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Double-digit propaganda, Ethiopia’s top 10 wealthiest people, and Ethiopia’s 87 million poor June 4, 2017

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You will see in the news, and officials of the oppressive Ethiopian government will  smile convincingly when they tell you, that Ethiopia is thriving with a “double-digit” economic growth.Yet many experts and scholars will explain to you why this is triple-digit nonsense and quadruple-digit propaganda.

Read more from the original source: Double-digit propaganda, Ethiopia’s top 10 wealthiest people, and Ethiopia’s 87 million poor

Oxfam: Africa: Ethiopia: The 2016 Multidimensional Poverty Index June 4, 2016

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Odaa Oromoo

In terms of MPI measurement, Ethiopia’s 87.3% of the population are  identified as  MPI poor, by far higher than Africa’s average (54%) and East Africa’s average (70%).

MPI Country Briefing 2016, Ethiopia

Global-MPI-2016-2-pager

The 2016 Multi-Dimensional Poverty Index was published on 3rd June 2016. It now covers 102 countries in total, including 75 per cent of the world’s population, or 5.2 billion people. Of this proportion, 30 per cent of people (1.6 billion) are identified as multidimensionally poor.

The Global MPI has 3 dimensions and 10 indicators (for details see here and the graphic, right). A person is identified as multidimensionally poor (or ‘MPI poor’) if they are deprived in at least one third of the dimensions. The MPI is calculated by multiplying the incidence of poverty (the percentage of people identified as MPI poor) by the average intensity of poverty across the poor. So it reflects both the share of people in poverty and the degree to which they are deprived.

Global MPI 2016, 10 indicators

The MPI increasingly digs down below national level, giving separate results for 962 sub-national regions, which range from having 0% to 100% of people poor (see African map, below). It is also disaggregated by rural-urban areas for nearly all countries as well as by age.

Headlines from the MPI 2016:

  • There are 50% more MPI poor people in the countries analysed than there are income poor people using the $1.90/day poverty line.
  • Almost one third of MPI poor people live in Sub-Saharan Africa (32.%); 53% in South Asia, and 9% in East Asia.
  • As with income poverty, three quarters of MPI poor people live in Middle Income Countries.

This year’s MPI focuses on Africa:

  • In the 46 African countries analysed, 544 million people (54% of total population) endure multidimensional poverty, compared to 388 million poor people according to the $1.90/day measures.
  • The differences between the proportion of $1.90 and MPI poor people are greatest in East and West Africa. By the $1.90/day poverty line, 48% in West Africa and 33% in East Africa are poor, whereas by the MPI, 70% of people in East Africa are MPI poor and 59% in West Africa. The MPI thus reveals a hidden face of poverty that may be overlooked if we consider only its income aspects.
  • Global MPI 2016, Africa
  • Among 35 African countries where changes to poverty over time were analysed, 30 of them have reduced poverty significantly. Rwanda was the standout star, but every MPI indicator was significantly reduced in Burkina Faso, Comoros, Gabon and Mozambique as well.
  • Disaggregated MPI results are available for 475 sub-national regions in 41 African countries. The poorest region continues to be Salamat in Chad, followed by Est in Burkina Faso and Hadjer Iamis in Chad. The region with the highest percentage of MPI poor people is Warap, in South Sudan, where 99% of its inhabitants are considered multidimensionally poor. The least poor sub-national regions include Grand Casablanca in Morocco and New Valley in Egypt, with less than 1% of the population living in multidimensional poverty.
  • The MPI registered impressive reductions in some unexpected places. 19 sub-national regions – regional ‘runaway’ successes – have reduced poverty even faster than Rwanda. The fastest MPI reduction was found in Likouala in the Republic of the Congo.
  • The Sahel and Sudanian Savanna Belt contains most of the world’s poorest sub-regions, showing the interaction between poverty and harsh environmental conditions.
  • Poverty looks very different in different parts of the continent. While in East Africa deprivations related to living standards contribute most to poverty, in West Africa child mortality and education are the biggest problems.
  • The deprivations affecting the highest share of MPI poor people in Africa are cooking fuel, electricity and sanitation.
  • The number of poor people went down in only 12 countries. In 18 countries, although the incidence of MPI fell, population growth led to an overall rise in the number of poor people.

