Today is World Food Day. There are 967 million people living below the hunger line.
In one of DFID’s splendid new blogs, Howard Taylor, Head of DFID Ethiopia , emphasizes the need for greater agricultural production:
In the long-term, development assistance needs to prioritise agricultural growth and productivty, if we’re to make sure that in years to come everyone, no matter where they live, has enough to eat. In a nutshell, that’s what World Food Day is all about.
Today is a good day to remember Amartya Sen’s book Poverty and Famines, which was written partly about the the Ethiopian famine of 1972-74, and for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize. It begins with this profound observation:
Starvation is characteristic of some people not having enough to eat. It is not the characteristic of there being not enough to eat. While the latter can be a cause of the former, it is but one of many possible causes.
This is a thought of enormous importance. For most of the 967 million people who are hungry, the problem is NOT that there is not enough food, it is that they are too poor to buy it.
We should be cautious about pursuing a policy focused on increasing food production. Our goal should be to increase the incomes and wealth of those who currently live in hunger and other forms of extreme poverty, so that they can exercise entitlement to the food and other things they need. Increasing agricultural productivity is one way to improve the incomes of the rural poor, but it is not necessarily the best way, and so it may not be the way of reducing hunger.
Update: more here.
The BBC sub-editor picked an angle, with the headline Prudence pays off in Ethiopia and the teaser:
With the financial turmoil affecting many of the world’s economies, Elizabeth Blunt in Addis Ababa considers how Ethiopia and other parts of Africa may escape the worst of the credit crisis.
But that headline does not seem to be consistent with the rest of the article which goes more like this:
Over the past few years, Ethiopia has been having something of a boom of its own, and Addis Ababa is littered with building sites.
But a lot of these ambitious construction projects seem to have got stuck halfway. Some may have run out of cement, but others, even more of them, have probably run out of money.
… In all of this, the only money coming in from outside that is a significant flow in most African countries might be remittances from workers overseas.
I think the financial difficulties might hit Ethiopia, and other African countries, pretty hard; especially if remittances dry up, investment (such as it is) falters, and rich countries become more protectionist and less likely to give aid.
We ran ten miles this morning at the top of Entoto with a great group of runners. The Entoto national park is a beautiful place to run, with views across Addis Ababa.
As the elevation chart below shows (full size), it is at over 10,000 feet, so you feel the lack of oxygen.
All the photos from this morning are here, or as a slideshow. If you have been running somewhere more beautiful this morning, I’d like to hear about it.
Yesterday was New Year’s Day here in Ethiopia – it was the first day of 2001 on the Ethiopian Calendar. Grethe and I celebrated by going for a run in the hills overlooking the city.
About 12-13 million Ethiopians need food relief or emergency assistance as a result of the failure of the short rains in southern Ethiopia, according to AFP:
The lack of rain in the main February to April wet season has left at least 75,000 Ethiopian children under age five at risk from malnutrition, OCHA said. …The United Nations appealed in June for 325.2 million dollars mainly for drought victims . Only 52 percent of the appeal has been met.
I don’t understand how this can happen. We presumably knew – or could have known – in April that the short rains had failed, and that there would be hunger in southern Ethiopia. So how is it that we find ourselves in September – at least 4 full months later – and we’ve only raised half the money we need to prevent people from dying of hunger?
I am told that the food shortages were accurately predicted by the experts as early as May. But this predictions don’t translate into political pressure, and thus funding, until there are pictures on TV of children with distended bellies and flies on their face.
So the question for the future is: how can we translate warnings about food shortages into a flow of the necessary resources without having to wait for people to start to die?
This is the entrance to a tiny 13th Century Rock Church in Tigray, called Abuna Yemata Guh. And yes, that’s a narrow ledge you have to walk along, with a 200 metre vertical drop to your left, at the end of a terrifying ascent up the side of a cliff to get there.
The dangerous climb is rewarded with an extraordinary church, carved into the rock, with glorious paintings.
More photos here or as a slideshow.
I’ve been puzzling for a while about why food prices are rising here in Ethiopia. Teff, the local grain, has trebled in price from about 400 Birr per quintal to about 1,200 Birr for the same amount. There is almost no global trade in teff, so it does not seem to be an effect of rising global teff prices. Teff production has been at high levels for four years, according to Ethiopian government statistics (which may be inaccurate); and there is no obvious reason why overall food demand should have increased enough to cause such a sharp increase in prices.
A few weeks ago, Javier Blas in the FT, offered one possible explanation. He said that the problem was abnormally high demand, driven by substitution effects:
United Nations’ agriculture and food aid officials said that record prices of imported food have prompted a substitution effect, boosting the demand – and the price – of indigenous staples such as yam, sweetpotato, sorghum, cassava, millet or teff in Africa, Latin America andparts of Asia.
I’d be surprised if the price of teff would treble as a result of the rising price of substitute products, though I suppose this is theoretically possible.
Yesterday, Barney Jopson, also in the FT, apparently reporting from here in Addis, offered a different explanation:
The crisis has been magnified by local factors – drought, hoarding, and a splurge of public infrastructure investment that has left the finances of the country’s cash-strapped government under strain.
