Development Improves in Ethiopia, but Just Slightly

Ethiopian government need to help the small farmers materially, financially and provide them with training on how to farm better. Taking their land by force and giving to foreigners is a grave error. Every developed country subsidizes and helps their farmers to this day; case in point US and France. Ethiopian government instead of borrowing to its teeth to build sky scrapers in the capital; it needs to refocus its priority on the wellbeing of its citizens. As the writer described it well, the alleged two digits economic growth is not shared by the majority of the people in the country.

The gov. need to focus in improving the basic quality of life for its citizens by implementing a social safety net to protect, support and empower the most vulnerable parts of the society. These people who need a lending hand are the street kids, the elderly, the sick physically and mentally and the yang women who are living the country in scores every day to Arab countries to make a living and faced with sub human working condition, physical and mental abuse and rape. I suggest to all my colleges to be the voice for the voiceless and encourage the gov. to change its course to address this issues promptly.

@Martha van der Wolf

One correction, Ethiopia's current overall index is .396, it's not .378 as reported above. Please correct it.


http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/ETH.html


For more detail on Ethiopian Human Index Status and progress, compare the graph at the bottom of the page with other Sub-Saharan countries....you will find Ethiopia's status and progress compares pretty good with others except on adult literacy rate, mainly.

@Martha van der Wolf............If you look at the report closely, there is a significant improvement it terms of income compared to other African countries progress. In fact income per capita is approaching the Sub-Shahran average very fast. But what is still holding Ethiopia's Human Index is the education sector which is significantly lower than the average Sub-Sharan countries' mainly due to higher proportion of illiteracy rate among adults , and to the lesser extent due to lower number of years of formal education among the young. If you look at the graphs, Ethiopia's position pretty good in relation to other Sub-Sharan African countries except the education sector..ie. if you believe the UN report on Ethiopia's education sector especially the illiteracy rate among adults. They might be overestimating the illiteracy rate among the adults...or they could be accurate.

"Just slightly" and not as advertised. I will bet any journalist worth their salt to go on location and report if indeed 29% of the population has been pulled out of poverty in the past decade or if British aid has provided access to potable water to 300,000 Ogadenis and employment to 700,000 of them or if the Saudi Al Amoudi created 5,000 jobs as promised on whose grazing land he is growing rice and such for the Royal Saudi granaries. If Ethiopian rulers have advertised "fast track" development is taking place in the country and the people are enjoying their freedoms then it is only fair on their part to allow independent journalists to come in take pictures and report widely to donor publics that taxpayers dollars are making a difference in far off corners of the world. This is simple humanitarian concern and no partisan politics. In other words, if Marthe or some journalists hop the plane to Ogaden or Gambela and meet locals and congratulate them on their employment opportunities and access to health and safe drinking water what reaction would they be getting? Are the millions of aid money collected in their name getting to them? Even if these populations are illiterate and simple folk they sure would know enough to tell inquirers if water has come to their village.

Development plans and efforts in Africa are mainly for cities and towns. Incentives and expenditures to the hinterland dwellers are miniscule. With unabated inflation and the sons and daughters of farmers and pastoralists gravitating to towns and cities for greater opportunity, any so called gains are breeding grounds for future discontent and lives of crime. As the article states even the gains are disappointingly low.