Indignation for the Incompetent, Bribed Mr. Ken Ohashi, and his Lies about ´Ethiopia´
Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
September 01, 2008
Do not have the slightest doubt that the disreputable and fraudulent Mr. Ken Ohashi was bribed by the Ethio-fascist government of the Abyssinian tyrant Meles Zenawi, and be sure that for the shameful lies contained in the ´report´ an amount higher than 100,000 US $ has been cashed to the corrupt World Bank officer.
To save its reputation, the international body should start immediately all internal procedures for investigation and find out how these shameful lies found their way on a paper under the World Bank´s logo.
Going through this fallacious paper of Mr. Ken Ohashi´s, one understands that while in Abyssinia the humans are suffering, the figures can be happy and blissful. It´s a shame for the World Bank.
However, in the light of another report issued today by the UN OCHA (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs), people must react in great numbers and demand immediate investigation and removal of the corrupt and liar Mr. Ken Ohashi.
I republish both reports, and call you all to express your absolute indignation against the Ethio-liar Mr. Ken Ohashi.
Protest again the false propaganda in favour of the underdeveloped ´Ethiopian´ tyranny that was carried out by the bribed and untrustworthy Mr. Ken Ohashi, and demand his immediate sacking. Bring in your mind the dozens of millions of starving and terrorized peoples of the Abyssinian Hell, and send your protestation emails now!
Write to the following email addresses:
feedback@worldbank.org
mjonasova@worldbank.org
civilsociety@worldbank.org
africainfo@worldbank.org
pic@worldbank.org
Sustaining Growth: Ethiopessimism? World Bank's disaster pilot economic growth plan
by Ken Ohashi
World Bank´s Country Director for Ethiopia and Sudan
http://www.ayyaantuu.com/Oromiyaa/NewsBlog/tabid/36/EntryID/3075/Default.aspx and
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:21879366~pagePK:34370~piPK:34424~theSitePK:4607,00.html
The international community in Addis seems to have suddenly turned pessimistic about the prospects for Ethiopian economy. Inflation, which was troublingly high at 19% in January, has by June jumped to 55% (measured as the 12-month increase in the overall Consumer Price Index). Ethiopia's foreign exchange reserves are running low, making it more difficult for domestic investors to secure foreign currencies needed to import key materials and equipment. Though much better now, load shedding had affected daily life in many areas last several months. Above all, however, the food crisis and images of children in acute malnutrition are enough to make anyone not just saddened but gloomy about the future. Was the five years of rapid economic growth all so fragile? Was it only a result of good weather and a ´rebound´ from the 2002/03 drought?
Not so long ago, many of the same people were optimistic that Ethiopia would sustain fast growth and quickly overcome abject poverty and recurrent famines. This optimism was shared by many Ethiopians overseas, who were busy making real estate and other investments back home. Even a feeling of a boom economy was emerging.
I do not wish to minimize the terrible suffering of those in hunger, or those who struggle with rising food prices. Nevertheless, I also believe this swing in outlook is unwarranted. If the past optimism was euphoric, the current "Ethiopessimism" is equally excessive. Over the last several years, Ethiopian economy has become much stronger, but it also faces complex new challenges today. In the first of a two-part series of articles, I will focus on the developments in the recent years and argue why the past achievements are more durable than the skeptics believe. In the second article, I will discuss the emerging economic risks and possible ways to address them.
How has the economy changed?
First, physical infrastructure has improved.
Roads: Paved Federal roads, which form the main transport arteries, have increased from 3,800 km in 2000 to nearly 5,500 km by 2007, an increase of 43%. Including the expansion of other Federal and Regional roads (to 37,000 km) and the explosion of woreda and community roads, the total road length has tripled to 100,200 km. Extension of roads means improved access to market and more economic opportunities for everyone.
Power: Since 2000, power generation capacity has nearly doubled to 791 MW today. It will rise to 1,970 MW within the next 18 months. The percentage of households with direct access to electricity has increased from 5% to 8%, and is expected to reach 15% by 2010. These are still modest figures, but the percentage of population living in areas with access to electricity has increased from 13% to 22%, and should reach about 50% by 2010. This ´indirect´ coverage at least gives people benefits of many services that are impossible without electricity. Electricity brings more advanced technology.
Second, agriculture, which still generates 40-45% of GDP, is undergoing some changes, and there is now a base to sustain significant increases in productivity. The spread of new technology has been slow thus far. At only 36 kg per ha of cultivated land, average fertilizer use remains very low by international standards. In certain areas, however, use of fertilizer has increased sharply. The evidence suggests some farmers are successfully adopting new technologies. The key is to scale it up. In this regard, the deployment of Development Agents (extension workers) is important as the interface between farmers and new technologies. From about 15,000 in 2000, the number of DAs has risen to about 67,000 now. That is a significant institutional capability. Land certification programs have also improved land use security for many farmers, with tangible increases in investment.
