilateral global endeavour particularly seriously due to the massive changes the country is undergoing as it develops economically.

“Ethiopia is one of the few countries that have submitted a very ambitious and conditional NDC to the UNFCCC,” says Zerihun Getu with Ethiopia’s Ministry of Finance and Economic Cooperation. “Ethiopia aims to cut 64 percent of emissions by 2030 and build a climate resilient and middle-income economy.”

Currently Ethiopia has a relatively low carbon footprint compared to many other countries, having not industrialised, but Zerihun notes why it is important to take action now.

“Projections indicate that with population and economic growth, Ethiopia’s level of emissions will grow significantly, from 150 million tonnes in 2010 to 450 million by 2030,” Zerihun tells IPS. “Hence Ethiopia should focus both on mitigation and adaptation measures in order to reduce emission as well as build resilience and reduce vulnerability to the impacts of climate change.”

Approved in October 2017, Ethiopia’s GCF-backed project will be implemented over the course of five years at a cost of USD50 million—with USD5 million co-financed by the government—to provide rural communities with  critical water supplies all year round and improve water management systems to address risks of drought and other problems from climate change.

The funding will go toward a three-pronged approach: Introducing solar-powered water pumping and small-scale irrigation, the rehabilitation and management of degraded lands around the water sources, and creating an enabling environment by raising awareness and improving local capacity.

Guidance on the project’s implementation is coming from the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), a treaty-based international organisation that promotes green growth: a balance of economic growth and environmental sustainability.

Climate change has a disproportionately worse impact on the lives and livelihoods of societies which depend on the natural environment for their day-to-day needs. In Ethiopia, about 80 percent of the population remain dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods.

Those who are subsistence farmers are especially vulnerable to shifting weather patterns that can result in severe water shortages, devastating food production and livelihoods.

When such natural disasters strike, the situation of vulnerable populations can quickly deteriorate into a food and nutrition crisis, meaning the poor, many of whom in Ethiopia are women, are disproportionately affected.

This is what the Ethiopian GCF project seeks to mitigate, hence its focus on improving economic and social conditions for women.  Over 50 percent of the project’s aimed for 1.3 million beneficiaries will be women, with 30 percent of beneficiary households being female-headed.

During the past three years, regions of Ethiopia have experienced terrible drought exacerbated by the ocean warming trend El Niño that is causing unusually heavy rains in some parts of the world and drought elsewhere.

While El Niño is a complex and naturally occurring event, scientific research suggests that global warming could be making this cyclical event occur more frequently and intensely.

Despite there being some scientific uncertainty about how the naturally occurring El Niño event and human-induced climate change may interact and modify each other, Ethiopia has experienced enough climate-related trouble so that its government doesn’t want to take any chances.

Hence Ethiopia is an example of an early adopter of green growth. In 2011 the country launched its Climate-Resilient Green Economy (CRGE), a strategy to achieve middle-income status while developing a green economy.

“The government’s goal is to create climate resilience within the context of sustainable development,” says Mitiku Kassa, Ethiopia’s state minister of agriculture and commissioner for its National Disaster Risk Management Commission. “Then, one day, we will be able to deal with drought without any appeals.”

In addition to challenges posed by El Niño, most of the world’s scientific community agrees that long-term significant changes in the earth’s climate system have occurred and are occurring more rapidly than in the past.

Furthermore, continued emissions into the earth’s atmosphere are projected to cause further warming and increase the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible effects on every continent, including increasing temperatures, greater rainfall variability with more frequent extremes, and changing the nature of seasonal rainfalls—all of which threaten Ethiopia’s agricultural backbone.

It’s not just scientists making such claims. Ethiopian pastoralists in their seventies and eighties who have lived with frequent droughts say the recent ones have been the worst in their lifetimes—and they aren’t alone in noticing worrying trends.

“While working in Central America, East Africa, and the Middle East, I’ve always talked to elder people, especially those in agriculture, and the message from them is consistent,” says Sam Wood, Save the Children’s humanitarian director in Ethiopia. “Weather patterns are becoming less predictable and when rain comes it is too much or too little.”

As of May 2018, the GCF portfolio has 76 projects worldwide worth USD12.6 billion with an anticipated equivalence of 1.3 billion tonnes of CO2 avoided and 217 million people achieving increased resilience.

“We’re working with GCF in Senegal and Tajikistan [and] we think their work will be vital,” the World Food Programme’s Challiss McDonough tells IPS. “WFP’s goal of ending hunger cannot be achieved without addressing climate change.”

But the GCF can only do so much. The overall bill just for empowering Ethiopia to effectively respond to climate change is estimated at USD150 billion, Zerihun notes, a sum that can only be achieved through “huge investment.”

“Ethiopia allocates its domestic resources for climate actions [but it] should also mobilise support from international communities including the GCF to realise its vision and achieve its NDC targets,” Zerihun says. “The GCF will make a significant contribution to Ethiopia’s vision through financing projects and programmes as well as through helping Ethiopia build capacity to mobilise other climate finance sources and leveraging other investment.”

South Sudanese Christians celebrate Christmas mass at El Fasher church in North Darfur. South Sudan's different churches have remained one of the country's few stable institutions. Credit: UN Photo/Olivier Chassot

By James Jeffrey
JUBA, Jul 3 2018 (IPS)

Throughout fifty years of struggles, South Sudan’s different churches have remained one of the country’s few stable institutions, and in their workings toward peace, have displayed a level of inter-religious cooperation rarely seen in the world. 

Priests and pastors from numerous denominations brought humanitarian relief to civilians during South Sudan’s long wars for independence — often considered a fight for religious freedom for the mostly Christian south — from the hard-line Islamist government to the north in Khartoum, Sudan.

Amid destruction and failed politics, church leaders emerged as the only players left standing with any credibility and national recognition, enabling them to effectively lobby the international community to support the southern cause while also brokering peace between communities torn apart by war and ethnic strife.

However, they have been less able to influence politicians and generals in South Sudan’s latest civil war raging since 2013, which began just two years after gaining independence from Sudan. Last week, South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir and rebels, led by his former vice president Riek Machar, signed a peace agreement to bring about a ceasefire. But Reuters reported that fighting broke out again on Sunday, killing 18 civilians. “The blood of the tribe has become thicker than the blood of the Christ," Episcopal Bishop Enock Tombe.

“The new outbreak of war caught the Church unprepared,” says John Ashworth, referring to the five-year civil war. Ashworth has worked in South Sudan, including advising its churches, for more than 30 years. “While the Church played a major role in protecting people and mobilising humanitarian support, and in mediating local peace and reconciliation processes, it took quite a while to rebuild the capacity to implement national level initiatives.”

Although Islam has dominated the region for centuries, Christian roots in Sudan and South Sudan go back to the 5th century. Missionaries were active in the 1800s, mainly from the Anglican, Presbyterian, Catholic and Coptic churches.

Though there are conflicting reports about South Sudan’s exact religious composition, Christianity is the dominant religion, with a 2012 Pew Research Centre report estimating that around 60 percent are Christian, 33 percent followers of African traditional religions, six percent Muslim and the rest unaffiliated.

In the face of shared adversity, South Sudan’s Christian churches embraced an ecumenical approach to establish the South Sudan Council of Churches (SSCC), which spearheaded the churches’ joint efforts that proved heavily influential in the 2005 peace deal that ended Africa’s longest-running civil war.

The SSCC continued its involvement in the process that led to the January 2011 referendum on independence, in which an overwhelming majority of South Sudanese voted to secede and become Africa’s first new country since Eritrea split from Ethiopia in 1993. South Sudan formally gained independence from Sudan on Jul. 9, 2011.

But all those achievements began to unravel in 2013 when government troops began massacring ethnic Nuer in the capital, Juba. Afterwards, the national army, called the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), split along ethnic lines during a violent uprising, pitting ethnic Dinka loyal to Kiir against Nuer led by Macher.

Both sides committed atrocities, while the narrative of fighting for religious freedom was manipulated for political advantage. The SPLA has painted themselves as Christian liberators — atrocities notwithstanding — their propaganda referring to the churchgoing Kiir as the “Joshua” who took South Sudan to the promised land of independence.

“The blood of the tribe has become thicker than the blood of the Christ,” Episcopal Bishop Enock Tombe remarked in 2014.

But the church has been caught up in the divisive fallout too. 

“The current war has divided people along ethnic lines — the church is not immune to these divisions,” says Carol Berger, an anthropologist who specialises in South Sudan.

In a speech in April, South Sudan’s vice president James Wani Igga accused priests of promoting violence.

“While individual clergy may have their own political sympathies, and while pastors on the ground continue to empathise with their local flock, the churches as bodies have remained united in calling and for an end to the killing, a peaceful resolution through dialogue, peace and reconciliation — in some cases at great personal risk,” Ashworth says.

Some have accused the church of inaction during the latest civil war. Ashworth suggests that after the 2005 peace agreement the SSCC “took a breather to rebuild and repair,” with the 2013 outbreak of war catching them unprepared and less capable. Subsequently it has taken church leaders longer than expected to rebuild capacity, but now the SSCC is taking action to make up for lost ground.

It has begun by choosing a new Secretary General, says Philip Winter, a South Sudan specialist who has long been engaged in its peace processes. He notes how the SSCC was called upon by the warring parties negotiating in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, to help them get over their differences — something the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) failed to do as a mediator.

Following the talks in Ethiopia in June, both warring sides signed a peace agreement in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, a week later.

“The SSCC recognised that is was perhaps not as effective as the most recent conflict required,” Winter says. “So they are once more playing an important, if discreet, role.” 

The SSCC’s renewed impetus includes implementing a national Action Plan for Peace (APP), which recognises the need for a long-term peace process to resolve not only the current conflict but also the unresolved effects of previous conflicts which are contributing causes of the current conflict. The SSCC says the APP may continue for 10 or 20 years.

At this stage of the plan, the SSCC hopes to see a visit to the country by Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church. Earlier this year a delegation of Christian leaders from South Sudan met the Pope and urged him to visit.

“We gave the situation of the Church in South Sudan, that the people are hungry for peace, and they expect the Pope to visit them,” the Bishop Emeritus of Tori, Paride Taban, a member of the delegation, told media after meeting the Pope. “He [the Pope] encourages us not to fear. We are not alone, he is with us, and he will surely come.”

The bishop spoke at the Rome headquarters of Sant’Egidio, a peace and humanitarian group that is trying to help peace efforts in South Sudan. The group played a crucial role in the 2015 papal visit to another war-torn country, the Central African Republic, and was instrumental in the signing of the Mozambique peace accords in 1992. 

The Pope previously postponed a planned 2017 South Sudan trip with Justin Welby, the head of the Anglican Church. Most media assumed that decision was based on the country being too dangerous to visit. But Welby told media the visit was postponed to ensure it would have the maximum impact in helping to establish peace. However, with the current, tentative ceasefire, the pope may visit to consolidate peace.

“You’re playing a heavyweight card and you have to get the timing right,” he said. “You don’t waste a card like that on anything that is not going to work.”

Others, however, remain deeply sceptical of how the Pope could visit.

“I see no way that the Pope could visit South Sudan,” says Berger. “The capital of Juba is a sad and troubled place these days. People have left for their villages, or neighbouring countries. Shops and hotels have closed. The town is heavily militarised and there is hunger everywhere.”

Whether the Pope would have a lasting impact, if he comes, remains to be seen. But current events indicate why the SSCC think it worth his trying, as the world’s youngest state remains afflicted by war and famine, and mired in an almost constant state of humanitarian crisis.     

“More exhortations to the antagonists to stop fighting are largely a waste of breath,” Winter says.

A group of Eritrean men, women and children who have just been dropped off dusty and tired at the entry point in the small town of Adinbried, about 50km southeast of Badme, having crossed the border during the preceding night. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By James Jeffrey
BADME, Ethiopia, Jun 18 2018 (IPS)

The utterly inconsequential-looking Ethiopian border town of Badme is where war broke out in 1998 between Ethiopia and Eritrea, lasting two years and devastating both countries. 

Ever since the the town has remained, in spite of its ramshackle, unassuming appearance, an iconic symbol for both countries, primarily because despite the internationally brokered Algiers Peace Accord that followed the 2000 ceasefire, and led to a ruling that Badme return to Eritrea, Ethiopia defiantly stayed put in the town.“The country [Ethiopia] is undergoing a seismic change—the likes of which it has never seen in such a short time span." --Yves Marie Stranger

Hence Badme festered as a source of rancour during years that turned into decades, with the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments coming to loathe each other, while all along the border the countries remained at loggerheads, each military eyeing the other warily.

But all of a sudden at the start of June, Ethiopia announced its readiness to fully comply and implement the Algiers Peace Accord, one of a number of unprecedented reformist actions this year, and which show no sign of slowing down since the April election of a new prime minister who has pledged to take Ethiopia in a new and more democratic and hopeful direction.

The Ethiopian government also announced it would accept the outcome of a 2002 border commission ruling, which awarded disputed territories collectively known as the Yirga Triangle, at the tip of which sits Badme, to Eritrea.

“Ethiopia’s change of heart towards Eritrea is genuine, and is directly tied to the momentous changes taking place domestically,” Awol Allo, a lecturer in law at Keele University in law and frequent commentator on Ethiopia, wrote in an opinion piece for Al Jazeera. “Ethiopia’s new Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has reconfigured the Ethiopian political landscape and its strategic direction, moving with incredible speed to drive changes aimed at widening the political space and narrowing the social divisions and antagonisms within the country.”

This has included the prime minister linking the political, social and economic transformation in Ethiopia to regional dynamics, especially Eritrea, with which Ethiopia once had particular close economic, cultural and social ties—Eritrea was part of Ethiopia until gaining independence in 1991.

“Every Ethiopian should realise that it is expected of us to be a responsible government that ensures stability in our region, one that takes the initiative to connect the brotherly peoples of both countries and expands trains, buses, and economic ties between Asmara [the Eritrean capital] and Addis Ababa,” Abiy announced.

The rift between Eritrea and Ethiopia has had significant regional fallout. Both countries have engaged in hostile activities against each other, including proxy wars in the likes of neighbouring Somalia, thereby destabilising an already volatile region.

The rugged landscape of Tigray, Ethiopia’s most northern region, stretches away to the north and into Eritrea. Once Eritrea was Ethiopia’s most northern region until gaining independence in 1991. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Meanwhile, Eritrea continued to come off worse against Ethiopia’s stronger regional sway and diplomatic clout, becoming increasingly isolated, and subjected to international sanctions.

As a result, life became increasingly miserable for Eritreans—hence the unending exodus of Eritrean refugees into Ethiopia—as their government used the border war with Ethiopia and the subsequent perceived existential threats and belligerencies against Eritrea as an excuse for the state becoming increasingly repressive and militarised, with its leader Isaias Afewerki tightening his ironclad rule.

But the Eritrean government’s narrative has had the rug pulled out from under it.

“The Eritrean regime seems confused, unprepared and clueless about how it should respond to Ethiopia’s peace offer,” Abraham Zere, executive director of PEN Eritrea, part of a global network of writers in over 100 countries across the globe who campaign to promote literature and defend freedom of expression, wrote in another Al Jazeera opinion piece. “Ethiopia’s call for normalization and peace puts President Afewerki in a very difficult position, as it undermines his current strategy of blaming Ethiopia for his repressive rule.”

So far the response from the Eritrean government has been conspicuous by its absence. Eritrea’s Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel when pressed to comment on the issue on Twitter replied elliptically: “Our position is crystal clear and has been so for 16 years.”

Previously, the Eritrean government has consistently demanded full compliance by Ethiopia with the EEBC’s decision and unilateral withdrawal of all troops from the disputed territories before any chance of normalizing relations—a demand that fails to take account of the EEBC’s terms and the  complex situation on the ground.

“The insistence on unilateral withdrawal as a condition for normalising relations is not tenable, not least because Badme was under Ethiopia rule before the EEBC’s ruling and continues to be under the effective control of the Ethiopian government,” Awol says. “The two countries must come together in good faith to hammer out a number of details including the fate of the population there.”

It’s unlikely to be easy. Already in Badme and in other of the disputed territories, both Eritreans and Ethiopians are protesting Abiy’s decision to implement the commission’s arbitrarily drawn border that would divide communities between the two countries.

“We have no issues over reconciling with our Eritrean brothers. But we will not leave Badme,” Teklit Girmay, a local government official, told Reuters. “We do not want peace by giving away this land after all the sacrifice.”

“It took us four days traveling from Asmara,” a 31-year-man said of the trek from the Eritrean capital, about 80km north of the border, holding all the money he has left: 13 Eritrean nakfa (80 cents). “We travelled for 10 hours each night, sleeping in the desert during the day.” Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Furthermore, across Tigray, Ethiopia’s most northern region that straddles the border, there are reports of increasing anger and protests about the announcement, while the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front regional party that has dominated Ethiopian politics since its founders spearheaded the 1991 revolution that brought the current government to power has issued a veiled warning to Abiy.

“The Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front will not take part in any process that harms the interests of the people of Tigray,” it said in a statement, demanding that any withdrawal be linked to additional concessions from Eritrea.

Tigray’s proximity to Eritrea and the previous war means its people are acutely sensitive to the potential ramifications, which is further complicated by how people on both sides of the border share the same language – Tigrinya – as well as Orthodox religion and cultural traditions: a closeness that can also heighten resentment.

In 1998 Eritrea invaded Badme before pushing south to occupy the rest of Ethiopia’s Yirga Triangle, claiming it was historically Eritrean land. Ethiopia eventually regained the land but the fighting cost both countries thousands of lives and billions of dollars desperately needed elsewhere in such poor and financially strapped countries.

At the time of the EEBC’s ruling on Badme, the Ethiopian government felt the Ethiopian public wouldn’t tolerate the concession of a now iconic town responsible for so many lost Ethiopian lives—hence it and the rest of the Yirga Triangle remained jutting defiantly into Eritrea, both figuratively and literally.

“Although Badme was a mere pretext to start a conflict fuelled by much deeper political problems, it has since been etched into the imagination of many Ethiopians and Eritreans and has taken on a deeper meaning,” Awol says. “The name Badme condenses within itself a series of fundamental political and economic anxieties and hegemonic aspirations, acting as a byword for brutality, anguish, guilt, shame, fear and pride.”

In addition to potential internal resistance from the Ethiopian government’s TPLF old guard, coupled with potential intransigence from the Asmara regime, the reaction of the international community could also play a significant role.

“The international community, particularly the West, has ignored the dispute for too long,” Awol says. “Now that there is a newfound optimism for peace, the international community must seize the opportunity and act proactively and pre-emptively before local and regional dynamics change.”

Ethiopia is at a potentially exciting crossroads—though nothing is assured, and may well hang in the balance, one that the international community can influence due to Ethiopia’s increasing integration in the global system.

“The country is undergoing a seismic change—the likes of which it has never seen in such a short time span,” says Yves Marie Stranger, editor of “Ethiopia: Through Writers’ Eyes,” and a long-time Ethiophile. “Ethiopia, a land of barter and subsistence farming, a land where very little money changed hands until recently,  now depends on world oil prices,  wheat imports and  the dollar rate—just as much as on the next rainy season. In other words, Ethiopia’s unorthodox economics must now worship in the global church.”

Depending on what happens next, the repercussions for Ethiopia and Eritrea, and the wider Horn of Africa region, could be enormous.

“If Ethiopia does follow through with its stated intention, it’s doubtful that Eritreans would accept any further fear mongering from the Aferwerki administration regarding Addis Ababa’s actions and intentions,” Abraham says. “If Aferwerki attempts to dismiss or undermine this long-awaited gesture from its neighbour, the population may openly turn against the regime.”

Tewodrose Tirfe, chair of the Amhara Association of America, addresses press and supporters outside Washington’s Capitol Building after passage of House Resolution-128. Behind and to his left is Congressman Chris Smith and behind and to his right is Congressman Mike Coffman, both of whom played key roles in the resolution’s successful passage. Photo courtesy Tewodrose Tirfe/Congressman Mike Coffman’s office.

By James Jeffrey
WASHINGTON, May 10 2018 (IPS)

The April inauguration of Ethiopia’s new Prime Minister came amid much fanfare and raised expectations for the future of true democracy in Ethiopia, while far less publicized though relevant developments in the American capital could also play a significant role in shaping that future.

At a relatively youthful and spritely 42 years of age, Abiy Ahmed is widely seen as a reformer who can take the necessary steps to calm a nation that has been engulfed in unprecedented levels of political unrest since the end of 2015.“The new resolution by the US House of Representatives is a reminder to the Ethiopian government that should it fail to reform, it can no longer rely on US largesse to contain problems at home.” --Hassen Hussein

Crucially, he heralds from the Oromo People’s Democratic Organization (OPDO), which represents the Oromo, Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, and who have spearheaded protests against the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition party, of which the OPDO is a key member.

After the resignation of previous Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, many warned that if the EPRDF chose a figure from its old guard it might well lead to more, perhaps worse, unrest.

That has been avoided with the party embracing a politician with greater public support, and the first Oromo head of government in Ethiopia has already traveled to several areas of the country, promising to address grievances and strengthen a range of political and civil rights.

But, as everyone knows and agrees on, Abiy faces numerous challenges domestically and externally in bringing stability back to Ethiopia and settling a discontented populace that is the second largest in Africa.

One problem is the state of emergency declared in Ethiopia in February following the last prime minister’s surprise resignation (and which is the second state of emergency after the first ended in August 2017). This could hinder Abiy in moving forward with any reform agenda, because the new prime minister’s hold on the state security apparatus is much reduced than normal during a state of emergency, with a group of military officers referred to as the “Command Post” effectively in control of the mechanism of the state.

Also, the very fact of Abiy’s reluctance to push for the lifting of the state of emergency illustrates, observers say, how the internal dynamics of the EPRDF that played a large part in the undoing of Desalegn are still a force to be reckoned with.

The historical dominance of the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in the EPRDF continues to wield force and means Ethiopia’s new, apparently reformist, prime minister will need to deal shrewdly with members of the establishment resistant to reform or reconciliation efforts—if Abiy is, in fact, genuinely for reform, that is.

