Background
- Introduction
- Stumbling Blocks to Growth: Ethiopia
- Oxfam in the Horn of Africa
STUMBLING BLOCKS TO GROWTH: ETHIOPIA
In order to feed its people, Ethiopia regularly depends on food aid. Several factors—political, environmental, and societal—contribute to the country's chronic food shortages.
Ethiopia badly needs basic structural improvements for water management, rural markets, and roads. Consider this:
- Farmers in Ethiopia can't afford to build even simple structures to store their grain and other crops. As a result, food surpluses can’t be placed in reserve to help feed at-risk populations or stabilize prices.
- The central government encourages local farmers to grow corn—which is not resistant to drought—instead of more hardy crops that Ethiopians have traditionally grown, such as sorghum and barley.
- According to the Ethiopian Ministry of Finance, more than 50 percent of Ethiopia's export revenue comes from the sale of coffee. Due to the collapse of coffee prices internationally, the government is losing twice as much as it gained in recent interim debt relief from the World Bank.
- Ethiopia currently has 2.3 million people living with HIV/AIDS—the fifth highest national rate in Africa—affecting 6.6 percent of the adult population. This disease has a direct impact on food production: widespread illness and death are reducing the capacity of families to cultivate crops and are impeding the transfer of farming knowledge across generations. HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment need immediate international attention to contain the spread of the virus.