Posted by OromianEconomist in Uncategorized.
Tags: Africa, Ethiopia, Famine, Famine and the “Ethiopia rising” meme, Famine Ethiopia, Horn of Africa, Hunger and Micronutrient deficiency in Ethiopia, Tyranny and Famine, Why Famine is a Permanent Phenomenon in Ethiopian?, Women and elders) are dying of genocidal mass killings and politically caused famine
In Ethiopia alone, 700,000 people are on the verge of starvation. It is estimated that 8.5 million people are hungry in the country.
A prolonged drought has caused crops to fail and livestock to die in huge numbers.
The situation could get much worse between now and September and likely to continue until April 2018, if people cannot get the help they need, as food stocks are low before the next harvest.
Across the Lake Chad Basin, some 7 million people struggling with food insecurity need asistance.
“Famine does not arrive suddenly or unexpectedly, it comes after months of procrastination and ignored warnings. It is a slow agonizing process, driven by callous national politics and international indifference.” By Nigel Timmins, Oxfam
Today, the world stands on the brink of unprecedented famines. About 30 million people are experiencing alarming hunger, severe levels of food insecurity and malnutrition in north-eastern Nigeria, South Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen. 10 million of them are facing emergency and famine conditions. Famine is already likely happening in parts of northern Nigeria, while Yemen and Somalia are on the brink. Thanks to aid efforts, it has been pushed back in South Sudan but the food crisis continues to spread across the country.
These are just four of the many countries that are facing high levels of food insecurity this year. In Malawi, Sudan, Afghanistan, DRC or Syria millions of people do not have enough food to feed their families. The situation in some of these countries could worsen if the international community do not address urgent needs and resolve the root causes.
What is famine?
Famine represents the most serious food insecurity situation in terms of both scale and severity.
It occurs when a substantial number of people are dying due to a lack of food or because of a combination of lack of food and disease. When more than 20% of households cannot eat, acute malnutrition exceeds 30% and death and starvation are evident we cannot talk about a humanitarian “emergency” situation anymore but a “famine”. Learn more about the language of food crises.
Famine threat on the map
What are the main causes of famine?
There is not a single root cause that just explains all famines – each context has its unique aspects. However, there is always a fatal combination of various factors that can include conflict, insecurity, access, chronic poverty, lack of trade and severe weather events such as persistent drought.
For example, ongoing war and conflict are the primary drivers of the situation in north-eastern Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen, and for Somalia it is drought and weak governance after years of conflict. In some parts of Ethiopia and Kenya, communities are also suffering from a catastrophic drought which makes it incredibly hard for them to buy food locally or have any source of income.
What is sure is that we always have the power to prevent and end famine, but we always let it happen. A declaration of famine is effectively an admission that the international community has failed to organize and act in time and that national governments have been unable or unwilling to respond.
Posted by OromianEconomist in Uncategorized.
Tags: Africa, Famine, Famine Ethiopia, Land Grabs, Tyranny and Famine, Why Famine is a Permanent Phenomenon in Ethiopian?
Ironically, while Ethiopia is facing a hunger crisis and making urgent appeals for aid, tonnes of food are actually leaving the country. This illogical development is due to the fact that the regime in Addis has sold large tracts of arable land to a range of foreign investors and corporations in transactions described as “land grabs.” The process also involves “villagization,” a government-led program which entails the forcible relocation of indigenous communities from locations reserved for large, foreign-owned plantations. Reports by rights groups list a plethora of human rights violations, including murders, beatings, rapes, imprisonment, intimidation, and political coercion by the government and authorities. A report by the Oakland Institute (OI), a prominent international human rights organization, vividly describes how via “strongarm tactics reminiscent of apartheid South Africa, the Ethiopian regime has moved tens of thousands of people against their will to purpose-built communes that have inadequate food and lack health and education facilities to make way for large, foreign-owned commercial agricultural projects.” Notably, the program has also led to food insecurity, a destruction of livelihoods and the loss of cultural heritage of ethnic groups.
