11/30/2004

Introduction

Ethiopia is one of the most food insecure countries in the world and recent studies show that Ethiopia’s poor continue to become poorer and the likelihood of greater numbers of them sinking into destitution is ever increasing.  An expanding rural population struggles to eke out a living on ever decreasing plots of land whose fertility and productivity continue to decline.

In a “normal” year, at least five million people out of a population of 70 million are in danger of starvation.  That number can rise to over 13 million people if drought or other factors cause additional shortfalls in agricultural production. In 2005 this is a likely scenario, with estimates that an additional three to seven million people will need emergency relief bringing total needs to between eight and 11 million.

The Ethiopian Government is now focusing on two strategies to bolster national food security.  First, the government has decided to resettle 2.2 million people from the over-crowded highlands into areas deemed by them to have sufficient land; and secondly the government has created a “Safety Net” for the 5.1 million people who are deemed to be chronically food insecure. 

Resettlement

The government’s resettlement plan was announced in June 2003 with the stated aim of moving 2.2 million people over three years.  Close to half of the total number to be resettled were to be drawn from the highlands of Amhara, the epicenter of the famines of the 1970s and 80s.  The Prime Minister publicly admitted that although he had in the past been virulently opposed to resettlement as a solution to Ethiopia’s problems of land shortage and growing hunger he could no longer see any alternative.  The Government therefore appealed to the international community to provide $170 million to support the program, pointing out that it represented only half of what the US alone had provided in emergency assistance in 2003.   

The massive and highly coercive resettlement program of the mid 1980s had left a bitter taste in the minds of both donors and many Ethiopians. And so a new program four times larger than its predecessor gives rise to a host of questions.  The first set of questions revolve around the management and implementation of the project and the second around whether in fact resettlement is any sort of long term solution at all.

The government manual for the resettlement program stresses its voluntary nature and lays out the guidelines for its management and implementation. However, donors’ fears have to some extent been substantiated as implementation of the program has on occasion deviated seriously from the procedures laid down in the guidelines.  Whether justified or not, this has now given rise to fears that increased levels of coercion and inducement will be used to fill quotas for resettlement in 2005.

During 2003 and 2004 the program was implemented in an inconsistent and hurried manner resulting in a variety of different problems during registration, transport, site preparation and service provision leading to a variety of health and environmental problems. As a result an unknown number of people died from disease and hunger. The overall picture is far from uniform, however, and there is evidence that many resettlers have fared well and intend to make a go of it on their new lands. At the same time there is evidence of settlers returning to their original homes (e.g. Wolayita 38%; Konta 49%; Basketo 69%.). Return within 3 years is a right guaranteed in the implementation manual and is evidence that the Government’s contract with the settlers is to some extent being respected. But there is also evidence that in a number of isolated cases people are, and have been, prevented from leaving resettlement sites, as has happened to some of the Konso people resettled onto the lands of the Mursi in the Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR).

The Government’s responses to these implementation difficulties have been inconsistent.  In Oromiya a major reduction in targets for 2005 from 200,000 to 15,000 people has been proposed by the Government as it undertakes a major effort to remedy defects in the 2003 and 2004 implementation.  By contrast it appears that in Amhara food will be used as a coercive tool and be denied to the landless in the run up to registration in order to encourage a spirit of volunteering and thus maintain, if not increase, quotas. In the South, the complex ethnic picture continues to be ignored in the selection of sites and host communities; violent conflicts between settlers and hosts have broken out as a result.

The key areas that continue to worry the international community are:

• Definitions of what is voluntary:  If a landless family prefers to remain on food aid and become dependent upon food hand outs when that family is being offered the chance to gain land and resume farming, is it so unreasonable to withhold food aid?  After all the same principle is often applied to those seeking unemployment benefits in the West who make no effort to seek employment.  There the similarity must end for in the Ethiopian case the proposed relocation and subsequent socio-cultural disruption is far more severe.  Alternately a community decision may be made as to who should go for resettlement. This decision may not accord with the views of those selected but does correspond to the exercise of the rights and responsibilities of local leadership. Is this voluntary?
• It is evident that many decisions are centrally made with the expectation that they be regionally implemented without due regard to the training and capacity of local officials.  There is much needless suffering that is the result of inadequately prepared officials implementing over ambitious planning targets. Not only is the training and capacity of local officials inadequate, funding for site selection and preparation is also grossly inadequate. The result is that people are brought to resettlement sites that have no reliable water sources, inadequate health services, agricultural land that is often thickly forested, and roads that quickly become inaccessible when it rains.