“Regarding the impact on economic growth, the drought-affected areas are peripheral and pastoral communities in the southern and eastern parts of the country,” Finance Minister Abdulaziz Mohammed told Reuters in an interview.
Normally, those parts of the country contribute not more than 5 percent to our GDP. On the other hand, we expect harvest to be more this year.
Abdulaziz said the government will not divert funds from other projects in its budget to deal with the drought.
“The government has immediately responded to the humanitarian crisis and so far we have been able to control the impact of the drought,” he said. “But we have not yet diverted any resource from our development projects. We have been doing it from our own reserves. We don’t expect any diversion.”
Donations offered to address crisis
Earlier this week, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) announced a donation of $97 million for Ethiopia to help feed more than 8 million people in need of aid because of the drought.
Addis Ababa knows that America will pick up the slack. America needs the Ethiopian military’s help in fighting its enemies in the Horn. A pretty happy marriage. Screw those peripheral Ethiopians contributing less than 5% of GDP. All 8 million (or roughly one Switzerland) of them. They are only 8.5% of Ethiopia’s total population, anyway.
Plus EPRDF is so popular it has 100% of the seats in Parliament.
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