Posted by OromianEconomist in Uncategorized.
Tags: A switch to ecological farming will benefit health and environment, Africa, Agriculture, Five Western Donors Shape a Pro-Corporate Agenda for African Agriculture, Food production, The Unholy Alliance
The Unholy Alliance, Five Western Donors Shape a Pro-Corporate Agenda for African Agriculture, exposes how a coalition of four donor countries and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is shaping a pro-business environment in the agricultural sector of developing countries, especially in Africa. unholy_alliance_web
Five Western donors including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the US, UK, Danish, and Dutch governments, are bankrolling the Enabling the Business of Agriculture (EBA) project, implemented by the World Bank. The EBA’s goal is to help create “policies that facilitate doing business in agriculture and increase the investment attractiveness and competitiveness of countries.”1 To achieve this, the EBA benchmarks areas including seeds, fertilizers, markets, transport, machinery, and finance, to determine whether or not countries’ laws facilitate doing business in agriculture. The EBA exemplifies a growing trend in international donors’ aid programs, which have become powerful instruments to impose a market-based, pro-private sector vision of agriculture. Following the 2007-2008 food price crisis, G8 members gathered at L’Aquila summit in Italy and pledged to support country-owned food security strategies. However, it did not take long for this commitment to give way to aid programs that, instead of supporting robust national agriculture policies, favor private sector-led and market-driven food systems. In 2012, the G8 members launched the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition (NAFSN), an initiative that gives a central place to agroindustry and agrochemical companies, to the detriment of family farmers.2 Africa, the site of NAFSN implementation, is a primary target of the pro-corporate push by several Western donors. The continent is marked by the proliferation of bilateral and multilateral initiatives to support the expansion of agribusinesses and the increased use of industrial inputs (synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, hybrid and genetically modified seeds, etc.). The US, UK, Danish, and Dutch governments are providing direct financing through business grants and other support mechanisms such as loans and insurance to agribusinesses operating in Africa. Often, the recipients of aid money are national companies with an assumed goal to combine aid with commercial interests. In parallel, rising amounts of taxpayers’ money is flowing into multilaterally funded entities such as the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), active in training, research, and advocacy around the use of hybrid seeds and chemical fertilizers. AGRA is also a vehicle used to manage multi-donor initiatives such as the Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF),3 which is investing in large-scale agricultural projects and industrial production of agricultural inputs. With the creation of the NAFSN, in which the EBA is entrenched,4 donors are increasingly conditioning their aid to African countries to policy reforms and measures that will facilitate the corporate takeover of their agriculture. The five donors of the EBA are spearheading an aggressive campaign, aimed at pushing to expand agribusiness activity in Africa through the takeover of land for commercial agriculture, opening of countries’ input markets, privatizing of seed systems, and reforms of agricultural trade and tax laws to boost corporate profit. The donors believe that an “agricultural transformation” based on global trade and agroindustry will increase economic growth and provide better incomes to farmers.5 But the impacts of such a transformation are likely to be devastating for the majority of African farmers. Rising pressure on land and natural resources; dependence on expensive and polluting agricultural inputs; increased vulnerability to climate shocks; criminalization of seed saving and exchange practices; and weakened government ability to support national agriculture are among the outcomes that the five donors investigated in this report will deliver to the continent.
Read more at:-
http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/unholy-alliance-five-western-donors-shape-pro-corporate-agenda-african-agriculture
Posted by OromianEconomist in Uncategorized.
Tags: Africa, Amensty International Report: Because I am Oromo, Oromia, Oromian Voices, Oromo, Poet Caalaa Hayiluu Abaataa, Poet Caalaa Hayiluu Abaataa about the Oromo people and the oppression by the Ethiopian government, Untold Stories
8th June 2016 By
Melody Sundberg
“But the government – of course, it is not a government, actually – is a group of gangsters and mafias, because if someone is making a group and that group is not representing the majority of the nation or the people, you could not say that that is a government. If the government is not elected by the people, for the people, you could not consider that as a government!”
Poet Caalaa Hayiluu Abaataa about why he wrote poetry about the oromo people who suffers oppression by the Ethiopian government. Caalaa Hayiluu Abaataa was jailed and tortured in Maekelawi, the notorious police station in Ethiopia, for writing poetry about the Oromo people who suffers oppression by the Ethiopian government. He now lives in exile in Sweden. Read his story here.
Filmed during Poesi på liv och död – exilen den verkliga utmaningen (Poetry on life and death – With life in exile as the real challenge), an event by Stockholm University. May 10, 2016 at Fanfaren Kultur Farsta, Stockholm, Sweden. To watch a full video from the event, click here.
Video by Untold Stories / Melody Sundberg.
Posted by OromianEconomist in Uncategorized.
Tags: Africa, Ethiopian Army Wantonly Massacres 51 Civilians in Ogaden, Genocide, Genocide against the Ogaden People, Ogaden, The Ogaden Youth and Student Union condemns the systematic genocidal massacres taking place in Oromia and Ogaden, The tyrannic Ethiopia, Victims of Politics – Women in Ogaden and Oromia
Namoonni 51 ol Ogaden keessattii wayyaaneen ajjesamuuni gabaafame. Kan ajjeefamani keessa baayyeen dubartoota fi daa’imman ta’uun beekame.