See here for my post on the MPI 2014. I’d be interested in your reflections on what MPI adds to the usual $ per day metrics, in terms of our understanding of development.

http://oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/the-2016-multidimensional-poverty-index-was-launched-yesterday-what-does-it-say/

http://www.dataforall.org/dashboard/ophi/index.php/mpi/country_briefings

 

Ethiopia and multidimensional poverty: Over 80 % of the population are multidimensionally poor June 30, 2015

Posted by OromianEconomist in Poverty.
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???????????Ethiopia poverty reduction

The above is from World Bank source which is conventional (income based) method of poverty analysis

Ethiopia's Per capita income trend, relative to Sub-Saharan Afr 001Ethiopia

According to the Economist’s latest (25 June 2015) multidimensional poverty analysis, 9 countries that have registered 80% and above  of their population as multidimensionally poor are all in Africa: Ethiopia, Somalia, Burundi, South Sudan, Guinea, Niger, Burkina Faso  and Chad. 

population in multidimensional poverty

MOST measures of poverty just focus on income. About 1 billion people live on less than $1.25 a day. But a new report from Oxford University looks at poverty levels in 101 developing countries, covering 5.2 billion people, or 75% of the world’s population. The report understands poverty in a different way from how economists usually do.

The economists measure “multidimensional poverty”. This complements measures based on income and reflects the many different problems people can face all at the same time. These include bad health and a lack of education. In all, they identify ten indicators; if people are deprived in at least one-third them, they are multidimensionally poor. The authors estimate that 1.6 billion people fit this description.

In some countries the difference between the conventional and unconventional measures is stark. In Mexico, Pakistan and Egypt, for instance, there are twice as many multidimensionally poor as there are conventionally poor. –

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/06/multidimensional-poverty?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/multidimensionalpoverty

https://www.oromiamedia.org/2015/07/omn-oduu-waxabajjii-30-2015/

Karoorri Guddina Dinagdee fi Traansoformeshinii Itoophiyaa,qabatamaatti jireenya Ummataa akka hin jijjirre ibsame.

OMN: Oduu Wax.30,2015 Mootummaan Itoophiyaa Waggoota shanan darban karoora Guddina fi Tiraansfoormeeshinii baasuun diinagdee biyyattii Dijitii lamaan guddisee biyyattii, toora biyyoota galii giddugalaa qaban cinan hiriirsa jechuun hojjechaa ture.

Keesumaa Diinagdee Biyyattii Qonnaan durfamaa jiru gara diinagdee Industiriitti ceesisuuf karoorfamee yoo tures utuu galma hin gahin hafuu isaa ogeessa Diinagdee kan ta’an Obbo Mulatu Gammachuu OMN tti himaniiru.

Humna Elektirikaa bara Hayila Silaasetti fayyadamaa,Qonnnaan bulaan Gindoodhuma waggoota 40 darbe lafa qotaa,guddinna galmaa;e jedhamu arguu dadhabne jedhaniiru.
Hanqinni sharafa biyya alaa yeroo diinagdee biyyatti raasaa jiru fi qalaa’iinsii gatii guddachaa jiru kanatti karoora guddina fi Tiraansfoormshinii jedhanii labsuun maqaa isaa irra kan hafe qabatamaatti jijjiramni fide hin jiru jedhu Obbo Mulatuun.
Biyya Itoophiyaa keessatti guddinni kan dhufuu danda’u qonnaa fi industiriin wal simee lammiileef carraan hojii yoo umamee dha kan jedhan obbo Mulatuun,Projektonni Misoomaa gurguddoon biyyattii illee hanqina sharafa biyya alaatiin rakkoo keessa akka jiran dubbatan.

