Posts filed under ‘charity’
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – The International Monetary Fund (IMF) will give Ethiopia $62.7 million from its Exogenous Shock Facility, the final tranche of a $240.2 million package.
The lender said in a statement late on Monday that Ethiopia had successfully implemented good macroeconomic policies, such as bringing soaring inflation down and building international reserves to about 2.1 months of import cover.
“Inflation has continued to decline, reflecting monetary restraint and aided by favorable weather conditions,” the IMF said in the statement on its website.
“The mild impact of the global recession on the Ethiopian economy has allowed for better performance on the external targets.”
Ethiopia, one of Africa’s fastest growing economies, on Monday said year-on-year inflation was 10.6 percent in October, compared with 64.2 percent in July 2008.
The rate has been generally declining since the government stopped state borrowing and increased bank reserves.
The Horn of Africa country also devalued its currency by 16.7 percent in September, a move the IMF said would bolster Ethiopia’s competitiveness.
The fund forecasts Ethiopia’s economy will grow by 8.0 percent this year and 8.5 percent in 2011.
© Thomson Reuters 2010 All rights reserved
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November 16, 2010 at 8:02 PM
Small farmers are being threatened by large agriculture.
Photo: Marguerite Pettit
The African nation of Ethiopia has struggled with war, famine and drought for decades, yet today’s government is aggressively pursuing a policy that is seeing large tracts or fertile land sold to foreign entities with little or no benefit to Ethiopians. Ethiopia’s Ambassador to India Gennet Zewide is encouraging investment in agriculture at a cost to private companies she describes as ‘negligible’.
Ethiopia’s Constitution prohibits private ownership of land, instead it vests ownership and control in the State. However the Ethiopian government is offering long term leases to foreign owned entities, essentially forbidding their own citizens from land ownership while encouraging foreign possession.
The economic advantages to Ethiopians from this style of investment may be just as negligible as the cost of investment. In a country where 13 million people still rely on food aid, and the conditions for growing crops are fragile, exporting food to India and other countries will entrench existing problems.
A recent report by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization et al warns that although land in Africa may seem abundant and available existing land users often lack the means to register title or claim the land they are using. Many land users are marginalized from mechanisms allowing them to demonstrate ownership.
Understanding the scale of the development is extremely difficult due to the overlapping regional and national registers as well as the likelihood of undocumented land deals. The Oromia state investment promotion agency revealed 22 actual or existing land deals, while their national counterpart boasts 148 deals.
Indian firms are certainly not the only ones buying up valuable land in Ethiopia, the Saudi’s are also heavily investing in the region. What is troubling is that the government’s eagerness to secure such investment may come at the price of securing its citizens basic human rights to food, water and shelter. Given Ethiopia’s Constitutional view that private property rights do not exist, their willingness to lease their land to foreign owned entities is worrying.
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November 1, 2010 at 10:47 PM
The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Welthungerhilfe and Concern Worldwide, released its annual 2010 Global Hunger Index. The report notes; whereas some strides have been made to curb global hunger, “the index for hunger in the world remains at a level characterized as “serious.””
With over “one billion hungry people” around the world, the report offers an interesting look at the “Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – which include a goal of reducing the proportion of hungry people by half” by the 2015 deadline (i.e. in five more years). “Low government effectiveness, conflict, political instability, and high rates of HIV and AIDS” are cited as “among the major factors” perpetuating the problem in Sub-Saharan Africa. Whereas Burundi, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Eritrea exhibit an extremely alarming level of hunger, another 21 countries, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia have an alarming hunger level.
The report credits Ethiopia, along with Angola, Ghana, Mozambique, Nicaragua and Vietnam, for making the largest improvements between 1990 and 2010. IFPRI has a regional office based in Ethiopia. Ranked 80th out of 84 countries included in the report, Ethiopia’s Global Hunger Index (GHI) dropped from 43.7 to 29.8 in two decade’s time (it is an open question whether that is supposed to be a noteworthy progress for TPLF’s ironfisted rule in the last 20 years).According to the report, 51% of children in Ethiopia are stunted (a measure of child undernourishment that is characterized by low height for one’s age). Ethiopia is also noted as a recipient of USAID’s, Feed the Future, a U.S. government’s global hunger and food security initiative that aims to spend “$3.5 billion” on developing country’s investment plans to reduce poverty, improve nutrition and agriculture.
The 2010 GHI report earns yet another ignoble distinction for Ethiopia in addition to already being named;
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And
the worst place where press freedom has immensely deteriorated, if any existed.
