The Daily Monitor (Addis Ababa) – Three inauguration ceremonies took place over the weekend for the construction of two Primary Schools in the SNNPRS, and Oromia regional states and a market centre in the same regional state which altogether cost 260,211USD ( Equivalent to 2,427768.63 Birr).
These projects were funded by the Embassy of Japan through the small grants scheme, namely the Grant Assistance for Grassroots and Human Security Projects (GGP).
Through the GGP alone, Japan has supported more than 100 education projects over the last 11 years across Ethiopia, amounting in total to 7.4 million US dollars, a statement from the Japanese embassy in Addis Ababa said.
The ceremonies were attended by government officials and other stakeholders, including Shiferaw Shigute, President of the SNNPR as well as Kinichi Komano, the Ambassador of Japan to Ethiopia.
The construction of the school in Awassa Zuria, SNNPRS (88,610USD) avoided for school age children having to travel an average of two hours a day along a busy road which discouraged parents to send children to the school and this contributed to a high drop-out rate at the school, according to the statement.
More over, the constructing of a school block (4 rooms), toilet (8 rooms) and rehabilitating an existing block (4 rooms), administrative block, and library for the Buku Weldeya Primary School in Oromia helped improve access as well as the quality of education, the statement said adding some necessary school furniture, such as desks/chairs and blackboards were provided.
And the marketing center together with a kiosk and restaurant in Arsi Negele town was constructed is hoped to improve marketing as well as increasing consumption of agricultural goods, so that farmers can gain more bargaining power with the agricultural goods they produced, according to the statement.
“The government of Japan firmly believes that education is the key to laying the foundation for economic and social development,” the embassy said in a statement.
“At the same time, it is vital to ensure that any development intervention should be implemented in an integrated manner if the community is to be empowered and the human security of the people is to be protected comprehensively.” Japan has launched AVI (African Village Initiative), Japan’s new initiative, to empower local communities by improving their livelihood through protecting and empowering each individual in a multi-sectoral way.
In Ethiopia, two project sites have been selected in two areas of Oromia (Arsi Negele and Arsi) where the Embassy of Japan has currently been implementing four projects in an integrated way, two in the education sector and the other two in the agricultural sector.
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – The United Nations on Wednesday called for $4 million to help over one million people suffering drought in Ethiopia’s Somali and Borena regions.
“More than one million people are currently facing critical water shortages due to poor consecutive seasonal performances in 2007 coupled with the current dry season,” the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.
It said the money was needed to fund water, sanitation, health, livestock and agriculture programmes.
So far, Ethiopia’s military has dispatched 23,156 tonnes of food to five zones in the remote and arid Somali region, along the Horn of Africa nation’s border with Somalia, the statement said.
The United Nations is also seeking money to help fight water shortages for people and livestock in Borena, part of the Oromia region. Measles outbreaks had also been reported in parts of Oromia, OCHA said.
JOHANNESBURG, 5 March 2008 (IRIN) – As food prices hit record highs, analysts warn that a re-think of food aid strategies is needed – and Ethiopia, a traditionally food insecure country, could offer some answers.
Globally, the World Food Programme’s (WFP) operational budget for 2008 has now risen to $3.4 billion – “an increase of $500 billion to account for the increased price of food and transport alone,” said WFP spokesman Robin Lodge. “This budget is just to cover our current assessed needs, and leaves nothing for unforeseen emergencies or the huge number of people who are now falling into the hunger trap as a result of the rising prices.”
Food prices are expected to continue to rise for the forseeable future as a result of surging global demand and reduced cereal stocks, partly on account of biofuel. Edward Clay, senior research associate at the Overseas Development Institute, a UK-based think-tank, remarked that the situation called for a major re-think of food aid.
“Globalisation now means that the poor everywhere are affected. There is a need to ask how to anticipate a potentially much more volatile world food economy and this may require different institutional arrangements,” he suggested. “How do we ensure that poor people and indeed poorer countries are not crowded out of world food markets?”
Food aid agencies have limited options, but the answer lies perhaps in Ethiopia, said Marc Cohen, research fellow at the US-based International food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), and Shukri Ahmed, Senior Economist at the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). “Ethiopia, which now has several million people in need of food assistance, has taken steps to emerge from aid dependency,” Ahmed commented.
Among these was attempting to differentiate between people facing chronic food insecurity – currently estimated at more than eight million – and people facing either transitory or acute food insecurity – estimated between one to two million. Such a classification lent itself to providing a better response to food insecurity and targeting increasingly scarce food aid resources more effectively.
As part of a federal Food Security Programme (FSP), Ethiopia’s Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP) provides a combination of cash, farming inputs and food to the vulnerable and chronically food insecure, while the Emergency Food Security Reserve (EFSR) holds more than 400,000 metric tonnes of food available for aid agencies to borrow from in case of emergencies.
