By Dr Seid Hassan
Many Ethiopians, especially those in the Diaspora community have been and still are puzzled by two contradictory phenomena regarding the Ethiopian economy. On the one hand, the ruling party, the EPDRF, has been reporting record-breaking growth rates of the Ethiopian economy, year-after-year. Year after year, we have been informed that the state of the Ethiopian economy was on a higher growth trajectory, “thanks to the policies of the ruling government.” As of this writing, a rosy forecast is provided by the government for both this year (2008) and the next one, while at the same time, the United Nations humanitarian agencies such as UNICEF are reporting, as did the Voice of America on its June 6th broadcast, that “Ethiopia Faces Worsening Food Shortage…” Nearly a month ago, the prime minster, Mr. Meles Zenawi told the parliamentarians the rampant inflation rate that has engulfed the country was due to the “empowered” peasants1 asking for higher prices for their produce and due to a growing economy.
On the other hand, Ethiopians, including those of the members of the Diaspora experience increased squalor, disease, unemployment (known to be way over 50% in urban areas), hopelessness, unnecessary deaths, chronic poverty, these same filth and misery and chronic poverty increasing over time. Every time the members of the Diaspora visit their country of origin, they observe that the people they used to know and their own families are growing into abject poverty. Most importantly, they read Ethiopia being listed at the bottom of the world country rankings. They read, among other things, Ethiopia being one of the poorest and highly indebted nations in the world. They know that the country’s human poverty index is ranked as 98 out of 102 countries, and its human development index is 169 out of 177 countries, and so on. The rosy forecasts and actual growth rates were given to us while, at the same time, the CIA World Fact Book states, on a yearly basis, that “Ethiopia’s poverty-stricken economy is based on agriculture, which accounts for half of GDP, 60% of exports, and 80% of total employment. The agricultural sector suffers from frequent drought and poor cultivation practices…” They also hear the existence of perennial food deficits and watch on worldwide TV networks pictures of starving Ethiopians. They hear, read, and watch video clips of their fellow Ethiopians being swept away by the currents of the Indian Ocean while trying to flee poverty and dictatorship. They also hear their compatriots being massacred by religious extremists. They read and hear on the news that their country men and women languish in the jails of neighboring countries after
escaping the unbearable hardships within their own country. They know that their sisters are being abused by their modern slave masters in the neighboring countries, some speculating the human trafficking masterminded by the TPLF members. Nowadays, it is not uncommon to hear Ethiopian women, who are abused by both the modern slave owners and their jealous wives. For some of them, when the abuse becomes unbearable, some of the abused Ethiopian women have been reported to have lost their minds and become totally crazy. In some situations, the modern slaves are reported to have killed the wives of their modern slave owners. It has also been reported that, no matter the psychological circumstances of the Ethiopian women, the courts have ruled against them… Continue reading >>
25 thoughts on “Is Ethiopia really enjoying economic development?”
Asking the all too obvious question and providing the same all to obvious answer will only help the Wayane keep talking instead of being forced to do the right thing.
It is all to obvious to every one that there is no economic growth for the majority of Ethiopians who were/are dying in large numbers as well as surviving on meager international handouts.
The so called Ethiopian economic growth is the economic growth for the Wayane dictators who are getting richer and richer by each passing days and years, while the 80 million Ethiopians are getting poorer and poorer at the same time.
One does not need to be a rocket scientist to understand such practical and every day life experiences on the ground.
Even a house wife deep down in the rural forest understands the issue.
The question is only getting organized and transforming the habitual liar dictators and make all Ethiopians genuinly rich as measured by the United Nations Human Development Index (HDI).
All else is simply talking the talks just like always and getting the worst results similar to all the past and present.
Thanks a lot Dr Seid. It really is informing.