Barreessaan Paartii Kongressii Federaalistii Oromoo obbo Baqalaa Nagaa’s, Itoophiyaa keessatti yeroo ammaa kana hojjetaan Mootummaa miindaa argatuun jiraachuu akka dadhabe, Qonnaan bulaan lafa isaa irra seeraan alaa buqqa’ee kadhaaf daandiitti bahaa akka jiru himanii, ummanni keenya tajajjila dhala namaaf barbaachisu ille argachaa hin jiru jedhu.

Karoorri Guddinaa fi Tiraansfoormeeshinii waggoota shanan dhufaniif bahes isa kanaan duraarraa waan addaa fida jedhanii akka hin eegne hubachiisaniiru.

Gabaasaan Alamayyoo Qannaa ti.

https://www.oromiamedia.org/2015/07/karoorri-guddina-dinagdee-fi-traansoformeshinii-itoophiyaaqabatamaatti-jireenya-ummataa-akka-hin-jijjirre-ibsame/

Poverty, Deprivation, Capability and Economics August 30, 2013

Posted by OromianEconomist in The Colonizing Structure & The Development Problems of Oromia, Uncategorized.
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World map showing countries by nominal GDP per...

World map showing countries by nominal GDP per capita in 2008, IMF estimates as of April 2009. Sbw01f’s work, but converted to an SVG file instead. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

‘It has to be known that  the social structures, the power relations, that have generated and continue to generate poverty.’

In the present world, poverty, particularly   as it is experienced in the developing countries, has become the main topic to a great deal of discussion among economists and policy
makers, and there have been various campaigns  going on to overcome it: “to make poverty history.” The United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) project is for front of these undertakings. In these makings, the issue is absolute deprivation, and the current widely accepted standard defines poverty as living on less than $2 per day and extreme poverty as living on less than $1 per day. The $2 per day and $1 per day figures are in terms of 1990 purchasing power. The World Bank uses these standards to report each year on the number of people living in poverty and in extreme poverty. The definition of poverty in terms of absolute deprivation may make good sense. When people do not have the basic necessities – the food, the shelter, the clothing – that they need to lead a reasonable life, they are living in poverty. Although we might not agree over the exact baseline.  There may look nothing wrong with the term.
However, there are problems with this absolute deprivation term of poverty. Primarily, there is the problem of whether or not an income measure can actually handle what we understand by people living in an ‘unreasonable’  condition of deprivation; not all the things that
make for a reasonable existence can be directly  transformed to purchasable goods and services. Besides, there is the problem of what we mean by ‘deprivation’. Of course, economic well-being – cannot be properly  measured and clearly understood by a single, absolute measure. In particular, the meaning cannot be properly  captured by  individual’s or a people’s absolute level of income. Actually, this issue has been widely recognized by the UN’s Human Development Index (HDI), Sen’s capabilities concept, and to some extent by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) campaign. Achieving an income goal alone does not eliminate poverty. A closely related issue  is that poverty (or well-being) cannot be captured properly by any single measure or single combination of measures, such as the HDI. Both the terms of poverty and economic well-being do not take into account issues of inequality in the distribution of income or the distribution of other measures of well-being. This failure to take into account issues of distribution in defining poverty (economic well-being) is conceptually and practically  problematic. If poverty is understood in absolute terms without consideration of distributional issues, the social structures that generate poverty tend to be ignored. It has to be known that  the social structures, the power relations, that have generated and continue to generate poverty. As  Arthur MacEwan  of University of Massachusetts Boston argues: ‘To a large extent, the poor are poor because they lack power, and they lack power because they are poor. When power is brought into consideration, the focus of policy shifts towards such issues as land reform and the effective control of state actions – i.e., of the underlying factors that determine spending on health care, education and other social services. The problem of poverty, then, would be approached as a socio-political problem, not simply as a technical problem. (Technical changes can bring about changes in socio-political relations, and that is one of the reasons, in addition to their direct impacts, that they are often good. But technical solutions are less likely to be effective when they are implemented without consideration of power relations.’  For instance, as studies on the Horn of Africa recognize, the colonizing Abyssinian Ethiopian structure has been  a very serious development problem in Oromia. In recent debates the UN and other international organizations are taking human rights issues to a center stage in the discussions of eliminating poverty as it is to  define the post 2015 actions. Actually, individual human rights and collect (group) rights must be at the center stage  in processes of poverty eliminations and achieving development. A person can be  socially and economically deprived and made incapable to achieve life goals not only as individual but also because he/she is a member of a group.  That is what we have learnt from the experiences and studies on  indigenous people such as the Oromo nation under Ethiopian social and political structures.