Ethiopia is now the 5
th hungriest place on Earth worse than Sierra Leone, Haiti and many other war-ravaged nations even in the sub-Saharan Africa. Zimbabwe and Sudan are tied at 58
th, fared much better than Ethiopia with 20.9 GHI score.
The full Report in PDF: Click to launch the full edition in a new window.
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October 13, 2010 at 4:40 PM
The United States government on Thursday signed a $ 229.3 million agreement with Ethiopia, aimed at expanding cooperation on development programs in education, health, and economic growth, including agriculture and trade.
The amount, due to be channelled through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), results from close consultation between the governments of Ethiopia and the United States on priorities for the improvement and expansion of health and education services, the advancement of rural development and opportunities to generate income and create private enterprises.
The agreement was signed in Addis Ababa between USAID and the Ethiopian Ministry of Finance and Economic Development.
According to the agreement, $23 million will be provided to improve the quality of primary education, with emphasis on increasing girls’ access to education and teacher training.
An additional $157 million will support life-saving maternal, child and reproductive healthcare, as well as combat HIV/AIDS, control malaria, and improve water and sanitation.
In the economic growth sector, $49.3 million will support agricultural productivity and marketing, expansion of trade and private enterprises, protection of natural resources and adaptation to climate change.
USAID Ethiopia is supporting over 100 projects throughout the country.
In addition to these bilateral agreements, the US government also is providing Ethiopia an additional $582.4 million for food assistance, the Productive Safety Net Program, and special initiatives to promote public health, education, food security, conflict resolution and governance, bringing USAID funding to Ethiopia to $812 million in 2010.
It was reported that the total US government assistance to Ethiopia in 2010 has increased to $983 million.
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September 23, 2010 at 9:53 PM
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By Damian Zane BBC, Addis Ababa
It is 1000 on Sunday morning, and a small crowd is waiting by the side of one of the main roads into Addis Ababa, the last leg of Hirut Gedlu’s journey. She is a little late and people begin to wonder where she is, but then she is spotted speeding down the hill. I care, do you? Slogan on Hirut Gedlu’s bicycle Wearing a red, green and yellow striped bandana on her head and riding on a battered mountain bike, this ex-soldier in her 30s appears like a modern-day messiah. She has just finished a 2,500 kilometre journey across her country, on her bike, which took her to 280 places where she preached her anti-Aids message. She stops, finally, at the end of her two and a half month journey, and beams as bunches of roses are thrust into to her hands. And then she speaks. She tells the crowd, which is growing by the minute, where she has been and everyone is clearly impressed with the journey she has made. Changing lives And this must have been the impact that she had in the places she visited. Not a four-wheel drive or a fancy poster in sight, just a woman on a bike. But did people really listen? A modern-day messiah? “Very much so. They were listening with such concentration that I believe I’ve changed their lives, particularly the students, and also in the markets,” Hirut Gedlu says. “I went there so that I could get hold of the farmers and others who come from far away to buy things in the market, so they could hear the message too. “To the students I say how poor we are. We are so poor we can’t afford to lose our youth. “So I teach them to abstain from sex, hold on to their exercise books and be serious about their lessons. Faithful “The married ones in the market place, I tell them to be loyal to their partners. “And I really do believe Aids will be eradicated from Ethiopia.” Many found Ms Gedlu’s mission inspiring With three million adults and a quarter of a million children living with HIV in Ethiopia, eradication may be a long way off. The government and various NGOs have all got their programmes here, and while the efforts of just one person are not going to change the behaviour of millions of people, Hirut Gedlu’s attitude was inspiring. Written on the side of her bike was the slogan “I care, do you?”.
A challenge to everyone.
Source BBC news
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August 23, 2010 at 5:53 PM
By Teymaine Lee
From a 542-square-foot office above a bustling intersection in Harlem, the Rev. Nicholas S. Richards is building what he hopes will be a 7,000-mile bridge to the eastern highlands of Ethiopia.
It is a bridge more than 200 years in the making.
In that modest two-room office off East 125th Street, the Abyssinian Fund, the only nongovernmental organization in Ethiopia formed by an African-American church, the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, finally has a home.
Mr. Richards, 26, an assistant minister at Abyssinian under the Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, is the president of the recently formed Aby Fund, as he calls it, an international aid and development arm of the church. It will soon be joining forces with a co-op of 700 coffee farmers in the ancient Ethiopian city of Harrar, with a mission to improve the quality of the farmers’ lives by helping them improve the quality of their coffee beans. Read further: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/27/nyregion/27abyssinian.html
Source: New york Times
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July 27, 2010 at 5:30 PM
Posted by Kristi Heim
Calling on world health leaders to do more to prevent deaths of mothers and their newborn babies, Melinda Gates said today the Gates Foundation is pledging $1.5 billion over the next five years for family planning, maternal and child health and nutrition in developing countries.