By Fikrejesus Amahazion, africabusiness.com
Food insecurity is one of the most pressing humanitarian issues in the Horn of Africa, and the situation is expected to deteriorate further over the coming months. Ethiopia, in particular, is faced with a massive crisis. According to the European Commission, “the situation in Ethiopia is at present the most alarming, where the number of food insecure people has increased from 2.9 million at the beginning of the year to 8.2 million by early October. It is foreseen that these numbers will further rise up to 15 million by the end of 2015. Rates of acute under-nutrition are well above emergency thresholds in many parts of the country, while the response to this situation is hampered by an important shortage of nutrition supplies. In the worst affected areas in the Northern, Central and Eastern regions of the country hundreds of thousands of livestock deaths are reported.” Moreover, UNICEF warns that a large number of those facing hunger will be children; approximately 5 million children will “require relief food assistance during the last quarter of 2015,” with hundreds of thousands urgently requiring treatment for acute severe malnutrition.
The crisis is largely being attributed to the El Niño weather phenomenon and the underperformance of two consecutive rainy seasons, which have combined to negatively affect the country’s agricultural harvest cycle. During the last two months, prolonged, erratic and insufficient rainfall has led to poor vegetation conditions in southern Ethiopia, and widespread drought, which has severely impacted ground conditions.
However, although environmental factors have been significant, it is important to examine the crisis within a broader framework. The roots of hunger are multidimensional and complex; beyond immediate environmental causes, hunger involves a variety of factors including, amongst others, socio-political and governance dynamics. According to scholar Tim Hitchcock, “famines aren’t about the lack of food in the world. They aren’t about the lack of aid. We know that the harvest is going to fail in Eastern Africa once every 12 to 15 years. If you have a working state and your harvest fails, you raise the cash and you buy food and ship it in, and you make sure it is distributed. You don’t allow people to starve.” In Ethiopia, “[hunger and] food insecurity stems from government failures in addressing major structural problems” (Siyoum, Hilhorst, and Van Uffelen 2012).
The European Union (EU) has provided over €1 billion in humanitarian aid to the Horn of Africa since 2011, much of which has gone to Ethiopia. Annually, Ethiopia receives hundreds of millions of dollars in aid from a variety of bilateral and multilateral sources; across the 2004-2013 period, the country was the world’s 4thlargest recipient of foreign assistance, receiving nearly US$6 billion, while in 2011 alone, its share of total global official development assistance – approximately 4 percent – placed it behind only Afghanistan. However, even while it has long-been one of the leading recipients of foreign, humanitarian, and food aid in the world, the country continues to face crises. Why? One influential factor is the debilitating mix of domestic corruption and poor governance. According to prominent development scholar and international economist Dambisa Moyo (2009), aid is often closely linked to corruption and poor governance, and “aid flows destined to help the average African…[get] used for anything, save the developmental purpose for which they were intended.” Moreover, “a constant stream of ‘free’ money is a perfect way to keep an inefficient or simply bad government in power.” In the 1980s, during widespread famine and drought, Ethiopia’s brutal Dergue regime, led by Colonel Mengistu Hailemariam, diverted millions in humanitarian aid to the military, while under the despotic rule of Meles Zenawi, aid was frequently utilized as a political tool of manipulation and repression. Several months ago, leaked emails revealed that the Ethiopian regime, which is now making appeals for aid and external support, was paying the Italian surveillance firm, Hacking Team, to illegally monitor journalists critical of the government.
Corruption and poor governance remain deeply embedded within Ethiopia’s socio-political structure, and the country consistently scores extremely poorly on the World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators, especially within the areas of corruption, rule of law, and governance (Kaufmann, Kraay, and Mastruzzi 2010; World Bank 2014). The indicators, based upon a variety of perceptions-based data sources, provide measures for various states, with scores ranging from around –2.5 (low) to around 2.5 (high). Table 1 illustrates that corruption, rule of law, and governance are significant problems within Ethiopia.
Another area of considerable concern is democracy and civil liberties. Ethiopia has been consistently criticized by an array of international rights groups for its broad range of human rights abuses including its harsh repression of minorities and journalists, press censorship, draconian anti-terror laws that are utilized to silence all forms of dissent, and brutal crackdowns upon opposition groups and protestors.