Third, Ethiopia has become more investor friendly. For instance, whereas the Investment Climate Survey of 2001 reported a number of serious obstacles, such as access to land, tax administration, finance, etc., the new survey in 2006 found there had been significant improvement in all key areas. In the Doing Business 2008 rating, Ethiopia is ranked ninth by African firms in terms of the overall business environment. Targeted Government support to strategic industries (flowers, leather products, and textiles) has been quite effective.
Finally, the education and health status of the work force has been rising, supported by dramatic improvement in basic service delivery. For instance, from 1999 to 2006, primary school enrollment has increased from 5.2 million to 14 million. Of course, the impact on the overall labor force is only gradual; still, between 1999 and 2005, the percentage of employed urban workers with a minimum of 5 years of education has risen from 52.7% to 56.1%. A more educated work force is more productive.
Turning to the actual growth record, my contention is that Ethiopian economy is now capable of delivering much higher growth than in the 1990s, and that the recent strong growth is not just good luck. 1991/02 was the worst year in Ethiopia´s modern economic history. The per capita income level was about 30% below the previous peak in 1971/72. It is not easy to estimate the potential growth rate of a quickly changing economy, but if we compare 1991/92 and 2000/01, I think we get a pretty good estimate for those years. In the early part of that 10-year span, Ethiopian economy enjoyed a rebound from the disastrous economic performance of the Derg period (1974-1991). Later, Ethiopia suffered from a war, with GDP contracting by 3.7% in 1997/98. These exceptional factors are likely to offset each other to a large extent. Thus the average of 5.5% seems to be a reasonable estimate of the potential growth rate, a rate intuitively consistent with the kind of economy Ethiopia was in the 1990s, with improving economic policies but a modest infrastructure base.
If you assume Ethiopian economy after the 2002/03 drought was similar in its potential growth capacity, then you would expect GDP to move back to the 5.5% trend line shown in the following chart. Actually the economic output was 12% higher than the "potential" by 2006/07. It is hard to argue this is primarily a rebound, which is based on underutilized production capacity and pent-up demand. It is more natural to think that the trend rate had changed. The average growth rate from 2000/01 to 2006/07 turns out to be about 7.7%. I think this is a much better estimate of the growth potential today.
Still this does not explain why Ethiopia has suddenly run into a multitude of economic difficulties? One way to think of it is that Ethiopia suffers from its own economic successes.
Rapid economic growth can be a double-edged sword. Its intrinsic benefits are obvious. Economic damage done during the Derg period was so severe that only in the last few years Ethiopian per capita incomes have surpassed the previous high of the early 1970s. Yet, Ethiopia remains one of the poorest countries in the world. Therefore, it desperately needs to grow in order to lift its citizens out of poverty.
Rapid growth, however, can also expose serious structural weaknesses in an economy, making such growth ultimately difficult to sustain. This is the challenge Ethiopia faces today. Aggressive public sector-led investment programs resulted in sharp increases in demand for both investment and consumption goods. But, without deeper structural reforms, the expected private investment—both domestic and foreign—did not materialize on a scale to keep pace with the demand growth. This imbalance between demand and supply is at the core of the rising trade deficit as well as inflation. The trade deficit has ballooned to an estimated $4.7 billion equivalent in FY2007/08, about 22% of GDP. Of course, the global rise in oil and other commodity prices has made it worse. But, the inflation in Ethiopia has been much higher than in most other African countries. I have little doubt that this is to an important degree caused by the domestic demand-supply imbalance.
Does this mean Ethiopian economy now needs to slow down sharply, at least to the recent trend rate of around 7.7%, and perhaps to an even lower rate temporarily to restore the basic balances? Or are there ways to preserve relatively high growth while dealing with the twin imbalances, i.e., inflation and external deficits? I believe there are things the Government can do to avoid a costly shock therapy.
ETHIOPIA: Battling malnutrition in the south
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=80104
Girara 1 September 2008 (IRIN) - Since June, Girara health centre in southern Ethiopia has been a hive of activity each Monday when health staff run the outpatient therapeutic clinic.
"When we started, it was so crowded," Meherey Gedebo, the nursing officer, said. "There were a lot of people coming for treatment. Now, new admissions are minimal - today we had only 78 cases."
Among them was three-year-old Misera Yohannes, who had been brought to the clinic by his father, Yohannes Bate, 40. The mother was at home nursing a 15-day-old baby.
"I have a cow which refused to give milk after losing a calf," Yohannes told IRIN at the centre. "During that time, I could not give this child any milk; that is why it got to this. But even now, we are only buying milk for the mother so she can feed the new baby."