It’s the second largest donation in the foundation’s history, after a $10 billion pledge over 10 years for vaccine development and delivery made in January. The foundation announced today initial grants of $94 million in India and $60 million in Ethiopia.
HARAZ N. GHANBARI/ASSOCIATED PRESS
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon talks with Melinda Gates at the Women Deliver conference in Washington. Ban urged an end to the “silent scandal of women dying in childbirth.”
Among the grants for India, Seattle-based PATH received $24.3 million to demonstrate a model for health services that will save lives of newborns and reduce illness and death of mothers.
Gates challenged the idea that “large numbers of maternal and child deaths are inevitable, or even acceptable, in poor countries.”
“It is not that the world doesn’t know how to save the 350,000 mothers and 3 million newborns who die every year,” she said, speaking at a women’s health conference in Washington D.C. “It is that we haven’t tried hard enough.”
Gates said she would make the health of women and children her personal priority as co-chair of the world’s largest charitable foundation. The foundation will alter its model from one focused on specialized diseases to a more integrated approach.
Women and children “aren’t conditions or procedures or treatment models,” she said. “They are human beings.”
Over the past 30 years, the overall picture has been improving, Gates said, citing recent studies from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and collaborators in Australia that found the number of women dying from pregnancy-related causes has dropped by more than 35 percent — from more than 500,000 annually in 1980 to about 343,000 in 2008.
She called the next several months “a critical window of opportunity to secure new global action,” as Canada will urge donor countries to endorse a major maternal and child health initiative when it hosts the G8 summit in Ontario later this month.
According to the study of maternal mortality in 181 countries, developing nations have made substantial progress, particularly Egypt, China, Ecuador, and Bolivia.
Nearly 80 percent of all maternal deaths are concentrated in 21 countries, and six countries account for more than half of them. Maternal death rates are highest in India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The death rates also rose in a few high-income countries, including the United States, though changes in reporting practices may have contributed to the increase. (Looking at maternal mortality rates globally, the U.S. currently ranks number 39, between Macedonia and Lithuania.)
Gates said family planning could reduce deaths of mothers by 30 percent and newborns by 20 percent, but more than 200 million women have no access to contraception.
“As a woman, I can’t imagine being denied access to the tools I need to plan,” she said. “It is my basic right to be able to choose when to have children.”
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June 8, 2010 at 12:35 AM
By Will Ross BBC News
Ruling party supporters have been angered by foreign criticism of the polls
What do a sports car and the Ethiopian opposition have in common? They both have two seats.
This joke is doing the rounds in Ethiopia after an almost embarrassing landslide victory for the governing EPRDF party and its allies left the opposition with just a lonely brace of seats in the 547 member parliament.
There is no word for “landslide” in the local Amharic language, but they need one now.
The European Union said the polls were marked by restrictions on political freedom and the unfair use of state resources, and there is international concern over increasing repression in Ethiopia.
The United States has every right to use its tax payers’ money as it sees fit
Meles Zenawi Ethiopian prime minister
But Prime Minister Meles Zenawi will not be losing any sleep.
A thorough trouncing is much better for the nerves than a nail-biter and it is unlikely that Ethiopia’s relationship with donor countries will change significantly even if a few fingers are briefly wagged.
The money will keep flowing.
“The United States has every right to use its tax payers’ money as it sees fit,” Mr Meles told reporters after his victory.
“If they feel that the outcome of the elections are such that they cannot continue our partnership, that’s fine.
“We shall be very grateful for the assistance they have given us so far and move on. Clearly we are not a protectorate,” he concluded.
Such comments are easier for Mr Meles to make now that he has a new friend in China – it will not utter a squeak over the elections.
Islamist buffer
China is helping with many infrastructure projects in Ethiopia – including an offer of a $500m (£344m) loan from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China for the construction of the controversial Gibe Three hydroelectric dam.
Ethiopia receives aid worth around $2bn a year, mostly from the US and the UK.
The feeling amongst many donor countries is that the country desperately needs help in fighting poverty, and the money is being spent relatively wisely by Mr Meles’s government.
They see real progress: For example, a recent report by American researchers pointed to success in reducing child mortality.
