Is Ethiopia's building boom masking poverty? - BBC News

By Lerato Mbele

Whenever we set up our camera and flapped open our sun reflectors in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, passers-by became curious and eager to help.

But getting them to talk on camera was another matter as in general residents of the city are reticent and keep their views to themselves.

We were filming in Addis Ababa for a programme charting the changes in the country, yet it was only on the flight back to South Africa that I met an Ethiopian willing to be candid.

I found myself seated next to an inquisitive elderly Ethiopian woman, who was chatty despite the early morning departure.

However, she was not so open as to be willing for me to mention her name here.

She wore a green twin-set, leggings and woollen socks with her loafers. After the rigorous security checks, she took the socks off, saying she only wears them to keep her feet clean at the end of the security protocols.

She reminded me a bit of my mother, both caring and bossy all in one person.

During the flight, she cut me a portion of her fruit and insisted that I eat every morsel; her stern gaze suggested that I had no choice.

'Foregone conclusion'

We talked about a lot of things, including my impressions of Nigeria, especially following the ground-breaking presidential election there when the incumbent lost.

She was proud of the manner in which Nigerians had used their vote to make a strong statement about their government.

I replied that perhaps if Ethiopians have strong views about the ruling party - the EPRDF, in power since 1991 - then they could also do the same when elections are held in May.

The EPRDF under the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi won a massive majority in 2010

My neighbour dispelled that notion very quickly and whispered that she believes the result is a foregone conclusion.

I argued that surely Ethiopia's democracy is deeper than that, and that many support the government as they are grateful for the development in recent years.

She smirked and told me to open my eyes wider during my next visit.

Beggars

I was urged to investigate the economic statistics.

They show an economy growing in near double-digits, but about 40% live below the poverty line.

This photo is from 2007, but homeless people are still seen on the streets of Addis Ababa

She reminded me of the beggars who are on the streets of Addis Ababa.

Then I recalled our filming around the city.

There is a clear image of frantic construction taking place, with a monorail, new roads and apartment blocks all being built.

But I also noticed that many of the buildings are empty.

I asked my new friend why she thought this was.

Building work dominates the skyline in Ethiopia

A new monorail is one of the big building projects

But many of the new office and apartment blocks are empty

She reckons the Ethiopian middle-class cannot afford the rents, and that professionals, such as doctors and lawyers, have resorted to using parts of their home as consulting rooms, because they cannot pay for office space.

'Prestige'

I wondered why the government was intent on driving capital into these construction projects.

She answers simply that it is about the prestige.

Ethiopia is proud to host the African Union headquarters

She thinks that as a political and diplomatic leader on the continent, Ethiopia needs to show the economic signs of that position.

And Ethiopia needs to bear the hallmarks of this new-found economic prowess.

These are the thoughts of one individual, but someone who has seen a lot. She lived through the aftermath of the country's Italian occupation, the Marxist Derg regime and now the move towards a free market system and the introduction of democracy.

Her hope is that eventually Ethiopians will speak up and challenge their leaders to ensure that their economic dreams will lead to tangible change.

Africa Business Report is broadcast on BBC World News on Fridays at 16:40 and 1840 GMT, on Saturdays at 1010 GMT and 1830 GMT and on Sundays at 0010 GMT.

This week, Lerato Mbele presents the programme from Addis Ababa.

Ethiopians Break their Silence -

Oakland, CA – We Say the Land is Not Yours: Breaking the Silence Against Forced Displacement in Ethiopia, a landmark report from the Oakland Institute documents testimony from members of several ethnic groups from different areas of the country,¹ bringing forward the voices of those most directly impacted by land grabs and villagization. The Ethiopian government’s villagization program aims to resettle up to 1.5 million Ethiopians, mainly pastoralist and indigenous communities, from areas targeted for industrial plantations. These resettlements have happened without free, prior and informed consent, and when communities resist, they have been forcibly removed by means of violence, imprisonment, intimidation, political coercion, and the denial of humanitarian assistance.

“The Oakland Institute has released reports based on meticulous fieldwork and years of research, exposing the human rights abuses against indigenous and pastoralist communities in Ethiopia,” said Anuradha Mittal, the Oakland Institute’s Executive Director. “As the country now prepares for the national election in May 2015, it is important for communities that have been shut out and locked up, to tell their stories in their own words.”