Unfortunately, Jopson doesn’t offer us any evidence for any of this. Who are these people “hoarding” teff, and where is it? In which parts of the country has drought caused a reduction in teff production, and by how much has the supply of teff fallen, overall? I’m particularly at a loss to understand Jopson’s thought that investment in public infrastructure would lead to rising food prices (though I can see why it has made it more difficult for the Government of Ethiopia to use subsidies or tax cuts to offset the effects.)
I’d like to see some more thorough reporting of teff production. My hunch is that food production figures have been flattered by official statistics in recent years, possibly to bolster GDP growth figures (agricultural production being a substantial share of GDP), and that the government has run down domestic teff reserves to make up the difference between actual and reported production. Now that the reserves are running low, the tightening of supply is leading to the increase in prices. But I have no more evidence for this than Jopson’s theory that it is because of hoarding.
In a slightly whimsical account of Bill Clinton’s trip to Ethiopia in The Guardian, we find this:
Awke Tiruneh and his wife Emaye Beyene are not the only couple who are faintly bemused. They are pleased with their two lightbulbs, one in the main room and a second in the kitchen annexe of their pristine mud hut, and with the radio that everybody in Rema tunes to get music, not news. But they say they don’t want anything else.“When they have more money, they don’t know what to do with it in Rema,” says Samson Tsegaye, country director of the Solar Power Foundation. “They are happy. They don’t need a Mercedes or a television. When they have money, the men are always going to the bar.
The idea that the people of Rema “don’t want anything else” seems improbable to me. I am all for looking at consumerism with a sceptical eye; but there is a world of difference between conspicuous consumption and having enough money to send your children to school, or to afford health care, or to have what you need to cope with the failure of the harvest. And why shouldn’t the people of Rema have a television if they want one? Does the country director of a western NGO really speak for them?
In Le Monde, David Martin has a rather intelligent piece about aid to Ethiopia:
Major operators such as Difid, the British government arm, and USAid play a cat-and-mouse game with the government (GoE) because Meles is sensitive about external pressures in an environment in which domestic critics are almost silenced and expatriate websites blocked. Yet donor aid contributes at least 20% of GNP to a precarious economy, so cash can’t be turned away.Donors are aware of their power and responsibility. With the Ethiopian opposition parties in disarray (1) they are the only real curb on Meles. Big-time donors (the World Bank via the International Development Association, UNDP, the US, the UK, international NGOs) work through GoE to agreed MDG objectives set out in the government’s plan for accelerated and sustained development to end poverty (PASDEP). Cash goes to approved projects administered by Ethiopians.
I do wonder about the role donors should play when the domestic political opposition does not exist or, as in this case, is in disarray. It is tempting for donors to step in to the gap and provide the necessary checks and balances. But in the end this undermines the space for parliament and opposition parties to hold the government to account.
So my view is that donors should avoid playing this role: not because I don’t think it is important to hold governments to account but because I do.
We went recently to the village of Amber, about 6 hours north of Addis Ababa, to spend some time listening to people telling us about their attitudes to children, marriage, divorce, sex, abortion and contraceptions. (This is part of G’s work; I went along to listen and learn.)
The most surprising thing to me was that, although this is a deeply religious society, there were no social, religious or other concerns about people using contraception and abortion to limit the size of their family. The concern that people have about the pressure on land of having too many children in the community was far more pressing. The only objections to contraception were (perceived and real) side effects and the practicalities (and cost) of getting it.
launched Google News in English for Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe,
Namibia, Ghana, Uganda and Botswana allowing users to search and view news in
localized editions, and helping dozens of African news sites make their stories
available to users worldwide.
Google News Ethiopia is here: http://news.google.com.et/
The Los Angeles Times reckons it knows the causes of Ethiopia’s famines:
Simply put, the nation, in which 85% of people toil as small farmers, has reached a point where it can’t easily grow enough food to meet its needs. Although agricultural production has increased overall, it has declined per capita, according to the World Bank.
This is a complete pile of piffle. Overpopulation is not the problem:
- Population density is about 70 people per km2 in Ethiopia. That may seem a lot – it is about twice the density of the US. But Nigeria has a population density of 142 p/km2; China 138 p/km2; Sri Lanka 316 p/km2; Rwanda 343 p/km2; South Korea 498 p/km2. There is no famine in any of those countries. So why is 70 people per square km too many in Ethiopia?
- There was famine in Ethiopia in both the 1970s and 1980s, when the population was one third and one half, respectively, of the population today.
- Of Ethiopia’s 113 million hectares, less than 5% is currently irrigated. Ethiopia is the water tower of East Africa, with huge natural resources. But it is one of the lowest ranked countries in the world in the use of irrigation, fertilizers, modified seeds, tractors and other technologies that would multiply agricultural production.
The problem in Ethiopia’s agriculture is not shortage of land relative to the size of the population but shortage of resources, especially money and appropriate technology.