According to the Polity IV Project (Marshall and Gurr 2013), which is widely used in international comparative analyses of democracy, governance, and human rights practices, Ethiopia is one of the most authoritarian, autocratic states in the world. The Polity IV Project codes the political characteristics of states, using an array of data sources, to rank states from –10, representing least democratic and most autocratic states, to 10, representing most democratic states. Table 2 displays that Ethiopia’s scores place it within the autocratic, authoritarian category. The applicability of this categorization is underscored by the fact that, mere months ago, the government in Addis Ababa won 100 percent of parliamentary seats in a widely discredited national election that involved massive irregularities and intimidation, crackdowns, and arrests of the opposition. 
Importantly, scholars and analysts have pointed to the existence of an intricate relationship between democracy, civil liberty, and hunger or famine. According to internationally renowned development and human rights scholar Amartya Sen, “no democracy has ever suffered a great famine” (1999: 180-181). Specifically, Sen notes that throughout history famines have been avoided in democratic states because these states’ promotion of political and civil rights afford people the opportunity to draw forceful attention to their general needs and to demand appropriate public action through voting, criticizing, protesting, and the like. Authoritarian states, which curtail democracy and free press, sustain much less pressure to respond to the acute suffering of their people and can therefore continue with faulty policies. Sen’s discussion of many of the great famines within recent history – including those in Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, China, the former USSR, and North Korea – helps emphasize the fundamental relationship between democracy, civil liberties, and widespread famine and hunger (Sen 1999).
Ironically, while Ethiopia is facing a hunger crisis and making urgent appeals for aid, tonnes of food are actually leaving the country. This illogical development is due to the fact that the regime in Addis has sold large tracts of arable land to a range of foreign investors and corporations in transactions described as “land grabs.” The process also involves “villagization,” a government-led program which entails the forcible relocation of indigenous communities from locations reserved for large, foreign-owned plantations. Reports by rights groups list a plethora of human rights violations, including murders, beatings, rapes, imprisonment, intimidation, and political coercion by the government and authorities. A report by the Oakland Institute (OI), a prominent international human rights organization, vividly describes how via “strongarm tactics reminiscent of apartheid South Africa, the Ethiopian regime has moved tens of thousands of people against their will to purpose-built communes that have inadequate food and lack health and education facilities to make way for large, foreign-owned commercial agricultural projects.”
Notably, the program has also led to food insecurity, a destruction of livelihoods and the loss of cultural heritage of ethnic groups.
Essentially, the Ethiopian regime’s participation in “land grabs” represents a dire lack of leadership, prioritization, and proper governance. It has caused terrible disruption to local communities and greatly harmed food security in the name of economic development. Such failure is reminiscent of previous humanitarian crises in the country. As described by Mosse (1993), during the 1960s and 1970s, the nomadic Afars of Ethiopia were displaced from their pasturelands in the Awash valley. The Awash River was controlled in the 1960s to provide irrigation for Dutch, Israeli, Italian, and British firms to grow sugar and cotton. Consequently, the annual flooding of the river, which covered the valley with rich soil and provided grazing lands for the Afars, was disrupted. The Afars went in search of new pastures and attempted to make a living on the ecologically fragile uplands, which were poorly suited to their nomadic lifestyle. Cattle found less to eat and the Afars began to starve. Subsequently, when drought struck Ethiopia’s Wollo region in 1972, between 25 and 30 percent of the Afars perished. The problem was not due to particular inadequacies of the Afars – who had flourished for centuries; rather, the problem was with the attempt to develop the Afar lands and bring them into the mainstream economy, without any regard for their actual needs. Ultimately, the pursuit of economic growth or development, if not sensitive or responsive to local needs, can so damage existing local populations and communities that substantial harm, poverty, deprivation, and hunger are created as a result (Mosse 1993).
Ethiopia’s hunger crisis is an important humanitarian issue meriting immediate attention and concern. In order to fully understand the crisis it is imperative to recognize that while the environment has been an important contributing factor, a range of other structural socio-political and governance dynamics, including corruption, the lack of rule of law or democracy, poor governance, failures in long-term planning, and misplaced national and development priorities have also been highly influential.