Over the past few years, free speech in Ethiopia has been systemically withdrawn. International media and NGOs have documented the threats, arrests, and disappearances of those critical of government’s policies. To add to this is the lack of media freedom: Ethiopia is the second biggest jailer of journalists after its neighbor, Eritrea. Its broadcasting and telecommunications sectors are controlled by the state, and the minimal private media sector is heavily regulated and frequently censored.

“The context in which we release this report is one of torture, oppression, and silencing,” said Mittal. “A development strategy without ensuring its citizens freedom of speech and expression is not a development strategy but a scheme to benefit the ruling elites. Those basic human rights are not being upheld in Ethiopia. It is therefore urgent to make voices of those impacted heard.”

The report includes the voices of Ethiopians, some who remain in Ethiopia, and others who have fled to neighboring countries and have sought political asylum.

With the impending national elections, the government has escalated its crackdown on political opposition and dissent. This report brings forth the voices that are being silenced, to bring this oppressive situation to the attention of the members of the African Union, international community, and donor countries. The time is now to take decisive action.

Ethiopia: tribe starves as dam and land grabs dry up river - Survival International

The Kwegu in Ethiopia's Lower Omo Valley are starving because of the destruction of their forest and the slow death of the Omo river.

© Survival International

Survival International, the global movement for tribal peoples’ rights, has received disturbing reports that the smallest and most vulnerable tribe in Ethiopia’s Lower Omo Valley is starving, as a result of the destruction of their forest and the slow death of the river on which they depend.

The Kwegu, who number just 1,000, hunt, fish and grow crops along the banks of the Omo River. But the massive Gibe III dam and associated large-scale irrigation for commercial plantations on tribal land will stop the Omo River’s floods, and destroy the fish stocks on which the Kwegu depend. Recent satellite images show that the Ethiopian government has started to fill the Gibe III dam reservoir.

In disturbing video testimonies filmed in 2012 during the clearing of their land, a Kwegu man said, “Maybe we will die. The river keeps us alive. If they take the water out of the riverbed where will we live? If the fish are gone what will we feed the children?”

Watch the full video testimonies here (the identity of the tribespeople has been disguised to avoid persecution)

Maybe we will dieKwegu tribespeople in Ethiopia’s Lower Omo Valley report that they are starving as a result of being forced from their land and of the irrigated plantations that are drying up the river on which they depend. Filmed in 2012, during the clearing of their land for a government sugar plantation.

Many now report that their beehives have been destroyed by the government’s Kuraz sugar plantations and that their sorghum crops along the Omo riverbank have failed because there has been no flood. The Kwegu have become dependent on food from neighboring tribes to survive. 

There has been almost no consultation of the indigenous peoples of the Lower Omo Valley about these projects on their land, and resistance is met with brutal force and intimidation. Several tribes are being forcibly settled by the government in a process known as “villagization.”

A member of the Suri, a neighboring people to the Kwegu, told Survival earlier this week, “The government has told us to live in new houses but we don’t want to… They did not try to explain what they were doing or ask us what we wanted."

Ethiopia is one of the largest recipients of USA, UK and German aid. DfID, the UK’s donor agency, recently announced it will stop funding a program which has been linked to the forced resettlement of tribes. However, it has not reduced the amount of its aid to Ethiopia and makes no reference to the resettlement program.

The Kwegu's children are going hungry because of the lack of fish and crops, and have become reliant on food from neighboring tribes.

© Survival

A report of a donor mission to the area in August 2014 by the Development Assistance Group – a consortium of the largest donors to Ethiopia including USA, the UK, Germany and the World Bank – has not been released, despite the growing humanitarian crisis in the Lower Omo.

Stephen Corry, Director of Survival, said today, "Donor agencies need to reform to ensure taxpayers’ money is not spent propping up governments responsible for evicting tribal peoples from their lands. DfID says its aid supports the poorest – yet it turns a blind eye to the many reports of human rights abuses in the Lower Omo, and continues to support an oppressive government hell bent on turning self-sufficient tribes into aid-dependent internal refugees.”

Notes to editors:

- DfID’s total aid budget for Ethiopia is £368,424,853 for 2014/2015

- The interviews were filmed in 2012 when the Kuraz Sugar project started clearing Kwegu land.

Ethiopian farmer drops case alleging UK aid money paid for evictions | Sam Jones | Global development | The Guardian

Ethiopian farmer drops case alleging UK aid money paid for evictions | Sam Jones | Global development | The Guardian:

An Ethiopian farmer who claims UK aid money was used to bankroll forced evictions in his home country has dropped his legal action against the British government after it stopped funding a controversial development project because of increasing concerns over civil and political rights in Ethiopia.

