Return to Ethiopia

Nov 6th, 2009 12:58 PM UTC
By Jamie Drummond

ONE’s Co-Founder and Executive Director Jamie Drummond writes about his personal journey to Ethiopia:

Twenty five years ago, like many of my generation, I was called to action by images of drought and starvation – and by a couple of shaggy-haired, Irish rock stars with whom I’ve now been working for a decade. The Ethiopian famines and the world’s response through Band Aid and Live Aid have shaped the image of Africa for a generation and spurred concerted action to fight extreme poverty. A quarter of a century on, it is perhaps a good moment to ask how the aid that has flowed has worked and how the model of celebrity-led advocacy is faring.

A few weeks ago, I returned to Tigray in northern Ethiopia to look again at the impact of funds raised by Band Aid and the work of the World Food Programme. I travelled through this region in 1995 and visited a village called Daereda. Drought and a desperate population had denuded their valley of trees and greenery; fertile top soil had been eroded by seasonal flash floods. Back then, many of the villagers were grateful for the food aid they had received and quick to thank the western public and a far-off thing called Geldof. But they wanted more than handouts – they wanted to take matters into their own hands and heal the physical damage to their lands.

The food aid helped them do just that. It was being given through “food for work” programmes. Teams of thousands set to work planting trees, contouring steep hillsides to conserve soil and water, digging ponds and building check dams, all to raise the lands fertility. Today, the results are astonishing. The valley is lush and green; the river flows all year round; the land is more fertile and productive.

This success story is echoed in valleys across Tigray. The region receives many expert visitors to see how it was done. And in spite of the images of starvation we’re currently confronted with, it’s not the only positive story to have come out of Ethiopia in the past decade. The country has also halved malarial death rates through widespread use of insecticide= treated bed nets, and doubled school enrolment. Economic growth has been over 5% for a decade, 7% on average for the last three years.

But parts of the country, and region, are still on the verge of starvation. This could lead some quickly to assume that 25 years on nothing has changed. No serious investigation can lead to the conclusion, but it is still not acceptable that 14 million Ethiopians today rely on food aid and that for some rations are being cut.

The answer as ever is complex. Climate change is causing more frequent droughts, impairing rural communities’ coping mechanisms. Not enough has been spent on rural roads and the government hasn’t permitted mobile phones or developed local markets. But above all there has been insufficient global attention paid to agriculture. Spending on agriculture went down from 17% of global aid in 1980 to just 3.8 % in 2006. It’s stunning that after the famines of the 1980s we didn’t increase investment in long-term regional food security and agricultural productivity. The World Bank and IMF even counselled against it as part of their notorious structural adjustment programmes. Tough questions must now be asked about the international development business and how this was allowed to happen.

At last this year the G8 countries agreed to invest $20bn in agricultural productivity. The new policy focus is certainly welcome, though it’s not clear how much is new and it is clear that much more of this kind of support will be needed to help Africa’s rural poor adapt to climate change. These investments must flow quickly in support of nationally designed plans and build up the long-term response even as we quickly disburse the short-term food aid needed again this year.

Twenty five years on, where does all this leave celebrity advocacy? Bob Geldof and Bono for their part moved from charity fundraising to working on debt cancellation and the deeper structural causes of poverty. The largely successful Drop the Debt campaign they supported, along with many ardent development activists, grew into the Make Poverty History campaign and Live 8 concerts in 2005. Bono and Bob are now part of ONE, an Africa advocacy group with two million campaigners around the world.

Because of the strong movement in this country, the UK has now come to a remarkable place on development. Gordon Brown leads the world in his tireless lobbying for the poor; for this, Bono and others praised him personally at the Labour party conference. The Liberal Democrat and Conservative parties also endorse the drive to keep Britain’s promise to devote 0.7 % of national income to overseas development and maintain the push to improve aid quality.

It was in acknowledgement of this cross-party support that Bono also recorded a video message for the Conservatives’ conference. This was no party political endorsement, just a simple way to underline the importance of Britain’s continued leadership on the world stage, whichever party is in power after the next election.

Twenty five years after the Ethiopian famine, its legacy is palpable. As well as effective campaigning groups and celebrity activists, corporate leaders and former presidents are putting their second careers fully behind the fight against extreme poverty. What was once a backwater is now mainstream, “pop” even, and of course some hate that.

But 25 years on, this big messy movement – and, above all, the African individuals and groups who are increasingly taking charge – can celebrate and accelerate success. Next year’s World Cup in South Africa is indeed the greatest possible branding moment for the exciting forward momentum of the continent. “Africa Rising” is increasingly replacing “Africa Starving” as the story.

But we in the development world must learn from failures. African experts have long argued for increased investment in agriculture; their voices were ignored. Going forward therefore we must follow Archbishop Tutu’s counsel – that we always ensure that we are “listening to what Africans actually want, that Africans drive their own development”. Credible celebrity activists can help that process by encouraging public debate about both successes and failures, by backing African voices to lead that debate and then backing out of the way.

TAGS: Ethiopia, ONE, Spotlight