Posted by OromianEconomist in Famine in Ethiopia, Food Production, Free development vs authoritarian model, Illicit financial outflows from Ethiopia, Land Grabs in Africa.
Tags: Africa, African conditions, African Studies, Developing country, Development, Development and Change, Economic growth, economics, Ethiopia, Famine, Famine Ethiopia, Governance issues, Horn of Africa, The Tyranny of Ethiopia, Tyranny and Famine, Why Famine is a Permanent Phenomenon in Ethiopian?, Women and elders) are dying of genocidal mass killings and politically caused famine
“…UN now warning that without action some “15 million people will require food assistance” next year, more than inside war-torn Syria. ….Hardest-hit areas are Ethiopia’s eastern Afar and southern Somali regions, while water supplies are also unusually low in central and eastern Oromo region.” Unicef
Millions hungry as Ethiopia drought bites
(Unicef, News24, October 22, 2015): The number of hungry Ethiopians needing food aid has risen sharply due to poor rains and the El Nino weather phenomenon with around 7.5 million people now in need, aid officials said on Friday.
That number has nearly doubled since August, when the United Nations said 4.5 million were in need – with the UN now warning that without action some “15 million people will require food assistance” next year, more than inside war-torn Syria.
“Without a robust response supported by the international community, there is a high probability of a significant food insecurity and nutrition disaster,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, said in a report.
The UN children’s agency, Unicef, warns over 300 000 children are severely malnourished.
The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), which makes detailed technical assessments of hunger, predicted a harvest “well below average” in its latest report.
“Unusual livestock deaths continue to be reported,” FEWS NET said. “With smaller herds, few sellable livestock, and almost no income other than charcoal and firewood sales, households are unable to afford adequate quantities of food.”
Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous nation, borders the Horn of Africa nation of Somalia, where some 855 000 people face need “life-saving assistance”, according to the UN, warning that 2.3 million more people there are “highly vulnerable”.
El Nino comes with a warming in sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific, and can cause unusually heavy rains in some parts of the world and drought elsewhere.
Hardest-hit areas are Ethiopia’s eastern Afar and southern Somali regions, while water supplies are also unusually low in central and eastern Oromo region.
Sensitive issue
Food insecurity is a sensitive issue in Ethiopia, hit by famine in 1984-85 after extreme drought.
Today, Ethiopia’s government would rather its reputation was its near-double-digit economic growth and huge infrastructure investment – making the country one of Africa’s top-performing economies and a magnet for foreign investment.
Still, nearly 20 million Ethiopians live below the $1.25 poverty line set by the World Bank, with the poorest some of the most vulnerable to weather challenges.
Ethiopia’s government has mobilised $33m in emergency aid, but the UN says it needs $237m.
Minster for Information Redwan Hussein told reporters at a recent press conference that Ethiopia is doing what it can.
“The support from donor agencies has not yet arrived in time to let us cope with the increasing number of the needy population,” he said.
http://www.news24.com/Multimedia/Africa/Malnutrition-in-Ethiopian-children-20110916
http://www.news24.com/Africa/News/Millions-hungry-as-Ethiopia-drought-bites-20151002
Related:-
Jiraattonni aanaaAdaamii Tulluu , gargaarsa dhabanii beelaan miidhamaa jiru.
OMN:Oduu Onk. 21,2015 Beelli godinaalee Oromiyaa hedduu miidhaa jiru, gara godina Shawaa bahaa aanaa Adaamii Tulluu Jidduu Kombolachaa jedhamutti, babaldhatee akka jiru himame.
Jiraattonni aanaa kanaa, gargaarsa dhabanii beelaan miidhamaa jiraachuu isaanii dubbatan.
Beelli Oromiyaa godinaalee adda addaa keessatti bara kana namootaa fi loon miidhaa jiru, ammas kan hin dhaabbanne ta’uun himamaa jira.
Haaluma kanaan gara godina Shawaa Bahaa aanaa Adaamii Tulluu Jidduu Kombolchaatti babaldhatee akka jirullee jiraattonni dubbatan.
Jiraataan aanichaa tokko OMN f akka himanitti, rooba dhabameen wal qabatee, hoongee uumameen, namoonni hedduun araddaalee gara garaa keessa jiraatan, beelaaf saaxialamanii jiru.
