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By Danna Harman
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
HALADIGAI
VILLAGE, Ethiopia — Hawa Hassan is weak. Her mouth is parched. Her children
are sick. Her livestock have all died of hunger.
Nineteen years ago, Mrs. Hassan's mother survived a famine to raise her, the
youngest daughter of six. But Mrs. Hassan is not sure there was much point.
"Hunger is happening again," she said. "It happens all the time." Proud,
angry and pleading all at once, she adds: "Help us."
This year, 11 million to 14 million Ethiopians face severe food shortages,
according to the United Nations World Food Program (WFP). Prime Minister
Meles Zenawi said recently that if the 1984 famine here, in which nearly 1
million people died, was a "nightmare," then the hunger this year, if not
addressed, "will be too ghastly to contemplate."
With one food crisis after another devastating this country within the past
few decades, some ask whether famine in Ethiopia is not only inevitable but
also perhaps irresolvable.
Experts argue not. But if there is a way to break the cycle, it is through
development, not emergency aid, they say. Investing in such things as
education, health, agriculture and trade will, over time, make the real
difference by giving people the ability and means to help themselves during
droughts in years to come, they contend. The question, however, is where the
development money will come from.
"If we had similar resources in development as in emergency, we could turn
around this picture," said Al Kehler, development coordinator for the WFP in
Ethiopia. "We are screaming this message, but it is not being heard."
Mr. Kehler's sentiments are shared by many aid workers. Robert Luneburg, a
consultant to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in
Ethiopia who has 20 years of experience in the field, has personally overseen
the distribution of 2 million tons of food aid worldwide during his career.
"[Emergency aid] does not work," he said. "We know that. People need
development."
Andrew Natsios, the chief administrator of USAID, was in Ethiopia last week,
stressing development projects. At rural schools throughout the drought-hit
Oromiya region, for example, where 40 children fill single classrooms without
chairs or pens, USAID is supporting a variety of initiatives to help girls
stay in school and improve the quality of teaching.
"These children can grow up and be better able to keep their children alive,"
said Mr. Natsios. "It is crucial to get girls to the classroom, where,
alongside the ABCs, they learn about hygiene, family planning, HIV ... and
voting — and in the future will run their households, livestock, and even
country, better."
But despite the general recognition of the importance of development, funding
for it falls far below funding for emergencies. Ethiopia is the largest
recipient of emergency aid per capita in the world. Meanwhile, it receives
the least per capita in development aid.
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This imbalance in emergency
funding rather than development funding is evident all over the world as
budgets continue to be slashed. In 1993, for example, the WFP collected
$661.5 million earmarked for development work worldwide. Last year, it got
$203 million, most of which went to projects already under way, leaving scant
money for new ones. Emergency aid, meanwhile, continues to be relatively
responsive to the ever-growing needs.
The reasons for this are varied, experts say. Donors want to see their money
going to give a starving child porridge or an elderly farmer cooking oil and
beans. Putting money into a health clinic or an after-school project, which
might save more lives, is not as immediately gratifying or as easy to sell to
the taxpayer.
The worst affected by this attitude are long-term projects, like those in
agriculture. Investing in the development of disease-resistant seeds or
working on multiyear forestation and water projects is often low on the
priority list for donors.
Another reason donors prefer emergency to development aid sometimes has to do
with the policies of their African partner governments. While donors today
have no problem working with Ethiopia, in the past — during the Marxist Derg
regime and later during the years of costly war with neighboring Eritrea —
donors disengaged or cut back development assistance.
Finally, even the strongest proponents of increasing funding for development
stress that this should not be done at the expense of emergency work. "We
need time to invest in development, but during that time there will
undoubtedly also be emergencies," said Connie Newman, USAID's assistant
administrator for Africa. "You can't say we will let one generation die so as
to concentrate on development and the future."
To that end, the United States last week pledged 262,000 tons of food aid,
increasing its total contribution to 500,000 tons since July. Ethiopia,
together with the WFP, undertook a $500 million appeal for 1.4 million tons
of emergency food last month.
"The problem," said James Morris, WFP's executive director, in Ethiopia last
week, "is that we ask for money, and donors say: 'Again?' "
Every year in Ethiopia, a country of more than 65 million people, 4 million
to 5 million face starvation. Chronic hunger means that even in the best of
harvest years there are children whose stomachs bloat, mothers whose breast
milk dries up and grown men who lie motionless at the front of their huts,
too weak to crawl inside. More and more emergency food aid is needed to keep
them alive.
In Africa this year, the lack of development, compounded by climatic changes,
conflicts, the increase of HIV and government mismanagement, has created a
situation in which, according to WFP estimates, 38 million people in more
than 20 countries need emergency food aid.
"I could be putting out hunger alerts every day," says Brenda Barton, WFP
spokeswoman in Nairobi, Kenya. "But it would be too overwhelming and would
get us nowhere."
The Washington Times,
January 30, 2003 |
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