The farmer, known as Mr O, had alleged that British aid contributions to Ethiopia’s promotion of basic services (PBS) programme – a $4.9bn (£3.2bn) project run by the World Bank and designed to boost education, health and water services – were being used by the Ethiopian government to help fund its villagisation programme.

Ethiopia’s commune development programme (CDP), which aims to move 1.5 million rural families from their land to new “model” villages across the country, has been beset by allegations of forced evictions, rapes, beatings and disappearances.

Mr O, an ethnic Anuak, claims he was violently evicted from his farm in the Gambella region in 2011. He says he was beaten and that he witnessed rapes and assaults as government soldiers cleared people off their land.

Last week, Britain’s Department for International Development (DfID) announced that it had ended its PBS contributions because of Ethiopia’s “growing success”, adding such projects were also regularly reviewed to assess recipient countries’ “commitment to partnership principles”. Until this year, it had contributed £745m of UK taxpayer money to the programme.

On 4 March, lawyers for Mr O told the high court in London their client had decided to drop his judicial review of DfID’s actions as he had only ever wanted to see an end to the UK’s funding of the PBS programme.

Rosa Curling, a member of the Leigh Day Human Rights team representing Mr O, told the Guardian he had got everything he had hoped to achieve from his litigation.

“His challenge was to the way in which DfID was assessing human rights issues when deciding whether it should continue to provide UK aid or not,” she said.

“We said given DfID had made a decision to continue to provide aid to PBS in 2013 despite the major allegations of human rights abuses, it was clear that there was not a proper system in place or the system in place wasn’t being properly followed by DfID.”

Curling said Mr O, who now lives in a refugee camp in Kenya, had never sought compensation from the British government.

“He has only ever wanted to make sure the financial support for the programme which has had such a devastating effect on his family – villagisation – was withdrawn,” she added.

“His claim was never about compensation; it’s always been a challenge about DfID funding and making sure UK aid is not used for a harmful purpose.”

In a statement read in court, DfID was more explicit about why the secretary of state, Justine Greening, had made the decision to end Britain’s PBS funding in January.

“This was as a result of ongoing concerns related to civil and political rights at the level of the overall partnership in Ethiopia, and in particular recent trends on civil and political rights in relation to freedom of expression and electoral competition, and continued concerns about the accountability of the security services,” said the statement.

“In light of these concerns about Ethiopia’s record on civil and political rights, and the trend of that record, it was decided to review the way in which UK aid was provided to Ethiopia.”

As a result, the statement said, DfID had chosen to support programmes involving “a lesser degree of responsibility and authority of the government of Ethiopia than the PBS”.

However, DfID was adamant the decision to end its PBS funding had nothing to do with Mr O’s legal action, saying: “[It] was not linked to any development relating to the CDP or any allegations of violations of human rights in that context.”

The department said it welcomed Mr O’s withdrawal of the action, adding the court had found not “fault or flaw” in the processes underpinning its aid decisions.

“It is absolutely right this fruitless legal case, which has dragged on for over two years at the taxpayers’ expense, has now ended,” said a DfID spokesman.

“The UK government has always been firmly committed to upholding human rights across the world and this decision vindicates the thorough processes we have in place to monitor and plan our spending.”

On 4 March the World Bank admitted it had no idea how many people had been turfed off their land or lost their jobs as a result of its projects in developing countries.

The World Bank president, Jim Yong Kim, told reporters: “We must and will do better.”

His pledge came days after the World Bank’s executive board had met to discuss a damning internal report on the PBS programme and the management response.

In a statement released on 27 February, the bank said that although its inspection panel had concluded that the seizing of land and use of violence and intimidation were not consequences of PBS, it had determined that the programme “did not fully assess and mitigate the risks arising from the government’s implementation of CDP, particularly in the delivery of agricultural services to the Anuaks”.

Noting that one of the institution’s core principles was to do no harm to the poor, Kim added: “In this case, while the inspection panel found no violations, it did point out areas where we could have done more to help the Anuak people. We draw important lessons from this case to better anticipate ways to protect the poor and be more effective in fighting poverty.”

Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty 2015: Linking Land Tenure and Use for Shared Prosperity

Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty 2015: Linking Land Tenure and Use for Shared Prosperity

March 23-27, 2015

Washington, DC

The Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty organized by the World Bank Development Economic Research Group (DECRG) is a key global event where representatives from governments, civil society, academia, the development community, and the private sector come together annually to discuss new developments and progress on land policy and implementation. The conference aims to foster dialogue and sharing of best practices on the diversity of reforms, approaches and experiences that are being implemented in land sectors around the world.