The discussion of  poverty may be as old as disciplines of economics and philosophy.  Economists  and philosophers including  Adam Smith, Karl Marx, John Rawls, Amartya Sen, and many more have discussed the subject. The capabilities concept of economic well-being has been established  and extensively discussed by Amartya Sen. He maintains that “…the right focus for assessing standard of living is … something that may be called a person’s capability…., the capability to function …that comes closest to the notion of standard of living.”  The following site is interesting  further discussions: http://scholarworks.umb.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=econ_faculty_pubs&sei-redir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bing.com%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dpoverty%252C%2520capability%2520and%2520deprivation%253Awhat%2520economists%2520say%26pc%3Dconduit%26ptag%3DADE7BA551541340B0B5F%26form%3DCONOMX%26conlogo%3DCT3210127%26ShowAppsUI%3D1#search=%22poverty%2C%20capability%20deprivation%3Awhat%20economists%20say%22

Another Interesting current economic article on the subject of poverty is rebeloged  here with kind acknowledgement to the author:

“How important should the subject of poverty be within the discipline of economics? Some economists appear to think it is a very small issue compared to the magnificent mathematics of general equilibrium theory. Others believe that economics should fundamentally be about the sources of human well-being and misery, and that understanding poverty is absolutely fundamental for economics. How should we try to sort this out? Among the contemporary economists who have given the greatest attention to poverty and deprivation, Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze are particularly outstanding. Their research on well-being, quality of life, and hunger set a standard for the point of viewthat says that life quality and deprivation need to be at the top of the list of economic research goals. Here I’m thinking of books like Inequality Reexamined, Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation, and Hunger and Public Action. The neoclassical free market purists stand at the other end of the garden.  The economists of the Chicago School put primary emphasis on the beneficent effects of untrammeled market behavior, and they give little attention to the “market imperfections” that poverty and deprivation represent. (The word “poverty” does not occur in the index of John Van Overtveldt’s good intellectual history of the Chicago School, The Chicago School: How the University of Chicago Assembled the Thinkers Who Revolutionized Economics and Business.) Poverty seems to be viewed as a normal and fair result of the workings of market institutions: some people make large contributions and earn high income, and others make small or zero contributions and earn low income.”  Daniel Little, Rebloged from http://understandingsocietyglobaledition.wordpress.com/2013/08/29/poverty-and-economics/ read more from http://understandingsocietyglobaledition.wordpress.com/2013/08/29/poverty-and-economics/

As disccused in the above sources, poverty is not only a matter of lack of income.  And also economic  growth alone does not alleviate poverty.  As it has been analysed in following sources: “The problem with seeing poverty only through the lens of income is that it leaves economic growth as the only option to remove poverty. The underlying assumption is that the poor will be someday and somehow able to earn enough money to take care of all their needs, starting with having sufficient food. The problem is that the poor also lack skills to earn sufficient money, they are denied credit or loan by the banks, they have no access to quality education and healthcare facilities, and face social discrimination and political marginalization. Therefore, it is rather naive to expect that just because the economy is doing well, they will suddenly start having good income and come out of poverty. Thanks to the efforts of eminent economists such as Indian Nobel laureate Amartya Sen and late Dr Mahbub ul Haq of Pakistan, better ways of measuring poverty and human well-being than income have emerged. If the UNDP’s Human Development Index (HDI) launched in 1990 provided the first global tool to probe the standard of living, a bigger thrust was given in 2010 by the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) that uses 10 different indicators to probe various deprivations the poor face. An application of the MPI analysis on the above two countries reveals an entirely different picture. Ethiopia has 90 percent poverty while Uzbekistan reveals just 2 percent multidimensional poor. What we learn from this is that the society in Uzbekistan looks after its people much better than the Ethiopian society. Therefore, poverty is better understood in terms deprivations, not lack of income. Economic Growth Alone is not “Development.” The real purpose of development is to enhance the well being of people and raise their standard of living, for which economic development is an important tool. However, this tool has been converted into an end in itself. Another popular view sees “development” as technological development; other contemporary concepts of development are industrialization and increasing the GDP growth (and keep doing it forever!). The way international business is being steered through global treaties, it appears that the world is being converted into a big bazaar and people into mere tools of production and consumption. The per capita consumption has emerged as modern measure of development and hence, of the well being of people. Hence, people of “developed” nations are the biggest consumers on the planet. Rest of the world is catching fast to beat them in this competition.” http://goodpal.hubpages.com/hub/Looking-at-Poverty-Beyond-Lack-of-income