(ONLF, 8 June 2016) — The Ethiopian Army wantonly massacred 51 civilians in Jama’ Dubad village near Gashamo town on June 5, 2016. The army indiscriminately opened fire on unarmed civilians in the village centre, shooting everybody in sight, not sparing women, children or the elderly. After the army started the massacre, many villagers run to the local mosque, hoping that they may be spared there. However, the Ethiopian army followed them there, shooting and killing them all. Then, the army torched the village, destroying all property, food and the water supplies of the village.
Many wounded civilians who managed to run away to the fields, are scattered and hiding in the fields. Some of the villages and many children are still unaccounted for. In addition, the Ethiopian army has abducted more than ten elders whose whereabouts are still unknown. The Ethiopian army has sent reinforcements and are currently occuppying villages along the border. This is an indication that the army intends to commit more massacres in order to create fear and stem any reaction from the local communities.
Just two months ago, the Ethiopian army massacred civilians in Dhaacdheer and Gaxandhaale villages near Galadi town in Wardheer region, killing scores of civilians. In Febraury 2016, the Ethiopian army and the Liyu Police militia destroyed Lababar village near Shilabo, killing more than 300 civilains and destroying the whole community in order to clear areas near the Jeexdin (Calub) Gas fields. In similar aggression the Ethiopian army killed many civilians near Bur-Ukur, Ferfer, Beledwayne and Hudur areas at the end of last year.
After committing crimes intended to extinguish the spirit and the humanity in Ogaden, Oromia and all communities in Ethiopia, the regime is now increasingly targeting other peoples along its borders and other neighbouring countries, specially those along the Somalia and Kenyan borders.
The Ogaden National Liberation Front categorically condemns the action of the Ethiopian regime and calls upon all peoples and parties in the Horn of Africa and the international community to condemn this heinous act and come to the aid of the affected innocent civilians.
Issued by
Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF)
Posted by OromianEconomist in Uncategorized.
Tags: Africa, Ethiopia, Ethiopia: TPLF's corruption empire, Ethiopia’s Electric Utility Sold Unregistered Bonds In U.S.
Wayyaaneen karaa seraan alaatin gorgurtaa bondii biyya Ameerkaa keessatii kan rawwatte dolaara miliyoona 6. 5 waan seraa biiyyaati cabsiitef akkaa kaafaltu agoowoni Ameerkaa itti murttessan.
SEC: Ethiopia’s Electric Utility Sold Unregistered Bonds In U.S.
Washington D.C., June 8, 2016 (SEC) — The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Ethiopia’s electric utility has agreed to pay nearly $6.5 million to settle charges that it violated U.S. securities laws by failing to register bonds it offered and sold to U.S residents of Ethiopian descent.
According to the SEC’s order instituting a settled administrative proceeding:
- Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) conducted the unregistered bond offering to help finance the construction of a hydroelectric dam on the Abay River in Ethiopia.
- EEP held a series of public road shows in major cities across the U.S. and marketed the bonds on the website of the U.S. Embassy of Ethiopia as well as through radio and television advertising aimed at Ethiopians living in the U.S.
- EEP raised approximately $5.8 million from more than 3,100 U.S. residents from 2011 to 2014 without ever registering the bond offering with the SEC.
“Foreign governments are welcome to raise money in the U.S. capital markets so long as they comply with the federal securities laws, including registration provisions designed to ensure that investors receive important information about prospective investments,” said Stephen L. Cohen, Associate Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement. “This settlement ensures that investors get all of their money back plus interest.”
The SEC’s order finds that EEP violated Sections 5(a) and 5(c) of the Securities Act of 1933. EEP admitted the registration violations and agreed to pay $5,847,804 in disgorgement and $601,050.87 in prejudgment interest. The distribution of money back to investors is subject to the SEC’s review and approval. Investors seeking more information should contact the administrator of the distribution, Gilardi & Co. LLC, at 844-851-4591.
The SEC’s investigation was conducted by Carolyn Kurr and Daniel Rubenstein and supervised by C. Joshua Felker. The SEC appreciates the assistance of the U.S. Department of State.
የኢትዮጵያ መንግስት በአሜሪካን ህገወጥ የቦንድ ሽያጭ በማድረግ የሰበሰበውን ገንዘብ እንዲመልስ ተወሰነበት። የአሜሪካን የቦንድ ሽያጭና ግዥን የሚቆጣጠረው ኮሚሽን ባቀረበው ክስ መሰረት የኢትዮጵያ መንግስት በአሜሪካን ባልተመዘገበ የቦንድ ሽያጭ የሰበሰበውን 5.8ሚሊዮን ዶላር ጨምሮ በድምሩ 6.5 ሚሊዮን ዶላር እንዲከፍል ተስማምቷል። በአሜሪካን ሀገር ከሚኖሩ ከ3,100 ኢትዮጵያውያን የተሰበሰበው ገንዘብ ለአሜሪካን መንግስት ይከፈላል።
OromianEconomist 
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