Melesse Zenebework
Ethiopia is a
predominantly rural and young society. The average age is 59, and 84% of the
population lives mainly in densely populated highland settlements. It is also
one of the poorest countries in the world, with 38.7% of the population being
below the poverty line in the year 2004. In the year 2011-2012, Ethiopia
accounted $31.7 billion of GDP. The recently achieved annual growth rate is
11.4%, which, if achieved would allow the nation to achieve its poverty
reduction millennium development goal by 2015. Ethiopia is rich in natural
resources, but they are underexploited. According to government’s recent survey
in 2000, the country has natural resources like copper, platinum, gold, potash,
salt, natural gas. However, the few and small industrial firms working on these
resources are not capable currently of competing globally and exploiting those
resources in a way sufficient to help the country.
Agriculture accounts
for almost half of GDP and more than 90 percent of export earnings. However,
the share of agriculture is declining steadily whereas the share of the service
sector in GDP is rising. On the other hand, the share of the manufacturing
sector has been relatively static at between only 13 and 14 percent. Despite
the fact that the history of the growth performance was poor in the past, the
country has experienced strong economic growth in the current period (especially,
since 2003/04). According to Ncube, Lufumpa and Ndikumana (2010) real GDP growth
averaged 11.2 % per annum during the 2003/04 and 2008/09 period, placing
Ethiopia among the top performing economies in sub Saharan Africa. This growth
performance well exceeded the population growth rate and the 7 percent rate
required for attaining the Millennium Development Goals of halving poverty by
2015.
This study tries to
project the degree of effectiveness of foreign aid on Ethiopia in the struggle
to accomplish the Millennium development Goals. In addition to government’s
commitment and dedication in combating the challenges, what is the contribution
and extent of foreign aid is the focus of this research paper. Similarly, it
tries to show the amount of foreign aids implemented so far in order to realize
the strategies and achieve the goals so far. Therefore, the paper mentions only some of the
Millennium Development Goals and the amount of money spent for each goals to
effectively implement and the failures if found will be projected.
How did Ethiopia get into this Global Program?
In September 2000,
189 member states of the United Nations came together and adopted
the Millennium Declaration, including commitments to poverty eradication,
development, and protecting the environment. A year later the UN Secretary
General’s Road Map for implementing the Millennium Declaration
formally unveiled eight goals, supported by 18 quantified and time-bound
targets and 48 indicators, which became known as the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs). The MDGs focus the efforts of the world community on achieving
significant, measurable improvements in people's lives by the year 2015. They
establish targets and yardsticks for measuring results—not just for
developing countries but for the rich countries that help fund development
programs and for the multilateral institutions that help countries implement
them.
The eight MDGs
listed below guide the efforts of virtually all organizations working in
development and have been commonly accepted as a framework for measuring
development progress:
- Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
- Achieve universal primary education
- Promote gender equality and empower
women
- Reduce child mortality
- Improve maternal health
- Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other
diseases
- Ensure environmental sustainability
- Develop a Global Partnership for
Development
After the application of various programs by the
government of Ethiopia in order to reduce poverty, Preparation for the
realization of the MDGs took place for a year starting in September 2009 based
on inputs from various government entities and a high level Macro Economic Team
in particular. Since September 2010, country-wide consultations led by senior
officials were held at the regional and local levels, and those at the federal
level were chaired by the prime minister. Consultative meetings also took place
with private sector participants, higher education institutions, civil society
organization, and development partners. The Growth and Transformation
Plan (GTP) was finalized in November 2010, shortly after it had been first discussed
with the Development Assistance Group on September 29, 2010. The GTP was
officially circulated to donors in the spring of 2011, and submitted to the
International Development Association (IDA) and the International Monetary Fund
(IMF, 2011).
By spending more than 60 percent of
its total expenditure on poverty oriented sectors, such as agriculture,
education, health, water and road development during the last seven years, the
Ethiopian government has maximized its efforts and shown the highest level of
dedication to bring about pro-poor economic growth.
Despite the impressive growth record in recent years, low
levels of income and savings and productivity in the agricultural sector,
limited implementation capacity, unemployment and a narrow modern industrial
sector base are the major challenges faced during this period. Besides the
aforementioned challenges, the growth efforts have also been threatened by the
twin challenges of inflation and the pressure on the balance of payments
(BOP). Development finance had also been a critical constraint on the
implementation of programs articulated in the country’s development plan.