Ethiopia’s past response
Five major droughts in two decades have left most Ethiopian households reeling, and hundreds of thousands of people still live on the brink of survival. Ethiopia’s PSNP arose partly out of concern by the government and the donor community that emergency appeals were regularly falling short of their targets, or providing late and erratic support, according to the Human Development Report 2007/2008 by the UN Development Programme.
“For poor households, delayed support during a prolonged drought can have devastating consequences in both the short and longer term. In 1983-1984 it led to the death of thousands of vulnerable people [in Ethiopia],” the report pointed out.
The PSNP is a multiyear arrangement that started by assisting five million people in 2005 and intends covering eight million by 2009. It has widely been punted by the relief community as a model for building resilience to face climatic shocks.
The EFSR, set up in 1982 “to ensure people did not have to wait for food aid to arrive,” said Ahmed, is managed by the government and aid agencies in a transparent manner: aid agencies can borrow from the reserve on condition that they replenish it within a certain timeframe.
“Until the late 1980s the grain reserves in several countries of sub-Saharan Africa were strictly regulated by government, with a strong bias towards the politically more active urban population,” Ahmed remarked.
“Low consumer prices were maintained by a combination of low producer prices and heavy subsidies … Parastatal companies or marketing boards with monopoly rights for the marketing of designated cereals – and, in some instances, the provision of inputs – were established to administer the system.”
However, governments could not always provide the parastatals with adequate funds to finance their operations, which often led to reserve stocks being used for normal market operations. “Financial pressures on both governments and the parastatals resulted in insufficient resources being made available to replenish the reserve stocks at the start of the following marketing year,” Ahmed said.
“At the same time, the donor community, which was facing increasing demands for food aid, was becoming steadily more disenchanted with the way that reserves stocks were being used, and was increasingly unwilling to provide the resources necessary for rebuilding stocks,” he added.
“Progressively, the quantities held in reserves dwindled, eventually ceasing to exist in most countries. Thus, for many countries the strategic grain reserve, while continuing to form an integral part of the government’s food security programme, tended to exist in theory rather than in practice.”
IFPRI’s Cohen said resource pooling – regionally or nationally – was the future of food aid. “Countries have to strengthen their disaster preparedness and become more self-reliant, as Ethiopia has developed its Disaster Preparedness and Prevention Agency and so has Bangladesh. The UN and other aid agencies can continue to provide them with support in developing capacity.”
Shahidur Rashid, an IFPRI research fellow based in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, was more cautious: “I think [food aid dependent countries] taking control [of their response to food aid needs] is a rather strong statement.
“A high incidence of poverty, weak infrastructure and institutions, and limited ability to invest indicate that Ethiopia (and many other developing countries) will need aid to support anti-poverty programmes. The challenges are using the aid effectively and, along with economic growth, reducing aid dependency in the future.”
Ethiopia is among the poorest countries in the world. Its agricultural sector accounts for about 40 percent of national gross domestic product (GDP), 90 percent of exports, 85 percent of employment, and 90 percent of the poor, according a recent paper by the World Bank’s Derek Byerlee and Madhur Gautam, IFPRI’s David Spielman, and Dawit Alemu of the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research.
“Rural poverty is further compounded by extreme land shortages in the highlands – per capita land area has fallen from 0.5ha in the 1960s to only 0.2ha by 2005,” the authors pointed out.
Response to price rise
The Ethiopian government has announced a temporary freeze on WFP’s local purchases of food for emergency interventions, among other measures to counter high and still rising domestic food prices. The government also banned exports of the main cereals and grain stockpiling, and a temporary 10 percent surtax on luxury imports has also been imposed to help fund wheat subsidies for the poor.
WFP began buying food in Ethiopia in the mid-1990s on the invitation of the government, to help firm up prices, “which tended to fall drastically at harvest time, resulting in farmers often receiving prices which were incredibly low, as farmers were under pressure to dispose of their commodities to meet urgent cash requirements,” said Simon Denhere, WFP Ethiopia Procurement Officer.
He brushed aside any assumption that WFP had been prevented from buying locally because its purchases had affected food prices. “WFP’s procurement policy is that local purchase will only be implemented where there are marketable surpluses, to the extent that WFP purchases should not have a negative impact on the market, WFP should be a ‘residual buyer’, so to speak,” he explained. Besides, WFP was not the largest buyer, Denhere added.
Role of aid agencies in the future
As countries develop, “food aid agencies should gradually go out of business,” commented Rashid. He cited India, where the scale of food aid has declined significantly as the country developed its own ability to invest and implement anti-poverty and social safety net programmes. But Ethiopia’s PSNP still depends on several aid agencies, “and I don’t see Ethiopia, and many other developing countries, break free from such supports in the near future.”
WFP’s Denhere suggested that the Ethiopian government needed to invest in the supply side of agriculture. “Recent policies have been targeted at the demand side and price controls, often curtailing the activities of traders and buyers and market improvements.
