Another Rethink

The reasons are paved in the good intentions of rich nations, good deeds that have punished Ethiopia with perpetual want.
-Alex Perry, Time Magazine


One of the countries that I have recently visited, Ethiopia, finds itself again facing a famine. The country remains on the knife's edge; one year of bad crops, and babies with distended belies are lowered into shallow graves dotting the countrysides; there is no margin of error in this harsh land. However, the very methods set up to ensure the survival of the destitute, have continued to compound the problem. This is truly, "The problem from hell." After years of aid-corruption and mismanagement in the development business, a startling admission from Mafa Chipeta, East Africa coordinator for the Food and Agriculture Organization:

"This is not an emergency only for this year. This is a persistent problem that we have failed to deal with. Aid needs a complete rethink." In many places, because food comes so abundantly from abroad, local farming is an undeveloped and unreliable source of sustenance. The farmlands may appear teeming but Ethiopians know enough not to trust it. And so, food is apportioned with Malthussian rigidity."