Ethiopian Review

By Karen Hardee | Populationaction

“Africa is under populated.” Those were the shocking words of Dr. Strike Mkandla, the head of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in a provocative response to a presentation I gave on the links between population and climate change at Ethiopia’s first celebration of Earth Day on April 22. Dr. Mkandla continued that Africa has lots of land that can contain many more people. I discussed the benefits of slower population growth for adaptation in African countries that will be the hardest hit by the impacts of climate change. The audience was surprised that the head of a United Nations agency would make such a statement, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, including from the UNEP itself and sister UN agencies. Dr. Mkandla left before I could respond or the audience could ask questions.

The Earth Day celebration took place in the main hall of the East and Central Africa UN complex. Ethiopia’s president, the Honorable Girma W/Giorgis, who is a strong advocate for environmental issues, opened the forum. Dr. Mkandla started with a presentation on the effects of climate change in Africa and my presentation on population and climate change followed, along with an excellent presentation on gender and climate, by Dr. Puskur Ranjitha.

This Earth Day celebration was taking place in a country in which the population of around 80 million is on track to double in less than 30 years, according to the UN Population Division. Ethiopia faces chronic food insecurity that is getting worse according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, a sister UN organization to UNEP. Over six million people in the country are estimated to face chronic or transitory food insecurity, which is exacerbated by changes in climate and more frequent droughts. Another sister UN organization, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has been working in Ethiopia for over 30 years to expand access to family planning and reproductive health services and to support use of demographic data for policymaking.

Ethiopia’s president also raised the question during another Earth Day event later in the week, saying that he did not understand the connection between population and the environment. Ethiopia’s president has a laudable goal to reforest Ethiopia, which may have been more than half forest in the early 20th century, including savannah woodland. In 1950, when Ethiopia had closer to 20 million people, forest cover was an estimated 16% of the land area. Today, the ever expanding population that is now four times larger, is encroaching on marginal land, including in the remaining approximately 4% of forest area, to eke out an increasingly marginal existence.This will make the president’s reforestation goal, which would be beneficial as a carbon sink, difficult to achieve.

In 1950, when the UN Population Division first starting tracking population trends, population density in Ethiopia was 19 persons per sq/kilometer. In 2010 a projected 80 people will be living per sq/kilometer and by 2050 it will be more than 150 people, on average, living in that same space. The 85% of Ethiopians who live in rural areas depend in large part on subsistence agriculture for their survival. Rural families have, on average, 6 children, who they are finding harder to feed and educate, particularly under conditions of declining soil fertility and shifting rainfall patterns. These leaders would do well to heed the words of Jothan Musinguzi, director of the population secretariat in Uganda’s Ministry of Finance, in the Guardian in August 2006. “What’s happening [in Africa] is alarming and depressing,” he said, pointing out the clear correlation between high fertility levels and poverty. “Are we really going to be able to give these extra people jobs, homes, healthcare and education?”

As usual, young people are among the first to absorb this new information. During my trip, I had the opportunity to visit a project of the Guraghe People’s Self Help Development Organization (GPSDO), supported by the Packard Foundation. Located in the northern part of the South Nations, Nationalities, and the Peoples Regional State (SNNPRS), the project works in an area that is over 90% rural and is facing severe land degradation.

After training, provided by Ethiopia’s Consortium for Integrated Population, Health and Environment, on population, health and environment programs and with support from the Packard Foundation, GPSDO jumped at the chance to transform a youth reproductive health project into a youth-focused population, health and environment (PHE) project – to meet the felt needs of the community to focus on health, livelihoods and the land degradation they are facing. In just eight months the project has grown considerably and young people have organized themselves into a PHE club working on agricultural practices, environmental conservation and family planning. These young people recognize, along with the community, that large family sizes are unsustainable where they live. During our visit, I asked the young people in the PHE club how many children they wanted. Hands shot up, mostly saying two, with a few saying four or giving other numbers.

I wish these young people could show their president and the head of UNEP where they live, the challenges they face, and the steps they are taking in their own lives to forge a future for themselves, their families and their country.