• OVERVIEW
• REGISTER AND CHECK-IN
• SPONSOR WITH US
• IMPORTANT DATES
• RESOURCES

LAND AND POVERTY CONFERENCE 2015

• TITLE: "Linking Land Tenure and Use for Shared Prosperity"
• ORGANIZER: Nisma Elias (202) 458-5628
• CONTACT: Land Conference 2015 landconference@worldbank.org

Preliminary Program

The World Bank is pleased to announce the 16^th Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty to be held from March 23 – 27, 2015 at the World Bank Headquarters in Washington D.C. Participants include leaders and professionals from across governments, civil society, academia, the private sector and partners to interact and discuss innovative approaches to improving land governance. Last year’s conference attracted more than 1,000 participants from 101 countries; 60 percent of participants were from developing countries, about a fourth representing government officials and another fourth from international organizations.

The theme for 2015 is Linking Land Tenure and Use for Shared Prosperity. The topic highlights that, while land tenure affects the distribution of assets between men and women, generations, and social groups, patterns of land use will have far-reaching implications for welfare and other socioeconomic outcomes at household, community, or landscape level. Although they are by no means a silver bullet, recent innovations in geospatial technologies provide exciting opportunities to document and analyze determinants, as well as impacts of land use change that are of great relevance for policy, projects, and research in this area.

Conference Structure

The conference will start on March 23 at 5pm and conclude on March 27. A pre-conference workshop on ‘monitoring land governance’ will be held immediately preceding the opening session on March 23. Sessions comprising select papers and debates on important innovations and policy issues will run concurrently on March 24-26, together with poster presentations. An Innovations Fair featuring how innovations in technology and open data can help improve land governance at scale will be held on March 26 and a post-conference learning day on March 27 will offer hands-on classes to familiarize participants with cutting edge tools and techniques developed to help policy makers.

March 27 — Post-conference Learning Day

There has been considerable interest by participants to gain hands-on experience with cutting edge tools and techniques in order to improve land governance. To respond to this interest, we will provide an opportunity to sponsors and partners to offer master classes or clinics for a limited number of participants in a classroom setting. Events will be published in the program book and participation will be by registration only, with the possibility of repeat classes if interest is high.

March 26 — Innovations Fair

A new feature to be introduced to the 2015 Conference is a full day focusing on solutions for land administration and management.  Service providers and technology vendors are invited to present solutions in a show-and-tell day.  The scope of the Innovations Fair is expected to cover land and geographic information systems, earth observation satellite imagery data acquisition and applications, aerial imagery, satellite positioning applications and location based services, online services and e-governance, land surveying, data conversion, data security, standards, systems interoperability, open systems, social media, volunteer geographic information, etc.  The Innovations Fair will encourage hands-on interaction with conference participants looking for solutions to the land challenges of the post-2015 Development Agenda. If you are interested in participating in the Innovations Fair, please fill out the online form. 

If you are interested in offering a master class, please fill out the online proposal. Priority to offer a Master class will be given to Sponsors. In case we receive more proposals than we have rooms available, preference will be given to sponsors.

The thematic areas for the 2015 Conference are:

1. Land tenure, climate smart land use, and resilience.
2. The role of land tenure in effecting urban form, density, and urban-rural linkages.
3. Impacts of large scale land-based investment, implementation challenges, and policy implications.
4. Scalable approaches to improving tenure security and their impacts.
5. Using standards-based geospatial technologies to monitor land use and improve land governance.
6. Harnessing the potential of open data for transparency.
7. Advances with securing and protecting land rights from a gender perspective.
8. Innovations on improving access to justice.
9. Tenure security in conflict states and resource rich economies.
10. Benchmarking, performance monitoring and policy dialogue: from local to global.

The people pushed out of Ethiopia's fertile farmland - BBC News

By Matthew Newsome

Ethiopia

Continue reading the main story

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The construction of a huge dam in Ethiopia and the introduction of large-scale agricultural businesses has been controversial - finding out what local people think can be hard, but with the help of a bottle of rum nothing is impossible.

After waiting several weeks for letters of permission from various Ethiopian ministries, I begin my road trip into the country's southern lowlands.

