Brian Stewart, a journalist for CBC and one of Canada’s most experienced foreign correspondents, writes that Ethiopia’s regime has a blasé attitude about food shortage in the country and that he supports The Economist’s description of the regime as one of the most economically illiterate in the world. The following except is taken from Brian’s 2009 article, but still applies today as the U.N. is making yet another call for emergency food aid alert on behalf of 2.8 million Ethiopians.
Ethiopian regime’s blasé attitude about food shortage
The Ethiopian government has said it doesn’t expect this year to be much worse than last, and it is “confident it has done everything it can to feed its hungry people.”
This almost blasé attitude in Addis, gives no comfort at all to aid officials who tend to agree with an Economist magazine’s characterization of Ethiopia’s government as well-meaning but “one of the most economically illiterate in the modern world.”
President Meles Zenawi is unlikely to be reckless enough to downplay a real emergency, but there is always concern that regional officials might dismiss rising malnutrition figures to protect their own political hides.
From what I have seen, Ethiopians hate their nation’s image as a perpetual victim of disasters. And donor nations have clearly grown weary of annual calls for aid.
One can sympathize with both views. But such sentiments cannot be allowed to obscure facts.
Yes, development efforts on the ground are indeed starting to yield progress (and I intend to write about these another time).
But Ethiopia, the 12th poorest nation on Earth, will simply not be able to fully feed itself for many years, likely a generation at least.
The abject poverty of land and population are simply too stark, too intractable to offer a quick end to this recurring nightmare, no matter what economic or market reforms are tried.
Back when I was covering the famine in 1984, I never imagined — or perhaps let myself fear — that Ethiopia would be such a difficult problem for the world to fix.
I underestimated what a grinding, unrelenting effort would be needed to confront its timeless poverty. This time back, I fear we underestimate it still.