Tag Archives: Ethiopia

Development and how to achieve it

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A while back I argued for a move away form small scale, “pro-poor” development strategies to more robust development strategies aimed at economic innovation and large-scale job creation. This is not to say that micro-development should be neglected. What I am saying is that jua kali kiosks will not increase Africa’s per capita income to 10,000 USD. The most they do is enable people to cope without really changing their standard of living.

Alkags, a blog I just discovered, deals with this debate.

Aid watch also has videos from a conference at the Yale law school on development. Chris Blattman and William Easterly are some of the featured development experts. Blattman makes some interesting comments about micro-finance, industrialization (medium to large farms) and development.

Quoting Blattman: “I think we have gone too far in the pro-poor direction…… we don’t necessarily have trade-offs. Factories are pro-poor.”

as if somalis did not have enough problems….

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The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is implicated in a leaked report that suggests that corrupt officials have been diverting food aid intended for displaced Somali refugees. It is feared that al-Shabab (the Islamist insurgency group that is fighting against Somalia’s transitional government and its international backers) is benefiting from the diversion of food aid.

Diversion of food aid for other ends is not new in this region of the Continent. In the 1980s when the Ethiopian government under tin pot dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam was fighting Eritrean and Meles Zenawi-led rebels, both sides of the conflict diverted food aid and used it to purchase weapons, with disastrous consequences. The CIA seems to have forgotten about this particular case. The agency is a key nemesis of al-Shabab in Somalia.

togo goes to the polls

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Togo, a tiny West African country of 6.6 million, goes to the polls today. Faure Gnassingbe, President of Togo and son of the late strongman Gnassingbe Eyadema, is hoping to be re-elected for a second term. His father ruled the country uninterrupted between 1967 until his death in 2005. The younger Gnassingbe was then installed by the military as interim president before elections were held. Most observers believe that these elections were not free and fair. Many hope that this time round things will be different.Yeah right.

African democracy’s teething problems will not go away just yet. 2010’s busy elections schedule will surely bring some of these problems to the fore. The top four to watch include the elections in Rwanda, Ethiopia, Madagascar and Ivory Coast. Paul Kagame will most certainly win in Rwanda, but the question is how much room he will give the opposition this time round. Mr.Kagame has been president since his forces ended the Rwanda genocide in 1994 and has been touted to be among the more economically liberal strongmen on the Continent (he is no Tutu but he is good for business). In Ethiopia Meles Zenawi’s party, Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDP), is also expected to win. Mr. Zenawi has been in power since he deposed the tin pot despot Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991. Here too it remains unclear just how much opposition Mr. Zenawi will tolerate in parliament.

Madagascar, as you may remember had a coup in March of last year. It will be interesting to see who emerges as winner in this election. The contest is between the factions led by former DJ and mayor of Antananarivo Andry Rajoelina and the man he kicked out of office Marc Ravalomanana.The political instability in this island country off the east coast of the Continent has not gone without economic consequences.

Ivory Coast, once a paragon of stability in West Africa, is also holding elections this year. This year’s polls were originally planned to be held in 2005 before a bloody civil war that divided the country in half got in the way. The land of Houphouet-Boigny has not known peace and stability since the strongman’s passing in 1993. Mr. Houphouet-Boigny was president between 1963 until his death in 1993. Among his accomplishments was the relocation of the capital of Ivory Coast to Yamoussoukro, his home town, and the construction there of the US $ 300 million Basilica of Our Lady of Peace (which the Guinness Books of records lists as the largest church in the world).

keeping them honest, Aid Watch style

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For those into famines and famine politics, here’s one for you…

And more of the same

And here is more news on Ethiopia’s second insurgency waged by the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF). The Oromo Liberation Front in the southern parts of the country is the other major thorn in Addis Ababa’s flesh. For a man into military victories and invasion of other states I must say I am disappointed in how Zenawi has handled both so far.

links that I liked

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Taking a break from Collier and Hoeffler and Crawford Young (and into my third cup of tea for the night) I came across the following links…

William Easterly has his usual skepticism when it comes to practitioner-certainty in the field of Economics. How I wish I had time to read the two books he is banging on about in the New York Review of Books.

