The Role of Ethiopian Leaders and Famine
(2004-11-05)

One wonders whether Ethiopia should live in perpetual cycle of drought, famine, and crying for help. Year after year we keep hearing that a significant segment of the Ethiopian population or certain regions of the country are facing severe drought and consequently are in imminent danger of starvation and famine. Sadly, Ethiopian famines have been associated with excess deaths resulting from starvation and epidemic diseases. Governments have come and gone over the last 30 years or so, one blaming its predecessor for doing nothing to prevent famine and help the hungry, and yet food insecurity in Ethiopia still persists at a greater magnitude. This extremely sad disaster has been going for too long that the very name Ethiopia is now almost synonymous with drought and famine. One of the most pressing question of our time is that is there something we can do to change this extremely deplorable situation? Can we help the Ethiopian people escape mass starvation? 

Although all governments in Ethiopia have blamed bad weather or absence of rainfall, famine is largely a function of the failures of institutions, organizations and government economic and social policies. Instead of famine being a productivity failure of one year or season or an isolated event, it is a direct result of socioeconomic and political failure, including poor agricultural policy, extensive environmental degradation, and inadequate infrastructure in health, education and transportation. Hence, governments should play key role in preventing it, and if they fail, they should be held accountable. 

Experts in the field of poverty and famine inform us that famine should not be a way of life in the 21st century, and it is certainly preventable. As Amartya Sen, the 1998 Nobel Laureate in Economics, said, no functioning democracy in the world has ever gone through famine. This is because, in participatory democracy, the very survival of the regime would be at stake and it would do everything necessary to attack the underlying causes of famine with vigor. Amartya Sen has convincingly argued and demonstrated that famine occurs not from a lack of food, but from entitlements and inequalities built into mechanisms for distributing food. 

We know that dictatorial regimes in Africa including in Ethiopia have used food aid and famine as political weapons for the subjugation of many communities. To its credit, the current government in Ethiopia did not try to hide the disaster as its predecessors. However, it has not done enough. Crying for help in perpetuity and blaming bad weather or foreign governments as a policy is not a starter. Mobilizing resources in response to famine after people began starving is not a good policy either. Investing resources on prevention and mitigation should be the vision for a long-term solution. All of us Ethiopians have an obligation to mobilize significant resources to prevent and mitigate droughts several years in advance. This includes creating short and long-term public projects in drought prone areas to help reduce unemployment, introducing better farming techniques, educating the public about savings and family planning, and making loans available to drought victims. Most importantly, we need to work hard and contribute in building a democratic system where people�s rights are protected not in paper but in reality, and inequalities are eliminated. 

The current government has been in power for 13 years, and much of this time has been a period of relative peace and stability with the exception of the 1998-2000 war with Eritrea. We believe the Ethiopian people deserve real and concrete results during this time. Instead, what we have got is talk and more talk, plan after plan, spin after spin, and shamefully empty rhetoric and promises. How can we compete with other nations for foreign investment and trade if we are perceived as perpetually hungry nation? This has got to stop and the government must take full responsibility for our predicament. It is time that the Ethiopian people have a louder voice and demand accountability from their leaders. The ability to feed ourselves is not just an abstract human right, but is a fundamental basis for human dignity, sustainable development and stability. 

EthiopianForum.com Editorial 
November 5, 2004