How
has Foreign Aid helped Ethiopia to achieve some of the Millennium Development
Goals?
Ethiopia is one of the top massive aid recipient
countries in the world. The country has received a huge amount of money from
the international community in order to tackle poverty through the Millennium
development program. This ranks Ethiopia as the third ODA recipient country in the
world with the mount of US $1,065million in 2007 and US $3,327 million by the
year 2008 (UN, 2010, MDG Gap Task Forced Report).
For the last five
years, the country has achieved better improvement in reducing child mortality,
improving maternal health, achieving universal primary education and
eradication of poverty and hunger. Starting from a
very disadvantaged position in the early 1990s, the country has made
considerable progress in terms of growth, MDGs, and other social indicators in
the context of moderate aid increases. The government now faces the question of
how to maintain and further accelerate progress (H. Lofgren and C. Diaz-Bonilla, pp.267).
The government of
Ethiopia realized that achieving the success over the educational problem is
the key for the rest of development aspect of the country. Therefore, the
government has made achieving universal primary education the major public
policy and has increased the public spending on the sector.
Concerning the
educational sector, the government’s emphasis on pro-poor expenditure is paying
off in improved education. Primary school net enrollment rose from 77 percent in 2004/05 to 82
percent in 2009/10. The primary school (grade 8) completion rate increased from 42 percent to 48
percent during this period and secondary enrollment also improved from 33 percent to 39 percent for grades 9 to 10, and
from 4 percent to 7 percent for grades
11 to 12 (IMF Country Report, 2011. pp. 2).
Mentioning the gender participation
and proportion, during 2009/10 the Gross Enrolment Rate for primary school
(grades 1-8) reached 95.9 per cent (93.per cent for female and 98.7 per cent for
male). During the same year, the Net Enrolment Rate (NER) stood at 89.3 per
cent which is 87.9 for male and 86.5 percent for female (Millennium Development
Report, 2010 pp. 14).
The overall success in access to
primary education is mainly related to the increase in the number of primary
schools, from 16,000 in 2005, to more than 25,000 in 2009 (MoE, 2009). This is
complemented by constructing more than 80% of the schools in rural areas.
Moreover, the government has also progressively increased the share of
education in the national budget from 19.8% in 2005 to close to 22.8% in 2010
(Ministry of Education, 2009).
With the help of the foreign aid, the government programmed a huge amount
of money in order to solve the problem of child mortality. The proportion of
fully immunized children rose from 20
percent in 2006 to 66 percent in 2010; the percentage of births attended by
healthcare workers increased
from 16 percent to 29 percent during this period.
Similarly, the
under-five mortality rate has decreased to 123/1,000 in 2005/06 from 167/1,000
in 2001/02 and the infant mortality rate has declined to 77 per 1,000 live
births in 2004/05 from 97 per 1,000 live births in 2001/02. In 2009/10 the
under-five mortality rates and infant mortality rates decreased to 101/1000 and
to 45/1000 live births, respectively. Malaria (20%), Pneumonia (28%), Diarrheal
Diseases (20%) and Newborn conditions (25%) each account for the major causes
of child deaths in Ethiopia. The improvement of children’s health is an
essential component of the Health Sector Development Program (HSDP) III that
focuses on poverty related health conditions. HSDP III which ends in the middle
of 2010 envisaged a reduction of the mortality rates of children under-five
from 123/1,000 to 85/1,000 and the infant mortality rate from 77 to 45 per 1000
live births. This prognosis is based on an increased coverage of maternal,
newborn and child health, nutrition and WASH related interventions (Millennium
Development Report, 2010 pp. 23)
In accordance with the millennium
development goal program, alleviating extreme poverty is the other major target
of the Ethiopian government. Therefore, focusing on the area with all
government commitment and strength, success has been achieved in the past five
years. During the Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty
(PASDEP), which is a plane to support the MDGs plan, Ethiopia enjoyed strong
growth, reflecting government-led development investment, global commodity
demand, and incentives for specific export sectors (e.g., floriculture).