“I like the things [Abiy] has been saying in public—most of the country and many in the opposition at home and abroad resonate with the sentiments expressed in his public statements,” says Alemante Selassie, emeritus professor at the William and Mary Law School in the US.  “Still, I cannot say that I have full confidence in him, because he is a party functionary who rose through the ranks of the EPRDF and probably remains committed to upholding its hegemonic rule for the foreseeable future.”

Nevertheless, whatever the inner workings of the new prime minister’s mind, as an ex-army officer he understands the military-security apparatus and its culture; he has a strong party mandate and public support behind him, and he comes to power at a time when those previously in charge are reviled by the populace, thereby putting him in a unique position to potentially resolve many of the country’s problems.

Furthermore, recent developments in the US Congress may also have a bearing on what happens next. On April 10, the US House of Representatives unanimously adopted House Resolution-128: “Supporting respect for human rights and encouraging inclusive governance in Ethiopia.”

The resolution—uunusually outspoken for US public policy in it criticism of Ethiopia’s government—condemns “the killings of peaceful protesters and excessive use of force by Ethiopian security forces; the detention of journalists, students, activists, and political leaders; and the regime’s abuse of the Anti-Terrorism Proclamation to stifle political and civil dissent and journalistic freedoms.”

The resolution and its wording deeply angered the Ethiopian government, which even suggested it might cut off security cooperation with the US if the resolution was passed. Ethiopia is viewed by the US as its most important ally in the volatile East African region, and hence receives one of the largest security and humanitarian aid packages among sub-Saharan African countries.

“The passage of HR-128 by the US House of Representatives without any opposition was a historical achievement,” says Tewodrose Tirfe, chair of the Amhara Association of America, a US-based advocacy group for the Amhara, Ethiopia’s second largest ethnic group. “The main difference this time, compared to previous attempts to get legislation through, was Ethiopian-American advocacy organizations working in coordination with human rights groups to bring to the attention of [US state] representatives the humanitarian and political crisis that has been unfolding in Ethiopia, especially the past three years.”

Congressman Chris Smith, Chairman of the House Subcommittee of Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations, introduced HR-128, and played a major role, along with Congressman Mike Coffman, in achieving the passage of the resolution.

“Chairman Smith has held more hearings and authored more legislation on Ethiopia then anyone in Congress—he has been a voice for the Ethiopian diaspora for many years,” Tewodrose says. “Congressman Coffman put his political capital on the line for this resolution and helped us overcome every hurdle encountered.”

The vast sum of humanitarian aid and bi-lateral support Ethiopia receives from the US is not at risk—yet.  That said, Tewodrose notes, the Senate is considering a partner bill, which is even stronger in its wording. Senate Resolution 168 calls on the Department of State and USAID “to improve oversight and accountability of United States assistance to Ethiopia and to ensure such assistance reinforces long-term goals for improved governance.”

Essentially, Tewodros explains, this would tie aid to improved governance and more scrutiny of support given, because even though resolutions aren’t laws and are non-binding, if they have strong bipartisan support—like HR-128—coupled with the fact that Congress has the power of oversight, then agencies named in the resolutions would seriously consider implementing the terms of these declarations.

Furthermore, the Amhara Association of America and other advocacy partners are working to introduce binding legislation that would be signed by the president and would become the law directing how the US deals with Ethiopia.

“We believe this is a much easier task now since the Ethiopian diaspora groups are activated and engaged, the policy makers are educated, and we have built strong bipartisan support in Congress,” Tewodrose says.

That said, opposition exists in the Senate to the senate resolution, and there is still some way to go before a new law guiding US foreign policy towards Ethiopia emerges. But any resolution about Ethiopia, such as HR-128, could still have an impact on the actions of the Ethiopian regime and the new prime minister’s reform agenda.

Previously, though the US government was aware of well-documented problems with regards to human rights abuses, lack of democracy promotion and corruption at the highest levels of the Ethiopian state, it didn’t forcefully act to pressure Ethiopia’s government.

But the House resolution signals a shift in that approach. Besides condemning killings, detentions, and abuse of Ethiopia’s Anti-Terror Proclamation, the resolution also makes more ambitious demands of the Ethiopian regime including reforms that would protect the Ethiopian people’s civil liberties and release political prisoners, views that the new prime minister is also believed to share.

“The resolution could give Abiy a freer hand to deal more decisively with those resisting change—so far he has been very conciliatory and accommodating,” says Hassen Hussein an academic and writer based in Minnesota.  “The new resolution by the US House of Representatives is a reminder to the Ethiopian government that should it fail to reform, it can no longer rely on US largesse to contain problems at home.”

While HR-128 is an important development, what further US legislation, if any, follows it, is likely to have the most tangible impact on strengthening—or not—the hand of the new prime minister in persuading those power brokers within the EPRDF who control country’s security apparatus and the intelligence and economic sectors, to participate in negotiations for reform.

“The TPLF has ruled Ethiopia for the last 27 years with the support of the US and the UK,” Alemante says. “If it loses this support— financial, military, diplomatic, etc.— it has very little else to stand on.”

A manuscript from Maqdala now at the British Library. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By James Jeffrey
LONDON, Apr 23 2018 (IPS)

A new exhibition that opened April 5 at London’s famous Victoria and Albert museum of ancient treasures looted from Ethiopia has revived debate about where such artifacts should reside, highlighting the tensions in putting Western imperialism in Africa and the past to rest.

The exhibit comprises 20 royal and religious artifacts plundered during the Battle of Maqdala in 1868, when a British force laid siege to the mountain fortress of Ethiopian Emperor Tewodros.  “We have both a growing opportunity and growing responsibility to use the potential of digital to increase access for people across the world to the intellectual heritage that we safeguard.” -- Luisa Mengoni, head of Asian and African collections at the British Library

After their victory, the British force was at liberty to take what it wanted. The scale of the treasures stolen by the army isn’t widely known—inside the British Library are hundreds of beautiful Ethiopian manuscripts taken too.

While the argument for returning such artifacts appears strong, and perhaps obvious to most, legal issues surrounding a museum’s responsibility as a global custodian, as well as how best to make items available to the public, make the matter more nuanced than it seems.

“Museums have a global responsibility to better understand their collections, to more fully uncover the histories and the stories behind their objects, and to reveal the people and societies that shaped their journeys,” says Tristram Hunt, the Victoria and Albert museum’s director. “To this end, we want to better reflect on the history of these artifacts in our collection – tracing their origins and then confronting the difficult and complex issues which arise.”

The V&A website describes the museum’s collection of Ethiopian treasures as an “unsettling reminder of the imperial processes which enabled British museums to acquire the cultural assets of others.”

Hence efforts over the years by those like Richard Pankhurst, recognised as arguably the most prolific scholar in the field of Ethiopian studies, who helped found the Association for the Return of the Ethiopian Maqdala Treasures (AFROMET), and focused his efforts on the roughly 350 Maqdala manuscripts that ended up in the British Library.

“It is not widely known what happened,” said Pankhurst before his death in 2017. “The soldiers were able to pick the best of the best that Ethiopia had to offer. Most Ethiopians have never seen manuscripts of that quality.”

Tewodros had the country scoured for the finest manuscripts and collected in Maqdala for a grand church and library he planned to build.

“They are so lavish as they were made for kings,” says Ilana Tahan, lead curator of Hebrew and Christian Orient studies at the British Library, whose staff take their duties of guardianship as seriously as those trying to get the manuscripts returned to Ethiopia.

The front page of one of the Makdala manuscripts given to the British Library, on which is written: Pres. [Presented] by H. M. the Queen [Queen Victoria] 21 Jan. 1869. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Tewodros had actually admired Britain, even hoping they would help develop his country. But a perceived snub when Queen Victoria didn’t reply to a letter of his, led to him imprisoning a small group of British diplomats, resulting in General Robert Napier mounting a rescue mission with a force of 32,000.

On Easter Monday, 13 April 1868, with the British victorious in the valleys surrounding his mountaintop redoubt Maqdala and about to launch a final assault, Tewodros bit down on a pistol—a previous present from Queen Victoria—and pulled the trigger.

In Ethiopia today, Tewodros remains revered by many for his unwavering belief in his country’s potential, while the looting of Maqdala continues to spur the efforts of AFROMET and others continuing the activism of Richard Pankhurst.

“Though Richard was unsuccessful with the British Library manuscripts, there was the return of a number of crosses, manuscripts from private collections,” says his son, Alula Pankhurst, himself a historian and author.

Alula Pankhurst notes that the family of General Napier recently returned a necklace and a parchment scroll to the Institute of Ethiopian Studies.

“My father would have argued that the items should be returned as they were wrongly looted,” Alula Pankhurst says. “There is now the technology available to make copies [of the manuscripts] that are indistinguishable from the originals and microfilms mean that copies could be retained.”

But such technology is also seen by those at the British Library as a reason why the manuscripts can remain where they are.

“We have both a growing opportunity and growing responsibility to use the potential of digital to increase access for people across the world to the intellectual heritage that we safeguard,” says Luisa Mengoni, head of Asian and African collections at the British Library.

One of the items in the V&A exhibit: a gold and gilded copper crown with glass beads, pigment and fabric, made in Ethiopia, 1600-1850. Photo courtesy Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

The British Library is continuing its efforts to make the manuscripts accessible to the public through new exhibits. And during the next two years the library plans to digitise some 250 manuscripts from the Ethiopian collection, with 25 manuscripts already available online in full for the first time through its Digitised Manuscripts website.

“The artwork suffers when it is digitalised, plus many of the manuscripts have detailed comments in the margins—there are many reasons scholars need to attend to the originals and which are not met by digital copies,” Andreas says.

But the return of the manuscripts is actually out of the library’s hands. New legislation would have to be passed by the British Parliament for the manuscripts, or any artefacts held in British museums, to be returned.

“While some restitutionists may grumble that the majority of items have not been returned, much has been done to spread knowledge of their existence – and great artistry – to Ethiopian scholars, and to the world at large,” says Alexander Herman, assistant director of the Institute of Art and Law,  an educational organisation focused on law relating to cultural heritage. “This has been made possible by the willingness of the British Library to invest in this once-overlooked part of its collection.”

The complex issue of repatriating looted objects has rumbled on in Europe and the United States for years without much resolution, though now there appears an increasing openness to engage with the issue, both on the part of major Western museums and governments.

President Emmanuel Macron of France said in November that the restoration of African artefacts was a “top priority” for his country, and at a speech in Burkina Faso said that “African heritage can’t just be in European private collections and museums.”

In the meantime, other options treading a middle ground are beginning to be talked about more openly. Hunt says he is “open to the idea” of a long-term loan of the objects to Ethiopia, a move Alula Pankhurst says “would be a step in the right direction.”

But that’s still not good enough for others.

“The restitution of Ethiopian property is a matter of respecting Ethiopia’s dignity and fundamental rights,” says Kidane Alemayehu, one of the founders of the Horn of Africa Peace and Development Center, and executive director of the Global Alliance for Justice: The Ethiopian Cause.

“Looting another country’s property and offering it on loan to the rightful owner should evoke the deepest shame on any self-respecting country.”

Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn (sitting with hands clasped in lap) attending the 2016 opening of the new Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By James Jeffrey
ADDIS ABABA, Mar 9 2018 (IPS)

The dominoes keep falling in Ethiopia, with one of the most significant crashing down.

Just over a month after the Ethiopian government’s surprise decision early January to close a notorious prison and release political prisoners, Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn announced on Feb. 15 his shock resignation in another apparent bid to placate the turmoil that’s plagued the country for more than two years.“It is time for Ethiopians to decide whether they want the former empire that is Ethiopia to be one country or several countries.” --Sandy Wade, a former EU diplomat

He was the first ruler in modern Ethiopian history to step down—previous leaders having been overthrown or dying in office. The day after the announcement, another state of emergency was declared in Ethiopia—a preceding 10-month state of emergency, the first in 25 years, having ended in August 2017—casting further uncertainly over the second most populous country in Africa with one of the continent’s fastest growing economics, a staunch ally of the West in the fight against terrorism, and a country that has previously managed to hold out as a relative oasis of stability in the Horn of Africa as countries around it have descended into anarchy.

“There is no guarantee that Ethiopia will not descend into further chaos and violence,” says Awol Allo, an Ethiopian lecturer in law at Keele University in the UK and media commentator on the protests. “There is no magic formula here that doesn’t exist in other African countries. After all, we share a large measure of cultural and institutional similarities.”

Some have seen Hailemariam’s resignation as a desperate act of self-preservation by a tiny Tigrayan ethnic elite accused of using Hailemariam to continue and entrench since the end of the country’s civil war in 1991 the domination of its Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) within the ruling Ethiopia People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) four-party coalition, and thereby over Ethiopia itself. Others, however, say this misses the point about the scale of change forced on Ethiopia’s political space.

“The resignation of the prime minister was not in the interest of the TPLF,” Awol says. “While TPLF is still trying to arrive at a resolution that will continue to preserve its undeserved influence, the resignation is an outcome of the relentless protests of the last two years.”

Having succeeded Ethiopia’s long-term and charismatic ruler Meles Zenawi who died in 2012, Hailemariam never managed to shake off accusations of being a caretaker figure without real power; there to implement the orders of more influential figures in the army and in the TPLF.

A more sympathetic analysis is that Hailemariam, a proclaimed and committed Christian, was always surrounded by a viper’s nest of a government and was increasingly caught between a rock and a hard place.

Concessions he has made have emboldened protesters, while hardliners in the party have bristled at the speed and scale of such concessions. On top of which, as the protests have continued, the EPRDF has become increasingly riven by divisions as its Oromo and Amhara wings have fought back against the Tigrayan over-lordship.

Rumors were circulating widely that he would resign after the party congress scheduled for this month. Some observers say the early resignation was brought forward because the ruling party wants a more assertive person in charge during a time of crisis when the Ethiopian equation that underpinned previous decades of stability is proving increasingly hard for the government to square.

Ethiopia has aped the Chinese developmental state model of providing its populace with material gains to offset curtailments of civil liberties. But after a decade of double-digit growth, based largely on state investment in infrastructure, growth in Ethiopia has slowed in recent years amid severe droughts and social unrest. Furthermore, even during that growth most Ethiopians felt entirely excluded from material benefits that they could see being relished by only a small minority, the disparity made even more galling by the all-pervading restrictions on basic freedoms compounded by economic pressures such as rising prices and stagnant wages.

That bundle of iniquities finally came to a heard with the Oromo protest movement erupting at the end of 2015. Having not lost steam during a repressive crackdown when no concessions were made, it seems even less likely to stall now, while its future course could have existential implications for Ethiopia as a nation state.

“It is time for Ethiopians to decide whether they want the former empire that is Ethiopia to be one country or several countries,” says Sandy Wade, a former European Union diplomat in Addis Ababa during the protests.  “If they want one country the current obsession with ethnic nationalism needs to change because it will lead to several countries not one.”

That said, some in Ethiopia note there’s a limit to what protesters will endure, added to which Ethiopia’s security and military apparatus remains potently capable. Hence all eyes are on who will succeed Hailemariam—March 11 has been set as the date on which deliberations to choose a successor will begin—and whether the new prime minister will continue to pursue rapprochement with disaffected segments of society or initiate a crackdown.

“If TPLF implemented reforms as it said it would and EPRDF elected a leader from the restive region of Oromia, the nerve center of the protests and activism, things would have changed for the better,” Awol says. “The current situation suggests that things will continue to unravel.”

Who such unraveling might benefit, if anyone, is hard to say, but the opposition certainly feel that the wind is in their sail.

“Stopping the protest is impossible now,” says Jawar Mohammed, a prominent US-based Oromo opposition activist commanding a huge social media following, and a hero to some and villain to others. “It is possible to prevent them further intensifying and over-running the regime by taking bold concrete action very, very quickly that should include appointing a capable, popular prime minister with proven reformist credential.”

But Ethiopia has a long history of being led by authoritarian strongmen figures—before Meles Zenawi it was the military dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam and before him Emperor Haile Selassie, continuing back to the 19th century and Emperor Tewodros who began building the empire that became modern Ethiopia.

If the EPRDF chooses a figure from its old guard rather than a rising politician with greater public support, it’s feared this will lead to more, perhaps worse, unrest. But whoever is chosen, even if acceptable to the protesters, will be faced with a gargantuan task.

“Once appointed the new prime minister should quickly hit the ground [running] making it clear he would lead the country to transition, meet with opposition, begin charting a roadmap for transition,” Jawar says.

This must include, Jawar and others note, rapidly liberalizing the political sphere so that opposition groups and the media can build their capacity to play a role in building durable democracy, the establishment of the latter being ultimately, most commentators highlight, what will put an end to the protests.

“Unless you have a coherent organized roadmap that would fit into the power vacuum that you create, if you are lucky you end up with a dictatorship, or if you are unlucky you just open up a Pandora’s Box of chaos,” says Abebe Hailu, a human rights lawyer in Addis Ababa, who lived through the emperor’s fall and the following communist dictatorship. “In my life I have seen that worse things can happen than what you think.”

Ethiopia has always viewed itself as different to, even separate from, the rest of Africa. But there remains enough concern it could repeat the same mistakes and disasters seen too many times on the continent, or that so deep runs vitriol and resentment among the competing elements that emotions will fuel actions that prove self-defeating for everyone.

“You have to understand one thing about the Ethiopian mentality, it is circular,” Abebe says. “Our churches are circular, our mosques are circular, the injera we eat is circular—everything is circular. With such a mentality you go on and on arguing the thing, but you never reach a decision.”

The influences of key donors and international partners such as the US, UK and European Union could have an impact, although previously international diplomacy has long appeared to specialise in tip-toing around the Ethiopian government for fear of upsetting it, and, beyond releasing somewhat admonishing embassy press releases, has appeared unwilling to bring much of tangible persuasive effect to bear. The impact of the heavily influential Ethiopian diaspora opposition, especially in the US, could well swing matters, proving far more decisive, harbouring the potential to call for compromise or further stoke tensions.

“The possibility of real inter-ethnic problems, based probably on jealousy, is there,” Wade says. “Some people are undoubtedly going to die in low level ethnic clashes encouraged by irresponsible, and probably criminal, people who are acting only out of self-interest.”

Displaced Somali at a camp on the outskirts of the city of Dire Dawa in eastern Ethiopia. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By James Jeffrey
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, Feb 11 2018 (IPS)

In Ethiopia social media is a double-edged sword: capable of filling a sore need for more information but also of pushing the country toward even greater calamity.

Thousands of Ethiopians remain displaced after ethnic violence last September drove an estimated 200,000 to 400,000 from their homes in the neighbouring Oromia and Somali regions.“The problem is a lot of things people view as gossip if heard by mouth, when they read about it on social media they take as fact." --Lidetu Ayele, founder of the opposition Ethiopia Democratic Party

From many of the displaced and those assisting them came accusations of the ethnic unrest being leveraged for political ends, suspected perpetrators ranging from powerbrokers at the regional and federal government levels, all the way to the likes of Ethiopian cab drivers coming off shifts in Washington, D.C., in the United States to Tweet ethnic-laced vitriol on their smartphones.

“It’s political and is hidden—this violence is all man-made,” says Abdishakar Adam, a Somali regional zone vice administrator, at a camp housing ethnic Somali who had to flee Oromia. “Federalism isn’t the problem—people are doing what they are being told to do on social media.”

Since 1995, Ethiopia has applied a distinct political model of ethnically based federalism to the country’s heterogeneous masses—about 100 million people speaking more than 80 dialects.

This political model had proved a successful formula for maintaining stability and generating huge economic growth—but both achievements contain crucial flaws.  Authoritarian rule and lack of civil liberties underpin the stability, while economic growth has barely touched millions of poor Ethiopians, instead benefiting a tiny elite in cahoots with the government.

This reality of life in the so-called Federal Democrat Republic of Ethiopia, proclaimed as one of the fastest growing economies in the word, fed resentment and frustrations.

These reached such levels that since protests broke out over the maladministration of the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) party at the end of 2015 among the Oromo—Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, representing about 35 percent of the population—the turmoil hasn’t stopped.

The unprecedented duration of these protests and their scope—the Amhara began protesting in 2016; together the Oromo and Amhara account for over 65 percent of the country’s population—has rendered the country’s inherent ethnic fault lines more fragile and susceptible.

“The problem is a lot of things people view as gossip if heard by mouth, when they read about it on social media they take as fact,” says Lidetu Ayele, founder of the opposition Ethiopia Democratic Party.

Successive waves of emigration during decades of tumult in Ethiopia have formed a worldwide Ethiopian diaspora of around two million people. The largest communities are in the U.S., with estimates varying from 250,000 people to about one million.

The diaspora, understandably, follow events in Ethiopia very closely. They loathe the current authoritarian government—many overseas Ethiopians fled their homes after suffering at the hands of Ethiopia’s authoritarian government and have enough reasons to wish it ill—and embrace satellite television and the internet to influence the political process at home .

The protests are seen by many as a pathway to bringing down the government, hence a growing diaspora movement of writers, bloggers, journalists and activists shaping the coverage of events back in the motherland.

With limited press freedom and frequent blanket shutdowns of mobile internet and the banning of posting on social media in Ethiopia, these diaspora activists, using their contacts in Ethiopia, have offered sources of news on the protests by flooding Twitter and Facebook with videos and photos disputing what they say are inaccurate accounts of protests pushed out by the mostly state-owned media in Ethiopia, or by muddled foreign correspondents unable to gain sufficient access.

“The diaspora does not create news stories, it reports what is reported to them from back home by protesters and protest organizers operating under tough conditions,” says Hassan Hussein, a Minnesota-based Ethiopian academic and writer. ”If anything their greatest desire is to see calm return to their loved ones left behind.”

Displaced Oromo sheltering on an industrial park on the outskirts of the city of Harar in eastern Ethiopia. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

But there is another side to diaspora social media coverage. After clashes between police and protestors at the Oromo Irreecha festival in October 2016 left more than 100 people drowned or crushed to death during a stampede, social media sites buzzed with claims that a police helicopter had fired into the panicking crowd—it was circling dropping leaflets wishing participants a happy festival.

Overseas activists called for “five days of rage.” Although it is not clear what effect this call may have had, the following week, foreign-owned factories, government buildings and tourist lodges were attacked across the Oromia region. The government declared a six-month state of emergency.

