The fight against poverty

                                                                                                                Dawit Miteku

Ethiopia’s main enemy is poverty. The source of the problem and the dread of Ethiopians is poverty. Poverty is the inability to fulfill the basic interest of life, and its ramifications are many. As poverty leads people into hopelessness, it is a cause to crime, conflict, terrorism, extremism etc… People living in poor country are vulnerable to foreign force aggression as well. Therefore, fighting poverty means fighting the enemy of many people and society. This is why the FDRE government waged a campaign to get rid-off poverty by stating that it is the country’s and the peoples’ number one enemy. Let me probe into anti-poverty campaign waged by the government as much as this article allows me to.

But, first of all, let us ask the question, what is poverty? For the occasion of this article, I will use the definition given by World Bank. Poverty is hunger. Poverty means lacking shelter. Poverty means being sick without the ability to go see doctor. Poverty means lacking a chance to education and being illiterate. It means being unemployed. It means fearing the future and feeling hopeless.

Poverty is multidimensional and has many fundamentals that varies from pace to place and changes from time to time. For the most part, poverty drives people to seek an escape. Thus, it pushes both the poor and wealthy for action. It is to solve the aforementioned manifestations of poverty like lack of food, shelter, education … that the FDRE government waged anti-poverty campaign to defeat and kick poverty out of the country.

The FDRE government is an administration that is committed to get rid of poverty by mobilizing the people, who are sick and tired of poverty and doesn’t want live with it. And the anti-poverty fight this same government waged two decades ago by formulating strategy and implementation plan has brought tangible results.

About 85% of Ethiopia’s population lives off farming and animal rearing in rural areas. As this majority segment of the population produce through traditional and backward agricultural tools, they couldn’t even feed themselves for long time. Ethiopian farmer is incapable of feeding himself and his family all year long, lives in a beat down hut that is hard to call a house whilst not having ample clothes. Education and medical treatment were considered an opportunity that is given to few urbanites.

Ethiopian farmer isn’t educated, doesn’t send his children to school, doesn’t go to the hospital when he is feeling ill and is not capable to take member of his family to the doctor. The anti-poverty campaign is started by fighting these manifestations of poverty. The anti-poverty campaign started in earnest by formulating agriculture led development policy that takes agriculture sector and the rural as its basis.

Through development personnel that went home to home and door to door, the farmers started to get support in the shape of better seed, fertilizer and professional help to assist them in using updated agriculture technology. A system was also setup to help strengthen the financial capability of the farmers. A cooperative association was organized to help farmers easily access production inputs and provide their product to the market in the appropriate price.

Now, unions that consists many cooperatives and have a capital that reach up to 100 million birr are established. In this manner, many farmers started to produce that will feed them throughout the whole year. Later, farmers that produce surplus started to appear.

By being models to others, these farmers helped motivate the other farmers in their locales to increase their productivity. And the government started to give recognition to those famers that produces surplus and encourage the others as model famers. And this motivated the whole famers.

Today, the livelihood of many farmers has improved as their income has increase. On top of feeding themselves three times a day, they have also able to build a better home for themselves. Their clothes have improved. They have separated out the animal stable and kitchen from their living home. What’s more, they have started to wear shoes, and use factory goods such as sugar, food oil, soap … They have also started to use house supplies such as radio, tape recorder, bed and mattress and the likes.

And now, the famers are users of mobile phones. And many have started to use technologies like TV by using solar power. There are farmers that have moved beyond this. There are many who have generated wealth in the millions, built business and living houses for rent, setup mill, and bought public transport camions. There are also those that have elevated themselves from farmers to investors. All this is a result that is gained as a result of the fight against poverty waged for the past two decades. Using the safety net program, many are moving towards self sufficiency. Ethiopian farmers are sending their children to school. They also have medical service as well. Schools and health institutions are built near the homes of farmers.

In addition to this, health extension professionals are giving health prevention support by getting near the areas and homes of the farmers. Now let us look into the result that is achieved in the country’s social development sector.

When we look into the number of schools and students in the country, there were 4 thousand primary schools and 278 secondary schools before 1991. And the general number of students was close to 2 million. Currently, the number of primary schools has reached 39 thousand while secondary schools have reached 3,300. And the number of students that go to these schools is about 27 million.

Today, the participation of primary education is more than 96%. The technique and vocational training institutions that used to be no more than 16 before 1991 have now reached 1,350. The number of universities that used to be only 2 before 1991 has now reached 36 including policy, military and civil service universities. It is expected that the construction of more than 10 universities will be completed and will be open for students.

Looking at the health sector, the number of health stations that used to be only 153 before 1991 have now reached more than 3,500. The plan that was set to provide 1 health station for 25 thousand people has been fully achieved. There are more than 16 thousand 2 hundred health posts throughout the country. And more than 39 thousand health extension professionals are giving service throughout the country.

Not including those hospitals administered by private and Nongovernmental organization, the number of hospitals has increased by four fold to 310, which used to be 72 before 1991. In general, looking at the country’s poverty rate, the number of people living below the poverty line has been reduced from 50% at 1991 to 22% in 2015 - at the end of the first phase of the growth and transformation plan. Currently, the country is working to become low level middle income status by 2025. This transformation deems the transfer of the economy from being agriculture led to industrialized one. A growth and transformation plan is being implemented with this in mind. The first phase of the growth and transformation plan has been implemented from 2011 to 2015, while the second phase of the plan (from 2016 to 2020) is being implemented.

The first phase of the growth and transformation plan can more or less be said that it was successful. Let us look into the performance very briefly here …As it can be recalled, the five year growth and transformation plan that is prepared with development goals that aim to help achieve the vision set to get rid of poverty from Ethiopia and bring the country to middle income status has been completed in 2015. In general, the assessment on the performance of the development plan showed that the main economic and development goals that are targeted have been achieved while unprecedented development successes have been gained.

As a result to this, in relation to realizing the goal set to bring rapid, sustainable and broad-based economic growth, many works have been done in the agriculture, industry and service sectors through the participation of the public and private sector. In relation to this, during the growth and transformation plan years, the country’s economy have recorded 10.1% growth on average.

In this same period, 6.6% growth was recorded on average on the agriculture sector. 20% and 10.7% growth was recorded on the same period in the industry and service sector. And compared to the goal set on the economic growth plan, to the needed growth rate by UN’s MDGs and also compared to the other countries with fast growing economies, it can be said that it is successful.