GDP grew on average 11 percent per annum during 2004–2010, according to official estimates.* Initially having been led by agriculture
growth has become more
broad-based, with a rising contribution from mining, services and manufacturing sectors (IMF, 2011 pp.
10).
Ethiopia started the fight against
poverty from very high levels with close to 49.5% of the total population under
the poverty line in 1994. Following the implementation of the comprehensive
poverty reduction strategy, poverty levels have declined steadily reaching
38.7 percent in 2005, and are estimated to further decline to 29.2 percent in
2010. The five year Growth and Transformation Plan indicates that Ethiopia
would achieve halving poverty by 2015 and projects that both income and food
poverty reach 22.2% and 21.22% in 2014/15 from 29.2% and 28.2% in 2009/10,
respectively (Millennium Development Report, 2010 pp.5).
The reason behind the decrease of maternal health and child
mortality is the training and deployment of Health Extension Workers into the
farthest villages in the rural areas. These HEWs are well trained and equipped
with primary medical care service. They have basic skills in clean
delivery, essential newborn care and recognition and referral of maternal and
newborn complications. Currently, it has been observed that the implementation
of the Health Extension Program (HEP) has already started to bear fruits. Due
to investments in health facilities all over the country, the proportion of the
population living less than 10 km away from a health post has increased.
The total number of HEWs trained and deployed has
reached 30,193 accounting for 98.07% of the total national requirement of
30,786 HEWs. Some of their major tasks include delivering basic sanitation,
immunization and providing other health services in mainly rural villages in
the country. Generally, the current on-going integrated and comprehensive
interventions in the health sector and complementary interventions in other
sectors could have a significantly positive impact in improving the maternal
health and achieving the goal of reducing maternal mortality by three quarters
by 2015 (MDGP, 2010 pp.29).
How has
Foreign Aid failed to help Ethiopia in achieving the Millennium Development
Goals?
Even if the improvements on
the achievement of the first millennium development goal is a success for the
government of Ethiopia, challenges on the same area have occurred. According to
the national development report, the country has faced severe challenge for its
development from the import and export trade. This is a highly vulnerable area
in economy since the nation depends on the export price and the control of
importing goods.
The Ethiopian economy and the poor in Ethiopia are
extremely vulnerable to external shocks that may include climate change and the
global price of exports and imports. These could be taken as challenges on the
sustainability of growth. Sustainability at a macro level could be attained by
the structural transformation of the economy and greater participation of the private
sector. This could be done in the medium-term by tackling the dependence on
rain-fed agriculture through the expansion of small and large scale irrigation
and strengthening public-private partnership. Structural transformation could
also be addressed through raising the competitiveness of the industrial and
export sectors, through the provision of physical infrastructure and human
capital formation. Sustainability of growth is dependent on high growth in
exports, on raising domestic resource mobilization and prudent macroeconomic
management of the economy. Increasing foreign currency reserves and limiting
high import growth and rising domestic savings are major issues that the
government needs to address to achieve Goal 1. To this effect, the Government
of
Ethiopia is taking encouraging policy measures and
responding to the situation (MDGS, 2010 pp.8).
Though Ethiopia has
scored impressive success on the educational sector under the millennium
development goals program, it still remains difficult to reach a 100% success
especially in the areas where desert and pastoral life flourished. This is
because the people in these areas often move seasonally from place to place and
that is a challenge to keep them stay at a permanent area for education.
The other challenge is related to the nutritional status of
children. Malnutrition has a negative impact on the children’s educational
achievement. Hence the government has implemented a program to support those
food insecure households with food security and productive safety net programs.
This in turn helps those children in food insecure areas and vulnerable
households secure access to education, where malnutrition no longer affects
their performance, and to ensure the achievement of universal access to education.
Climate variability in Ethiopia has increasingly been the source of droughts
and floods. Impacts of climate change could potentially limit progress, such as
full education enrollment. The Humanitarian Requirement Document (2010), for
instance, stresses that relief responses should be multifaceted and should also
entail responses in the education sector, among others (MoE, 2009).
Attaining the highest success on the issue of gender equality
takes much time, money and effort. This is one of the most difficult tasks the
Ethiopian government faced to attain the targeted goal of the area since the
issue is much complicated and too difficult to handle. The reason behind this
is that, in most of the rural areas, specially, the long standing and rooted cultural
belief and the people's mind set towards the issue of gender equality made most
of the efforts unsuccessful.