‘Poverty is powerlessness, lack of representation and freedom. Poverty is a call to action – for the poor and the wealthy alike – a call to change the world so that many more may have enough to eat, adequate shelter, access to education and health, protection from violence, and a voice in what happens in their communities. Poverty is the state of being without, often associated with need, hardship and lack of resources across a wide range of circumstances.’http://www.fightpoverty.mmbrico.com/poverty/what.html

“Since poverty is often so linked with human development, or lack of it, the 1996 report took a special look at poverty and concluded that income poverty is only part of the picture. “Just as human development encompasses aspects of life much broader than income, so poverty should be seen as having many dimensions,” says the report. As a result, the report introduced a new, multidimensional measure of human deprivation called the capability poverty measure, (CPM). The CPM focuses on human capabilities, just as human development index does. Instead of examining the average state of people’s capabilities, it reflects the percentage of people who lack basic, or minimally essential human capabilities, which are ends in themselves and are needed to lift one from income poverty and to sustain strong human development. The CPM considers the lack of three basic capabilities. The first is the lack of being well nourished and healthy, represented in this case by the proportion of children under five years who are underweight. The second is the lack of capability for healthy reproduction, shown by the proportion of births unattended by trained personnel. The third is the lack of capability to be educated and knowledgeable, represented by female illiteracy. The composite index emphasizes deprivation of women because, says the report, “It is now well known that the deprivation of women adversely affects the human development of families and of society.” Comparing the new capability poverty measure with the income poverty index, the report found that while 21 per cent of the people in developing countries are below the income poverty line, 37 per cent face capability poverty.   That is, 900 million people in developing countries are income poor, but 1.6 billion are capability poor.”    http://www.womenaid.org/press/info/poverty/cpm.html

Copyright © Oromianeconomist 2013 and Oromia Quarterly 1997-2013. All rights reserved. Disclaimer.
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Enemies of Human Development: Structural Injustices, the Lack of Social Competence and Human Insecurity March 15, 2013

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index#Africa

‘The political problem of mankind is to combine three things: Economic Efficiency, Social Justice and Individual Liberty.’ John Maynard Keynes

‘The traditional agendas for reducing poverty recognize but inadequately address its structural sources. Contemporary interventions to promote inclusive growth have tended to focus on the outcomes of development through expanding and strengthening social safety nets. While such public initiatives are to be encouraged, they address the symptoms of poverty, not its sources. The results of such restrictive interventions are reduction of income poverty to varying degrees and some improvement in human development. But across much of the South, income inequalities have increased, social disparities have widened and injustice remains pervasive, while the structural sources of poverty remain intact. Any credible agenda to end poverty must correct the structural injustices that perpetuate it. Inequitable access to wealth and knowledge disempowers the excluded from competing in the marketplace. Rural poverty, for example, originates in insufficient access to land and water for less privileged segments of rural society. Land ownership has been not only a source of economic privilege, but also a source of social and political authority. The prevailing structures of land ownership remain inimical to a functioning democratic order. Similarly, lack of access to capital and property perpetuates urban poverty. Unequal participation in the market With the prevailing property structures of society, the resource-poor remain excluded from more-dynamic market sectors. The main agents of production tend to be the urban elite, who own the corporate assets that power faster growing economic sectors. By contrast, the excluded partake only as primary producers and wage earners, at the lowest end of the production and marketing chains, leaving them with little  opportunity to share in market economy opportunities for adding value to their labour. Capital markets have failed to provide sufficient credit to the excluded, even though they have demonstrated their creditworthiness through low default rates in the micro credit market. And formal capital markets have not provided financial instruments to attract the savings of the excluded and transform them into investment assets in the faster growing corporate sector.

