CHALLENGE
Read an article by Dr. Maimire Mennasemay of the Humanities/Philosophy Department of Dawson College, titled: A MILLENNIUM DEMOCRATIC GOAL
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Listen to an audio Montage of music & news stories from the outgoing millennium about drought & famine in Ethiopia.
Montage researched & edited by: Befekir Kebede
An unfortunate event took place in Ethiopia in 1984. The event was a disastrous famine that took thousands of lives. Hunger-stricken Ethiopians were shown on television around the world and people in many countries made contributions to help stop the suffering. But when the famine was gone, the television images continued playing relentlessly. The famine was gone more than twenty years ago but the images are still on television tarnishing the image of Ethiopia. Due to the continual adverse representation of Ethiopia in the western media based on sensationalized and out-of-date information, many are led to believe that Ethiopia is a barren land of drought and famine. Yet the fact is that Ethiopia is one of the most fertile countries in Africa. And another fact is that lack of good governance has mostly been the cause and exacerbating factor of many of the country’s problems including drought and famine. Like Mahatma Gandhi once said, ‘democracies don’t go hungry’. It is the hope of Ethiopians - however - that there will not be a repeat of the famine of 1984 in the new millennium. But as we anticipate a propitious time ahead, lets reflect back on how the world was told about the famine in Ethiopia and how the story kept making headlines almost to date.
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Huge challenge
Addis Ababa is busier and more congested than ever. A stone's throw from the prime minister's office is a local primary school. According to the head teacher, there are 1,800 children here, with sometimes 70 or 80 pupils in a class. Addis has a population of nearly four million and growing. In part, this is due to the huge number of people descending on the capital from the countryside. From the City Council offices at the top of Churchill Avenue, there's a splendid view of Addis.
Inspiration
The Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital, which treats women with childbirth injuries, is another place that is feeling the pressure on basic services in a poor country trying to support a population of 70 million. The hospital's Liaison Co-ordinator, Ruth Kennedy, is an inspiring woman. She came to Ethiopia as a midwife 11 years ago, learnt to speak Amharic, and is totally committed to the vital work that is carried out at this hospital on the western outskirts of the city. "There are just a thousand midwives in the entire country," she explains.
Ethiopia's slogan - "13 months of sunshine" - is being seriously challenged this week. When the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, arrives for the meeting of his Commission for Africa, the rain is pouring down. As the skies slowly clear, Mr Blair visits a community project at Debre Zeit, south-east of Addis Ababa, before the conference.
Ethiopia's challenge to cope with environmental change
Anyone who doubts the impact of the environment on development only has to look at what has happened in Ethiopia over the summer.
Violent floods, which struck towards the end of August, have drowned valuable crops and killed more than 600 people, forcing more than 130,000 to flee their homes. Not only have lives and property been lost, but there is also a heightened risk of water-borne disease. The irony is that for much of the year Ethiopia's most pressing problem is a lack of water - not an over abundance.
"Our most important project, strategically, is education about natural resources," says Teshome Zegeye, CARE's area coordinator for South Gondar, one of CARE's seven field offices in Ethiopia, a region that was particularly hard hit by the floods.
"We are losing resources, and especially water, at an alarming rate," Zegeye continues. "The depletion rate is very high and the runoff is very high." As Zegeye sees it, protecting the environment should receive the same kind of emphasis that development programmes have put on health until now. What is especially needed is a network of dams, catchments and reservoirs that can divert and store water for use during the dry season.
"If the highlands are prepared well, the water runoff can be saved," says CARE's Zegeye. "Otherwise it ravages the lowlands." A problem that environmentalists have faced until now is that it can take five years for a program aimed at conserving water to have an impact and most project funding cycles are short term, ranging from one to two years at the most. Despite the difficulties, CARE has helped villagers in South Gondar construct a catchment project that incudes a small dam and a 1.5 kilometer cement-reinforced aquaduct that diverts water into a 200 cubic-meter reservoir. The project is already providing irrigation for 171 hectares.
Abebaw Kebebe, CARE's millenium water project manager for South Gondar, notes that only 12 per cent of Ethiopia's rural population has access to safe drinking water. CARE has worked with Ethiopian villagers to construct 90 hand-operated water pumps in the area. Each pump serves 40 to 50 households. Villagers are delighted. "A year ago we would have to walk for an hour to find water," says Mare Tasew, 40, who lives in a hut a few feet from the community's new pump. "Before, we had no choice," says Mare. "We took our pots and we wandered everywhere until we found water. We would depend on God to provide water and we would fetch it. We hope that CARE will have a long life. "
In addition to better access, providing safe water is an important step in preventing water-borne diseases. "The wells take water from deeper underground and the springs are now protected," explains CARE's Abebaw. "The project is training people to boil water or filter it. The change from rivers and ponds to protected sources takes a long time and it takes education. We teach everyone to wash their hands and to keep the water containers clean."
Abebaw is also concerned about the damage caused by the annual flooding of Ethiopia's rivers. "Erosion is one of the most critical problems," he says. "At least 200 tons of topsoil is lost per year from productive areas, and most of the water is lost in runoff. The eroded soil comes down as silt and it damages the farm land lower down."
"The action to deal with the flooding tends to be sporadic," he says, "and there is often no continuity. The sheer size of the problem forces the policies to change. We make progress, but then nature pushes us back."
For rural farmers, accustomed to cultivating land without realizing that it needs protection, action means making a sacrifice. "If they build a dam, they may end up losing up to 10 per cent of their land," says Abebaw. "They lose the immediate benefit, and they are not in a position to see the long term benefit."
To the south, in Yabella, Borona, Ethiopia faces a different environmental problem. "Here drought is the major challenge," says CARE's area coordinator, Halake Bante. During the height of the drought, many of the animals were too weak to make it to the market. CARE assisted the community in setting up destocking centers which bought weaker animals, allowing families to earn some income rather than loose the total value.
The search for pasture for those animals that were still healthy exacerbated tensions between tribes, and herdsmen also complained that thorny bushes and undergrowth were fast reducing the available land that was left.
Coping with one crisis after another makes it difficult to see the bigger picture, but for some villagers there is a sense that, with the growing pressure on the land , this change may be irreversible. "When we were here before there was grass everywhere," says Adi Wako, 70. "There was no drought. One cow was enough to support a family. When I was my daughter's age, we depended only on livestock. It provided roast meat for the dry times, and butter. Now the milk is gone. The thorny bushes are spreading. Good grazing land is harder to find and the livestock is less and less."
Source: CARE Article - Ethiopia's challenge to cope with environmental change. By Bill Dowell