Major reforms expected from EPRDF’s Deeper Renewal

Tola Bedru

The EPRDF, Ethiopia’s governing coalition, and its member parties are holding a series of meetings geared towards what is dubbed “deeper renewal”. The coalition is looking into and evaluating the positive outcomes and weaknesses observed in the reform programs carried out after the major reform 15 years ago. It also vowed to tackle problems that are challenging development and democracy in the country.

The meetings are being held at a time when the economic growth continued for more than a decade and the impacts on human development indicators impressed the world. At the same time, the country passed through a torrent of challenges this year, from unparalleled drought to violence in a couple of regions from corruption and rent seeking to leadership weakness.

The EPRDF is focused on spotting weaknesses and setting future directions in its meetings and conducting a critical and thorough evaluation of its performance in terms of its organizational, governance, developmental activities and other national issues. It also set clear directions on how the constitutional system could be made effective.

In the close-door meetings, discussions were held on the achievements made and challenges faced, numerous issues were raised and put forward with many sharp criticisms. The meetings subsequently recognized the results made in education and health sectors and in agriculture which had helped enable the country to register double digit economic growth. It also appreciated the achievements on several sectors. They also underlined the importance of ensuring quality in education, of scaling up experience in all sectors and accelerating structural transformation, of taking agriculture as the basis of the economy and future transformation. It underlined that attention should be given to export-led economic activities.

Much discussion, however, centered on the need for a paradigm change on governance issues, on transparency and above all on accountability, as well as on the need to maintain the peace and stability of the country.

The parties aren't wasting time congratulating itself. Instead, they are focused on how to improve good governance for the betterment of the lives of Ethiopians and make the socio-economic gains lasting to ensure that Ethiopia joins the middle-income countries category by 2025.

The main objectives of the meetings is to evaluate the party's and the country's performance in meeting its economic goals and leadership deficits. It embraced consideration of progress on structural transformation, job creation for the youth and women, gender equality and women empowerment, pertinent political matters such as good governance, dealing with corruption, improved transparency, socio-economic problems and the party's succession plan.

The coalition has experiences in handling reforms. One of the major reforms that EPRDF had taken is the 2001 major overhaul. That reform has brought all the progresses in the country mainly in economic growth and social developments. All the policies: agriculture, industry, urban and foreign policies were designed and entered into action following that reform.

 The level of institutionalization of any political party can be defined by the adaptability, complexity, autonomy, and coherence of its organizations and structure. Adaptability has been the strongest quality of the EPRDF in its half-a-century existence and quarter-a-century-rule, while maintaining its hitherto ideological coherence. The historically unprecedented smooth power succession to PM Hailemariam Desalegn after the untimely death of the late PM Meles Zenawi has demonstrated the success of a party to surmount the problem of peaceful succession and its ability to replace one set or generation of leaders with another and the institutional adaptability of a party.

The most important component of the current reform process is good governance. Though directions were set previously to pave ways for good governance they were not that successful in crystallizing sought-for results. Cognizant of this fact a system will be put in place to strengthen accountability. Follow up and support will be made a point to ward off opportunistic mind bent among administrative bodies at every echelon.

The Front expressed repeatedly that its development endeavors brought about remarkable results and showed its commitment to repeating the economic achievements in the areas of peace, development and democratization. The Front further reaffirmed its commitment to working diligently for the realization of the new five year Growth and Transformation Plan.

The council of the coalition weeks ago said that various capacity building programs would be executed to boost the capacity of the civil service and improve execution capacity and good governance. It stated that the decisive work in promoting good governance and democratic culture is building and strengthening democratic institutions. To this end, due emphasis would be given to various activities to enable the legislative body to play its proper role in formulating laws and exercising its duty of overseeing the executive body.

The meetings discussed several issues including the state of political, economic and social progresses in the country. The rent seeking attitude, lack of good governance and corruption were also topics that dominated the discussions so far.

Of the challenges being discussed, the need for good governance has been an issue that headlined the agenda. It is said that lack of good governance has become a serious challenge to the country’s growth and it urged leaders to work on solving the problem immediately. The rampant rent seeking attitude and corruption were said to be deeply embedded in the government’s bureaucracy. Hence, in order to maintain the sustainability of the development gains additional measures are needed to be taken against abuse of power and rent seeking for personal gains.

Ethiopia has been rising since the EPRDF-led government made its first reform 15 years ago. With home-grown policies and far-sighted leadership, Ethiopia has been recording successes in political and socio-economic sectors. Over the past decade significant changes have been seen in infrastructure development, improved schools and health centers’ accessibility. The reduction in the percentage of people under poverty line was momentous. However, there are still gaps between the demand of the people and the supply delivered by the Party.

EPRDF believes that it didn’t meet the full satisfaction of the people, and is calling on the public to intensify their fight against rent seeking for the success of the reform programs. The reform will play a role in denying space for efforts of internal and external anti-peace elements that are working to pump up violence and weaken the nation.