Its easy to politicize Ethiopia’s poverty. But that does not help the situation. The fact is Ethiopia is a large country with a huge population of uneducated and poor farmers. The fundamental changes that are needed to the Ethiopian economy cannot come over night (no matter who is in power). When your country is the poorest in the world, a 10% rise in th economy from year to year will not mean the end of such poverty. My point is not to defend the government. My hope was to point out the silly nature of dialogue amongst Ethiopians. Anyone that believes that Ethiopia’s economic problems are due solely to the governement’s actions (or inactions) does not understand economics, world politics or history (for example, the interconnectedness of the global economy, the relations between large powers and small countries and the history of other nations attempting to go from agricultural societies to industrial ones). Its time we Ethiopians moved away from knee jerk, reactionary commentary and moved toward informed and serious debate.
Thanks.
Dear Dr. Seid Hassan,
You have explained to us what went wrong in the Ethiopian house management, particularly how the Meles special interest groups manage the economy of the country by giving us, from time to time, contradictory statements to confuse us the diaspora people and the other innocent Ethiopians at home.
To tell the truth, I have a hard time to manage my own monthly expenditure, and I realize how hard it would be to asses the yearly economic growth or decline of a country of 80 million people, and most of them agrarians, uneducated, and have no clue about GDP.
I think the Meles regime needs experts in economics that would tell him why Ethiopia, a fertile land with many natural resources, is still unable to feed its children, and the solution for this chronic problem of poverty, as the governing power suggests, is not to bring and hire economic experts from Nigeria, an oil rich country, but to bring back those Ethiopian economists who know the Ethiopian chigir and tigab from abroad, give them their complete freedoms, allow them to have access to every government and individual households, and let them come up with the solution to the economic decline of the country. Let them tell us how much money the government is spending for military hardware, education, healthcare, transportation, road repair, and agriculture, and how much money it would need for the future economic growth of the country.
Ethiopia has never been short of Ethiopian economists, but Meles Zenawi has been hesitant to work with them; perhaps, most of them have been from Oromia, Amhara, and Ogaden but not from Tigray Abay.
As we all know, the Ethiopian economy is based on farming, and Ethiopians by nature are farmers, and they have been providing adequate food supply for the entire country for centuries until modern education was introduced into the country. As more children are going to school, abandoning their peasant fathers, the number of farmers has declined so is the production of various crops; almost every one is migrating to big cities: boys, girls, and middle-aged people, leaving their homes. In the old days, almost every Ethiopian was a farmer and had his own farm land, and no one was hungry as far as he planted his crops on time. His yearly production will take him for another two or three years; besides, he has goats, sheep, camels, cattle, chickens, a jar of oil, and a jar of honey. Still, he will take the rest of his production to the open market and exchange it for anything necessary for his household. And this was the time of laissez-faire – government’s control over the economy of the individual Ethiopian was very relaxed.
When Menelik II introduced modern education, most of the Ethiopian people were skeptical and hesitant to send their children to school; they knew ahead of time that modern education was going to destroy their way of life: their religion, their culture, their traditional education, their marriage life, and their nationalism. They still associate all the diseases such as HIV and sexual promiscuity to modern education, and as a result of sexual freedom, there come population explosion where Ethiopia is now unable to feed its 80 million people.
Since the balance between the growth of its economy and the growth of its population is unequal, Ethiopia has no other choice in the future except to follow the Chinese method of population control: one child for one family or at least two children for one family if the Church allows. Other wise, nature will take its course until Ethiopia produces an economist that put a balance between the population growth and the food supply, which means if Ethiopia is unable to produce enough food for its children, its population will go down: the children will die and the population decreases. So Ethiopia needs a wise government that tells how many children and how much food supply in a year the country needs in order to survive.
Assta B.Gettu,
The perssistence of poverty, chaos an ending misery in Ethiopia is not lack of knowledge about economics and its management niether the normal course of slow economic development. These and similar excuses are only very marginal to say the least.
The fundamental problem is lack of respresentative, accountable and good governance devoid of corruption but where citizens can fully participate in an all round manners in matters that concern them.
The democratic, plural and inclusive good government lets the peoples knowldge, motivations, creativities, industriousness and energies surge and helping and managing them both for the individual citizens as well as for the common national wellbeings.