You have to wonder at lazy journalism like this. Is there a whiff of racism in the knee-jerk assumption that Ethiopia’s problem is that there are “too many of them”?
Here is the Marie Stopes team for the Olympic Day Ring Road Relay yesterday. Each team of 12 people ran a kilometre each on the newly built ring road, between Meganagna and Bole. It was an out-and-back route, so we got to see the elite athletes going past. Haile Gebrselassie presented the prizes at the finish.
I have to say it isn’t easy to run a kilometre anyway – it is a lung-busting, all out effort – but it is harder still with the heat and pollution of the Addis ring road.
And this is what power-athletes have for breakfast.
I would be trying to beg, steal or borrow tickets for the Ethiopiques concert at the Barbican Hall, London, on Friday June 27. Here is an extract from an article in the weekend FT: Raider of the lost archives:
The golden age of Ethiopian music ran from 1969 to 1978. In the last years of Haile Selassie’s reign, censorship relaxed sufficiently for an outpouring of musical creativity. Musicians thronged the nightclubs of Addis Ababa and about 500 singles and 30 albums were recorded in that period. …
Ethiopian musicians, who had remained aloof from musical developments in the rest of Africa, mixed these influences from American R&B with their own music into something distinctive and strange. At the time, it was denounced. “When you read the press of the time”, says Falceto, “there are polemics against abandoning the culture and so on.” …
Many of the musicians whose 1970s heydays are captured on the Ethiopiques series are still working, mostly playing for the vast Ethiopian diaspora, more than 1m-strong in the US alone. Ahmed and the influential arranger and keyboard player Mulatu Astatké both live there, working largely with American bands. At the Barbican, they will be joined by Alèmayèhu Eshèté, who channels the spirit of James Brown, and by the saxophonist Gétachèw Mèkurya. Instrumental support will come from the Either/Orchestra, a Boston-based group.
(Hat tip to my Mum for spotting the article and sending me the link.)
Every day, about a 120 children come to get lunch at Beza le Hiwot, a day-centre at near the Merkato in Addis Ababa.
Their food is provided by Our Father’s Kitchen, set up a year ago by Yasser and Manal Bagersh who own a couple of restaurants here in Addis. Their kitchens provide food every day for these children, most of whom are living with HIV.
It costs 217.20 birr (about $20) a month to feed a child every day. A decent meal is an essential part of staying healthy for a child living with AIDS – the drugs make you sick on an empty stomach – and the simple provision of this meal enables these children to go to school. With this simple investment, Yasser and Manal are transforming the lives of these children.
They want to expand the programme and they are launching a pledge campaign. Yasser is setting up a website for people to donate; until then you can pick up a sponsorship form at The Lime Tree Cafe or email ourfatherskitchen@yahoo.com.
I’ve been enjoying a new technique for losing weight.
First, eat or drink something that does not completely agree with you, in a tropical country like Ethiopia.
Then spend three days as fluids gush from every orifice, like a three-cornered fountain in a town square. The fever flushes and shivers last only a day, and the headaches only for two.
(It seems to defy the laws of physics that you can lose more than your own body-weight in water, but I never understood the thing about which way water swirls down a plughole at the Equator either.)
By the third day, your throat may be sore from the acidic vomit, and you may not have regained your appetite, but you’ll be a lot lighter than you were on Thursday afternoon.
We are still in a hotel, so I don’t have bathroom scales to measure the effect. But I estimate that my weight must now be slightly less than zero.
I’ll keep taking sachets of oral dehydration salts in the hope that my equilibrium will be restored.
The thing you notice most flying in to Addis Ababa is the amount of construction everywhere. This part of Addis, the Bole area, is full of shops and restaurants, and new houses and hotels are being built everywhere.
Addis has always benefited from having plenty of great coffee shops (coffee did, by some accounts, originate in Ethiopia). Now many of them have free wireless internet too – like the Swiss Cafe, which has this splendid sculpture outside its door.
With the traffic and pollution, this part of Addis feels more like Los Angeles than Berkeley. But inside the coffee shop – paying about 20p for an excellent cappucino and free wireless – you could almost be in the Bay Area.
Flying in to Addis on Monday morning we flew over Lake Tana, the source of the Blue Nile and readily identifiable by its distinctive shape. It was a nice reminder to me of the wealth of natural resources that this beautiful country has to offer.
Addis is a huge building site. From the air you can see the impressive scale of the new buildings and roads that are springing up over this growing city (5 million people and growing). I’ve been told be an infrastructure expert that the Ethiopians are managing this construction well, which is consistent with my impression of the government as well-organized, if a bit over-controlling.
Less reassuring is the thick layer smog (or is it just the dust of construction?) all over the lower parts of the city. The air looks clearer in the surrounding hills.
And Addis is bustling. We ate last night in a restaurant filled with affluent Ethiopians. The man at the next table was using is Apple iPhone. But the urban poor are being hard hit by the sharp rise in food prices, including Teff (the grain which is Ethiopia’s staple) – one friend noticed that the little group of people who meet on the street near our hotel to share a meagre breakfast has risen from about 5 people to about 15 in the last few weeks.
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