That was only finally lifted in August of 2017—having been extended at the six-month point—with the government judging the country’s situation stable enough. By Sept. 12, however, a riot in the eastern city of Aweday that left up to 40 dead triggered further ethnic violence and mass displacements.

“They were crossing their arms and shouting ‘Jawar! Jawar!’” 52-year-old Adamali Meagsu says about local Oromo running amok and burning Somali houses in his village.

When Ethiopian runner Feisal Lyles finished the marathon at the 2016 Rio Olympics, he crossed his wrists above his head in a gesture widely adopted through social media to symbolise the Oromo’s struggle against the government, and mimicked throughout Ethiopia and around the world outside Ethiopian embassies.

Jawar Mohammed is a prominent U.S.-based Oromo opposition activist commanding a huge social media following. To many he is an inspiration. To many in Ethiopia—both local and foreign—he’s a highly dangerous figure.

“They live in a secure democracy and are at liberty to say whatever they want to cause mayhem in Ethiopia,” says Sandy Wade, a former European Union diplomat in Addis Ababa during the protests.

Diaspora satellite television channels broadcast from the United States, such as Oromia Media Network and Ethiopian Satellite Television, do produce decent original reporting. But they are one-sided and virulently anti-EPRDF, as are the views and stories their followers propagate on social media.

The cumulative effect should not be estimated in a country as diverse as Ethiopia, where historical grudges exist between main ethic groups.

In Rwanda, radio programs such as Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines spread much of the toxic hatred that fuelled the country’s genocide. Social media appears similarly capable in spreading untruths and ethnic barbs in Ethiopia.

Many of these have an anti-Tigrayan slant due to the firmly held belief that a Tigrayan elite runs the EPRDF and is to blame for all of Ethiopia’s corruption, inequities, ills and wrongs.

“I hope the women who puked #EPRDF members out of their bodies have their wombs filled with cement and buried like dogs with rabbis,” said one Tweet posted online, a relatively common example.

Making up only 6 percent of the country’s population, ordinary Tigrayans are highly vulnerable to ethnic-based agitation.

Amidst the tragedy, rage, intrigue, blocked communications and difficult travel, it is difficult for the likes of journalists, foreign diplomats and the average Ethiopian to understand what is actually going on.

Hence social media can provide an opening for sorting through the noise and confusion. But it can be used for more nefarious means too, especially in a volatile situation like Ethiopia’s when so many are on edge.

As throughout Ethiopia’s turbulent history, it is ordinary Ethiopians—typically poor, eking out lives of subsistence—who are bearing the fallout from Ethiopia’s current political machinations as different interest groups jostle for power, many of them regardless the human cost.

Ethiopia is not unique in that regard. The political elites of many African countries appear to specialize in this modus operandi. But the overbearing influence of Ethiopia’s diaspora may well be unique, and not appreciated until too late.

Ethiopians are quick to smile but just as quick to anger. Colossal resentment and bitterness seethes beneath the country’s surface waiting for an outlet. Swathes of unemployed young men have no hopes or prospects. This has all played out before in other man-made African infernos.

“I thought my husband was going to kill me, he grabbed my hair and started cutting it with a knife,” says a displaced Somali woman kicked out of her home by her Oromo husband. “He told me, ‘This is Oromia, you must leave now’.”

In early October 2016 a federal policeman stands guard between the Oromo regional flag (left) and Ethiopia’s national flag at the ceremony marking the opening of the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway, an apparent boon for the country's strengthening economy that at the same time angers so many Ethiopians who feel their lives are no better off despite all the economic fanfare and proclamations. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By James Jeffrey
ADDIS ABABA, Jan 26 2018 (IPS)

Ethiopia’s most notorious prison lurks within the capital’s atmospheric Piazza, the city’s old quarter popular for its party scene at the weekend when the neon signs, loud discos and merry abandon at night continue into the early hours of the morning.

The troubling contrast is one of many in this land of often painful contradictions. The Ethiopian Federal Police Force Central Bureau of Criminal Investigation, more commonly known by its Amharic name of Maekelawi, has for decades been associated with torture and police brutality—a symbol of the dark underside of the authoritarian nature of the so-called Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia.The EPRDF has long been criticised for using draconian anti-terrorism charges to detain political prisoners, and then in true Orwellian fashion arguing those charges mean there are no political prisoners in Ethiopia.

But this January 3, Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn announced the government would close the detention centre and release prisoners, including those from political parties.

An unprecedented action by a government not known for compromise rather for its stubborn intransigence to criticism of its oppressive methods, it took most by surprise, resulting in guarded praise from even the government’s staunchest critics such as international human rights organisations.

Since the announcement, though, subsequent proclamations from the government have muddied the issue and led many to question the government’s sincerity amid general confusion on all sides regarding the practicalities and terms of prisoner release.

What most observers seem more sure of is that the episode illustrates the speed and scale of change occurring among the four parties that constitute the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) party.

“The decision was a concession to the very strong demand made by the Oromo People Democratic Organisation (OPDP) which governs the Oromia regional state,” says Awol Allo, an Ethiopian lecturer in law at Keele University in the UK, who can’t return to Ethiopia for fear of arrest.

The EPRDF was the brainchild of the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), a Marxist-Leninist movement that spearheaded the defeat of Ethiopia’s former military dictatorship the Derg to liberate the Tigray region, whose Tigrayan ethnic group constitute only about 6.5 percent of Ethiopia’s more than 100 million population today.

In the final days of Ethiopia’s civil war, the TPLF orchestrated the creation of three satellite parties from other elements of the rebel force: the OPDO, the Amhara National Democratic Movement (ANDM), and the Southern Ethiopian People’s Democratic Movement (SEPDM) to ostensibly represent their respective ethnic groups but which enabled the TPLF to consolidate its grip on power after the Derg fell in 1991.

That grip became vice like over the years—the TPLF dominates business and the economy as well as the country’s military and security apparatus—much to the consternation of Ethiopia’s other ethnic groups, especially the Oromo.

Constituting 35 percent of Ethiopia’s population, the Oromo are its largest ethnic group. They also constitute the largest proportion of inmates at Maekelawi and in the rest of country’s federal and regional prisons. This, Allo notes, cannot be explained simply by the numerical size of the Oromo population.

“There is a disproportionate and indiscriminate repression of the Oromo because they are suspected to pose a threat by virtue of their status as the single largest ethnic group in the country,” Allo says.

That perceived threat has only increased in the government’s eyes—as well as among some of the other ethnic minorities in the country such as the Somali—since November of 2015 when Oromos took to the streets at the start of a protest movement that continues to this day.

And since the protesting Oromo were joined by the Amhara in 2016—the two ethnic groups representing 67 percent of the population—the government has had to recognise the depth and scale of anger against it.

Hence it is now trying to appease the groundswell of discontent in the country that poses the greatest threat to the country’s stability—perhaps even the survival of the Ethiopian nation state itself—since 1991; the risk of state failure in Ethiopia saw it ranked 15th out of 178 countries—up from 24th in 2016—in the annual Fragile States Index by the Fund for Peace.

The problem, though, with such mollifying efforts by the government, as with the current announcement, is they usually don’t go the necessary distance.

“The EPRDF has taken responsibility for the political crisis in the country and has apologised for its leadership failures and undemocratic actions,” says Lidetu Ayele, founder of the local opposition Ethiopia Democratic Party. “But it has not accepted the presence of political prisoners in the country. These are contradictory outlooks and a clear manifestation that the ruling party is not ready to make genuine reform.”

The EPRDF has long been criticised—domestically and internationally—for using draconian anti-terrorism charges to detain political prisoners, and then in true Orwellian fashion arguing those charges mean there are no political prisoners in Ethiopia. Human rights groups have estimated political prisoner numbers in the tens of thousands.

The Oromo are proud of their cultural traditions and enjoy opportunities to celebrate that heritage. They also share a common language, Afaan Oromoo, also known as Oromoiffa, which belongs to the Cushitic family, unlike Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia, which is Semitic. A different language is only one of many sources of tension the Oromo have within the Ethiopian federation. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

With the announcement about Maekelawi and the prisoner release, however, it initially appeared the government was making a clear break with the past and acknowledging the existence of political prisoners. But soon afterwards it tried to backtrack, with government spokespersons vacillating about what had been meant by political prisoners.

“The announcement of the release of prisoners is highly symptomatic of the disorganization, if not the cacophony, among the leadership,” says René Lefort, who has been visiting and writing about Ethiopia since the 1974 revolution that ended emperor Haile Selassie’s reign and brought in the Derg military dictatorship that would fall to the EPRDF.

“This decision could have been the most resounding proof of the sincerity of the EPRDF to launch a democratizing process. But as it has been announced in successive versions lacking essential points—who exactly is effected; when will they be freed, and will it be unconditionally or, as in the past, only having apologized—this decision has largely lost the impact it could have had.”

Such political flip-flopping and indications of infighting in the government leave some with little confidence about the significance of the promise to end Maekelawi’s history of torture and ill-treatment, as documented in chilling detail by Human Rights Watch.

“The closure of the torture chamber does not signify anything because the government will undoubtedly continue the same practise at other locations,” says Alemante Selassie, emeritus professor at the William and Mary Law School in the US.

Others are less sceptical of the government’s motives.

“It’s not a smokescreen, it’s been under discussion within the context of the interparty dialogue ever since the parties stated their wish lists of issues at the beginning of 2017,” says Sandy Wade, a former European Union diplomat in Addis Ababa. “It is a necessary step in the run-up to the 2018 and 2020 elections—and for the future of the country—if [the government] wants opposition participation, which they do.”

On Jan. 15, Ethiopian Attorney General Getachew Ambaye gave a briefing saying that charges at a federal level brought against 115 prisoners had been dropped as part of the first phase to release jailed politicians and other convicts.

Although the attorney general did not mention names of prominent political figures imprisoned, on Jan. 17. Merera Gudina, leader of the Oromo Federalist Party arrested in 2016, was released.

The attorney general added that the Southern Ethiopia Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Regional State—a region of more than 58 ethnic groups—had dropped charges against 413 inmates also, and that other regions would follow suit in the next couple of months, with political figures in jail who have been “convicted” of crimes given amnesty.

At the same time, though, it appears the jury remains very much out on whether the government is genuinely committed to democratization and achieving a national consensus in the longer term.

“If they are, this would be a transformative moment for Ethiopia,” Awol says. “Either way, Ethiopia cannot be governed in the same way it has for the last 26 years.”

Which leaves the big—possibly existential—question facing Ethiopia: whether the government can and will come up with the necessary strategy and then implement it successfully in time for the 2018 local and 2020 national elections.

“If the EPRDF wants to rescue itself and the country from total collapse, what we need is genuine and swift political reform that will enable the country to have free and fair elections,” Lidetu says. “Anything less than that will not solve the current political crisis.”

One of KANA TV’s dubbing team in a specially equipped sound-proof studio reading from his Amharic script to dub over a Turkish actor. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By James Jeffrey
ADDIS ABABA, Dec 21 2017 (IPS)

On a Saturday afternoon in one of Addis Ababa’s khat houses, a group of men and women chew the mildly narcotic plant while gazing mesmerized toward a television featuring a South Korean soldier stripped to his waist and holding a young lady’s hand while proclaiming his undying love—somewhat incongruously—in Amharic.

Broadcast exclusively in the lingua franca of Ethiopia—a necessity with 80 dialects across the country—and after decades of drab Ethiopian state-owned television, KANA TV marks a breakthrough in Ethiopian televised entertainment. It may also signal a shift in Ethiopia’s much criticised media environment.The government appears to finally realise that squeezing private media is a mistake and self-defeating, leaving the field open to the likes of social-media activists with their own agendas.

“Kana” translates as something between taste and flavour, and Ethiopia’s estimated 4 million television households have found that this new private satellite TV channel carrying international standard programming very much to their taste. When it first aired, KANA seized a 40-50 percent share of the prime time market.

“It’s a crazy operation,” says co-founder Elias Schulze, the only non-Ethiopian amid the 180 staff. “At the beginning it took up to 50 man hours to dub one hour and we had to produce 200 man hours of content every day.”

So far KANA has dubbed 2,300 hours of foreign content, requiring a highly coordinated operation: research and analysis to select which shows to secure, then negotiations and purchase, followed by translation, casting, acting, syncing, audio editing, video editing, quality control and then scheduling. Finally, everything is uplinked to satellite.

“TV here used to be so boring, all the channels showed mainly news,” says an Addis Ababa resident and television viewer in her early twenties. “But KANA is pure entertainment, and people really like it.”

Ethiopia’s Amhara, the native speakers of Amharic, only constitute about a quarter of Ethiopia’s 100-million population. But before its launch, KANA conducted research that showed 70 percent of the country’s television viewers understood the language to a reasonable level.

That was an improvement on the 50 percent who couldn’t understand the Arabic-language satellite channels that had come to dominate Ethiopian viewing.

“People watched them because they enjoyed the quality and good storylines,” says Hailu Teklehaimanot, a producer and head of communications at KANA, and a former newspaper editor. “So we thought why not make that quality understandable through dubbing, while at the same time, our staff got on-the-job training we could eventually use for original productions.”

About 90 percent of KANA’s current output is dubbed foreign shows. The eventual goal is for half of output to be home-grown productions like KANA’s new Masters at Work series, which showcases the works of Ethiopian singers, poets, fashion designers, photographers and the like.

“There’s a narrative in mainstream media—both local and international—focusing on development or lack of development at the macro level,” Teklehaimanot says. “But there is a different narrative at the micro level in which inspired young people are doing new things.”

One example of this on Masters at Work is photographer Girma Berta, who specialises in taking photos on his mobile phone of simple images such as street kids and street vendors going about daily life.

“The message I want to send out to young people with interests in photography is not to be scared to try new things,” Berta says during his Masters at Work appearance. “Also, I would advise them to use social media properly to share their pictures, because they can show their pictures to the rest of the world easily; I think until we can find the style of photography that defines us, we must search for it ourselves.”

Staff working at KANA TV. Photo courtesy KANA TV.

Despite such offerings of inspiration, the majority of KANA’s audience watch its shows like viewers anywhere—for entertainment or as escapism from the daily grind.

Others, meanwhile, would rather not watch it at all.

“I don’t let me family watch KANA TV otherwise we’ll never talk to each other when I return from work,” says one taxi driver in Addis Ababa.

Meanwhile, conservative commentators have decried KANA’s foreign soap operas for corrupting Ethiopian culture, while others have similar concerns.

“I believe [the Ethiopian Broadcasting Service] has been doing a far better job than KANA in representing Ethiopia’s indigenous and diaspora [populations],” Addis Ababa-based Mahder Sereke says on Twitter. “Also KANA’s soaps are debasing, not to Ethiopia’s culture but to Ethiopia’s women [through] their false—negatively—gendered depiction.”

EBS is a privately held media company based in the U.S. that targets the global Ethiopian market resulting from successive waves of emigration during decades of tumult in Ethiopia forming a significant Ethiopian diaspora of around two million people. The largest communities are in the U.S., with estimates varying from 250,000 people to about one million.

KANA has also been criticised for undercutting local production and poaching viewers from other TV outlets, thereby actually reducing opportunities for local artists and creative types to illustrate their works.

Meanwhile, some viewer fatigue has seen KANA losing some of its grip on the prime time market. But KANA’s emergence appears to indicate Ethiopian television could be finally changing for the better—albeit not as fast as many would wish.

In the past, Ethiopian government spokespersons haven’t been shy of explaining that media reform shouldn’t be rushed due to Ethiopia’s developmental state.

But now the government appears to finally realise that squeezing private media is a mistake and self-defeating, leaving the field open to the likes of social-media activists with their own agendas.

“The problem is a lot of things people view as gossip if heard by mouth, when they read about it on social media they take as fact,” Lidetu Ayele, founder of the opposition Ethiopia Democratic Party, says of social media’s influence during protests in Ethiopia.

And so, whether out of acknowledgment of the rights of Ethiopians not to be spoon fed state-sponsored propaganda or out of its own self-interest, the Ethiopian government is letting some winds of change finally blow through Ethiopian media.

“We don’t agree with the characterization that Ethiopia’s media landscape is repressed,” says Nazrawi Ghebreselasie, KANA’s managing director and co-founder. “It’s true that the industry in general is in its infancy; however, due to conducive policy environment, we are seeing massive investment going into media.”

Others, however, note that a new entertainment channel like KANA doesn’t connote Ethiopia’s media being unshackled—a fact emphasised by Ethiopian journalists and bloggers arrested for their journalism, often on the basis of terror charges, as highlighted by the international Committee to Protect Journalists.

“Media freedom depends on which yardstick you use,” says Daniel Berhane, a prominent Addis Ababa-based blogger. “The government appears to be relaxing about online and television media, but there are still no opposition newspapers.”

Ethiopia ranked 150th out of 180 countries in the 2017 press freedom index rankings by Reporters Without Borders. The international non-profit organization that promotes and defends freedom of information and the press states that the Ethiopian regime systematically uses the country’s anti-terror law against journalists.

Contrary voices, as a result, often have to come from the likes of ESAT, a popular Ethiopian satellite channel also broadcast from America. It is highly critical of the Ethiopian government and advertises itself as speaking for those who can’t speak in Ethiopia.

But part of KANA’s expanding original production base includes plans for a new news show, hence a whiteboard in the company’s offices covered in green marker pen hashing out its development.

Whether this news platform can be as insightful and demonstrate as much editorial freedom as news channels coming from outside Ethiopia will have to be seen.

But, at the same time, there appears reason for some optimism.

“The [negative] international view of media in Ethiopia is a bit exaggerated,” said Zekarias Sintayehu, editor in chief of Addis Ababa’s Reporter newspaper. “It is not a cakewalk to be journalist in Ethiopia but nobody can deny the prospects of a better media environment in the future.”

Displaced Somali at a camp on the outskirts of the city of Dire Dawa in eastern Ethiopia. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By James Jeffrey
NEAR THE OROMIA-SOMALI REGIONAL BORDER, Ethiopia, Nov 21 2017 (IPS)

Ethnic animosity unleashed in Ethiopia has displaced hundreds of thousands as well as rendering all manner of usually sacrosanct loyalties obsolete.

“I was making my husband dinner in the evening but an hour after he returned from work he kicked me out of our home,” says Zahala Shekabde, a Somali married to an Oromo. “I pleaded with him, told him I loved him and that I have nothing else, but he said he didn’t want to listen and I must go otherwise he would hurt me.”Both regional governments deny their special police were involved while accusing the other of Machiavellian plots.

She left with nothing other than three children from a former marriage—her husband wouldn’t let her take her youngest child from their marriage.

Other displaced ethnic Somali with Zahala from all over Ethiopia’s Oromia region say there was no warning and explanation given for their evictions, other than the local Oromo where they lived, including local officials, telling them it was revenge for what had happened to Oromo in Jijiga, the capital of the Somali region.

Upwards of 50,000 ethnic Oromo had to leave the Somali region and beyond (officials from the opposing Oromia and Somali regions dispute whether the sum applies just to the Somali region or to the Horn of Africa—Oromo have also left Djibouti and Somaliland, where two Ethiopians were reportedly killed in the capital, Hargeisa).

This sequence of tit-for-tat ethnic-based violence and evictions was sparked after Oromo protests on Sept. 12 in the town of Aweday, between  the cities of Harar and Dire Dawa near the border between the two regions, led to rioting that left 18 dead, according to official figures, the majority being Somali traders of khat, the plant that when chewed acts as a mild stimulant. Somali who fled Aweday say it was closer to 40 killed.

Following Aweday, the Somali regional government began evicting Oromo from Jijiga and the region. Officials say this was for the Oromo’s own safety, and that not one Oromo died from ethnic violence in the region—a fact disputed by displaced Oromo.

“My husband was sick at home when I left for work on Sept. 20,” says Fateer Shafee from a village near Jijiga. “Later I got a call from him saying to come and collect the children as there was conflict nearby. When I got back I found the children but our home was burnt with my husband still inside. Everyone was running and hadn’t been able to get him out.”

Displaced Oromo sheltering on an industrial park on the outskirts of the city of Harar in eastern Ethiopia. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

In the numerous camps that have popped up and public buildings commandeered to absorb the displaced, Oromo and Somali tell equally convincing stories of ethnic violence, primarily carried out, they claim, by each region’s special police, while exhibiting even more convincing physical wounds of that violence.

Meanwhile, both regional governments deny their special police were involved while accusing the other of Machiavellian plots. At the federal level, the government faces accusations ranging from not doing enough to turning a blind eye to even abetting violence for political ends. Another option is it may simply not have the capacity to do enough, so widespread is the violence.

“It’s very difficult to tell if there have been acts of omission or commission at all levels,” says the head of one international humanitarian organization in Ethiopia, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The scale of what’s happened becomes clearer 80km east of Dire Dawa, just over the regional border in the Somali Region, where two giant camps for displaced Somalis are co-located in the lee of the Kolechi Mountains.

In the older camp are 5,300 Somali households—household size varies from 6 to 10 people—displaced by a mixture of drought and ethnic violence since 2015. In the newer camp are 3,850 households displaced by the recent violence.

“It’s uniformed police carrying out the bloodshed,” says one Somali man at the camps.

Another man had to flee Oromia’s Bale zone, hundreds of kilometers to the southwest, though he says that 500 Somali households remain there under constant harassment.

“They are rich farmers and are attacked each day,” he says. “The local Oromo tell the Ethiopian soldiers there one thing and then do another—it’s the worst example of conflict as the farmers are totally isolated and surrounded, and have no way of getting away.”

Displaced Somali at giant camps surrounded by the Kolenchi hills in Ethiopia’s most eastern Somali region. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Inhabitants in both camps pull back clothing to reveal old bullet wounds, scars and lesions from burns, broken bones that never healed, and more.

A number of displaced Somali say they survived thanks to the intervention of soldiers from the national Ethiopian Defense Force. But it wasn’t enough to allow them to remain, or to return.

“If the federal government sends forces to keep the peace they stay for a week or a month and then after they leave it happens again,” says one Somali man. “We can’t risk staying.”

Oromia and Somali are the two largest regions in the country by area size, sharing a border of more than 1,400 km (870 miles). The Oromo constitute the largest proportion of Ethiopia’s population, numbering about 35 million, a factor Ethiopia’s other ethnic groups remain deeply conscious of—especially its 6.5 million Somalis.