It is always possible to defend dictators knowingly or unknowingly by pointing out the vagaries of nature as well as the deadening slow space of economic growth.
I just wonder as to what exactly we should do then if nature is permanently reckles and unpredictable while the so called economic growth measures by the outdated and irrelevant scales will cease to be against the poor while the rich and the dictators enjoy life and the living whether it is dry or wet, windy or calm?
“Just wait! just wait! be calm! be calm, be calm and die silently!” seems to be the message as far as the 80 million Ethiopians are concerned. Personally I am not commenting in this fashion due to disrespect for other’s opinions, but because I think that we need to solve the first things first, that is transforming corrupt and exploitative minority dictatorship and then see if nature and economic development still poses the same scale of problems we have been and are still witnessing.
Why is Israel, a small country in the middle of deserts and hostilities constantly flourishes and export fruits, vegetable and other food items, while large Ethiopia is always complaininig about the vagaries of nature and the slowness of economic growth as the cause of unending misery and peremanent slavery?
We must be able to look at ourselves straight in the mirror.
The answer is no and not at all because nearly every big manufacturing comanies, many severvice sectors, banks, insurances, and transportations are owned, controlled, and run by members of the tplfwoyanae crimefamilies and their close relatives, friends, and associates.
Everything in Ethiopia goes to the tplfwoyanae affluents and nothing is left for the bottom millions Ethiopians.
When the tplfwoyanae invaders came into Ethiopia, they had no penney in their pockets, but had a lot of guns and bullets to loot and murder Ethiopians who stood in their way to protect the contry’s resources,captials,wealth, and security. Today, the tplfwoyanae members of the crimefamilies are not only notorious murderers, they very,very wealthy and millionaires whose wealth spilled over to overseas and continued to grow and expand at alarming rate.
Currently, in a state-sponsored crimeridden regime the wealth and captial gap between millions of Ethiopians and the very few affluent the tplfwoyanae lotters is getting bigger and bigger creating abjuct edonomic deepression on the millions hard working Ethiopians leading to exposing millions to starvation and famine.
It is no surprise to Ethiopians that millions of children are starved and on the brinks of death due to a deliberate barbaric and sinful act, carelessnes, and unfair treatment of Ethiopians by the current invading forces of tplfwoyanaes.
Membeers of the tplfwoyanae crimefamily are currently enjoying on the return of a huge profits from the business they run in the amount of millions and millions dollars net profits. When we hear from the mouth and the speech of the Meles Nazawi’s the economy is growing by 10%, it menase, it is not the growth of the economy of millions of oppresed Ethiopians, it is only and only the economy of the tplfwoyane that is growing by 10%.
Assta B.Gettu,
“…So Ethiopia needs a wise government that tells how many children and how much food supply in a year the country needs in order to survive.” You concluded your comment
I am just wondering if it is anything of wisdom to repeat all what have already been repeatedely said somewhere else rather than divising own solutions for own problems and applying to own specific contexts.
By the way, having many children is a form of social security and old age life supporting normal human wise behavioral mechanism of survival for families in conditions of bad governance, failed states, rampant corruptions and dictatorship where personal securities, economic developments and social wefare and wealth distributions are absent and strictly restricted to the tiny insignificant corrupt governing elites.
Hence to say that a wise government must command families to have may be only one child or so is to recommend that the resources meant for the unborn chiuldren and the old insurances planned for their families must be misapproprited by the corrupt few ruling elites while the families must be made to lose scarce resources and old age insurance securities.
In fact first and foremost we need good, transparent and democratic government that is able to initiate, assemble all resources, promote sustainable economic developments, apropriately manage and justly distribute wealths thus created and increase the living standards of the general population as a whole.
Once the living standards of the general population starts to increase and social insurances and pension plans becomes practical realities, then birth rates among the general poulation will surely decrease because people then want to invest on themselves and enjoy life rather than keep breading.
That is what is exactly happening in the developed democratic west.
Talking about the Chines model if at all it can be called anything of a model is talking about dictating and dictatorship of human life and livings just to please corrupt power mongers bent on robbing the people’s resources. Why put the cart before the horse?