While much progress has
been made, addressing gender equality and empowering women remain the most
challenging. This is because of the deep-rooted nature of the challenge, which
depends not only on the actions of government, but also on changing attitudes
and cultural values of the society. These types of changes take a significant
amount of time to evolve and bring society’s consciousness to one level of
understanding. Addressing these socio-culturally and psychologically embedded
root causes requires a process of social change and transformation. Plan for
Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty (PASDEP) as well as some
of the government’s flagship programs, including the imminent Gender Joint
Program, mark steps in the right direction in which they are based on a root
cause and gap analysis. Similarly, there is a growing understanding that there
is a disconnect between the existence of legal prerogatives and entitlements
in favor of women’s rights and the latter being enforced, implemented and
claimed (CEDAW Report, 2009).
The struggle against child mortality has also found a strong
challenge from the. Since the child mortality case is caused by different
reasons, it is considered to be one of the most complex issues. Child mortality
may be caused by sanitation, maternal education, maternal health, maternal
under-nutrition, intervals between births, access to adequate water and basic
curative health services too.
Understanding the current determinants of child mortality is
essential to inform policies and strategies to accelerate the reduction of
child mortality. It is often associated with poverty (the lowest quintile is
associated with 32% more child mortality than the highest), maternal education,
maternal fertility characteristics [the under 5 mortality rate is significantly
higher for mothers under the age of 20 (225 deaths per 1,000 compared to 179
for mothers in their twenties)], maternal under-nutrition, intervals between
births, access to adequate safe water and basic curative health services (MoH
Report, 2010).
With all the foreign aid and government
expenditure with the special attention from all government authorities,
achieving the complete overcome of maternal health seems difficult according to
the past experiences. For the complete success of maternal needs more effort of
the government with the provision of ample infrastructure, health center,
electricity and more according to the Ministry of health report.
Improving maternal health
requires a strong system which can only be built with concerted effort over
time. Human resources and an enabling environment such as basic infrastructure
and the necessary supporting system should be at the center of the maternal
health strategy. The availability of basic infrastructures such as water,
electricity, road connections, laboratories, blood banks, communication, and
referral systems are crucial for improving maternal health.
Efforts to reduce maternal
mortality should definitively address cultural factors that influence their
health and their access to health services. Alleviation of these social
constraints would contribute towards the success of the goal. Increasing access
to high quality antenatal and post-abortion care, strengthening reproductive
health care and family planning in rural areas, increasing access to skilled
delivery care, and providing education about family planning are also key
areas where the scaling up of efforts should be go hand in hand with community
mobilization (Ministry of Health Report, 2009).
Conclusion
Ethiopia has received
billions of dollars for the accomplishments of the Millennium Development Goal
program which was set to reduce extreme poverty by half by the year 2015. The
Ethiopian government has implemented various national programs ahead of the MDG
program in order to alleviate the national poverty. However, it was already on
progress when the world gets into this international program which is a help to
Ethiopia and it paved the way to win poverty for once for all.
By spending more than 60
percent of its total expenditure on poverty oriented sectors, such as
agriculture, education, health, water and road development during the last
seven years, the Ethiopian government has maximized its efforts and shown the
highest level of dedication to bring about pro-poor economic growth. Despite
the impressive growth record in recent years, low levels of income and savings
and productivity in the agricultural sector, limited implementation capacity,
unemployment and a narrow modern industrial sector base are the major
challenges faced during this period. Besides the aforementioned challenges, the
growth efforts have also been threatened by the twin challenges of inflation
and the pressure on the balance of payments (BOP). Development finance had
also been a critical constraint on the implementation of programs articulated
in the country’s development plan.
Even if Ethiopia has shown
improving progress in achieving the millennium development goal with the help
of the foreign aid in reduction of extreme poverty, infant and child mortality,
maternal health and women empowerment, however, there are some challenges which
caused for the failure in achieving the millennium development plan by the year
2015. These are the long standing and sometimes social problems which existed
in the community for a long time now that people even don not understand their
impact on their life. Cultural attitude towards women and children became some
of the challenges which prevented Ethiopia from achieving the millennium
development goals related with mothers, women and children.
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