Miserach will receive Plumpy´nut treatment, then supplementary foods for another few weeks. Thereafter, the parents would normally be expected to take over the proper feeding of the child.
Yohannes said he would try to sell firewood and grass to feed the child. He would also use the 80 birr (US$8) the family earned each month from the government safety nets programme.
"Most of these people are very poor," Meherey said. "The hope is, if the rains continue, this may be over in two to three months´ time. The numbers are decreasing and the health condition of the children is getting much better."
Adenech Mekannen, a 27-year-old mother of four, brought her three-year-old daughter to the centre after failing to harvest enough last year to feed the children from her half-hectare of land.
"This year was the worst," she told IRIN. "Because of the drought, it was difficult for us to feed the children. Even the five-year-old got Plumpy´nut and has recovered."
Plumpy´nut, a ready-to-eat peanut paste with skimmed milk, icing sugar and vitamins, enables children to recover in six to eight weeks. The treatment is administered at home, thereby avoiding the need for hospitalisation.
Staff at Girara and Badessa supplementary feeding centres complained that households sometimes shared the Plumpy´nut among several children – and even adults – thereby reducing the amount available for those in need.
Some of the supplementary food had also found its way to the local markets. "We now teach the others why it is not right [to share the product]," said a feeding centre official.
Widespread malnutrition
Last year´s drought, followed by erratic rains and a sharp rise in global food prices, made it difficult for many Ethiopian households to eat properly, according to aid workers. As a result, malnutrition has become rampant.
"The current nutritional crisis is caused by multiple factors – one of which is drought," Sally Stevenson of MSF-Greece said. "It also depends on localised conditions, including how long it rains, delivery of food and existence of safety nets."
In a 25 August report, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Ethiopia noted that overall admissions of children to therapeutic centres remained high.
An additional 34 vulnerable woredas had been identified by the UN World Food Programme (WFP) in Afar, Amhara, Oromiya and the Southern Regions. The agency was, however, facing a shortfall of 170,000 tonnes of food valued at US$138.8 million and had cut rations in July.
The number of feeding centres, on the other hand, increased over the past three months in the most affected areas from 200 to 600, with more than 26,500 admissions, according to the UN World Health Organization.
"There is no longer enough land to support the many people in Ethiopia, so micro-nutrient deficiency is common," Aaron White of the NGO Samaritan´s Purse, told IRIN in Addis Ababa. "Part of the problem is that people do not have the right foods to eat."
An assessment by Samaritan´s Purse in Kedida Gamella district of Kembata Timbaro zone, Southern Region, found 10.7 percent of sampled children with global acute malnutrition (GAM). Of the district´s 111,150 people, 22,236 are children under five.
It found severe acute malnutrition (SAM) rates of 2.3 percent – which was higher than the rates in May and June 2006. Overall child morbidity was also high.
The situation differs in various parts of Ethiopia, according to NGOs. "In Siraro [Oromiya Region] the situation is stabilising – our impression, based on the findings from our medical programmes - is that the situation is improving," Stevenson said.
"The rains are good, crops are coming on well and general distribution has had an impact," she added. "The situation in Afar is different. We have found SAM rates of 9 percent - against a threshold of 3 percent."
There are a limited number of humanitarian actors in Afar and capacity to assess and respond to the needs of the affected communities is restricted without a rapid influx of NGOs into the region, according to OCHA. Yet some 16 woredas face a critical situation and require close monitoring.
Community-based approach
Faced with the cyclical pattern of hunger and malnutrition in Ethiopia, aid workers are concentrating on community-based therapeutic care (CTC).
"It is a no-patient system where the children stay at home and the mothers take care of them," said John Rynne, country director of GOAL. "Managing malnutrition was always the job of NGOs. Medical staff were not trained to handle it. That was the traditional model, now we work with staff – train them to treat the kids."
CTC integrates supplementary and therapeutic feeding, hygiene and health promotion and food security activities.
For severe malnutrition, ready-to-use therapeutic foods are combined with outpatient drug treatment. It may involve small referral inpatient units for those with complications, alongside supplementary feeding programmes.
"Each village now has volunteers trained in nutrition education," said Mulugeti Beshada, manager forConcern Worldwide´s livelihood programme in Damot Woyde, Wolayita district. The NGO supports 10,000 children in supplementary feeding centres and 500 in therapeutic care.
Mestewat Giridan, CTC manager, said community volunteers had played a key role. "We used to go from home to home screening children," she told IRIN in Badessa. "Now the volunteers report cases and friends tell friends. Self-referral is happening."
Note
Picture: Dire conditions of malnutrition and suffering in occupied and terrorized Wolayita Land (annexed by the Abyssinian Hell)
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