Ethnic conflict along the border between the two regions and in the regional rural hinterlands has long occurred, and can be traced to grievances and still standing tensions from the Ethio-Somali war of the 1970s and further back to historical tensions over Oromo migration due to their significant numbers.

But ethnic violence in urban areas well removed from the border is particularly rare. Many say the violence is all the more shocking within communities that integrated peacefully for centuries, and within which intermarriage between Oromo and Somali was the norm.

In 2004, a referendum to decide the fate of more than 420 kebeles around the border—Ethiopia’s smallest administrative unit—gave 80 percent of them to the Oromia Region. This led to thousands of Somalis leaving areas for fear of repercussions.

The referendum still hasn’t been fully resolved, which some say could be one factor behind the current conflict, as may be the on-going drought putting further pressure on pasture and resources—but only to a degree.

“There’s been drought before and no violence happened,” says the vice administrator of one of the Somali regional zones badly hit by the drought. “The main reason is politics and is hidden—this is all man-made.”

Ethiopia’s ethnic federalist system devolves power to regional states. Some observers note how this leaves the government in a quandary of respecting that devolution while also protecting the constitutional rights of Ethiopians, especially minorities, as regions increasingly flex their devolved muscles.

Recent trouble primarily occurred where notable minorities existed: Somali in Aweday, for example, and Oromo in Jijiga. More diverse cities such as Dire Dawa, with a less clear majority, have escaped violence for now.

Meanwhile, accusations go beyond political machinations by regional powerbrokers and the federal government to include the Ethiopian diaspora opposition and social media.

“The Oromo are being directed from Minnesota in America,” says one Somali official. “The Oromo in government don’t have enough respect or influence to coordinate this.”

“When I was a boy we thought these pictures had some sort of devilish connection,” says 57-year-old Musa Abdi, who has spent his whole life around Las Geel and these days helps look after the site. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By James Jeffrey
BERBERA, Oct 26 2017 (IPS)

The name alone—Berbera—ripples with exotic resonance, conjuring images of tropical quays, swarthy traders and fiery sunsets imbued with smells of spices, incense and palm oil.

Lying on the Gulf of Aden opposite Yemen, this ancient trading port’s sun-baked streets and waterline are steeped in history. The town’s old quarter is a wealth of pre-20th century Ottoman architectural gems and old neighbourhoods where Arab, Indian and Jewish trading communities once thrived.“We have to act very soon if we are to save it from disappearing.” --Jama Musse, Director of the Red Sea Culture Centre

It would be a shoo-in candidate for becoming a UNESCO World Heritage Site, some say, were it not for Somaliland’s political limbo that means it is still viewed as part of Somalia—which hasn’t ratified the 1972 World Heritage Convention—and the fact that many of the buildings are crumbling at such a rate that soon there may be nothing for UNESCO to consider.

“Neglect and lack of awareness among Somalilanders is making the problem worse,” says Jama Musse, director of the Red Sea Culture Centre in Hargeisa. “I have not heard of any restoration schemes, and unfortunately we have to act very soon if we are to save it from disappearing.”

Berbera’s old quarter isn’t the only site under threat. About 100 kilometres to the west, deep in the Somaliland scrub-land, are the caves of Las Geel.

“This is one of the most important rock art sites in eastern Africa for at least two reasons,” says Xavier Gutherz, who led the team of French archaeologists that in 2002 discovered Las Geel. “The high number and quality of execution of the panels of rock art, and the originality of the representations of cattle and characters.”

But some of the 5,000- to 10,000-year-old renditions of primordial life are now unrecognizable smears due to lack of protection from the elements and animal activity.

“There isn’t money to look after the site better, our tourism department is tiny,” says Abdisalam Mohamed who works in the few ramshackle offices belonging to Somaliland’s ministry of tourism in the centre of Somaliland’s capital, Hargeisa.

Images of human figures among animals, some depicted drinking from udders, illustrate people living off herds. Hence Las Geel demonstrates, experts say, how the pastoralist lifestyle existed in the Horn of Africa region thousands of years before it reached Western Europe. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Still unrecognized by the international community since declaring independence more than 25 years ago after a civil war when part of Somalia, Somaliland’s government has a tiny budget. It is unable to access global finance or loans, instead relying on diaspora remittances to bolster the economy.

Supporting tourism infrastructure simply isn’t a priority in such circumstances. Hence many of Somaliland’s historical highlights could be lost—and with them the very basis of a potential tourism industry that could help boost the livestock exporting-dependent economy and change global perspectives about this wannabe nation state.

In addition to inadequate maintenance of historical sites, lack of funding means another of Somaliland’s potential tourism assets barely registers on the radar: its beaches, stretching for about 850 kilometres, which are almost entirely undeveloped.

“There’s very little at the beaches in terms of infrastructure—there needs to be more,” says Georgina Jamieson with tourism consultancy service Dunira Strategy, which conducted a feasibility study of heritage tourism as a driver of sustainable economic growth in Somaliland.  “We concluded that over the short term that Somaliland’s historical sites are its strongest assets.”

Las Geel draws foreign tourists and the Somaliland diaspora alike. There are hopes the site can one day be part of an expansive tourism industry in Somaliland. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Somaliland can also offer tourists exposure to nomadic and pastoralist traditions; Islamic history, such as the Masjid al-Qiblatayn ruins at the seaside village of Zeila, one of the few ancient mosques featuring two mihrabs indicating the direction of Mecca; and the likes of the camel market in Hargeisa, and further afield the escarpment around the Daallo Forest, home to magnificent birdlife and hallucinogenic panoramas.

But even with so much to offer, attracting Western tourists is a tall order when their governments have travel advisories in place warning about Somaliland.

“Poor old Somaliland is placed with Syria and Yemen, and that means you won’t get hotel groups interested or foreign investment in infrastructure either,” says Jim Louth with adventure travel company Undiscovered Destinations that sends groups of tourists to Somaliland.

As with many of the country’s burdens, Somaliland’s image problem that impedes its tourism comes down to its continuing lack of statehood.

“The only way we can sell the country’s assets is to have international recognition,” Musse says. “Tourism will not grow without that recognition. It’s a simple fact. The world does not know about us.”

The upshot, Musse explains, is that foreigners don’t know who to contact, no one takes responsibility, and the types of institutions normally operating abroad to protect tourists’ interests don’t exist, which presents the danger of anyone offering advice without accountability.

There is, however, one potential tourist boost for Somaliland less dependent on Western travel advisories reforming.

“Ethiopia is our neighbour and with its large population offers a big market,” Mohammed Abdirizak, who runs Hargeisa-based Safari Travel Tour and Culture travel agency, says of the country with one of the world’s fastest developing economies and a population set to hit around 127 million by 2037, according to current estimates. “Many of its middleclass are going to Kenya and Djibouti for holidays when they could be coming here.”

Somaliland could also benefit from becoming an onward destination for the increasing numbers of foreign tourists lured to Ethiopia as its tourism industry takes off, says Mark Rowlatt, a 56-year-old habitual traveller planning his Somaliland itinerary from Hargeisa’s Oriental Hotel after visiting Ethiopia.

Around him on the walls of Hargeisa’s oldest hotel are posters depicting Somaliland’s beaches and historic sites under the hopeful banner of what might be: “Wonderful Somaliland—The Newest Tourist Destination in Africa.”

Some of those rooting for Somaliland tourism say the government isn’t doing enough, using its constrained budget as an excuse not to be more proactive while failing to appreciate how tourism is a means to tackle poverty and chronic unemployment rates that leave swathes of young men lounging on streets.

Despite all the challenges facing Somaliland, however, crime is rare, with the last terrorist attack in 2008. An armed escort is often mandated for travel outside the capital, but most say that has more to do with the government fearing how even one tourist-related incident would undermine efforts toward international recognition than with actual threat.

Foreign tourists choosing to take their governments’ travel advisories with a pinch of salt can visit in relative safety, usually reporting incident-free and enjoyable adventures.

The main challenge for most tends to be the midday heat, especially at Berbera simmering away at sea level. But relief is at hand at Baathela Beach on the outskirts of town.

“With its small waves it reminds me of the Mediterranean,” says Xavier Vallès, an NGO health consultant in Somaliland who grew up next to the beach in Barcelona, before wading into the cooling waters, utterly alone—other than the bored-looking armed guards beside his vehicle.

Meanwhile, back in the old quarter, goats opted to rest in the shade of the crumbling walls.

Women and children caught in a dust-laden gust at an IDP settlement 60km south of the town of Gode, reachable only along a dirt track through the desiccated landscape. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By James Jeffrey
DOLO ODO, Ethiopia, Sep 5 2017 (IPS)

Grasping its limp leg, a woman drags the carcass of one of her few remaining black-headed sheep away from her family’s domed shelter fashioned out of sticks and fabric that stands alone amid the desiccated scrubland a few kilometers from the town of Dolo Odo in the southeast of Ethiopia near the border with Somalia.

“Once all my goats are dead, we will go to one of the settlements by the town,” says the Somali-Ethiopian pastoralist dealing with the fallout of the latest drought afflicting the Horn of Africa.  “Last year we dodged a bullet, but now the funding gaps are larger on both sides.” --Edward Brown, World Vision’s Ethiopia national director

In Ethiopia’s Somali region, whose inhabitants while ethnically Somali are Ethiopian nationals, there are 264 sites containing around 577,711 internally displaced persons—also known as IDPs—according to a survey conducted by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) between May and June 2017.

“For those who have lost everything, all they can now do is go to a government assistance site for food and water,” says Charlie Mason, humanitarian director at Save the Children Ethiopia until June this year. “They have no coping mechanisms left.”

But the scale of numbers means the government is overwhelmed—many sites have reported no access to food—hence international assistance is sorely needed. But international aid is often more geared toward those who cross international borders.

“Refugees get global attention—the issue has been around a long time, and it’s just how people look at it, especially if conflict is involved,” says Hamidu Jalleh, working for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the region. “Weather-induced IDPs hasn’t reached that level.”

IDPs are only one part of the humanitarian challenge for those tackling the drought in Ethiopia’s Somali region: 2.5 million people will require food assistance between July and December 2017, according to aid agencies, while some report this number is expected to be revised upwards of 3.3 million by mid-August.

The dilemma is made worse by the international humanitarian aid network already straining due to successive protracted global crises in the likes of Yemen, Somalia, Sudan and Nigeria.

“Due to a shortage of funding, we were only able to reach 1 million out of 1.7 million in the Somali region in June and July,” says Peter Smerdon, the United Nations World Food Programme regional spokesperson for East Africa.

Women encountered in the refugee camps around Dolo Odo said that though children weren’t getting as much food as they would like, they were relatively healthy. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Drought does not recognize borders but international law divides people into refugees and IDPs. Under the 1951 Refugee Convention, crossing a border entitles refugees to international protection, whereas IDPs remain the responsibility of national governments.

On the edge of Dolo Odo, lines of corrugated iron roofs glint in the sun throughout a refugee camp housing 40,000 Somalis.

Refugees complain of headaches and itchy skin with the heat, and a recent reduction in their monthly food allowance. But at least that ration is guaranteed, along with water, health and education services—none of which are available to IDPs in a nearby settlement.

“We don’t oppose support for refugees—they should be helped as they face bigger problems,” says 70-year-old Abiyu Alsow amid the settlement’s ramshackle shelters. “But we are frustrated as we aren’t getting anything from the government or NGOs.”

Ethiopia’s Somali region contains the largest proportion of the total 1,056,738 IDPs identified by IOM throughout Ethiopia.

The existence of IDPs advertise the likes of internal conflict and disorder. Hence governments often approach the topic too gingerly, with IDPs then falling through the gaps—especially in Ethiopia.

“It’s only in the last year-and-a-half we’ve been able to start talking about IDPs,” says the director of a humanitarian agency working in Ethiopia, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “But the government is becoming more open about the reality—it knows it can’t ignore the issue.”

Displaced pastoralists inspecting a dead camel on the outskirts of an IDP settlement in the region around Gode. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Many within the aid industry praise Ethiopia’s open-door refugee strategy—in marked contrast to Western countries increasingly focusing on migrant reduction—that means it hosts more than 800,000 people. But questions remain about its handling of IDPs.

“This country receives billions of dollars in aid—there is so much bi-lateral support, but there is a huge disparity between aid to refugees and IDPs,” says the anonymous director. “How is that possible?”

IDP camps in the Somali region’s northern Siti zone that sprang up during droughts in 2015 and 2016 remain full.

“There’s no financial backing to tackle underlying vulnerabilities to get people back on their feet,” Mason says.

A major obstacle to helping those displaced by drought is how pastoralists aren’t the only ones facing depleted resources.

In 2016 the Ethiopian government spent an unprecedented 700 million dollars, while the international community made up the rest of the 1.8 billion needed, to assist more than 10 million Ethiopians effected by an El Niño-induced drought.

“Last year we dodged a bullet, but now the funding gaps are larger on both sides,” says Edward Brown, World Vision’s Ethiopia national director. “Large donors are making hard choices as they are having to do more with less.”

Currently the Ethiopian government and humanitarian partners have raised 553 million of the 948 million dollars needed to help 7.8 million drought-affected Ethiopians identified around the country.

Aid agencies tackling Ethiopia’s drought previously warned they would run out of funds to continue providing food by this July unless additional donor funds were forthcoming.

It appears that calamity has been avoided, for now. Ethiopian authorities say last minute donations from the UK, EU and US means they have enough money until October to keep up food shipments.

But that’s a long way from securing long-term viability for those trying to live in this sun-scorched part of the world.

“Since securing additional resources from donors, we are now able to provide emergency food assistance to additional people for the next three months in the Somali region,” Smerdon says. “If additional needs are announced, WFP will attempt to cover as many as possible.”

Eritrean teenagers and young men, aged from 16 to 20, waiting at the Badme entry point to be moved to the screening registration center. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By James Jeffrey
ADINBRIED, Ethiopia, Jun 22 2017 (IPS)

It’s one thing to read about the exodus of souls flowing out of Eritrea, it’s quite another to look into the tired eyes, surrounded by dust and grime, of a 14-year-old Eritrean girl who’s just arrived on the Ethiopian side of the shared border.

She is carrying a scruffy plastic bag. Inside are a few clothes, an orange beaker, and a small torch whose batteries have nearly run out.“We are the same people, we share the same blood, even the same grandfathers.” --Estifanos Gebremedhin, head of the legal and protection department for Ethiopia’s Administration for Refugee and Returnee Affairs

With her are four men, two women and five younger children, all of whom crossed the Eritrea-Ethiopia border the night before. Ethiopian soldiers found them and took them to the town of Adinbried.

The compound of simple government buildings where they were dropped off constitutes a so-called entry point, one of 12 along the border. It marks the beginning of the bureaucratic and logistical conveyor belt to assign asylum status to those arriving, before finally moving them to one of four refugee camps designated for Eritreans in Ethiopia’s Tigray region.

“It took us four days traveling from Asmara,” a 31-year-man among the group says about their trek from the Eritrean capital, about 80 kilometres north of the border. “We travelled for 10 hours each night, sleeping in the desert during the day.”

In February 2017, 3,367 Eritrean refugees arrived in Ethiopia, according to the Ethiopian Administration for Refugee and Returnee Affairs (ARRA). There are around 165,000 Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers in Ethiopia, according to the UN refugee agency.

Ethiopia’s open-door policy is in marked contrast to the strategies of migrant reduction increasingly being adopted in many Western societies.

And its stance is all the more striking due to the Eritrean and Ethiopian governments forever accusing the one of plotting against the other amid an atmosphere of mutual loathing.

But it appears the Ethiopian government is willing to treat ordinary Eritreans differently.

“We differentiate between the government and its people,” says ARRA’s Estifanos Gebremedhin. “We are the same people, we share the same blood, even the same grandfathers.”

Before Eritrea gained independence, it was Ethiopia’s most northern region. On both sides of today’s border many people still share the same language—Tigrinya—as well as Orthodox religion and cultural traditions.

Shimelba was the first Eritrean refugee camp to open in 2004. It now houses more than 6,000 refugees. About 60 percent of its population come from the Kunama ethnic group, one of nine in Eritrea, and historically the most marginalised.

“I have no interest in going to other countries,” says Nagazeuelle, a Kunama who has been in Ethiopia for 17 years. “I need my country. We had rich and fertile land, but the government took it. We weren’t an educated people, so they picked on us. I am an example of the first refugees from Eritrea, but now people from all nine ethnic groups are coming.”

Discussion among refugees in Shimelba camp of governmental atrocities ranges from accusations of genocide against the Kunama, including mass poisonings, to government officials shopping at markets and then shooting stall owners due to disagreements over prices.

“The world has forgotten us, apart from the U.S., Canada and Ethiopia,” says Haile, an Eritrean in his fifties who has been a refugee for five years. He says his father and brother died in prison. “What is happening is beyond language, it is a deep crisis—so why is the international community silent?”

Eritrean soldiers—now deserters—arriving at the Adinbried entry point. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

There are some, however, who argue the situation in Eritrea isn’t as bad as claimed. A UN report last year accusing Eritrea’s leadership of crimes against humanity has received criticism for being one-sided, failing to acknowledge Eritrea’s progress with the likes of providing healthcare and education, and thereby entrenching a skewed negative perspective dominant in policy circles and Western media.

“It is real, nothing is exaggerated,” says Dawit, a Shimelba resident of eight years. “We have the victims of rape, torture and imprisonment in our camp who can testify.”

About 50 kilometres south of Shimelba is Hitsats, the newest and largest of the four camps with 11,000 refugees, of whom about 80 percent are under 35 years of age.

“In Sudan there are more problems, we can sleep peacefully here,” says 32-year-old Ariam, who came to Hitsat four years ago with her two children after spending four years in a refugee camp in neighbouring Sudan.

Refugees say the Eritrean military launches missions into Sudan to capture refugees who have fled.

Ethiopia also hosts refugees from a plethora of other strife-torn countries. Its refugee population now exceeds 800,000—the highest number in Africa, and the 6th largest globally.

“Ethiopia strongly believes that generous hosting of refugees will be good for regional relationships down the road,” says  Jennifer Riggan, an associate professor of International Studies at Arcadia University in the US, and analyst of Eritrean refugees in Ethiopia.

Others point out how there is also an increasing amount of money involved with refugees. The likes of the UK and Europe are providing Ethiopia with financial incentives to keep refugees within its borders—similar to the approach taken with Turkey—so they don’t continue beyond Africa.

Meanwhile, despite the apparent welcome given to Eritrean refugees, frictions remain.

“People recognise the shared culture and ethnic background, and that helps for many things, but there’s still distrust because of the 30-year-war [for independence],” says Milena Belloni, an anthropologist who is currently writing a book about Eritrean refugees. “There’s a double narrative.”

While both sides talk of the other as brothers, she explains, historically Eritreans have looked down on Tigrayans—based on them working as migrant labourers in Eritrea during its heyday as a semi-industrialised Italian colony—while Tigrayans viewed Eritreans as arrogant and aloof.

Either way, Ethiopia appears to be looking to better assimilate refugees by embracing the 2016 Leaders’ Summit on Refugees—pushed by former U.S. President Barack Obama—that called for better integration and education, employment and residency opportunities for refugees wherever they land around the world.

“Ethiopia’s response is to manage the gate, and figure out how it can benefit from these inevitable flows of people,” Riggan says. “I definitely think Ethiopia’s approach is the wiser and more realistic one.”

About 10 miles north of Adinbried the military forces of Ethiopia and Eritrea straddle the border, eying each other suspiciously through binoculars overlooking derelict military emplacements that serve as grim reminders of a former two-year war and ongoing fraught relations between the two countries.

In 1998 Eritrea invaded the small and inconsequential-looking border town of Badme before pushing south to occupy the rest of Ethiopia’s Yirga Triangle, claiming it was historically Eritrean land.

Ethiopia eventually regained the land but the fighting cost both countries thousands of lives, billions of dollars desperately needed elsewhere in such poor and financially strapped countries, and sowed rancour and disagreement festering ever since.

Because despite the internationally brokered peace settlement that followed the 2000 ceasefire ruling Badme return to Eritrea, Ethiopia still occupies it—the government felt the Ethiopian public wouldn’t tolerate the concession of a now iconic town responsible for so many lost Ethiopian lives—and the rest of the Yirga Triangle jutting defiantly into Eritrea.

While Badme hasn’t changed much since those days—it remains a dusty, ramshackle town—it too is involved in current Eritrean migration.

“I crossed after hearing they were about to round people up for the military,” says 20-year-old Gebre at the entry point on the edge of Badme. “I wasn’t going to go through that—you’re hungry, there’s no salary, you’re not doing anything to help your country; you’re just serving officials.”

With Gebre are another 14 males ranging in age from 16 to 20 who crossed to avoid military service, as well as two mothers who crossed with two young children each.

“Life was getting worse, I had no work to earn money to feed my children,” says 34-year-old mother-of-four Samrawit, who left two older children in Eritrea.

She travelled with 22-year-old mother-of-two Yordanos, having met her at the Eritrean town of Barentua, about 50 kilometres north of the border, and the rendezvous point with their smuggler.

Neither knows how much the smuggler earned for driving them to the border and helping them across: payment was organised by their husbands living in Switzerland and Holland.

“I would like to make sure coming here is worth it before my elder two children come,” Samrawit says.

Women and children caught in a dust-laden gust at an IDP settlement 60km south of the town of Gode, reachable only along a dirt track through the desiccated landscape. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By James Jeffrey
GODE, Ethiopia, May 11 2017 (IPS)

Displaced pastoralists gather around newly arrived drums of brown water as a water truck speeds off to make further deliveries to settlements that have sprung up along the main road running out of Gode, one of the major urban centers in Ethiopia’s Somali region.

Women encountered in the refugee camps around Dolo Odo said that though children weren’t getting as much food as they would like, they were relatively healthy. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Looking at the drums’ brackish-looking contents, a government official explains the sediment will soon settle and the water has been treated, making it safe to drink—despite appearances.“For those who have lost everything, all they can now do is go to a government assistance site for food and water.” --Charlie Mason, humanitarian director at Save the Children Ethiopia

A total of 58 internally displaced person (IDP) settlements in the region are currently receiving assistance in the form of water trucking and food supplies, according to the government.