Unjust governance:This inequitable and unjust social and economic universe can be compounded by unjust governance. Often the excluded remain voiceless in the institutions of governance and thus underserved by public institutions. The institutions of democracy remain unresponsive to the needs of the excluded, both in the design of policy agendas and in the selection of electoral candidates. Representative institutions thus tend to be monopolized by the affluent and socially powerful, who then use office to enhance their wealth and perpetuate their hold over power. Promoting structural change to correct these structural injustices, policy agendas need to be made more inclusive by strengthening the capacity of the excluded to participate on more equitable terms in the market economy and the democratic polity. Such agendas should reposition the excluded within the processes of production, distribution and governance. The production process needs to graduate the excluded from living out their lives exclusively as wage earners and tenant farmers by investing them with the capacity to become owners of productive assets. The distribution process must elevate the excluded beyond their inherited role as primary producers by enabling them to move upmarket through greater opportunities to share in adding value through collective action. Access to assets and markets must be backed by equitable access to quality health care and education, integral to empowering the excluded. The governance process must increase the active participation of the excluded in representative institutions, which is crucial to enhancing their voice in decision making and providing access to the institutions of governance.

Social competencies, human development beyond the individual: Individuals cannot flourish alone; indeed, they cannot function alone. The human development approach, however, has been essentially individualistic, assuming that development is the expansion of individuals’ capabilities or freedoms. Yet there are aspects of societies that affect individuals but cannot be assessed at the individual level because they are based on relationships, such as how well families or communities function, summarized for society as a whole in the ideas of social cohesion and social inclusion. Individuals are bound up with others. Social institutions affect individuals’ identities and choices. Being a member of a healthy society is an essential part of a thriving existence. So one task of the human development approach is to explore the nature of social institutions that are favourable for human flourishing. Development then has to be assessed not only for the short-run impact on individual capabilities, but also for whether society evolves in a way that supports human flourishing. Social conditions affect not only the outcomes of individuals in a particular society today, but also those of future generations. Social institutions are all institutions in which people act collectively (that is, they involve more than one person), other than profit-making market institutions and the state. They include formal non-governmental organizations, informal associations, cooperatives, producer associations, neighbourhood associations, sports clubs, savings associations and many more. They also consist of norms and rules of behaviour affecting human development outcomes. For example, attitudes towards employment affect material well-being, and norms of hierarchy and discrimination affect inequality, discrimination, empowerment, political freedom and so on. To describe what those institutions can be and do, and to understand how they affect individuals, we can use the term social  competencies.Central to the human development perspective is that societal norms affect people’s choices and behaviours towards others, thus influencing outcomes in the whole community. Community norms and behaviours can constrain choice in deleterious ways from a human development perspective—for example, ostracizing, or in extreme cases killing, those who make choices that contravene social rules. Families trapped in poverty by informal norms that support early marriage and dowry requirements might reject changes to such entrenched social norms. Social institutions change over time, and those changes may be accompanied by social tension if they hamper the interests of some groups while favouring others. Policy change is the outcome of a political struggle in which different groups (and individuals) support or oppose particular changes. In this struggle, unorganized individuals are generally powerless, but by joining together they can acquire power collectively. Social action favouring human development (such as policies to extend education, progressive taxation and minimum wages) happens not spontaneously, but because of groups that are effective in supporting change, such as producer groups, worker associations, social movements and political parties. These organizations are especially crucial for poorer people, as demonstrated by a group of sex workers in Kolkata, India, and women in a squatter community in Cape Town, South Africa, who improved their conditions and self-respect by joining together and exerting collective pressure. Societies vary widely in the number, functions, effectiveness and consequences of their social competencies. Institutions and norms can be classified as human development–promoting, human development–neutral and human development–undermining. It is fundamental to identify and encourage those that promote valuable capabilities and relationships among and between individuals and institutions. Some social institutions (including norms) can support human development in some respects but not in others: for example, strong family bonds can provide individuals with support during upheavals, but may constrain individual choices and opportunities. Broadly speaking, institutions that promote social cohesion and human development show low levels of disparity across groups (for example, ethnic, religious or gender groups) and high levels of interaction and trust among people and across groups, which results in solidarity and the absence of violent conflict. It is not a coincidence that 5 of the 10 most peaceful countries in the world in 2012, according to the Global Peace Index, are also among the most equal societies as measured by loss in Human Development Index value due to inequality. They are also characterized by the absence of discrimination and low levels of marginalization. In some instances antidiscriminatory measures can ease the burden of marginalization and partially mitigate the worst effects of exclusion. For instance, US law mandating that hospital emergency rooms offer treatment to all patients regardless of their ability to pay partly mitigates the impact of an expensive health care system with limited coverage, while affirmative action in a range of countries (including Brazil, Malaysia, South Africa and the United States) has improved the situation of deprived groups and contributed to social stability. The study of social institutions and social competencies must form an essential part of the human development approach—including the formation of groups; interactions between groups and individuals; incentives and constraints to collective action; the relationship among groups, politics and policy outcomes; the role of norms in influencing behaviours; and how norms are formed and changed.