So Ethiopia needs a wise good government that can promote sustainable all round economic development and increases the wefare and wellbeing of the general population enjoying increased life standards and voluntary decreased birth rates.
Dear Assta B. Gettu:
I agree with you except one or two things you stated above.
There is no enough land in Ethiopia for everyone to have a piece of it and that scarcity increases as the population increases.
Second, the fact that people migrate to the cities indicates, as is the case for all countries, that it is becoming increasingly difficult to live in the countryside. This, of course, is contrary to what the prime minister tried to tell us- that the peasants are getting richer than before.
Third, even though I do understand that migration to the cities puts a lot of pressure on the already overpopulated cities and city administrators, such a migration could be beneficial. In fact, one of the problems with sub-Saharan Africa, Ethiopia included is the lack of urbanization. Among other things, it is really uneconomical and downright difficult to distribute electric and clean water to the scattered villagers.
Thanks for taking the time and leaving your comment.
Seid
Thanks a lot Mr/Ms. Anonymous.
God Willing, more explanation will be coming, especially regarding the determinants of economic development. I urge others either to collaborate with me or work on their own so that the truth would be told.
Seid
Mr./Ms Critical Thinker:
Thanks for taking your time and leaving a comment about my short article.
Just to respond on the couple of things you stated above:
1) If you believe that the Ethiopian economy was growing at 10% per year, as I tried to show you in the article using the Rule of 72 or Rule of 7o, the Ethiopian economy would have been several times higher that what it is today. Such a growth rate, if it indeed existed, would have “trickled down” even to those who are not connected. This being the fact, I leave it to you and others to make the correct conclusion.
2) Your comments about the effects of globalization on the Ethiopian economy sounds like the same rhetoric provided by the government- blame someone/something else for the ills of the economy that largely due to bad policies. For your information, a country with good policies and effectively use globalization to its own advantages. That is what was done in Southeast Asia. Globalization has many facets that Ethiopia is REMOTELY a part of it. So, instead of making the most of out of it, I am kind of surprised that people blame it without knowing what it means how it applies to a specific country or group of people. Globalization was there for decades and it involves both opportunities and drawbacks. It is also unavoidable, at least for the most part. My contention regarding this one is that, Ethiopia is not a part of it at all, in the strict sense of the concept.
Again, I thank you for leaving your comment.
Seid
Dear Mestewat:
You said, among other things:
“It is all to obvious to every one that there is no economic growth for the majority of Ethiopians who were/are dying in large numbers as well as surviving on meager international handouts….”
I agree with you!
It quite amazing to see and observe why some ferejis (and some Ethiopians) continue to believe the #s provided by the government. The article is written to show those that what they believe and say (write) is contrary to the facts on the ground.
” The so called Ethiopian economic growth is the economic growth for the Wayane dictators who are getting richer and richer by each passing days and years, while the 80 million Ethiopians are getting poorer and poorer at the same time.
You also said:
“One does not need to be a rocket scientist to understand such practical and every day life experiences on the ground.
Even a house wife deep down in the rural forest understands the issue.”
That is true and thanks.
Actually, the earlier version of the same article had a footnote stating the same thing you said. I deleted it knowing that it was obvious.
You also said leaders of the ruling party are “habitual liar dictators” and implied that what is required now is action by all of us.
I am doing my part, my friend.
Seid
Dr. Seid,
Greeting with warm salam to you and yours.
Very interesting article and educational as well.
Yet I have to say that the same state of mind
persists even after the nature’s blessing taking
it’s toll.
Glad to know that doing the part one thinks of himself,
but the real participation is in the field, standing
the heat.
Dr. I don’t understand with such a backward country, both
in the agriculture and technology, and culturally
diverse where suspicion rule the inner most part of self
that is required to be freed for development how can you
expect real change?
SYH or SOH, from yours IZ
Dear Mestewat,
Lack of knowledge of economics has been one of the big problems for most of the Ethiopian peasants for centuries; we know Ethiopians work hard on their farm lands from sun rise to sun set with little food in their stomachs.