This result of a World Bank funded project is sort of long-ish, but I liked because one of the authors is a fellow student at the department – and because it touches on something that I care about. I can’t wait for the time I shall be doing similar fieldwork…

And Texas in Africa has a piece on Somalia that is asking the right questions. Is it time for the US and the rest of the world to call Al Shabab to the negotiating table? May be not.

the au should get serious on somalia

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The international community has neglected the people of Somalia for almost two decades. Throughout this period the country has been ruled by a bunch of thuggish clan-based warlords. Nobody really knows the exact death toll of the mess the country descended into after the ouster of strongman Siad Barre in the early 1990s. The only time the country came close to be governed by one central government was when Islamists under the Islamic Courts Union ruled large swathes of the country for most of 2006. However, the ICU’s links with Al Qaeda earned them the wrath of the US, which asked Ethiopia to invade and chase away the Islamists.

Now the country has an interim government that spends most of its time dodging militants and shifting from town to town. Somalia’s troubles are rapidly being transferred to the wider Eastern African region. Already the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya is stretched to three times its capacity, putting enormous strain on the Kenyan government and relief agencies. Piracy off the Somali coast is yet another direct result of the anarchy within Somalia. And perhaps most worrisome of all, the threat of terrorist attacks on capitals in the region –  by al-Shabab – is causing many security agents in the region sleepless nights.

It is time the African Union took the Somali peace initiative more seriously. For starters it should urge Eritrea to stop funding the Islamists and then step up its own peacekeeping operations in the country (by sending in more troops). After security – or some semblance of security – has been restored then it should aggressively pursue a pragmatic solution to the country’s conflicts, even if it means splitting it into two like those in Somaliland will most likely want.

the eritrean-ethiopian war, time for a settlement

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Eritrea has not known prolonged peace since the late Emperor Haile Selassie annexed it to make it Ethiopia’s 14th province in 1961. The country then had to endure through a 30 year war of independence that cost thousands of  lives and a lot of resources for both sides.

Relief came in 1991 with the ouster of Haile Selassie’s murderous successor, Mengistu Haile Mariam, in 1991. The new government chose not to continue laying claim on the region, even though it meant that Ethiopia would end up being landlocked. After a UN organized referendum, Eritrea declared its independence in 1993. But in 1998, war broke out again over disputed border territory. The war ended in a UN mediated truce in 2002 that handed most of the disputed territory to Eritrea. Naturally, Ethiopia failed to acknowledge this ruling and instead sent more troops to the volatile border region.

Right now, there are about 1700 UN peace keepers sandwiched between just below 300,000 Ethiopian and Eritrean troops. Each side is talking of the potential annihilation of the adversary if the situation ever degenerates into a full out war. There seems to be a real threat of a return of bloodshed, especially over areas like Badme and Baru. It is hard to imagine that just less than two decades ago the leaders of the two countries were allies in their guerilla struggle against the oppressive regime of Mengistu.

If an all out war breaks out, the real casualties will be the ordinary people on both sides of the border – most of whom have already lost loved ones or have been displaced in the previous wars. The onus is on the leaders of the two countries.  Prime Minister Zenawi and President Afewerki should not play around with their citizens’ lives just to assuage their egos. The land they are willing to sacrifice their countrymen for is a barren frying pan, to put it mildly.

As it stands the odds do not look good for Eritrea. With a population of 4.4 million and a struggling economy, it can ill-afford a war of attrition against Ethiopia with its 75 million strong population and a recent resurgence of US military support to fight extremists in the region. I have a bad feeling that if war breaks out again, the Ethiopians might just make good of their threat to drive the Eritreans into the Red Sea.