But 222 sites containing nearly 400,000 displaced individuals were identified in a survey conducted by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) between Nov. and Dec. 2016.

The majority have been forced to move by one of the worst droughts in living memory gripping the Horn of Africa. In South Sudan famine has been declared, while in neighbouring Somalia and Yemen famine is a real possibility.

Despite being afflicted by the same climate and failing rains as neighbouring Somalia, the situation in Ethiopia’s Somali region isn’t as dire thanks to it remaining relatively secure and free of conflict.

But its drought is inexorably getting more serious. IOM’s most recent IDP numbers represent a doubling of displaced individuals and sites from an earlier survey conducted between Sept. and Oct. 2016.

Hence humanitarian workers in the region are increasingly concerned about overstretch, coupled with lack of resources due to the world reeling from successive and protracted crises.

The blunt fallout from this is that currently not everyone can be helped—and whether you crossed an international border makes all the difference.

“When people cross borders, the world is more interested,” says Hamidu Jalleh, working for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Gode. “Especially if they are fleeing conflict, it is a far more captivating issue. But the issue of internally displaced persons doesn’t ignite the same attention.”

An old man squatting outside his shelter in an IDP settlement in the region around Gode. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

In January 2017 the Ethiopian government and humanitarian partners requested 948 million dollars to help 5.6 million drought-affected people, mainly in the southern and eastern parts of the country.

Belated seasonal rains arrived at the start of April in some parts of the Somali region, bringing some relief in terms of access to water and pasture. But that’s scant consolation for displaced pastoralists who don’t have animals left to graze and water.

“Having lost most of their livestock, they have also spent out the money they had in reserve to try to keep their last few animals alive,” says Charlie Mason, humanitarian director at Save the Children Ethiopia. “For those who have lost everything, all they can now do is go to a government assistance site for food and water.”

Under the 1951 Refugee Convention, crossing a border entitles refugees to international protection, whereas IDPs remain the responsibility of national governments, often falling through the gaps as a result.

In the early 1990s, however, human rights advocates began pushing the issue of IDPs to rectify this mismatch. Nowadays IDPs are much more on the international humanitarian agenda.

Displaced pastoralists inspecting a dead camel on the outskirts of an IDP settlement in the region around Gode. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

But IDPs remain a sensitive topic, certainly for national governments, their existence testifying to the likes of internal conflict and crises.

“It’s only in the last year-and-a-half we’ve been able to start talking about IDPs,” says the director of a humanitarian agency covering Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “But the government is becoming more open about the reality—it knows it can’t ignore the issue.”

The Ethiopian government has far fewer qualms about discussing the estimated 800,000 refugees it hosts.

Ethiopia maintains an open-door policy to refugees in marked contrast to strategies of migrant reduction increasingly being adopted in the West.

Just outside Dolo Odo, a town at the Somali region’s southern extremity, a few kilometres away from where Ethiopia’s border intersects with Kenya and Somalia, are two enormous refugee camps each housing about 40,000 Somalis, lines of corrugated iron roofs glinting in the sun.

Amina, a former pastoralist and now displaced by drought, tends a garden that is nourished by the run off from a nearby water point in an IDP camp in Somalia. Credit: Muse Mohammed/UN Migration Agency (IOM) 2017

Life is far from easy. Refugees complain of headaches and itchy skin due to the pervading heat of 38 – 42 degrees Celsius, and of a recent reduction in their monthly allowance of cereals and grains from 16kg to 13.5kg.

But, at the same time, they are guaranteed that ration, along with water, health and education services—none of which are available to IDPs in a settlement on the outskirts of Dolo Odo.

Displaced women and children in Airstrip Area Displacement Site, Dolo Ado, Somali Region. Photo: Rikka Tupaz\/UN Migration Agency (IOM) 2017

“We don’t oppose support for refugees—they should be helped as they face bigger problems,” says 70-year-old Abiyu Alsow. “But we are frustrated as we aren’t getting anything from the government or NGOs.”

Abiyu spoke amid a cluster of women, children and a few old men beside makeshift domed shelters fashioned out of sticks and fabric. Husbands were away either trying to source money from relatives, looking for daily labour in the town, or making charcoal for family use and to sell.

“I’ve never seen a drought like this in all my life—during previous droughts some animals would die, but not all of them,” says 80-year-old Abikar Mohammed.

Displaced pastoralists helping a weak camel to its feet (it’s not strong enough to lift its own weight) using poles beneath its belly. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

As centres of government administration, commerce, and NGO activity, the likes of Gode and Dollo Ado and their residents appear to be weathering the drought relatively well.

But as soon as you leave city limits you begin to spot the animal carcasses littering the landscape, and recognise the smell of carrion in the air.

Livestock are the backbone of this region’s economy. Dryland specialists estimate that pastoralists in southern Ethiopia have lost in excess of 200 million dollars worth of cattle, sheep, goats, camels and equines. And the meat and milk from livestock are the life-support system of pastoralists.

“People were surviving from what they could forage to eat or sell but now there is nothing left,” says the anonymous director, who visited a settlement 70km east of Dolo Odo where 650 displaced pastoralist families weren’t receiving aid.

The problem with this drought is the pastoralists aren’t the only ones to have spent out their reserves.

Women and children at an IDP settlement 60km south of the town of Gode, reachable only along a dirt track through the desiccated landscape. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Last year the Ethiopian government spent an unprecedented 700 million dollars while the international community made up the rest of the 1.8 billion dollars needed to assist more than 10 million people effected by an El Niño-induced drought.

“Last year’s response by the government was pretty remarkable,” says Edward Brown, World Vision’s Ethiopia national director. “We dodged a bullet. But now the funding gaps are larger on both sides. The UN’s ability is constrained as it looks for big donors—you’ve already got the U.S. talking of slashing foreign aid.”

Many within the humanitarian community praise Ethiopia’s handling of refugees. But concerns remain, especially when it comes to IDPs. It’s estimated there are more than 696,000 displaced individuals at 456 sites throughout Ethiopia, according to IOM.

“This country receives billions of dollars in aid, there is so much bi-lateral support but there is a huge disparity between aid to refugees and IDPs,” says the anonymous director. “How is that possible?”

Security in Ethiopia’s Somali region is one of the strictest in Ethiopia. As a result, the region is relatively safe and peaceful, despite insurgent threats along the border with Somalia.

But some rights organizations claim strict restrictions hamper international media and NGOs, making it difficult to accurately gauge the drought’s severity and resultant deaths, as well as constraining trade and movement, thereby exacerbating the crisis further.

Certainly, the majority of NGOs appear to exist in a state of perpetual anxiety about talking to media and being kicked out of the region.

Women and children caught in a dust-laden gust at an IDP settlement 60km south of the town of Gode, reachable only along a dirt track through the desiccated landscape. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

While no one was willing to go on the record, some NGO workers talk of a disconnect between the federal government in the Ethiopian capital and the semi-autonomous regional government, and of the risks of people starving and mass casualties unless more resources are provided soon.

Already late, if as forecast the main spring rains prove sparse, livestock losses could easily double as rangeland resources—pasture and water—won’t regenerate to the required level to support livestock populations through to the short autumn rains.

Yet even if resources can be found to cover the current crisis, the increasingly pressing issue remains of how to build capacity and prepare for the future.

In the Somali region’s northern Siti zone, IDP camps from droughts in 2015 and 2016 are still full. It takes from 7 to 10 years for herders to rebuild flocks and herds where losses are more than 40 percent, according to research by the International Livestock Research Institute and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

“Humanitarian responses around the world are managing to get people through these massive crises to prevent loss of life,” Mason says. “But there’s not enough financial backing to get people back on their feet again.”

Animal carcass in Dolo Ado, Somali Region. Photo: Rikka Tupaz/UN Migration Agency (IOM) 2017

Women and children at an internally displaced persons settlement 60km south of the town of Gode, in Ethiopia, reachable only along a dirt track through the desiccated landscape. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By James Jeffrey
GODE, Ethiopia, May 10 2017 (IPS)

Displaced pastoralists gather around newly arrived drums of brown water as a water truck speeds off to make further deliveries to settlements that have sprung up along the main road running out of Gode, one of the major urban centers in Ethiopia’s Somali region.

Looking at the drums’ brackish-looking contents, a government official explains the sediment will soon settle and the water has been treated, making it safe to drink—despite appearances.“For those who have lost everything, all they can now do is go to a government assistance site for food and water.” --Charlie Mason, humanitarian director at Save the Children Ethiopia

A total of 58 internally displaced person (IDP) settlements in the region are currently receiving assistance in the form of water trucking and food supplies, according to the government.

But 222 sites containing nearly 400,000 displaced individuals were identified in a survey conducted by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) between Nov. and Dec. 2016.

The majority have been forced to move by one of the worst droughts in living memory gripping the Horn of Africa. In South Sudan famine has been declared, while in neighbouring Somalia and Yemen famine is a real possibility.

Despite being afflicted by the same climate and failing rains as neighbouring Somalia, the situation in Ethiopia’s Somali region isn’t as dire thanks to it remaining relatively secure and free of conflict.

But its drought is inexorably getting more serious.  IOM’s most recent IDP numbers represent a doubling of displaced individuals and sites from an earlier survey conducted between Sept. and Oct. 2016.

Hence humanitarian workers in the region are increasingly concerned about overstretch, coupled with lack of resources due to the world reeling from successive and protracted crises.

The blunt fallout from this is that currently not everyone can be helped—and whether you crossed an international border makes all the difference.

“When people cross borders, the world is more interested,” says Hamidu Jalleh, working for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Gode. “Especially if they are fleeing conflict, it is a far more captivating issue. But the issue of internally displaced persons doesn’t ignite the same attention.”

An old man squatting outside his shelter in an IDP settlement in the region around Gode. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

In January 2017 the Ethiopian government and humanitarian partners requested 948 million dollars to help 5.6 million drought-affected people, mainly in the southern and eastern parts of the country.

Belated seasonal rains arrived at the start of April in some parts of the Somali region, bringing some relief in terms of access to water and pasture. But that’s scant consolation for displaced pastoralists who don’t have animals left to graze and water.

“Having lost most of their livestock, they have also spent out the money they had in reserve to try to keep their last few animals alive,” says Charlie Mason, humanitarian director at Save the Children Ethiopia. “For those who have lost everything, all they can now do is go to a government assistance site for food and water.”

Under the 1951 Refugee Convention, crossing a border entitles refugees to international protection, whereas IDPs remain the responsibility of national governments, often falling through the gaps as a result.

In the early 1990s, however, human rights advocates began pushing the issue of IDPs to rectify this mismatch. Nowadays IDPs are much more on the international humanitarian agenda.

Displaced pastoralists inspecting a dead camel on the outskirts of an IDP settlement in the region around Gode. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

But IDPs remain a sensitive topic, certainly for national governments, their existence testifying to the likes of internal conflict and crises.

“It’s only in the last year-and-a-half we’ve been able to start talking about IDPs,” says the director of a humanitarian agency covering Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “But the government is becoming more open about the reality—it knows it can’t ignore the issue.”

The Ethiopian government has far fewer qualms about discussing the estimated 800,000 refugees it hosts.

Ethiopia maintains an open-door policy to refugees in marked contrast to strategies of migrant reduction increasingly being adopted in the West.

Just outside Dolo Odo, a town at the Somali region’s southern extremity, a few kilometres away from where Ethiopia’s border intersects with Kenya and Somalia, are two enormous refugee camps each housing about 40,000 Somalis, lines of corrugated iron roofs glinting in the sun.

Life is far from easy. Refugees complain of headaches and itchy skin due to the pervading heat of 38 – 42 degrees Celsius, and of a recent reduction in their monthly allowance of cereals and grains from 16kg to 13.5kg.

But, at the same time, they are guaranteed that ration, along with water, health and education services—none of which are available to IDPs in a settlement on the outskirts of Dolo Odo.

“We don’t oppose support for refugees—they should be helped as they face bigger problems,” says 70-year-old Abiyu Alsow. “But we are frustrated as we aren’t getting anything from the government or NGOs.”

Abiyu spoke amid a cluster of women, children and a few old men beside makeshift domed shelters fashioned out of sticks and fabric. Husbands were away either trying to source money from relatives, looking for daily labour in the town, or making charcoal for family use and to sell.

“I’ve never seen a drought like this in all my life—during previous droughts some animals would die, but not all of them,” says 80-year-old Abikar Mohammed.

Displaced pastoralists helping a weak camel to its feet (it’s not strong enough to lift its own weight) using poles beneath its belly. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

As centres of government administration, commerce, and NGO activity, the likes of Gode and Dollo Ado and their residents appear to be weathering the drought relatively well.

But as soon as you leave city limits you begin to spot the animal carcasses littering the landscape, and recognise the smell of carrion in the air.

Livestock are the backbone of this region’s economy. Dryland specialists estimate that pastoralists in southern Ethiopia have lost in excess of 200 million dollars worth of cattle, sheep, goats, camels and equines. And the meat and milk from livestock are the life-support system of pastoralists.

“People were surviving from what they could forage to eat or sell but now there is nothing left,” says the anonymous director, who visited a settlement 70km east of Dolo Odo where 650 displaced pastoralist families weren’t receiving aid.

The problem with this drought is the pastoralists aren’t the only ones to have spent out their reserves.

Last year the Ethiopian government spent an unprecedented 700 million dollars while the international community made up the rest of the 1.8 billion dollars needed to assist more than 10 million people effected by an El Niño-induced drought.

“Last year’s response by the government was pretty remarkable,” says Edward Brown, World Vision’s Ethiopia national director. “We dodged a bullet. But now the funding gaps are larger on both sides. The UN’s ability is constrained as it looks for big donors—you’ve already got the U.S. talking of slashing foreign aid.”

Many within the humanitarian community praise Ethiopia’s handling of refugees. But concerns remain, especially when it comes to IDPs. It’s estimated there are more than 696,000 displaced individuals at 456 sites throughout Ethiopia, according to IOM.

“This country receives billions of dollars in aid, there is so much bi-lateral support but there is a huge disparity between aid to refugees and IDPs,” says the anonymous director. “How is that possible?”

Security in Ethiopia’s Somali region is one of the strictest in Ethiopia. As a result, the region is relatively safe and peaceful, despite insurgent threats along the border with Somalia.

But some rights organizations claim strict restrictions hamper international media and NGOs, making it difficult to accurately gauge the drought’s severity and resultant deaths, as well as constraining trade and movement, thereby exacerbating the crisis further.

Certainly, the majority of NGOs appear to exist in a state of perpetual anxiety about talking to media and being kicked out of the region.

Women and children caught in a dust-laden gust at an IDP settlement 60km south of the town of Gode, reachable only along a dirt track through the desiccated landscape. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

While no one was willing to go on the record, some NGO workers talk of a disconnect between the federal government in the Ethiopian capital and the semi-autonomous regional government, and of the risks of people starving and mass casualties unless more resources are provided soon.

Already late, if as forecast the main spring rains prove sparse, livestock losses could easily double as rangeland resources—pasture and water—won’t regenerate to the required level to support livestock populations through to the short autumn rains.

Yet even if resources can be found to cover the current crisis, the increasingly pressing issue remains of how to build capacity and prepare for the future.

In the Somali region’s northern Siti zone, IDP camps from droughts in 2015 and 2016 are still full. It takes from 7 to 10 years for herders to rebuild flocks and herds where losses are more than 40 percent, according to research by the International Livestock Research Institute and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

“Humanitarian responses around the world are managing to get people through these massive crises to prevent loss of life,” Mason says. “But there’s not enough financial backing to get people back on their feet again.”

Woman and child outside a Gonder church with crosses marked in ash on their foreheads. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By James Jeffrey
BAHIR DAR, Apr 17 2017 (IPS)

As dawn breaks in Bahir Dar, men prepare boats beside Lake Tana to take to its island monasteries the tourists that are starting to return.

Meanwhile, traffic flows across the same bridge spanning the Blue Nile that six months ago was crossed by a huge but peaceful protest march.“They were waiting for an excuse to shoot.” --Priest in Bahir Dar

But only a mile farther the march ended in the shooting of unarmed protesters by security forces, leaving Bahir Dar stunned for months.

Events last August in the prominent Amhara cities of Bahir Dar (the region’s capital) and Gonder (the former historical seat of Ethiopian rule) signalled the spreading of the original Oromo protests to Ethiopia’s second most populace region.

By October 9, following further disasters and unrest, the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front party declared a six-month state of emergency, which was extended at the end of this March for another four months.

Ethiopian national flags and regional Amhara flags flutter along the bridge over the Blue Nile on the road going east from Bahir Dar that the protesters took last year. A mile on from the bridge the peaceful march descended into tragedy with shots fired into the crowd. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

On the surface, the state of emergency’s measures including arbitrary arrests, curfews, bans on public assembly, and media and Internet restrictions appear to have been successful in Amhara.

Now shops are open and streets are busy, following months when the cities were flooded with military personal, and everyday life ground to a halt as locals closed shops and businesses in a gesture of passive resistance.

Speaking to residents, however, it’s clear discontent hasn’t abated. Frustrations have grown for many due to what’s deemed gross governmental oppression. But almost everyone agrees that for now, with the state of emergency in place, there’s not much more they can do.

“Now it’s the fasting period before Easter, so people are praying even more and saying: Where are you God? Did you forget this land?” says Stefanos, who works in Gonder’s tourism industry, and didn’t want to give his name due to fear of arrest by the Command Post, the administrative body coordinating the state of emergency.

“Because people can’t protest, they are praying harder than ever.”

The four-month extension to the state of emergency contains less sweeping powers than before. Now police need warrants to arrest suspects or search their homes, and detention without trial has officially been ended. But grievances remain about what happened before.

“Someone will come and say they are with the Command Post and just tell you to go with them—you have no option but to obey,” Dawit, working in Gonder’s tourism industry, says of hundreds of locals arrested. “No one has any insurance of life.”

Outside Gonder churches, beggars line streets hoping for alms. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Locals recall how if young men gathered in too large a group they risked getting arrested.

“The regime has imprisoned, tortured and abused 20, 000-plus young people and killed hundreds more in order to restore a semblance of order,” says Alemante Selassie, emeritus law professor at the College of William & Mary and Ethiopia analyst. “Repression is the least effective means of creating real order in any society where there is a fundamental breach of trust between people and their rulers.”

Across Gondar, many unemployed men seek distraction by chewing the plant khat, a stimulant that motivates animated conversation about security force abuses and the dire local economic situation.

“If you kill your own people how are you a soldier—you are a terrorist,” says 32-year old Tesfaye, chomping on khat leaves. “I became a soldier to protect my people. This government has forgotten me since I left after seven years fighting in Somalia. I’ve been trying to get a job here for five months.”

Beyond such revulsion and frustration, some claim the state of emergency has had other psychological impacts.

“Continued fear and distrust of the [ruling] regime by the Ethiopian people,” says Tewodrose Tirfe of the Amhara Association of America. “Continued loss of hope for a better form a government where basic human rights of the Ethiopians are respected.”

For many the memories of what happened during protests last summer are still raw, especially for Bahir Dar residents.

Tens of thousands gathered in Bahir Dar’s centre on August 7 before marching along the main northeast-running road out of the city toward the Blue Nile River, carrying palm tree leaves and other greenery as symbols of peace.

After crossing the bridge there are various versions about what happened next.

Some say a protester attempted to replace Ethiopia’s current federal national flag flying outside a government building with the older, pan-Ethiopian nationalistic flag—now banned in Amhara—an argument ensued and the guard shot the protester.

Others say that protesters threw stones at the building—the guard fired warning shots in the air—then protesters tried entering the compound—the guard fired at them.

But there is less uncertainly about what happened next.

“Security forces suddenly emerged from buildings and shot into the march for no reason,” says an Ethiopian priest, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “They were waiting for an excuse to shoot.”

It’s estimated 27 died that day, the death toll rising to 52 by the end of the week. A total of 227 civilians have died during unrest in the Amhara region, according to government figures, while others claim it’s much higher.

“Two people on my right side dropped dead,” says 23-year-old Haile, marching that day. “One had been shot in the head, one in the heart.”

Such violence was unprecedented for Bahir Dar, a popular tourist location, known for its tranquil lake and laid-back atmosphere.

“The city went into shock for months,” says the Ethiopian priest.

But as the months have passed, normal daily life has gradually reasserted itself.

“People are tired of the trouble and want to get on with their lives,” says Tesfaye, a tour operator. “But, then again, in a couple of years, who knows.”

Many criticise the government for failing to address long-term structural frictions between Ethiopia’s proclaimed federal constitution and an actual centralist developmental state model, as well as failing to resolve—with some saying it actively stokes—increasing ethnic tensions.

“Three years ago I went to university and no one cared where you were from,” says Haile, a telecommunication engineer in Bahir Dar. “Now Amhara and Tigray students are fighting with each other.”

“Federalism is good and bad,” says Haile’s friend Joseph, who is half Tigrayan and half Amhara. “Ethiopia has all these different groups proud of their languages and cultures. But [on the other hand] even though my father is Tigray, I can’t go and work in Tigray because I don’t speak Tigrayan.”

Joseph pauses to consider, before continuing.

“This government has kept the country together, if they disappeared we would be like Somalia,” he says. “All the opposition does is protest, protest, they can’t do anything else.”

Finding such a view in Gonder is much harder.

“The government has a chance for peace but they don’t have the mental skills to achieve it,” says tourist guide Teklemariam. “If protests happen again they will be worse.”

The main road between Gonder and Bahir Dar winds up and down steep hillsides, surrounded by mountains, cliffs and tight valleys stretching to the horizon.

Ethiopia’s vertiginous topography has challenged foreign invaders for centuries. But it’s potentially a headache for domestic rulers too, added to which militarism is a traditional virtue in the Amhara region.

In Gonder, men talk admiringly of an Amhara resistance movement which conducted hit-and-run attacks on soldiers when they occupied the city, before withdrawing into the surrounding mountains.

“The farmers are ready to die for their land,” the Ethiopian priest says. “It’s all they have known, they have never been away from here.”

According to Gonder locals, armed farmers have been fighting Ethiopian security forces for months.