However, when bega (summer) comes, most of these Ethiopian farmers spend their agricultural products for teskar, serg, senibetie, zikir, mahiber, and other things, competing with each other whose teskar or serg was bigger than the other without thinking that they need a portion of their products for the next year. They do not know how to economize their products; they just spend, spend, and spend as if there was no tomorrow. Then when kiremt (winter) comes in, they have no enough food left to carry them to Meskerem (September) because they have unknowingly wasted most of their food supplies for the unnecessary feasts, so they have no choice but starve to death; therefore, knowledge of economics is very important for every Ethiopian, rich or poor, peasant or merchant, and it is the responsibility of the government to teach his people to manage their house holds properly.
It is almost impossible to find on this earth any government, democratic, or socialist, communist or anarchist, theocratic or monarchic free of corruption in a smaller or bigger scale. Any government on this earth is corrupt; however, in the case of Dictator Meles Seitanawi (Zenawi), the corruption goes deeper, and no one in his/her right mind says any thing good about this evil man except his political supporters, his beneficiaries, and we who love democracy are trying to bring change to our country, if it is possible, peacefully without shading the bloods of our brothers and sisters, and to do this, we need patience.
For thousands of years, nature has been nurturing us with its timely rain, sunshine, mild weather, and plenty of water, but when we start to misuse the gifts of nature, we are all the losers – the peasants, the poor, the rich, the dictators, the peace makers, and the clergy.
In economics, priorities of resource-allocation are important for a country to grow or prosper; in this case, if our priority is to get rid of Dictator Meles Seitanawi rather than to work toward eradicating poverty from our country, then let us do it together and put our resources toward that goal.
Israel should not be a good example for Ethiopia because the people of Israel had been scattered throughout the world for thousands of years while the Ethiopians have been seating in the same country for millions of years with two or three skills: hunting, gathering, and farming. When the Jews were in their diaspora, they were learning a variety of skills from their captors: from the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Arabs, the Greeks, the Russians, the Americans, and the Africans. When they finally settled in Israel after defeating the Arabs, the rest of the Jews came to Israel, and with what kind of knowledge did they come to Israel and from where? Some came from Asia, North America, Europe, South America, the Arab world, and Africa, and the knowledge and the skills they brought with them were not simply hunting, gathering, and farming but engineering, exploring, medicine, modern farming, and many other skills that would change the desert of the Jordan River into Paradise.
Thanks a lot Dr. seid, it is really a very intersting article focused on economic analysis of ethiopia based on simple and clear ideas. I have also read many of your previous articles along with your toughtful interview that was made in EPRP (d) pal talk rooms. I wish most eprp members and supporters learn from you how to attack the weyane regime by any potential we have. I am hoping a lot of eprp memebers will clarify them selves to gain many supporters around diaspora when they are only targetting weyane, nothing else. The so called ethiolion, debeteraw and others are still crying for nothing using their websites. These few individuals are very confused and dont have a clear stand on what they want except insulting strong oppostions. agian thanks dr. seid and continue the best to teach many including me.
It is all lies and brags about the current progress in that country. My friend who is back from Ethiopia recently in Addis told me that I see big towers and sky scrapers in Addis but not far from that there is a shaby road system that needs to be repaired and fixed. So he tells me that the individuals are investing and we see those big buildings. However, where is the government that is supposed to do its part? Clearly all the promise is but a lie.
Dear Mr./Ms Critical Thinker (and maybe a few others:
I forgot to mention that I am not one of those who blame and lament Globalization for the ills of the economy. In fact, I can argue, as I have done it using some of the professionally written articles (that is, not written for the average reader), quite a few countries have used globalization to their advantages and made huge economic progress. Not only is a useless exercise to blame globalization, it actually counterproductive for doing so would mean ignoring those who should be accountable.