“If WFP were to leave Ethiopia, beneficiaries who have no capacity to enter the market will be worst affected, as they will have no fallback position … owing to the levels of poverty in the country, many families could face probable starvation.”
ADDIS ABABA (AFP) – More than one million people in eastern Ethiopia’s drought-hit Somali region face critical water shortages, the United Nations said Wednesday.
“A joint multi-sectoral Drought Emergency Response Plan… has been released by the regional government. The plan indicates that more than one million people are currently facing critical water shortage,” the UN humanitarian agency OCHA said in a statement.
“The response plan, which focuses on life-saving interventions in health and nutrition, water and sanitation, and livestock and agriculture, aims to mitigate the impacts of drought due to poor consecutive seasonal performance in 2007 coupled with the current dry season,” the statement added.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the regional authorities were seeking over three million dollars (1.9 million euros) to address emergency requirements for a period of six months.
The mineral-rich region, also known as the Ogaden, has also been wracked by a separatist rebellion, against which government troops have launched a fierce crackdown.
PRESS RELEASE
(Washington, DC) – Deeply concerned about the turmoil in the Horn of Africa, the gross human rights violations and incalculable material destruction inflicted by the Ethiopian government, Oromo Youth from across the nation in collaboration with other youth associations from the Horn of Africa are organizing a protest rally in Washington D.C on Monday March 31st, 2008. The demonstrators are calling upon the American government to reorient its policy approach in the region towards the respect for human rights, rule of law and democracy in the region and for American media outlets to expose this inhumane nature of the Ethiopian Woyanne government.
For about two decades now, the people of Ethiopia and the greater Horn of Africa have been suffering at the hands of the minority regime in Ethiopia. Innocent people are being tortured, humiliated, killed, women are raped, and villages are burnt. These atrocious crimes are being committed daily. The Ethiopian government is only able to inflict such widespread pain and suffering with the help of American taxpayers’ money and other Western funding.
Despite its strategic importance in the fight against terrorism and American prevalence in the region, far too little attention has been given to the unfolding human catastrophes. Using the war on terror as a pretext, the minority led government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has undermined the movement towards democracy, peace and development in the Horn of Africa. It spread as far as invading a neighbouring country, Somalia, violating the AU and UN Charters while shelling civilian areas indiscriminately and causing the death of tens of thousands of people, destruction of properties and the displacement of 1.5 million people from their home.
Since it usurped power undemocratically in 1991, the TPLF regime has committed untold crimes on the Oromo people jailing and killing tens of thousands of them. Zenawi’s regime has also been widely reported by International medias that the Ethiopian Woyanne government have sent its death squads to Ogaden to loot, murder, rape women and children, burn entire villages and expel aid agencies to stop food aid from getting to recipients in the area while preventing journalists and human rights organizations from having access in order to cover up the atrocity.
Thousands of Oromos have left their country and are living a fearful life in war ravaged Somalia, conflict ridden areas of Kenya and Sudan to escaping becoming an addition to the 20,000 Oromo prisoners of conscience throughout the country.
Fresh in our memories is the outrageous story of the heinous crime committed against Oromo refugees in Puntland’s Bosasso city of Somalia on February 5, 2008, where 65 Oromo refugees were bombed to death in daylight, while over 100 were also wounded. As almost all countries in the region rapidly descend into internal and external conflicts and with uncontrolled movement of Ethiopian army across borders, it is apparent that no place is safe for the indigenous Oromo in the Horn of Africa at large.
Therefore, we would like to reiterate that the American media has a duty to air our grievances and expose this inhumane nature of Ethiopian government. We would also like urge all to join with us to end an insult to humanity and give peace a chance in the Horn of Africa.
International Oromo Youth Association
PO Box 14668, Minneapolis, MN 55414
[email protected]
http://www.ioyn.org
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Ethiopia has won trademark rights for its specialty Sidamo coffee in the United States, the country’s intellectual property office said on Wednesday.
Africa’s largest coffee producer had a protracted tussle with Starbucks Corp last year over the use of the name in the United States.
“Ethiopia was forced to wait for years to secure the certificate…but now the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has confirmed that Ethiopia is the sole owner of the Sidamo coffee trademark,” the Ethiopian Intellectual Property Office (EIPO) said in a statement.
Ethiopia has already secured trademark rights for Yirgacheffee coffee in the United States.
Starbucks and Addis Ababa agreed to end their dispute in November 2007.
Ethiopia has filed an application for trademark rights for its Harar coffee, the statement said.
It said Ethiopia had signed agreements with more than 70 global companies to promote its coffees.
Ethiopia’s annual production is estimated at over 330,000 tonnes. It plans to generate $500 million by exporting over 140,000 tonnes of coffee in 2008.
Ethiopia is recognised as the historic birthplace of coffee and the source of some of the finest coffee in the world.
(Reporting by Tsegaye Tadesse; editing by Michael Roddy)