I want to investigate the government's controversial plan to take over vast swathes of ancestral land, home to around 100,000 indigenous pastoralists, and turn it into a major centre for commercial agriculture, where foreign agribusinesses and government plantations would raise cash crops such as sugar and palm oil.

After driving 800km (497 miles) over two days through Ethiopia's lush highlands I begin my descent into the lower Omo valley. Here, where palaeontologists have discovered some of the oldest human remains on earth, some ancient ways of life cling on.

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Some tourists can be found here seeking a glimpse of an Africa that lives in their imagination. But the government's plan to "modernise" this so-called "backward" area has made it inaccessible for journalists.

As my jeep bounces down into the valley, I watch as people decorated in white body paint and clad in elaborate jewellery made from feathers and cow horn herd their cows down the dusty track.

I arrive late in the afternoon at a village I won't name, hoping to speak to some Mursi people - a group of around 7,000 famous for wearing huge ornamental clay lip plates.

The Mursi way of life is in jeopardy. They are being resettled to make way for a major sugar plantation on their ancestral land - so ending their tradition of cattle herding.

Meanwhile, a massive new dam upstream will reduce the Omo River, ending its seasonal flood - and the food crops they grow on its banks.

It is without doubt one of the most sensitive stories in Ethiopia and one the government is keen to suppress.

Human rights groups have repeatedly criticised schemes like this, alleging that locals are being abused and coerced into compliance.

I'd spoken to local senior officials in the provincial capital of Jinka, before travelling into the remote savannah.

The suspicion is palpable as the chief of the south Omo zone lectures me. Local people and the area's reputation have been greatly harmed by the negative reports by foreigners, he says.

Eventually a frank exchange takes place and I secure verbal permission to report on the changes taking place in the valley.

The Gibe III Dam

The Gibe III Dam under construction in 2012

• Situated approximately 300km south-west of the capital Addis Ababa, the dam is 246m high
• Work started in July 2006 and was estimated to take 118 months (nearly 10 years)
• The government says it will provide much needed-power and help develop the country's economy
• Authorities say no-one has been forced from their home

It seems prudent to let the Mursi tribe and attendant police warm to my presence before I start asking questions. After all, I have the whole evening.

But a brief chat with the tribe ends abruptly with the entrance of a police officer, wearing a replica Manchester United football shirt, vehemently waving a dog-eared copy of the country's constitution.

I am prohibited from talking to anyone and must immediately climb back into my jeep, drive back up the mountain and return to Jinka, he says.

As often in Ethiopia, he doesn't explain exactly why.

I object to driving through the wilderness at dusk on safety grounds and so a compromise is reached: I will pitch my hammock outside the police station, a short stroll away from the village, with armed guards watching my every move.

The political boss of the zone comes on the two-way radio. "This is house arrest," I protest. "No, just a misunderstanding," he replies.

The prospect of returning home without interviews is unthinkable. My ruse is to distract my captors.

I sit them down for a meal of pasta and vegetables - and brimming beakers of spiced rum - in front of my laptop, which is playing an Ethiopian comedy.

After saying good night I strike out through the scrubland.

I run without sense of direction through bush and bog, crawl under fences, and negotiate large herds of noisy cattle. I have to find a village elder I met earlier, and interview him before policemen and their flashlights turn up.

So I am relieved to stumble on two boys milking their cows in the moonlight. They lead me to the elder's hut. The sound of so many rudely-awakened animals in our wake fills me with dread that searchlights are heading our way.

The moment arrives. I squat in front of the elder inside his mud dwelling, surrounded by his sleeping companions: several cows, a goat and a cat. My dictaphone is poised to record truths heard by few journalists in this media-muzzled region.

I ask him in broken Amharic what is going on. He tells me: "The government is telling us to sell our cattle and modernise like townspeople - they say our land is the property of the sugar corporation. We have not been asked what we want or need.

"If we do not accept the resettlement plans, we'll be taken to jail. How can we survive if we have no access to land, cattle or water?"

I promptly thank the elder for his time, apologise for disrupting his evening and head back to my open-air jail.

On reaching my hammock I find several dozing policemen and an empty bottle of rum. Mission accomplished.

The Mursi people

• About 10,000 Mursi people live in Ethiopia
• Traditionally insert pottery plates known as debhinya in the lower lips of young women
• They live in an area surrounded by the rivers Mara, Omo and Mago, which flow into Lake Turkana
• Mursi territory was incorporated into Ethiopia during the reign of King Menelik II in the 19th Century

Source: Oxford University Department of International Development

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