Seid
Dear Achamyellew Fola,
Unlike Dictator Meles’ regime, a good and caring government knows what is good for his subjects. I have never heard the Chinese people getting hungry even though their government is a communist government, and to some people, undemocratic one. These billions of Chinese have enough food to eat while only 80 million Ethiopians go hungry to bed every night. Is it because the Chinese people work harder than the Ethiopian people? Or is it because the Chinese government is a communist government but the Woyanne government is a federal democratic government? The answer is that you cannot bring a good living standard for 80 million uneducated and unskilled Ethiopians in just a second.
While you are trying to bring a good living standard for the 80 million Ethiopians within 10 or 20 years and have no plan for the population growth for those years, then your effort will have no good results for those mothers and fathers who are still breeding and over populating the country. There must be somewhere a hold where the population growth can be stifled until the good living standard is achieved; then you can let the people bread as they want once they understand the consequences of having many children without adequate planning. There must be a measurement between supply of food and breeding of children. You cannot achieve both at the same time; you can educate the public to hold on breeding until the economic growth of the country surpasses the breeding growth
Wondim Assta B. Gettu:
Just for your information, economic growth and development begets reduced fertility, not the other way round. Increased poverty is highly associated with increased fertility, the former being the cause of the latter. So, if you have seen any increase in the size of the population in Ethiopia, which I agree with you on that one, you should blame poverty and bad policies as being the cause. And I am not making this up. It is an empirical evidence, and irrefutable at that.
In Ethiopia, where there is no social security system or anything else to depend on when someone grows real old, another child is perceived as another piece of bread when it is needed the most.
I am just trying to remind you not to put the cart in front of the horse when you try to use it and try to get someplace and/or situation that is desired.
One more thing, my dear countryman: I have been emotionally attached to the peasants when I grew up and had spent a good portion of my young life trying to help them, both during Emperor H. S. and the fascist Mengistu. Nearly all of my relatives are peasants and farmers and I am proud of my heritage. I know what they are going thru first hand! If anyone tries to put words in their mouth by telling us that they are “empowered” or richer, and/or when someone tries to blame the lack of growth one the “multiplying” peasants, I will defend them for doing so would be too personal. I ask everyone to leave these abused and hungry peasants alone! They have been used and abused enough and they need not be insulted, directly or otherwise.
Thanks.
Seid
Thanks a lot Ato Hagos Araya for your positive feedbacks. it means a lot to me, really!
I also would like to thank the admins of ER for posting my article right away and for letting their readers and myself post our comments and exchange our ideas.
I thank all of you who took your time to leave your comments regarding my article. I want you to know that I learned from you all. There is no better way to learn other than getting immediate feedbacks from readers.
In case I failed to respond to your comments, please forgive me for that. I need to go back to work and I am sure you would understand.
Let’s all come to our senses and work together to help the country we call Ethiopia. Let’s put aside our minor differences and save our Motherland and our people.
I wish I could stay away from using the internet and the TV, but I am unable to do especially from the former. Watching those starving children and reading about them is becoming too much both for me and my young daughter!
It is just beyond me why Ethiopians, especially the Diaspora community cannot understand what is going on in that country and do something by coming together as one. We all have a role to play in our attempt to harvest a common good. That common good, unfortunately, cannot be realized without the coming of together by nearly all of us.
Thanks to you all again.
Seid
Thank you, Dr. Seid, for sharing your personal feelings about the lives of the Ethiopian peasants with us your readers.
I will never forget the hardships my parents face every day, milking the caws, tilling the ground, sawing the seeds, harvesting the crops, and storing them in big kirchats (baskets). Then, if the grain stays for a long time in the kirchat, it will be eaten up by tiny nekez (insects), and my parents have no way of attacking these small animals, and we have to starve again; my parents worry whether there will be enough food in the mosob for tomorrow, and the government has given us no help at all to kill the nekez.
Yes, children were an asset for their parents in the old days when they had enough land to work on and support their parents, but now most Ethiopian children are either in the army or in the school, but the parents are left alone, and the government has no plan for such parents abandoned by their children and their government.