“I saw dozens of soldiers at Gonder’s hospital with bullet and knife wounds,” says Henok, a student nurse, who took part in the protests. “The government controls the urban but not the rural areas.”

Off the main streets in Gonder, Ethiopia, poverty becomes starker. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Young men like Henok talk passionately of Colonel Demeke Zewudud, a key member of Amhara resistance arrested by the government in 2016, and even more so about Gobe Malke, one of the leaders of the farmer insurrection until he was killed this February, allegedly at the hands of his cousin in the government’s payroll.

“If the government wants a true and real form of stabilization, then it should allow for a true representative form of governance so all people have the representation they need and deserve,” Tewodrose says.

“But the concern of the TPLF is the perception from the international community, so they can continue to receive and misuse foreign aid.”

In his role with the Amhara Association of America, Tewodrose presented a report to a U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs hearing March 9 about “Democracy Under Threat in Ethiopia”. The report also detailed 500 security forces killed during fighting in Amhara—Gonder locals claim many more.

“Before I die I just want to see Ethiopia growing peacefully and not divided by tribes,” says 65-year-old grandmother Indeshash, housebound in Gonder due to ongoing leg problems. “If my legs worked I would have protested.”

Djibouti’s strategic and commercial relevance at the junction of Africa, the Middle East and Indian Ocean is further bolstered by its increasing network of ports. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By James Jeffrey
DJIBOUTI CITY, Apr 5 2017 (IPS)

As balmy night settles over Djibouti City, the arc lights come on at its growing network of ports as ships are offloaded 24 hours a day and trucks laden with cargo depart westwards into the Horn of Africa interior.

Not that long ago Djibouti was known for little more than French legionnaires, atrocious heat and its old railway line to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. Nowadays, however, this tiny republic of only about 900,000 people on the Horn of Africa coast has big plans, including turning its capital into the Dubai of Africa.Befitting a crossroads nation, a heady melting pot culture exists: cafés brewing coffee in the traditional Ethiopian style, Yemeni restaurants serving the specialty poisson Yemenite, and haggling at open-air markets in rapid-fire Somali.

Since gaining independence from France in 1977, Djibouti has steadily carved out a regional role through its strategic and commercial relevance at the junction of Africa and the Middle East, and at the confluence of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, overlooking a passage of water used by 30 percent of the world’s shipping transiting from and to the Suez Canal.

“It’s a weird place, really,” says an Addis Ababa-based foreign diplomat. “Djibouti’s also important strategically. I don’t know why more isn’t reported about it.”

Recently-acquired Chinese investment totaling more than 12 billion dollars is funding the building of six new ports, two new airports, a railway, and what is being touted as the biggest and most dynamic free trade zone in Africa, potentially giving the capital, Djibouti City, an edge over its rivals.

“About 2 million African customers travel to Dubai each year,” says Dawit Gebre-ab, with the Djibouti Ports and Free Zones Authority overseeing the city’s commercial infrastructure development. “We know what is on their shopping lists, and they could be coming here instead.”

Helping secure such ambitions is the fact that Djibouti is viewed as offering some of the most prime military real-estate in the world, both to counter piracy threatening that key shipping lane—since peaking in 2011, when 151 vessels were attacked and 25 hijacked, piracy has steeply declined—and to shore up regional stability.

Another foreign diplomat referred to Djibouti as “an oasis in a bad neighbourhood”.

In 2014, the US military agreed a 10-year extension to its presence—with an option to extend for another 10 years—centered on Camp Lemonnier, its African headquarters.

US president Barack Obama described the camp as “extraordinarily important not only to our work throughout the Horn of Africa but throughout the region.”

A similar perspective happens to be held by China, also. In addition to its Djibouti investments, having invested huge amounts in the rest of East Africa—especially in neighboring Ethiopia, one of the world’s fastest growing economies, and 90 percent of whose imports come through Djibouti—it wants to secure those interests and others throughout sub-Saharan Africa.

On a beach in Tadjoura locals play a traditional Afar game—Djibouti’s population consists mainly of ethnic Somali and Afar—on the sand. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Furthermore, ever thirsty for crude oil, China wants to shield its heavy dependence on imports from the Middle East that south of Djibouti pass from the Gulf of Aden into the Indian Ocean and then on to the South China Sea.

In 2016 China finalized plans for a new base in Obock, a small port a couple of hours by ferry from Djibouti City northward across the Gulf of Tadjoura. About 10,000 Chinese personal will occupy the base once complete.

Foreign military already stationed in Djibouti—including from France, Germany, Netherlands, Spain and Japan—number around 25,000, according to some estimates.

But behind all the construction cranes, flashy hotels and military camps, there still exists a very different side to Djibouti.

Every morning in the small town of Tadjoura, about 40km west of Obock along the coastline, local Djiboutians queue to collect their daily quota of baguettes—a scene repeated across the country.

Djibouti’s former existence as colonial French Somaliland has left an indelible Gallic stamp. Along with Somali, Afar and Arabic, French remains one of the main languages used.

Locals in Tadjoura, a small town across the Gulf of Tadjoura from Djibouti city, buying their daily baguettes, a legacy of French colonial rule. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

A constant stream of Bonsoirs greet the visitor during an evening wander around Djibouti City’s so-called European quarter and its focal point: Place du 27 Juin 1977, a large square of whitewashed buildings and Moorish arcades named for the date of independence.

South of the quarter’s French-colonial-inspired architecture and orderly avenues and boulevards, lies the dustier and more ramshackle African quarter.

Here, befitting a crossroads nation, a heady melting pot culture exists: cafés brewing coffee in the traditional Ethiopian style, Yemeni restaurants serving the specialty poisson Yemenite, and haggling at open-air markets in rapid-fire Somali all adds to the surprising melting pot within this small capital city.

But whether that lively cultural mix can withstand the brash new modernizing development is a concern for some locals, proud of the country’s past and heterogeneous mix of traditions.

“My fear is not about cultural change, because we need that as this is an ultra-conservative society,” says an elegant Djiboutian professional in her early thirties, her hair covered in the Muslim style, and a cigarette clasped in her slender fingers as the sun dips behind the original old port in the distance.

“It is more about the effects on our customs, such as traditional clothing, food and decorations that symbolize our identity.”

While Djibouti’s maritime commerce and government’s ambitions continue apace, for the average local Djiboutian everyday life remains unaffected by dreams of an African Dubai. Here a lady makes fresh juices on the street to slake the thirsts of sun-blasted pedestrians in Djibouti city’s African quarter. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Others are more outspoken in their criticism of Djibouti’s current strategic and economic upswing—a healthy 6 percent a year, and likely to surpass 7 percent amid the construction boom.

Some locals talk of a country run by a business-savvy dictatorship that has reaped profits from its superpower tenants while not doing enough to relieve widespread poverty; having signed an initial 10-year lease for the base, China will pay 20 million dollars per year in rent. The US pays 60 million dollars a year to lease Camp Lemonnier.

“The government only cares about how to collect the country’s wealth,” says a Djiboutian journalist previously arrested for reporting domestic issues. “They do not care about freedom of expression, human rights, justice and equal opportunities of people.”

Dreams of a Dubai-type future don’t appear to have much relevance for most local Djiboutians, 42 percent of whom live in extreme poverty, while up to 60 percent of the labor force are unemployed, according to current estimates.

“Now I can’t stay here,” says Mohammed, a marine engineer, who left Iraq after the 1991 war for Djibouti where he married a local woman. “My three children won’t be able to get good enough jobs. I’m hoping my brother in the US will be able to get us a green card.”

A 2014 US State Department human-rights report on the country cited the government’s restrictions on free speech and assembly; its use of excessive force, including torture; as well as the harassment and detention of government critics.

Even the hugely popular use of khat by locals is manipulated by government officials as a means of repression, critics claim. It’s alleged government affiliates facilitate its sale in the country as a money maker and means of keeping a potentially frustrated populace calm, while handing it when campaign season rolls around to win favor.

Meanwhile, ships endlessly glide to and from the ports, where cranes offload containers to waiting trucks late into the night under the arc lights.

In early 2017, the new Chinese-built 4-billion-dollar railway officially opened linking Djibouti to the Ethiopian interior—the original railway has lain abandoned for years—and which could eventually connect to other Chinese-built railways emerging across the African continent.

Djibouti’s location has always been its most precious resource—devoid of a single river or the likes of extractable minerals, it produces almost nothing.

Nevertheless, for nearly 150 years it has attracted armies, mercenaries, smugglers, gunrunners and traders: anyone and everyone concerned with the movement or control of merchandise. And that trend only seems set to increase.

“Ethiopia has a population 100 times larger than Djibouti’s but it only imports and exports six times as much,” says Aboubaker Omar, chairman and CEO of Djibouti Ports and Free Zones Authority. “Imagine the day that demand matches Ethiopia’s population size.”

Men lounging in Dire Dawa’s Chattara Market chewing khat, Ethiopia. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By James Jeffrey
ADDIS ABABA, Mar 12 2017 (IPS)

Throughout a Sunday afternoon in the Ethiopian capital, Yemeni émigré men in their fifties and sixties arrive at a traditional Yemeni-styled mafraj room clutching bundles of green, leafy stalks: khat.

As the hours pass they animatedly discuss economics, politics, history, life and more while chewing the leaves. The gathering is a picture of civility. But in many countries khat has a bad reputation, with it either being banned or prompting calls for it to be banned. Khat is an institution, wielding enormous economic impact, as well as playing a major social and cultural role in societies.

Understanding khat—or as it is also known and spelt: jima, mira, qat, chat, cat; and whose leaves when chewed act as a psychotropic stimulant with what some would call amphetamine effects—is far from straightforward.

This innocuous-looking plant has experts variously claiming it is as mild as tea or as addictive as cocaine. Hence a few years ago khat’s international reputation presented a particularly conflicting picture: it was legal in Britain, banned in the US, celebrated in Yemen and vilified in Saudi Arabia.

In the Horn of Africa, khat is an institution, wielding enormous economic impact, as well as playing a major social and cultural role in societies. In the Somaliland capital, Hargeisa, you won’t find much khat-related dissent.

“It brings people together, it facilitates discussion of issues and exchanging information,” says local journalist Abdul, the corners of his mouth speckled with green mush. “In the West it’s often difficult for people to interact, but here they learn about their neighbours and what problems they have.”

It’s estimated 90 percent of Somaliland’s adult male population—and about 20 percent of women—chew khat for mirqaan, the Somali word for the buzz it can give.

Nowadays khat is so enmeshed with Somaliland culture and daily life it’s an important tax earner for Somaliland’s government. In 2014, khat sales generated 20 percent of the government’s 152-million-dollar budget, according to the Somaliland Ministry of Finance.

Khat is also the No. 1 employer in Hargeisa, the Somaliland capital, generating between 8,000 and 10,000 jobs, thereby offering much-needed respite to the country’s chronic unemployment problem that see 75 percent of its youth workforce jobless.

Meanwhile, for Ethiopia, khat is a major earner: Somaliland spends about 524 million dollars a year—about 30 percent of gross domestic product—on Ethiopian khat (many suspect the true figure to be much higher).

A woman and child surrounded by bags of khat they’ve brought to sell at Dire Dawa’s Chattara Market, Ethiopia. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Another of Ethiopia’s eastern neighbours, Djibouti, is reportedly Ethiopia’s most lucrative external market. Hence the Ethiopian government looks on khat as a useful exportable product to other countries, bringing in sorely need foreign currency, the access to which presents a perennial problem in Ethiopia.

Much of Ethiopia’s prime khat grows in the hills around the prominent eastern Ethiopian cities of Dire Dawa and Harar, about 150km from the border with Somaliland. In Dire Dawa’s Chattara market, khat trading continues late into the night under naked lightbulbs iridescent in the hot darkness.

Between these two cities is the city of Aweday, which despite its smaller stature is in fact the hub of Ethiopia’s khat trade—hence its nickname: khat city.

The morning after the nightly trade and dispatch of bundles of khat around the region and world, every street beside the main road running through Aweday is covered in discarded green leaves. Meanwhile, trucks loaded with khat are hurtling eastward along rough roads through the Ethiopian lowlands, and planes with identical cargo are threading through azure skies, to make their deliveries in Djibouti, Somaliland and beyond.

Lower quality khat costs about 12 dollars a kilo in Hargeisa, rising to 26 for medium quality and 58 for high quality. The majority of customers typically spend between 2 and 10 dollars for a day’s worth of khat that throughout Somaliland amounts to a national daily spend of 1.18 million dollars, and from which the government gets its important tax cut.

“I worry about the health effects but it helps me with my work,” says Nafyar, who often works late nights for his administrative job in Hargeisa.

“To really understand khat you have to chew it.”

But others are far less willing to go to give khat the benefit of the doubt.

“The problem comes down to the man not being part of the family and the woman being left to do everything,” says Fatima Saeed, a political advisor to Somaliland’s opposition Wadani Party, who previously worked for 15 years with the United Nations. “Men sit for hours chewing—it’s very addictive.”

She highlighted other potential consequences for those chewing: “It can bring about hallucinations, sleeplessness, loss of appetite, deaden sexual urges, while in others it increases them.”

Furthermore, others point out the flipside of khat’s supposed economic windfall.

“Khat is a massive burden on Somaliland’s fragile economy since it means that a large percentage of its foreign currency is used to purchase khat,” says Rakiya Omaar with Horizon Institute, a consultancy firm that works on strengthening the capacity and self-reliance of institutions in Somaliland.

A Somaliland man picking khat leaves during an afternoon session in the capital, Hargeisa. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Another problem stems from the fact that for khat to have the desired stimulating effect it must be chewed continuously for hours.

“We need to develop this country, and for that you should be working eight hours a day, but that’s not happening here,” says Omar, a British Somalilander who returned to Hargeisa to take advantage of perceived business opportunities in the emerging economy. He explains how many employees work half a day and then head off for an afternoon of khat.

Khat is accused of causing dependency at the detriment of gainful employment. Unemployed Somalilanders are certainly not deterred from their khat habit that can cost up to 300 dollars a month as they while away jobless hours, borrowing money from friends. 

Saeed says she supported lobbying to ban khat in the UK, and which proved successful with a ban being implemented in 2014, due to the negative impact khat was having on the Somali diaspora community there.

“Khat would arrive at 5 p.m. on the plane and by 6 p.m. men had left homes and wouldn’t return until 6 a.m.,” Saeed says. “After the ban it was like people woke up from a deep sleep—they started looking for jobs, being part of the family.”

But in the political context of Somaliland remaining an unrecognised country, cut off from global financial systems and investment, khat trade provides an obvious viable and sustainable commercial opportunity. Take that away and Somaliland’s economy might face even more strain.

Khat has a long history in the Horn of Africa and surrounding region. Its leaves were viewed as sacred by the ancient Egyptians, while Sufi religious men chewed khat to remain awake during nocturnal meditations on the Koran—hence khat’s affiliation with the divine. Now khat exists very much in the mainstream.

“It’s better than alcohol as you can still function normally afterwards,” says Abdul, who chews whenever he is on deadline. “It affects people differently, it depends on your personality: after khat some like to read, others to work.”

Among the 10 percent of Somaliland men not chewing khat, however, opinion differs markedly.

“I don’t chew as I know the effects,” says 24-year-old university lecturer Abdukarim at a busy Hargeisa coffee shop. “Initially you feel happy, confident, strong and high. The problem is the result. At the end you are weak. It should be banned, but I don’t want to say more here.”

Regulation of when khat’s imported across the border from Ethiopia and sold during the day in Somaliland would help temper present problems, Saeed says, as would implementing an age limit—currently there isn’t one. But, she adds, the present government won’t take any action due to the amounts of money and vested interests involved.

But many others continue to defend khat, arguing it plays an important communal role.

Well before the UK ban, the London Institute for the Study of Drug Dependence issued a factsheet stating: “In cultures where its use is indigenous, khat has traditionally been used socially, much like coffee in Western culture.”

Khat undercuts preconceived ideas, challenging our conceptions of what a drug is, of what addiction is, of what an addicted society looks like.

“I chewed khat for 30 years,” says one Yemeni man in the group meeting that Sunday afternoon. A successful businessman in Addis Ababa, he is smoking cigarettes but not chewing—the only one in the group. “Now I’ve had enough. I don’t miss it.”

In the capital people encounter a mishmash of chaotic local market commerce existing alongside diaspora-funded construction including glass-fronted office buildings, Wi-Fi enabled cafes and air-conditioned gyms, all suffused with characteristic Somali energy and dynamism. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By James Jeffrey
HARGEISA, Somaliland, Feb 17 2017 (IPS)

Crossing African borders by land can be an intimidating process (it’s proving an increasingly intimidating process nowadays in Europe and the US also, even in airports). But crossing from Ethiopia to Somaliland at the ramshackle border town of Togo-Wuchale is a surreally pleasant experience.

Immigration officials on the Somaliland side leave aside the tough cross-examination routine, greeting you with big smiles and friendly chit chat as they whack an entry stamp on the Somaliland visa in your passport.“If you look at the happiness of Somalilanders and the challenges they are facing, it does not match.” --Khadar Husein, Operational director of the Hargeisa office of Transparency Solutions.

They’re always happy to see a foreigner’s visit providing recognition of their country that technically still doesn’t exist in the eyes of the rest of the political world, despite having proclaimed its independence from Somalia in 1991, following a civil war that killed about 50,000 in the region.

A British protectorate from 1886 until 1960 and unifying with what was then Italian Somaliland to create modern Somalia, Somaliland had got used to going on its own since that 1991 declaration, and today exhibits many of the trappings of a functioning state: its own currency, a functioning bureaucracy, trained police and military, law and order on the streets. Furthermore, since 2003 Somaliland has held a series of democratic elections resulting in orderly transfers of power.

Somaliland’s resolve is most clearly demonstrated in the capital, Hargeisa, formerly war-torn rubble in 1991 at the end of the civil war, its population living in refugee camps in neighbouring Ethiopia. An event that lives on in infamy saw the jets of military dictator Mohammed Siad Barre’s regime take off from the airport and circle back to bomb the city.

But visitors to today’s sun-blasted city of 800,000 people encounter a mishmash of impassioned traditional local markets cheek by jowl with diaspora-funded modern glass-fronted office blocks and malls, Wi-Fi enabled cafes and air-conditioned gyms, all suffused with typical Somali energy and dynamism.

“We are doing all the right things that the West preaches about but we continue to get nothing for it,” says Osman Abdillahi Sahardeed, minister for the Ministry of Information, Culture and National Guidance. “This is a resilient country that depends on each other—we’re not after a hand out but a hand up.”

Non-statehood deprives Somaliland of direct large-scale international support from the likes of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. For these members of the Somaliland Seaman’s Union at Berbera Port’s docks, it means they are not paid the same wages—they earn about $220 a month—as paid to foreign workers due to not belonging to an internationally recognised organisation. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Increasing levels of exasperation within Somaliland’s government and among the populace are hardly surprising. Somaliland’s apparent success story against the odds remains highly vulnerable. Its economy is perilously fragile. Non-statehood deprives it of direct large-scale international support and access to the likes of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (I.M.F.).

As a result, the government has a tiny budget of about 250 million dollars, with about 60 percent spent on police and security forces to maintain what the country views as one of its greatest assets and reasons for recognition: continuing peace and stability. Also, it relies heavily on the support of local clan elders—it is hard for any government to prove its legitimacy when essential services need the help of international humanitarian organizations, local NGOs and the private sector.

Indeed, Somaliland survives to a large extent on money sent by its diaspora—estimated to range from $400 million to at least double that annually—and by selling prodigious quantities of livestock to Arab countries.

All the while, poverty remains widespread and swathes of men on streets sipping sweet Somali tea and chewing the stimulating plant khat throughout the day testify to chronic unemployment rates.

“About 70 percent of the population are younger than 30, and they have no future without recognition,” says Jama Musse, a former mathematics professor who left Italy to return to Somaliland to run the Red Sea Cultural Foundation center, which offers cultural and artistic opportunities for Hargeisa’s youth. “The world can’t close its eyes—it should deal with Somaliland.”

Peace and security hold in Somaliland, so effectively that moneychangers can safely stash bundles of cash on the street. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

For now, Somaliland’s peace holds admirably well.

“If you look at the happiness of Somalilanders and the challenges they are facing it does not match,” says Khadar Husein, operational director of the Hargeisa office of Transparency Solutions, a UK-based consultancy focused on civil society capacity building in Somaliland and Somalia. “They are happy because of their values and religion.”

But others speak of the risks of encroaching Wahhabism, a far more fundamental version of Islam compared to Somaliland’s conservative though relatively moderate religiousness, and a particular concern in a volatile part of the world.

“Young men are a ready-made pool of rudderless youth from which militant extremists with an agenda can recruit,” says Rakiya Omaar, a lawyer and Chair of Horizon Institute, a Somaliland consultancy firm helping communities transition from underdevelopment to stability.

Almost everyone acknowledges the country’s present means of sustainment—heavily reliant on the private sector and diaspora—must diversity. Somaliland needs greater income to develop and survive.

Abdi Muhammad, a veteran of the Somali civil war, makes his feelings clear. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

For many, the key to Somaliland’s much needed economic renaissance lies in tapping into the far stronger economy next door: Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous country and its fastest growing economy, according to the I.M.F.

Crucial to achieving this is Berbera, a name conjuring images of tropical quays and fiery sunsets. Once an ancient nexus of maritime trade, Berbera has long been eclipsed by Djibouti’s ports to the north. But Berbera Port is now on the brink of a major expansion that could transform and return it to a regional transportation hub, and also help fund Somaliland’s nation-building dreams.

In May 2016, Dubai-based DP World was awarded the concession to manage and expand Berbera for 30 years, a project valued at about 442 million dollars, including expanding the port and refurbishing the 268-kilometer route from the port to the border with Ethiopia.

Landlocked Ethiopia has long been looking to diversify its access to the sea, an issue of immense strategic anxiety. Currently 90 percent of its trade goes through Djibouti, a tiny country with an expanding network of ports that scoops at least 1 billion dollars in port fees from Ethiopia every year.

Somaliland would like about 30 percent of that trade through Berbera, and Ethiopia is more than happy with that, allocating such a proportion in its latest Growth and Transformation Plan that sets economic policy until 2020.