Bara kana keessa bokkaan si’a lama qofa reebe kan jedhan namni kun, sababa kanaan namoonni midhaan facafachuu qaban, nyaataaf oolfataniiru.
Kan hafe ammoo kafaltii xaa’oo akka baasaniif wayta mootummaan dirqisiiseetti, midhaan facafachuuf qopheeffatan gurguranii baasiif kennanii jiru.
Namoonni hedduun qabeenya harkaa qaban waan fixataniif, beelaaf saaxilamuu danda’aniiru jedhan.
Akka namni kun jedhanitti, namoonni hedduun baadiyaa keessa jiraatan, beela sukaneessaa isaan miidhaa jiru jalaa, qe’ee isaanii dhiisanii gara magaalatti deemaa jiru.
Namoota gara magaalatti deemaa jiran keessaa manguddoonni humna dhabeeyyi ta’anis ni jiru.
Erga magaalaa gahanii booda, lubbuu ufii jiraachisuuf jecha, hujii humnaa olii hojjatanii jiraachuudhaaf dirqamanii jiran.
Hujii humnaa kana hojjachuudhaaf kan dirqaman, lubbuu ufii du’a irraa hambisuuf kan jedhan namni kun, beelli bara kana aanaa isaanii muudatee jiru, haalan yaddessaa ta’uu dubbatan.
Namoota beela kanaan miidhamanii asii fi achi deemaa jiran kana, gama mootummaa biyya bulchaa jiruun, haga ammaatti birmannaan taasifameef tokkollee akka hin jirre namni kun dubbatan.
Namoonnii baay’een daa’imman isaanii waan nyaachisan dhabanii rakkataa jiru. Loon ammoo marga dheedan dhabuun du’aaf saaxilamaniiru jedhan.
Rakkoo kanaan dura muldhatee hin beekne kana, mootummaanis gargaaruu dhiisee caldhisee ilaalaa jira kan jedhan namni kun, sababa kanaaf haalli ammaan kana jiru garmalee yaaddessaadha.
Mootummaan humanan taaytaa qabatee jiru, diinaggeen biyyattii dijiitii lamaan guddatee jira jechuun wayta faarsaa jiru kanatti, lammiileen biyyattii hedduun beelaan saaxilamuu isaanii midiyaalee gara garaa gabaasaa jiraachuun ni yaadatama.
Usmaan Ukkumetu gabaase.
https://www.oromiamedia.org/2015/10/jiraattonni-aanaaadaamii-tulluu-gargaarsa-dhabanii-beelaan-miidhamaa-jiru/
https://www.oromiamedia.org/2015/10/omn-oduu-onk-21-2015/
Why is Ethiopia hungry again?
https://oromianeconomist.wordpress.com/2015/10/20/why-is-ethiopia-hungry-again/
The Cause of Ethiopia’s Recurrent Famine Is Not Drought, It Is Authoritarianism
https://oromianeconomist.wordpress.com/2015/08/27/the-cause-of-ethiopias-recurrent-famine-is-not-drought-it-is-authoritarianism/
Drought, food crisis and Famine in Ethiopia 2015: Children and adults are dying of lack of food, water and malnutrition. Animals are perishing of persisting drought. The worst Affected areas are: Eastern and Southern Oromia, Afar, Ogaden and Southern nations.
https://oromianeconomist.wordpress.com/2015/08/14/drought-food-crisis-and-famine-in-ethiopia-2015-children-and-adults-are-dying-of-lack-of-food-water-and-malnutrition-animals-are-perishing-of-persisting-drought-the-worst-affected-areas-are-e/
The tale of two countries (Obama’s/TPLF’s Ethiopia and Real Ethiopia): The Oromo (Children, Women and elders) are dying of genocidal mass killings and politically caused famine, but Obama has been told only rosy stories and shown rosy pictures.
https://oromianeconomist.wordpress.com/2015/08/02/ethiopia-the-oromo-children-women-and-elders-are-dying-of-genocidal-mass-killings-and-politically-caused-famine-but-obama-has-been-told-only-rosy-stories-and-shown-rosy-pictures-africa-oromia/
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