The 1994 Human Development Report argued that the concept of security must shift from the idea of a militaristic safeguarding of state borders to the reduction of insecurity in people’s daily lives (or human insecurity). In every society, human security is undermined by a variety of threats, including hunger, disease, crime, unemployment, human rights violations and environmental challenges. The intensity of these threats differs across the world, but human security remains a universal quest for freedom from want and fear.Consider economic insecurity. In the countries of the North, millions of young people are now unable to find work. And in the South, millions of farmers have been unable to earn a decent livelihood and forced to migrate, with many adverse effects, particularly for women. Closely related to insecurity in livelihoods is insecurity in food and nutrition. Many developing country households faced with high food prices cannot afford two square meals a day, undermining progress in child nutrition. Another major cause of impoverishment in many countries, rich and poor, is unequal access to affordable health care. Ill health in the household (especially of the head of the household) is one of the most common sources of impoverishment, as earnings are lost and medical expenses are incurred. Perspectives on security need to shift from a misplaced emphasis on military strength to a well rounded, people-centred view. Progress in this shift can be gleaned in part from statistics on crime, particularly homicides, and military spending.’

According to  the United Nations Development, despite the much exaggerated  recent economic growth data, Ethiopia is still near the bottom of  in its Human Development  Index 2013.Ethiopia ranks 173 out of 187 countries in the Human Development Index 2013 compiled by UNDP. The Index is part of the Human Development Report that is presented annually and measures life expectancy, income and education in countries around the world. Since 2000, Ethiopia has registered greater gains than all but two other countries in the world – Afghanistan and Sierra Leone. But it still ranks close to the bottom of the Index. Ethiopia is one of the countries that are  known in human rights violations, government waging war against its people, marginalizing communities, political and social discrimination and where the system of structural injustices are the norms than exceptions.

Click to access HDR_2013_EN_complete.pdf

http://maddawalaabuupress.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/ethiopia-ranks-173-out-of-187-countries.html?spref=fb

Click to access HDR_2013_EN_complete.pdf

hdr.undp.org

Click to access HDR_2013_EN_complete.pdf

http://www.thisisafrica.me/opinion/detail/19841/the-oromo-and-the-ethiopian-

http://thinkafricapress.com/ethiopia/business-usual-after-meles-human-rights-gambella-world-bank

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