China is behind many infrastructure projects in Ethiopia
The report said that in 1990, 202 Ethiopian children per 1,000 died before the age of five. In 2010, the rate had halved to 101 deaths per 1,000.
Of course, Ethiopia still has a long way to go in comparison to somewhere like Singapore, where there are just two deaths per 1,000 children under the age of five.
Ethiopia is also a donor darling because it is seen as an invaluable buffer against the growing Islamic extremism in Somalia.
When it comes to America’s foreign policy, any concerns over shrinking democratic space or eye brow leaping election results are totally trumped by any help in “the war on terror”.
Mr Meles could be receiving a few phone calls from other African leaders searching for election tips.
The Ethiopian capital is famous for staging the hugely popular 10km race, the Great Addis Run, but now all talk is of ‘the Great Addis Turn Around’
Paul Kagame of Rwanda may not need the advice but his neighbour in Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, could do with a few hints on how to change the face of politics in the capital, Kampala, ahead of 2011 elections.
The Ethiopian capital is famous for staging the hugely popular 10km race, the Great Addis Run, but now all talk is of “the Great Addis Turn Around”.
Greatest enemies
In 2005, the opposition won all 23 parliamentary seats in Addis. In 2010 it kept just one. How?
The efficient well-oiled governing party machinery was a key factor – I lost count as to how many people told me that “the EPRDF only woke up in 2005″.
It was helped by the fact that the opposition was divided and fairly disorganised.
But many Ethiopia watchers suggest you have to look at what happened to the opposition over five years to get the whole picture.
If you try sending an e-mail from Ethiopia to the Committee to Protect Journalists, it miraculously bounces back
Almost 200 opposition supporters were shot dead when they demonstrated against what they saw as election theft in 2005; thousands were arrested, including opposition leaders who were sent to jail for close to years.
Birtukan Mideksa remains behind bars after being accused of breaking the terms of her pardon.
Press freedom has also been under attack. Journalists have fled the country since 2005 and if you try sending an e-mail from Ethiopia to the Committee to Protect Journalists, it miraculously bounces back.
Filming on the streets of Addis Ababa, it was hard to find people prepared to say on camera that they supported the opposition – many suggested that would be asking for trouble.
Addis Ababa has undergone great change in the last five years
The governing party dismisses all these allegations but analysts point out that the Ethiopian government is only willing to allow a certain degree of democracy and that will always be the root of friction with the donors – China excluded.
US-based Human Rights Watch said the government pressured, intimidated and threatened Ethiopian voters and said the most salient feature of the election was the months of repression preceding it.
One publication recently suggested that the Ethiopian government’s greatest enemies were Eritrea and the weather. Human Rights Watch could also be added to the list.
It clearly angered the government as it shone a light on allegations of repression that no election observer team would be able to find – partly because they were not allowed in the country early enough.
But the African leaders hoping for tips from Mr Meles should also realise that hard work is also useful ahead of an election – it wins votes.
The scale of the housing estates being built on the edge of Addis Ababa is nothing short of staggering.
Time will tell how good the quality of the construction is, but there are also impressive eight-lane roads leading to these suburbs.
The development is by no means restricted to the capital: access to healthcare has improved in the rural areas and in Lalibela, 700km (about 435 miles) away from Addis Ababa, new classrooms are springing up and roads built.
Kenyans, Ugandans and others may be freer than Ethiopians but their list of “What my government has achieved” would be miserably short in comparison.
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June 1, 2010 at 8:21 PM
By Barry Malone
(Reuters) – Ethiopia said on Wednesday it expects another 25,000 refugees fleeing fighting in Somalia to cross its border by the end of the year and appealed for $13 million dollars to feed its refugee population.
U.N. food agency, WFP, which provides all food aid to refugees in Ethiopia, warned that without the extra funding it would have to reduce food rations by June this year.
“With the growing number of refugees, we call upon the donor community to support us to address this humanitarian crisis,” Ayalew Aweke, of Ethiopian refugee agency, ARRA, said in a joint statement with U.N refugee agency, UNHCR.
Ethiopia — one of the world’s poorest countries — is home to more than 68,000 Somali refugees as well 42,000 from Eritrea and 24,000 from Sudan.
“The rapid influx of refugees from southern Somalia and Eritrea has put immense strains on the limited available food resources,” WFP Ethiopia deputy director Lynne Miller said.
“Without additional resources, WFP will be obliged to start reducing food rations of refugees as of June 2010.”
Somalia has not had a functioning central government since the 1991 overthrow of a dictator, since when it has been mired in violence and awash with weapons.