It may be true when people get richer, they may have fewer children, and when they are poor, they may have many children, and this is the problem. So, in order to bring prosperity to the 80 million Ethiopians so that the number of the population can go down, what does the government must do in your opinion? The Ethiopian population is too high, and how can you bring it down, and how long will it take to do so?
Dr. Seid, my whole point is let us have the material thing first before we have the children. Let us wage a war between the living and the unborn children in order to have a balanced standard living.
Remember, after God created the food and arranged every thing important, then he created Adam and Eve; God took the whole week to make the necessary preparation for the man and his wife. Here we can see a balance between the food supply and the number of people.
Yes !! Ethiopia has developed alot. It has created 4.5 million starving people.
Dear Ato Assta B. Gettu:
The way you wrote your previous comment led me to believe that either you were a city boy who did not know what you were talking about or one who wants to blame the peasants as did the prime minister. Now that I am talking with a REAL person who knows well what the peasants are going thru, I take my hats off for him (that is, YOU!) And I apologize if I offended you in my previous response.
The question that you raised and the conclusion that you came up with (let’s try to have the material before having the children) are both valid. However, the conclusion you came up with, though logical and valid, seems to have been driven from a lack of understanding the ways to control the growth rate of population. Even though I may lose you by giving you a short answer to your question, let me try it anyway.
First, using the Rule of 70 or Rule of 72 (it does not matter that much which one you use), with an annual growth rate of 2.32% (as reported by the government) or 2.7-2.9% (as reported by UNICEF and other), the Ethiopian population will be at least 164 million, within 25-30 years. For a person like you who knows well that there are too many people in Ethiopia already, just imagine what would happen then (twice the size of today’s population about 25-30 years from now!)
So, even though I agree with you that Ethiopia cannot afford any more people than this #, these projected #s I just mentioned are unavoidable (the UN also have reported similar projections). And you cannot overcome this problem with wishful thinking. Nor could we overcome them overnight. When it comes to population growth, there is a HIDDEN MOMENTUM that cannot be stopped as long as the growth rate is positive! To use what Michael Todaro, an expert in this and other fields, has used, trying to stop the growth rate of a population is somewhat similar to trying to apply a braking on speeding automobile, which tends to be going for a while before coming to a stop!
Again, history has shown that, material wellbeing causes a decrease in population, not the other way round!Please take a note on that! for your information, the only country in the world that has somewhat “succeeded” in limiting the growth rate in its population is China, with one-child-per couple policy. Even if you call that a “success”, it did not come out that easily. It required repression, a concerted political campaign, by a somewhat credible government, and an increase in material wealth! China is still the most populated country in the world with nearly 1.4 billion people!
For those who may wrongly contemplate if either diseases or wars could be the solution, history also has shown that such scenarios would not help, and, in fact, are counterproductive to this problem. Yes, a plague in Europe many centuries ago nearly wiped out the population but one would not wish that to happen in modern days. War also brings poverty and poverty leads to increased population.
As far as Ethiopia and other countries in similar standing, are concerned, the solution lies in good policies that are geared towards raising the standard of living, good governance, with a government which not talks the talk but walks the walk, that has the ears of its own people so that when it tells them that: “even hough having another child may be good for you as a family, it is not good for the country”, they would listen to it. It requires leaders who practice what they mean and vice versa. Unfortunately, Ethiopia has wasted 35 years and the problems mount as time passes by! Sad! The assets that the two regimes wasted (by creating wars and suppressing dissent) could have been used to tackle such chronic problems, but, unfortunately (irgman honena) we are in this sad situation.
I hope this answers your question but even if it did not, I do not want to write too much using just one response.
Seid
Thank you, Dr. Seid for taking your time and responding to my questions.
Please continue posting your articles.
Dr. Seid,
One has to appreciate your down to earth approach and
genuine feeling. Many thanks for sharing your ideas
and participate in the discussion to clear the
misunderstanding with easy and sound touch.
Kudos to you, Sir.
IZ
Thank you, Ato abc-hahu.
Thank you, Ato Assta B. Gettu.
God bless you all.
Let God save our Homeland. Let God help our poor people!
Seid