Ethiopia and Somaliland had already signed a Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) covering trade, security, health and education in 2014, before in March 2016 signing a trade agreement on using Berbera Port. And Ethiopia could just be the start.

“It would be a gateway to Africa, not just Ethiopia,” says Sharmarke Jama, a trade and economic adviser for the Somaliland government during negotiations on the port concession. “The multiplying benefits for Somaliland’s economy could be endless.”

Somaliland officials hope increased trade at the port will enable greater self-sufficiency to develop the country, while also chipping away at the international community’s resistance over recognition.

“As our economic interests align with the region and we become more economically integrated, that can only help with recognition,” Sharmarke says.

Perhaps. The political odds are stacked against Somaliland due to concerns that recognizing Somaliland would undermine decades of international efforts to patch up Somalia, and open a Pandora ’s Box of separatist claims in the region and further afield around Africa.

But greater self-sufficiency would undoubtedly result from a resurgent Berbera, and without this crucial infrastructure revival Somaliland’s economic potential will remain untapped, trapping its people in endless cycles of dependence, leaving those idle youth on street corners.

On April 13, 2016, up to 500 migrants died after a boat capsized crossing the Mediterranean. Most media reported that a large portion of those who died were from Somalia. But in Hargeisa following the tragedy, locals noted how many of those who died were more specifically Somalilanders.

“Why are they leaving? Unemployment,” says Abdillahi Duhe, former Foreign Minister of Somaliland and now a consultant in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. “Now is a very important time: we’ve passed the stage of recovery, we have peace—but many hindrances remain.”

Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn (seated, center), surrounded by his security detail, at the ceremony marking the opening of the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway in early October. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By James Jeffrey
ADDIS ABABA, Dec 21 2016 (IPS)

Smart phone users in the Ethiopian capital are rejoicing. After a two-month blackout the Ethiopian government has permitted the return of mobile data.

Most Ethiopians who access the Internet do so through their phones, and previously the government had singled out social media activity as a major influence in agitating unrest that has doggedly seethed across the country since breaking out a year ago.“They’ve broken promise after promise, so people won’t believe them—that’s the problem.” --Merera Gudina, Chair of the opposition Oromo Federalist Congress Party

But now, more than two months into the six-month state of emergency declared by the government on Oct. 9, protests previously rocking the country’s two most populous regions appear to have subsided, and gangs of young men are no longer prowling the country setting fire to buildings, blocking roads and clashing with security forces.

But despite the appearance of order being restored, no one seems to know what may happen next, or whether this calm will hold.

The current situation may simply serve as a temporary break in Ethiopia’s most sustained and widespread period of dissent and protests since the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) ruling party came to power following the 1991 revolution.

“The protests have shaken the EPRDF regime in ways not seen in more than two decades and a half,” says Mohammed Ademo, an Ethiopian journalist in Washington, D.C., and working alongside diaspora activists following events. “It did more to challenge the regime’s grip on power in one year than what some opposition groups have done in years.”

Oromo culture includes an important role for elders based on the “Gadaa system”, a form of Oromo traditional government, with leadership being attained by passing through numerous age-related grades. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

For up until now, the political gamble underpinning the EPRDF’s developmental state project—similar to China’s strategy—has been that the material transformation of Ethiopia would ultimately satisfy the divergent populations comprising Ethiopia’s ethnic federation.

With months of the state of emergency still to run, however, the EPRDF now has a critical opportunity to forge a sustainable route out of the mire. The big question is whether it will seize the opportunity or is capable of doing so.

Because since 1991, dogged by criticism over its authoritarian style and human rights record with Western observers and governments calling on it to deepen its commitment to democratic reforms, it hasn’t shown much interest in listening.

A more overt security presence is now visible in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, such as this armoured vehicle parked in iconic Meskal Square. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

“If you look at our history, the present system is the best in terms of development,” says Abebe Hailu, an Addis Ababa-based human rights lawyer who lived through the 1974 downfall of Emperor Haile Selassie and the ensuing military dictatorship that eventually fell in 1991 to the EPRDF’s founders. “But there’s still a lot to do when it comes to developing democracy.”

Protests that began last November with Oromo farmers objecting to land grabs have mushroomed into an anti-government movement which now includes the Amhara, Ethiopia’s second largest ethnic group after the Oromo (together the two groups represent about 60 percent of the population).

And protests have occurred in places transformed by economic growth, such as the Amhara capital, Bahir Dar, and Adama, Oromia’s most cosmopolitan city. Meanwhile, the rhetoric of ethnic hatred and cleansing has already shown itself.

The Oromo are proud of their cultural traditions and enjoy opportunities to celebrate that heritage. They also share a common language, Afaan Oromoo, also known as Oromoiffa, which belongs to the Cushitic family, unlike Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia, which is Semitic. A different language is only one of many sources of tension the Oromo have within the Ethiopian federation. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

This all illustrates that despite the EPRDF’s efforts to forge a new nation-state identity bolstered by economic transformation, ethno-regional loyalties have lost none of their appeal; especially in the face of government oppression identified with a Tigrayan elite—from an ethnic group forming only 6 percent of the population—accused of usurping power and much of that new wealth.

“The constitution the government came up with is a perfect match for a country like Ethiopia,” says one Addis Ababa resident, explaining how this ethnic federalism best matches Ethiopia’s diversity—he himself is of mixed ethnic heritage. “But you have a group of Tigrayans in government deciding the fate of 100 million people who aren’t allowed to say anything,” The result, he adds, is the constitution is shown to be only as good as the paper it is written on.

Against such a background, these protests have illustrated that the perennial problem for Ethiopia’s rulers over the centuries remains unsolved: maintain the integrity of a country and people whose boundaries are those of a multi-ethnic former empire forged by violent conquest of subjugated peoples (such as the Oromo).

Admittedly until recently, and for most of the last two decades, it appeared the EPRDF was on top of this challenge, demonstrating the most impressive economic and development-driven track record of any Ethiopian government in modern history.

Against the fiasco of international assistance in Somalia, Ethiopia is a development darling, held up as a heartening example of indigenous government and international partners succeeding in reducing the likes of poverty and mortality rates.

Geopolitical considerations also mean Ethiopia is an important peace and security bulwark for the West in the Horn of Africa, a region troubled by internecine fighting in South Sudan, Islamic insurgents in Somalia and floods of refugees abandoning Eritrea.

But statistics that wowed the international community have masked the more complex reality in which most Ethiopians, while not as susceptible to famine and disease, remain utterly stifled in their lives’ endeavors.

“Usually protests start in towns where you have the politically active but this has been a popular revolution at the grassroots in rural areas in Amhara and Oromia,” says Yilikal Getenet, chairman of the opposition Blue Party. “People are dying and people are protesting about clear [issues].”

During its rule the EPRDF has shunned diversity of political opinion, repeatedly cracking down on opposition parties, putting their politicians in jail of forcing them into exile. The 2015 election produced a parliament without a single opposition representative. Freedom of expression in Ethiopia is strictly curtailed—an independent civil society no longer exists.

Meanwhile, Ethiopia’s citizenry is increasingly angry at seemingly never-ending government corruption. And a mushrooming youthful population means the number of young unemployed men across the country irrevocably rises, their thoughts and frustrations turning toward the center of power that is Addis Ababa.

Numbers killed during protests range upward of 600, with thousands imprisoned, according to rights and opposition groups.

“We now have names, and in most cases even photos, of the more than 1,000 victims who were killed by security forces since the protests began,” Mohammed says.

Having built a brand over the last 25 years as the safest and most reliable country in the volatile Horn of Africa, Ethiopia has found its reputation on the line amid the upheaval. Now it’s trying to repair the damage to that brand and to society itself.

“The government must be ready to accept fundamental reforms,” Abebe says.

Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn conducted a major cabinet reshuffle at the end of October, changing 21 of 30 ministerial posts, including 15 new appointees.

The selection of technocrats without party affiliation is a positive signal the party is serious about delivering changes, say some, while others argue it perpetuates the monopoly rule of a select few, an intelligentsia judged worthy to lead the perceived ignorant Ethiopian masses.

The government is also promising “deep reforms” to solve root causes of protests. But for a country with a millennia of centralized, autocratic rule, that’s much easier said than done.

A prevailing accusation among its opponents is the EPRDF still clings to the same left-wing revolutionary ideology of 1991 that insists on Leninist single-party control, hence it remains fundamentally anti-democratic and unable to countenance reform.

Others claim moderates exist in the party who could help change its direction for the better. But that’s a tough sell.

“This government is the most isolated government from the Ethiopian people,” says Merera Gudina, Chairman of the opposition Oromo Federalist Congress Party, who was arrested at the beginning of December for allegedly flouting state of emergency laws. “They’ve broken promise after promise, so people won’t believe them—that’s the problem.”

Hence many argue the EPRDF has lost all legitimacy and must make way for a transitional government. Others counter that’s neither feasible nor in Ethiopia’s best interests.

“People need to recognize that if you push too fast you can get more chaos,” Abebe says.

Instead, according to many, the EPRDF should focus on the following: purge its ranks of the corrupt and ineffective; reform key public institutions found wanting; release political prisoners; take seriously negotiations with opposition elements home and abroad; ensure Ethiopia’s youth are given jobs and hope.

Also, at the same time, the government must establish a new electoral commission to guarantee the next local elections in 2018 and national elections in 2020 are freely contested.

“If we don’t achieve free and fair elections then, this country will be in serious danger—that is the last chance we have—really,” Lidetu said. “But we also can’t wait until those elections: so starting from now we have to have dialogue between the different political groups in an open manner.”

Young South Sudanese refugees studying in the library of the Jesuit Refugee Service in Addis Ababa. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By James Jeffrey
ADDIS ABABA, Nov 1 2016 (IPS)

A concerned-looking group of refugees gather around a young woman grimacing and holding her stomach, squatting with her back against a tree. But this is no refugee camp, rather the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) compound just off a busy main road leading to Sidist Kilo roundabout in the Ethiopian capital.

After a couple of minutes, the pain has subsided enough to let her talk. She says has been experiencing abdominal pains for a few weeks, though in answer to one particular question she manages a smile before replying she doesn’t think it’s a pregnancy. She says she arrived from Eritrea about seven months ago in an attempt to join her husband in Italy.“Refugees in Ethiopia is a business, that’s what needs to be addressed. But it’s not just here, it’s happening all over Africa.” -- Shikatende, a Congolese refugee in Addis Ababa

Ever since Ethiopia’s late long-term ruler Meles Zenawi established an open-door policy toward refugees, the country’s refugee population has swelled to more than 700,000, the largest in Africa. And due to ongoing crises in neighbouring countries such as South Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia, that number isn’t shrinking. In the first week of October about 31,000 people streamed over the border from South Sudan into Ethiopia’s western region.

Providing refuge, however, doesn’t extend to also providing employment rights. Ethiopia has plenty on its hands trying to satisfy its indigenous mushrooming young population that needs jobs. Hence the joint initiative by the UK, the European Union and the World Bank to address both dilemmas through the building of two industrial parks to generate about 100,000 jobs, at a cost of 500 million dollars, with Ethiopia required to grant employment rights to 30,000 refugees as part of the deal.

But after the announcement comes the thornier issue: putting it all into action.

“All the stakeholders of this project need to get their heads together and come up with a workable formula that would benefit both Ethiopians and the refugees,” says Kisut Gebreegziabher with the Ethiopia office for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). “There needs to be a clear policy of engaging the refugees in this project, including clarity about the level of their engagement.”

Yemeni-Ethiopian women stuck in Ethiopia due to fighting in Yemen. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

The initiative is part of a pilot programme also supporting Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Mali, and according to those involved, reflective of a new strategy for tackling the migrant crisis afflicting both Europe and Africa, based on a shift in developmental aid toward focusing on economic transformation in developing countries.

“We’re putting migrant-related issues at the heart of our support to countries,” Francisco Carreras, Head of Cooperation at the Delegation of the European Union to Ethiopia, says of the 250 million dollars coming from the EU. “Our investment is not going to solve the problem but it may have a domino effect by showing others that this can work.”

Hopeless days

“I’ve been idle for three years and my plan is to remain idle, that’s all I can do,” says 28-year-old Daniel, a qualified dentist who fled Eritrea for Ethiopia after his involvement with a locally produced publication drew the government’s wrath. Based on his qualifications he managed to find a potential healthcare job in Addis Ababa. “The employer said I was a good match but when he checked with the authorities they said I couldn’t be employed.”

Although Ethiopia’s authorities often turn a blind eye to refugees doing casual work, Ethiopia’s proclamation on refugees prohibits them from official employment.

“If Ethiopia feels for refugees, why doesn’t it change the law so they can work?” says Shikatende, a 35-year-old Congolese refugee who has been in Ethiopia for seven years. “It’s a free prison here. We are free to stay but with no hope or future.”

A change in the law will be required for the industrial park initiative, observers say, although any wholesale opening of Ethiopia’s job market to refugees is highly unlikely while Ethiopia’s 100 million population continues growing by 2.6 percent a year.

“That means creating millions of new jobs every year, the challenge for Ethiopia is huge,” Carreras says, adding that the giving of millions of euros to Ethiopia is far from altruism. “It’s in our own interests and a matter of survival for us: we can’t be surrounded by countries in difficulties and expect that building a wall or the sea alone will keep us sanitized from others’ problems.”

In the Jesuit Refugee Service compound in Addis Ababa, South Sudanese play their dominoes with much passion. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Now in its 20th year, the JRS compound resembles a microcosm of Africa’s—and the Middle East’s—troubles, hosting refugees from South Sudan, Congo, Uganda, Somalia, Eritrea, Yemen, Burundi and more. The organisation aims to assist 1,700 people in 2016, says Hanna Petros, the centre’s director, noting that Addis Ababa contains up to 20,000 refugees. “That’s registered ones—there are others who aren’t registered.”

Build it and they will come…or will they?

Despite his enthusiasm for the project, Carreras admits that success requires fending off myriad challenges.

“You’ve got to build the right sectors in the right places and ensure the right procurement—achieving all those ‘rights’ isn’t easy,” he says. And even if all that is pulled off, he adds, you’ve then got to attract the investors, after which you have to make sure it’s all sustainable: investors must obtain enough profit so they remain and don’t leave after a couple of years.

Those connected to the Ethiopian government appear confident that history is on Ethiopia’s side.

“Thirty years ago, large-scale labour left the U.S. and Europe and moved to China,” says Zemedeneh Negatu, an economic adviser to the Ethiopian government. “But monthly labour costs there now are around 450 to 600 dollars a month—Ethiopia is a fraction of that, added to which a lot of the raw materials are already coming from here.”

Hence Ethiopia’s embracing of industrial parks, which Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn has placed at the forefront of economic strategy.

In addition to the two parks being funded by the joint initiative, another seven are in the process of being built at a rough cost of 250 million dollars each. One industrial park is already operating around Awassa, about 300km south of Addis Ababa, where it’s serving as a promising bellwether having attracted more investor interest than it could accommodate, Carreras says.

But all of a sudden Ethiopia’s reputation as a safe investment option—attracting tens of billions of dollars in foreign investment over the past decade—is looking increasingly tenuous.

Protests against the government that have been smouldering since November 2015 have taken on a more violent edge recently. At the beginning of October, more than two dozen foreign companies suffered millions of dollars in damage.

The timing clearly doesn’t help when it comes to luring foreign investors into industrial parks. By the middle of October foreign embassies in the capital were holding situation briefings with concerned investors to try and allay mounting concerns. And at least those foreign investors have options.

“The situation makes me nervous,” Daniel says. “Not only am I a foreigner but I’m from an enemy country. It could get bad. They can beat me or kill me, there’s no one to protect me.”

Wrong sort of human capital

“It was a bold and brave decision by Ethiopia to offer to take in foreigners when so many of its own have dire needs,” Carreras says, contrasting this stance with how Hungary recently voted against housing about 18,000 refugees.

But at the same time, there is a less salubrious side to the refugee situation in Ethiopia. Encountering groups of refugees in Addis Ababa, it’s not long before someone is sidling up to you, eyes furtively glancing around, wanting to talk about problems.

Many have harsh words for both UNHCR and Ethiopia’s Administration for Refugee and Returnee Affairs (ARRA), while giving an impression of rank corruption in certain areas.

Refugees talk of thousands of dollars changing hands so Ethiopians can pose as refugees for resettlement in Europe, scholarship funding meant for refugees being given to Ethiopians, and the numbers of refugees in Ethiopia being inflated to ensure foreign funding keeps coming in.

“The numbers are accurate and based on research by UNHCR,” says Zeynu Jernal, ARRA’s deputy director. “We gain no financial benefits from the Ethiopian operation and are in fact underfunded—last year the required 280-million-dollar budget was only 60 percent funded.”

Zeynu acknowledges that giving 30,000 refugees jobs still leaves many more without—hence other schemes being initiated: 20,000 refugee households being given land so they can farm, thereby benefiting a total of about 100,000; 13,000 long-term Somali refugees being integrated into the eastern city of Jijiga with resident and work permits; and higher education opportunities for refugees who pass the university entrance exams.

In official quarters there is praise for the industrial park initiative, with talk of how it fits into a “new and all-encompassing approach towards alleviating the plight of refugees staying in Ethiopia” through better and more work opportunities, and through improved local integration and assimilation. Some of the refugees in Addis Ababa who have been following news about the initiative online, however, seem less sure whether refugees will really benefit.

“Refugees in Ethiopia is a business, that’s what needs to be addressed,” Shikatende says. “But it’s not just here, it’s happening all over Africa.”

He adds that another problem is the muddling of three types of refugees: economic refugees seeking better work opportunities, so-called supporter refugees trying to join relatives who have already settled abroad, and “real” refugees who meet the terms laid out by the United Nations’ 1951 Refugee Convention.

“If you want to solve the refugee problem you need to deal with the real cause of refugees which is African leaders—but you [foreign donors] are providing them with more money,’ Shikatende says.

When it comes to a timeline for completion of the two industrial parks, how refugees will be chosen for the earmarked jobs, the challenges that need to be overcome to make the project a success, both UNHCR and ARRA say it is too early to comment although meetings are ongoing to hash out the logistics.

“We are waiting for the plan,” says one refugee organisation worker.

Eritrean journalist Estifo displaying Tsilal, the magazine he edits, which deals with the risks of migration and difficult reality of being in Europe. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By James Jeffrey
ADDIS ABABA, Oct 6 2016 (IPS)

It took Eritrean journalist Estifo* seven years to save up enough money to pay a fixer to get him and his family from the capital, Asmara, to the shared border with Ethiopia. After they crossed the border by foot, they turned themselves in to the Ethiopian authorities and claimed asylum as refugees.

Now Estifo is one of thousands of Eritreans living in Addis Ababa, where he edits a magazine that aims to dissuade other Eritreans in the Ethiopian capital and dotted around the country in refugee camps from attempting to make the risky journey north through Libya and across the Mediterranean toward Europe.“You had no rights as a journalist and it was risky even if you were working for the State TV. If you did something they didn’t like, they would call the police.” -- Beyene, an Eritrean journalist

“The magazine deals with the risks of migration and difficult reality of being in Europe,” says Estifo, the magazine’s editor. “Also once you are in Europe you can’t come back—things change too much. Whereas in Addis there’s more in common, and it’s easier to one day go back to Eritrea.”

Ever since Ethiopia’s late long-term ruler Meles Zenawi established an open-door policy toward refugees, the country’s refugee population has grown to about 700,000, the largest in Africa.

And that open door policy even extends to accepting refugees from a country viewed by Ethiopia as its arch nemesis since a catastrophic two-year war between the two that ended in 2000 but left matters unresolved and mutual antipathy only stronger.

It’s hardly surprising that among those going south over the shared border are journalists. A list compiled in 2015 by the Committee to Protect Journalists of the 10 countries where the press is most restricted ranks Eritrea as the most censored country in the world and Africa’s worst jailer of journalists.

The crackdown on media in Eritrea began in earnest in 2001, reportedly taking advantage of when the world was distracted by the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

“In September they shut down private news channels and most of my colleagues were arrested,” says Estifo, who as a sports writer avoided arrest (a friend had previously advised him to take the position to avoid undue attention).

Still fearing for his safety, however, he joined the military media operating at Sawa, the desert base where Eritrean Defence Forces recruits and national service conscripts are sent for basic military training.

Living conditions were bad, Estifo says, and he was paid only 600 Eritrean nakfa (38 dollars) a month, leaving little after his 500 nakfa rent.

Then in 2007 he managed to get paternity leave with his wife pregnant, and afterwards rather than him returning to Sawa, they went into hiding. For two years Estifo never left his home, he says.

Once he deemed it safe enough, he started to venture out and began selling shoes with the help of his wife, slowly saving money for the escape to the border. Eventually it was time.

“We didn’t sell any of our possessions before we left in case people got suspicious,” he says. “We reached the border around 2 a.m. but we waited until dawn to cross otherwise we might have been shot by patrols.”

Eritrean journalists Estifo and Beyene discussing the contents of their magazine Tsilal, the Tigrayan word for umbrella. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

Beyene is another refugee journalist working with Estifo on the magazine who recalls the arrest of 40 journalists in 2009, accused of leaking news about Eritrea to foreign media.

“You had no rights as a journalist and it was risky even if you were working for the State TV,” Beyene says. “If you did something they didn’t like, they would call the police.”

Arrests sometimes happened as journalists were relaxing in the communal tea room.

“They wanted you to see it so you became afraid,” Estifo says.

Repression of media and its means is all-consuming in Eritrean society. Fearing the spread of an Arab Spring-type uprising, Eritrea scrapped plans in 2011 to provide mobile Internet for its citizens, making it even harder to access independent information.

Internet is available but only through slow dial-up connections, and fewer than 1 percent of the population goes online, according to U.N. International Telecommunication Union figures. Eritrea also has the lowest figure globally of cell phone users, with just 5.6 percent of the population owning one.

“For the young there’s no chance to do your own thing, you can’t do anything for your family, everything pushes you to leave,” says Yonathon, 31, who left Eritrea in 2011 and spent a year in an Ethiopia-based refugee camp before relocation to Addis Ababa. “No one can stand for justice there—before you start they will capture you; such efforts are good for nothing.”