The Western-backed interim government controls just a few blocks of the capital Mogadishu, with much of the country carved up between the rebel militias of Al Shabaa and Hizbul Islam and pro-government group Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca.
Somalia already has 1.4 million internally displaced people, and another 575,000 have so far fled to neighbouring countries. (Reporting by Barry Malone; Editing by Richard Lough and Louise Ireland)
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May 14, 2010 at 1:43 AM
Amid catastrophe in Haiti, a new controversy about adoptions
From The Economist print edition
Out of Haiti, but not to the highest bidder
IT MUST have seemed like a good idea at the time. The New Life Children’s Refuge, a Christian group from Idaho, saw no need to bother with paperwork or official permission when they decided to take 33 Haitian children to the Dominican Republic where they apparently hoped to build an orphanage.
Furious officials arrested ten of the group’s members on charges of kidnapping (which they deny). Many of the children turned out to have families. A similar row erupted in 2007 when workers from Zoé’s Ark, a French charity, were accused of kidnapping 103 children in Chad. Ostensibly orphans from the Darfur region of Sudan, destined for adoption in France, many turned out to be local children, and not orphans. Six charity workers were jailed.
The sentiment behind inter-country adoption may sound noble and often is. Why should governments stand between loving people in one country and needy children in another? Support for inter-country adoption is particularly strong in America, where parents adopt more foreign children than all the rest of the world. Some would-be adopters may at times be overhasty but Michele Bond, the senior State Department official dealing with the issue, insists that those concerned act from the best possible motives.
But inter-country adoptions happen in a fuzzy and sometimes murky world. One worry is that demand creates supply. Outsiders’ money can distort the decisions of officials and parents in poor countries. That may hamper chances of the most desirable outcome, in which children are fostered by relatives or adopted locally. Very few children described as orphans have no living relatives. If they move to another country, their chances of staying in touch with family members shrivel. Even the most ardent free-marketeers do not support free trade in children, with blonde female babies attracting a hefty premium.
Another worry is that adopted children may disappear from view when they cross international borders. International law stipulates that reports on the adopted child should be sent regularly to the source country. In some countries that is observed punctiliously. In others it is in effect voluntary. American law, in particular, does not require parents to send such reports. Once in America, an adopted child is treated like any other, with the state getting involved only in cases of evident abuse. Officials in countries such as Ethiopia or Ukraine may lack the means or motivation to chase up dilatory American parents.
Many critics of inter-country adoption cite experiences in Romania. Following reports of scandalous conditions in orphanages there after the collapse of communism, outsiders flocked to adopt children. But of the 30,000 children adopted by foreigners between 1990 and 2000, around 20,000 are now untraceable, according to Rupert Wolfe Murray, who worked as a lobbyist on the issue.
Roelie Post, who as a European Commission official dealt with adoption in the run-up to Romania’s entry to the European Union, has written a book on her experience of dealing with what she sees as a powerful adoption lobby that preys on weak and poor countries. Mr Wolfe Murray says that after wars and natural disasters adoption agencies descend like “vultures” to find suitable children. The countries that provide the most children for international adoption include China, Vietnam, Kazakhstan and, until recently, Guatemala, which are also among those with the weakest legal systems, he notes.
Most adoption agencies are non-profit outfits that see their work as entirely charitable. They may charge only expenses and a reasonable fee, according to The Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption. An international treaty with a supporting bureaucracy, it has had growing clout since America joined it in 2008. But the sums involved leave ample room for doubt. A Love Beyond Borders, an agency helping would-be parents adopt children from Haiti and elsewhere, says the process may cost more than $30,000.
The Hague rules also govern the agencies’ accreditation. That should, for example, stop the practice (often criticised as exploitative) of putting photographs of “children awaiting adoption” on their websites. But American agencies may dodge that by saying that they are seeking accreditation, or cite some other endorsement, for example by the consulate of the country they are dealing with.
As legal regimes on adoption tighten, activity tends to shift. When Romania banned inter-country adoption, agencies moved to lightly regulated Moldova and then Ukraine. Hans van Loon, the secretary general of The Hague regulatory body, highlights Guatemala, once the source of 5,000 annual adoptions, mainly to America. That seemed a lot for a country of 13m people. (Only about 10,000 foreign adoptions a year take place in China.) Now the number has dropped to zero after a temporary suspension. When it resumes, he expects only a few hundred children, mainly with disabilities, to be adopted.
Inter-country adoption may often be wonderful for the children and families concerned. But it does not solve the problems of poverty and abuse that make it so seemingly desirable.
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April 20, 2010 at 2:53 AM
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