Eritrea’s authoritarian government employs a vast spying and detention network. Yonathon, while clearly not sympathetic to those involved, appreciates the realities: “It’s a matter of survival, to feed their families—the situation forces them to spy.”

Yonathon and 29-year-old Teklu sitting next to him have Eritrean friends who attempted the Mediterranean crossing from Libya. Fortunately, no one they know died. But thousands have.

And a 20-year-old niece of Yonathon died in Libya waiting to make the crossing; he doesn’t know the cause. Teklu has relatives who were kidnapped during their northward overland travels and released after ransoms were paid.

“Of course it has come to my mind,” Yonathon says of trying to make the crossing. “I’ve been here four years: what is my future going to be if I stay here?”

Such frustrations are addressed in the magazine, called Tsilal, the Tigrayan word for umbrella, and chosen because refugees are under the umbrella of another country’s protection, Estifo says.

Its production is funded by the Norwegian Refugee Council, and it comes out once every two months with a circulation of about 3,000 free copies, of which about 600 go to refugee camps. Each of the seven journalists working on the magazine is paid 750 birr (31 dollars) per month.

“The money’s not enough but we have to do it or we won’t be heard,” Estifo says, adding it’s important to illustrate how the reality of living in Europe is often a far cry from the more glamourous version seen on social media by young Eritreans.

The magazine also features more encouraging articles about Eritrean artists and entrepreneurial activities, while it avoids contentious issues such as politics and religion so as not to put itself and the Norwegian Refugee Council in an awkward position. Ethiopia also has its own struggles with press freedom—the same CJR survey of restricted press placed Ethiopia at number four.

“Currently we just cover soft issues but we want to go beyond to those issues we feel are more important,” Estifo says. “But we’re restrained by our funding. If we got other funding we could write independently about more topics.”

Another problem is not having enough resources to enable reporters to visit camps and talk to Eritreans there. The three largest camps—May Aini, Adi Harush and Hitsats refugee camps—are all the way in the northwest of Ethiopia’s Tigray region, close to the borders with Eritrea and Sudan, hundreds of kilometers away from Addis Ababa.

And the magazine has no office, rather it is put together on laptops in cafes with notably Italian-sounding names that have been opened by Eritreans—Eritrea used to be an Italian colony.

“Sometimes I spend the whole day in a café working on the laptop, drinking tea and eating some shiro at lunch,” Yonathon says.

But despite the Tigrayan voices amid cafes with Italian names, Addis Ababa can never replace being back in Eritrea.

“Life is difficult here, you can’t replicate home, and people’s behaviour changes here,” Yonathon says.

Hence the importance of never forgetting about Eritrea’s ongoing troubles and those left behind. Estifo harbours ambitions of one day starting a radio station that could be picked up by those in Eritrea.

“Getting out of Eritrea is one way of demonstrating against the government,” Estifo says. “But while in places like Ethiopia, Eritreans must ask themselves how they can bring about freedom with our own resources.”

*Only first names are used in this article due to the sensitive nature of the subject matter. 

A Yemeni man proudly watching over an infant in the camp. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By James Jeffrey
OBOCK, Djibouti, Sep 6 2016 (IPS)

Tears emerge from the slit of 20-year-old Gada’s black niqab face veil. After more than a minute’s silence she still can’t answer the question: How bad was it in Yemen before you left?

During 2015, escalation of fighting in Yemen led to a mass exodus. The UN refugee agency estimates that more than 2.4 million Yemenis have fled their homes to elsewhere in the country, and 120,000 have sought asylum in other countries.“My future used to be in Yemen when I had a father with an income. But if we go back we’ll be starting from scratch. Before, we depended on ourselves, but how do we do that now?” -- Issa, an 18-year-old refugee in the camp in Obock.

This includes Somalia and Djibouti on the opposite side from Yemen of the 30-km stretch of water known as Bab-el-Mandeb, meaning the Gateway of Tears—a name derived from the long history of people perishing when trying to cross it—at the southern entrance to the Red Sea.

Some of those who went to Djibouti settled in a refugee camp that grew outside Obock, a small sun-parched town on the Horn of Africa coast. Facilities in the camp remain basic, though they now include a school started singlehandedly by an American missionary to provide Yemeni children and young adults with education, as well as something more intangible.

“Education is obviously important, and the school gives parents a much needed break from their kids in the cramped camp, but this is more to do with showing the refugees that they matter and have a future—that they’re not left out,” says Marianne Vecchione, a Los Angeles resident who has spent the past year in Obock.

After one typically sweltering day in the camp—daily temperatures regularly exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit—as the sun sets Yemeni children giggle among themselves as they hesitantly approach and pet a group of camels, idling in a sandy lane running between groups of tents.

With little to provide excitement in the camp, Yemeni children are drawn by a group of camels. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

The sight of the camels provides a rare moment of excitement amid the drudgery of camp life. Housed in the simple tents are Yemeni from all over the country and from all walks of life: from poor fisherman to relatively affluent professionals of the middle class.

“I had everything, a job and an internet shop, but the Houthi rebels took it,” says 25-year-old Saddam from the city of Alhodida. “Everything’s gone. The shop was probably worth 25,000 dollars. Mum and dad are still there, my sister is in Ta’izz and I have two brothers in the camp, but we don’t know where my other brother is—he’s lost somewhere.”

Despite such deprivations, refugees try to keep a sense of humour about their predicaments.

“Welcome to the Middle Ages,” 22-year-old Ali says with a smile as he lifts a hanging cloth acting as the entrance to an enclosed area, comprising a small central open area with a tent at either end, in which lives Ali, his mother and five siblings, two of whom go to the camp’s school where Ali volunteers as a teacher. Ali says his family knew a much better life in Sana’a, Yemen’s largest city, before his father was killed by a military plane’s bomb strike during fighting and the family fled.

“My future used to be in Yemen when I had a father with an income,” says Ali’s 18-year-old brother Issa. “But if we go back we’ll be starting from scratch. Before, we depended on ourselves, but how do we do that now?”

The camp at its peak had about 3,000 people, now there are about 1,000. Refugees have started returning to Yemen, braving the ongoing fighting there.

“There’s nothing like home,” says one woman in a group of Yemeni female refugees discussing what they miss. “Even if you are somewhere better, you can’t compare with it—where you had your childhood, the traditions, the parks, the mosques and culture. We miss everything, the breath and waves of Yemen. We even miss the shop keepers as they were part of daily life.”

A young refugee girl pushing a wheelbarrow of rubbish through the camp. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

In August, UN-sponsored talks in Kuwait for establishing peace in Yemen ended after 90 days unresolved, with fighting resuming between government forces and rebels.

“When will there be peace? Maybe in 30 years if the old generation dies and the young are more peaceful and loving,” says a 45-year-old Yemeni who back in Yemen is head of a tribe and didn’t want his name used due to his position. “The rebels came from nothing and took over everything, killing a lot. They had to have someone behind them—big support to get all the weapons.”

Yemen has fallen foul of a proxy war being waged between Saudi Arabia, supporting Yemen’s government forces, and Iran, backing the Houthi rebels who, according to Yemeni in the camp, having committed the most and worst atrocities.

Vecchione recounts how one day she told young school children to draw pictures for a class and by its end she found herself looking at scrawled pictures of the likes of bombed-out houses, dead people and boats being shelled—as refugees fled over the sea to Djibouti they were targeted by unknown forces on the Yemen mainland firing artillery at boats.

Many refugees are deeply traumatised, something the aid world can forget in its haste to deliver assistance, according to Vecchione.

“In the aid world things are done according to projects and programs, they’re not done according to individuals,” Vecchione says. “So the aid world can forget you’re dealing with someone who is traumatized and who needs special care, and needs a different way of handling.”

Djibouti’s government is often criticiz]sed for not doing enough to help large numbers of unemployed and impoverished in the country. But Vecchione notes how its Ministry of Education helped and cooperated fully with her when she undertook to take two groups of students to Djibouti City to complete exams, enabling them to progress to high-school and university in the future.

“The government does have challenges but they are showing the way internationally [with refugees],” says Tom Kelly, U.S. Ambassador to Djibouti, who has visited the camp a number of times and hosted the students at his residence while they took exams in the city. “They’ve saved thousands of lives. It deserves credit for opening its borders to people who had nowhere else to go.”

The influx of Yemeni refugees into Djibouti has totalled about 35,000, Kelly says, adding how, relative to the size of Djibouti’s population, this is like 13 million people entering the U.S.

Despite the refugees’ dire situation, Vecchione encountered opposition to her endeavours to help. She was accused by some of trying to convert students to Christianity—even though the school taught the Yemeni curriculum including lessons on the Koran and Islam.

At one stage, tensions were such her bosses considered pulling her out of Obock. But she stayed, and is adamant it was worth it. Everywhere she goes around the camp and small town she is accompanied by a common refrain from both young and adult voices: “Marianne! Marianne!”

It’s clear that some refugees appreciate what one Christian volunteer has done for them, despite what can be vast cultural and religious differences.

Meanwhile, although the ongoing war in Yemen can easily appear impossibly intractable, and its terrible fallout insurmountable, Vecchione notes how often the smallest things can still make a big difference.

“The school also breaks down some of the regional challenges people have based on the war, as there’s a lot of north/south and inter-city squabbling based on the fighting and trauma,” Vecchione says. “Different cities committed different atrocities, but the school brought [children and parents] together, and unified them as one people.”

Workers in Djibouti Port offloading wheat from a docked ship. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By James Jeffrey
DJIBOUTI CITY, Aug 15 2016 (IPS)

Bags of wheat speed down multiple conveyor belts to be heaved onto trucks lined up during the middle of a blisteringly hot afternoon beside the busy docks of Djibouti Port.

Once loaded, the trucks set off westward toward Ethiopia carrying food aid to help with its worst drought for decades.“The bottleneck is not because of the port but the inland transportation—there aren’t enough trucks for the aid, the fertilizer and the usual commercial cargo.” -- Aboubaker Omar, Chairman and CEO of Djibouti Ports and Free Zones Authority

With crop failures ranging from 50 to 90 percent in parts of the country, Ethiopia, sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest wheat consumer, was forced to seek international tenders and drastically increase wheat purchases to tackle food shortages effecting at least 10 million people.

This resulted in extra ships coming to the already busy port city of Djibouti, and despite the hive of activity and efforts of multitudes of workers, the ships aren’t being unloaded fast enough. The result: a bottleneck with ships stuck out in the bay unable to berth to unload.

“We received ships carrying aid cargo and carrying fertilizer at the same time, and deciding which to give priority to was a challenge,” says Aboubaker Omar, chairman and CEO of Djibouti Ports and Free Zones Authority (DPFZA). “If you give priority to food aid, which is understandable, then you are going to face a problem with the next crop if you don’t get fertilizer to farmers on time.”

Since mid-June until this month, Ethiopian farmers have been planting crops for the main cropping season that begins in September. At the same time, the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization has been working with the Ethiopian government to help farmers sow their fields and prevent drought-hit areas of the country from falling deeper into hunger and food insecurity.

Spring rains that arrived earlier this year, coupled with ongoing summer rains, should increase the chances of more successful harvests, but that doesn’t reduce the need for food aid now—and into the future, at least for the short term.

“The production cycle is long,” says FAO’s Ethiopia country representative Amadou Allahoury. “The current seeds planted in June and July will only produce in September and October, so therefore the food shortage remains high despite the rain.”

Port workers, including Agaby (right), make the most of what shade is available between trucks being filled with food aid destined to assist with Ethiopia’s ongoing drought. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

As of the middle of July, 12 ships remained at anchorage outside Djibouti Port waiting to unload about 476,750 metric tonnes of wheat—down from 16 ships similarly loaded at the end of June—according to information on the port’s website. At the same time, four ships had managed to dock carrying about 83,000 metric tonnes of wheat, barley and sorghum.

“The bottleneck is not because of the port but the inland transportation—there aren’t enough trucks for the aid, the fertilizer and the usual commercial cargo,” Aboubaker says.

It’s estimated that 1,500 trucks a day leave Djibouti for Ethiopia and that there will be 8,000 a day by 2020 as Ethiopia tries to address the shortage.

But so many additional trucks—an inefficient and environmentally damaging means of transport—might not be needed, Aboubaker says, if customs procedures could be sped up on the Ethiopian side so it doesn’t take current trucks 10 days to complete a 48-hour journey from Djibouti to Addis Ababa to make deliveries.

“There is too much bureaucracy,” Aboubaker says. “We are building and making efficient roads and railways: we are building bridges but there is what you call invisible barriers—this documentation. The Ethiopian government relies too much on customs revenue and so doesn’t want to risk interfering with procedures.”

Ethiopians are not famed for their alacrity when it comes to paperwork and related bureaucratic processes. Drought relief operations have been delayed by regular government assessments of who the neediest are, according to some aid agencies working in Ethiopia.

And even once ships have berthed, there still remains the challenge of unloading them, a process that can take up to 40 days, according to aid agencies assisting with Ethiopia’s drought.

“I honestly don’t know how they do it,” port official Dawit Gebre-ab says of workers toiling away in temperatures around 38 degrees Celsius that with humidity of 52 percent feel more like 43 degrees. “But the ports have to continue.”

The port’s 24-hour system of three eight-hour shifts mitigates some of the travails for those working outside, beyond the salvation of air conditioning—though not entirely.

Scene from Djibouti Port. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

“We feel pain everywhere, for sure,” Agaby says during the hottest afternoon shift, a fluorescent vest tied around his forehead as a sweat rag, standing out of the sun between those trucks being filled with bags of wheat from conveyor belts. “It is a struggle.”

To help get food aid away to where it is needed and relieve pressure on the port, a new 756 km railway running between Djibouti and Ethiopia was brought into service early in November 2015—it still isn’t actually commissioned—with a daily train that can carry about 2,000 tonnes, Aboubaker says. Capacity will increase further once the railway is fully commissioned this September and becomes electrified, allowing five trains to run carrying about 3,500 tonnes each.

Djibouti also has three new ports scheduled to open in the second half of the year—allowing more ships to dock—while the one at Tadjoura will have another railway line going westward to Bahir Dar in Ethiopia. This, Aboubaker explains, should connect with the railway line currently under construction in Ethiopia running south to north to connect the cities of Awash and Mekele, further improving transport and distribution options in Ethiopia.

“Once the trains are running in September we hope to clear the backlog of vessels within three months,” Aboubaker says.

The jam at the port has highlighted for Ethiopia—not that it needs reminding—its dependency on Djibouti. Already about 90 percent of Ethiopia’s trade goes through Djibouti. In 2005 this amounted to two million tonnes and now stands at 11 million tonnes. During the next three years it is set to increase to 15 million tonnes.

Hence Ethiopia has long been looking to diversify its options, strengthening bilateral relations with Somaliland through various Memorandum Of Understandings (MOU) during the past couple of years.

The most recent of these stipulated about 30 percent of Ethiopia’s imports shifting to Berbera Port, which this May saw Dubai-based DP World awarded the concession to manage and expand the underused and underdeveloped port for 30 years, a project valued at about $442 million and which could transform Berbera into another major Horn of Africa trade hub.

But such is Ethiopia’s growth—both in terms of economy and population; its current population of around 100 million is set to reach 130 million by 2025, according to the United Nations—that some say it’s going to need all the ports it can get.

“Ethiopia’s rate of development means Djibouti can’t satisfy demand, and even if Berbera is used, Ethiopia will also need [ports in] Mogadishu and Kismayo in the long run, and Port Sudan,” says Ali Toubeh, a Djiboutian entrepreneur whose container company is based in Djibouti’s free trade zone.

Meanwhile as night descends on Djibouti City, arc lights dotted across the port are turned on, continuing to blaze away as offloading continues and throughout the night loaded Ethiopian trucks set out into the hot darkness.

“El Niño will impact families for a long period as a number of them lost productive assets or jobs,” Amadou says. “They will need time and assistance to recover.”

This story is part of special IPS coverage of World Humanitarian Day on August 19.

Excerpt:

Hasna (left) and Marwa (right), nurses in their early twenties, were reluctant to be photographed on the street—primarily because of attention this drew from male Somalilanders—but were more comfortable in a quiet café. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

By James Jeffrey
HARGEISA, Somaliland, Jun 10 2016 (IPS)

Amid the hustle and bustle of downtown Hargeisa, Somaliland’s sun-blasted capital, women in various traditional Islamic modes of dress barter, argue and joke with men—much of it particularly volubly. Somaliland women are far from submissive and docile.

Somaliland’s culture is strongly influenced by Islam—Sharia law is included in its constitution—while this religiousness appears to co-exist with many signs of a liberal free market society, a dynamic embodied by Somaliland women whose roles in society and the economy undercut certain stereotypes about women’s Muslim clothing equalling submission or coercion.

“The West needs to stop obsessing about what women are wearing—whether those in the West who are wearing less or those in the East who are wearing more,” says 29-year-old Zainab, relaxing in a new trendy café after her day job as a dentist in Hargeisa. “It should focus on what women are contributing to the community and country.”“It’s about what’s inside your head, not what’s over your head.” -- Zainab, dentist.

Somaliland has had to develop a strong entrepreneurial streak since 1991 and its declaration of independence from Somalia never being recognised by the international community, leaving it to rebuild its shattered economy and infrastructure alone following a civil war.

Today, many small businesses are run by women, who in addition to bringing up large numbers of children are often breadwinners for families whose husbands were physically or mentally scarred by the war.

“Here women are butchers—that doesn’t happen in many places. It shows you how tough Somaliland women are,” Zainab says. “It’s about what’s inside your head, not what’s over your head.”

The issue of how the Quran, the central religious text of Islam, instructs women to dress is a source of continuing debate around the world, although a traditional stance is taken in Somaliland with all women covering at least their hair in public.

“Everyone is free to follow their religion and this is what the Islamic religion says: that a woman should cover their body,” says Kaltun Hassan Abdi, a commissioner at the National Electoral Commission, responsible for female representation in elections.  “It’s an obligation, so women don’t see it as discrimination or violation of rights.”

But some Somalilanders express concern about a steady drift toward Islamic conservatism in Hargeisa: music no longer blares out from teashops; colourful Somali robes are increasingly replaced by black abayas; more women are wearing niqabs—face veils—than a year ago; and no woman goes about town bareheaded as happened in the 1970s.

“The last 15-18 years have witnessed a dramatic change in the extent to which religion influences how people live their daily lives,” says Rakiya Omaar, a lawyer and chair of Horizon Institute, a consultancy firm that works on strengthening the capacity and self-reliance of institutions in Somaliland. “There is pressure to live as a serious Muslim—it may be subtle or overt; it may come from family or it may be the wider society that you interact with.”

But it’s hard to find a woman in Hargeisa who says she feels pressurised by Islam or society’s adherence to it (women in smaller towns or rural areas are more likely to face increased religious conservatism, Omaar notes).

“I asked myself why I wear the hijab, and decided because that’s Allah’s will, and it’s part of my religion and my identity, and since then it’s been a choice,” Zainab says.

Zainab at work n Hargeisa, Somaliland. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

During Mohamed Siad Barre’s communist-inspired dictatorship throughout the 1970s and ‘80s, Islam was suppressed in Somalia. Since Somaliland broke away, Islam has been able to reassert itself—including the flourishing of madrassas, Islamic religious schools—with positive effects, according to some.

“There are problems for women here but they’re not due to religion rather they are Somali cultural problems,” says Khadar Husein, operational director of the Hargeisa office of Transparency Solutions, a UK-based organization focused on capacity building in civil society.

“The man is mainly dominant in Somali society—things like domestic violence go back to that culture but has no root in Islam. Getting a more religious society means eliminating those cultural problems.”

But religion doesn’t appear to be easing restrictions on women in Somaliland’s political life.

“Without a women’s quota I don’t think there will be any more women in parliament,” Baar Saed Farah, the only female in the 82-member Lower Chamber of parliament, says about current lobbying to give 30 seats to women from forthcoming elections in 2017 (no women are permitted in the 82-member House of Elders in the Upper Chamber).

“In normal employment there is no differentiation between genders but when it comes to political participation it becomes very difficult for women because of a culture that favours men,” Farah says. “It has been there for a long time—even women may not accept a woman running for election as they’re so used to men always leading and making decisions.”

Somaliland remains a strongly male-dominated society. Polygyny, where a man can take several wives, is widely condoned and practised. Marriages are frequently arranged between the groom and the family of the bride—without the latter’s consent—and it’s easier for men to initiate a divorce. The prevalence of female genital mutilation in the Somalia region stands at about 95 percent, according to the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund.

And while Somaliland women may be a force to be reckoned with among markets and street-side trading, they still face many limits to full economic opportunities.

“They only operate small businesses, you won’t find many rich business women here,” says Nafisa Yusuf Mohamed, director of Hargeisa-based female empowerment organisation Nagaad Network. “For now there aren’t many alternatives, but this could change as enrolment in higher education is improving.”

Expanding female education is also affecting Somaliland’s increasing religiousness, Mohamed explains, as today’s young women better understand than their mothers the Quran, becoming more avid adherents in the process.

She notes how many young Somalilanders such as her 17-year-old daughter, who recently started wearing the niqab of her own volition, use social media to discuss and learn more about Islam once they finish attending madrassas.

There are also other more prosaic reasons for wearing the likes of the niqab, observers note. Some women wear them because they are shy, or want to protect their skin from harsh sunlight, or want to fit in with friends wearing them.

Changing Muslim clothing trends may be most noticeable to the outsider, but other developments also illustrate Somaliland’s increasing religiousness: the extent mosque prayer times affect working hours, both in the public and private sector; the higher proportion of adults praying the full five times a day; and the increasing numbers of mosques built.

“These changes are also a response to wider regional and international developments which have affected the Muslim world, in particular the growing perception that life in the Western world is becoming more hostile to Muslims,” Omaar says.

Although for most Somalilanders, exasperation with the West appears to primarily stem from how countries such as the UK—Somaliland was a UK protectorate until 1960—continue to not recognise its sovereign status, resulting in enormous financial drawbacks for the country.

Hence, as Somaliland celebrates its 25th anniversary of unrecognized independence this year, its economy remains perilously fragile, with poverty and unemployment rampant among its roughly four million-plus population.

“If you look at the happiness of Somalilanders and the challenges they are facing it does not match,” Husein says. “They are happy because of their values and religion.”