Ethiopia: World Bank delegates impressed by food security program
By Tesfa-Alem Tekle
October 27, 2010 (ETHIOPIA) – Delegates from the World Bank and NATO said on Tuesday that they were impressed by the progress achieved in foreign funded efforts to maintain food and provide a safety-net to vulnerable communities in Ethiopia.
The delegates made the remarks after visiting safety-net projects in the northern state of Tigray, where some 1.4 million people are supported by the scheme.
Last week, Human Rights Watch released a report accusing the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) of using foreign aid to consolidate their grip on power.
The The New York-based watchdog claimed that opposition members and supporters had been denied access to food and other types of foreign aid:
The World Bank-NATO group visited 4 areas involved in the program, in Abraha-Atsbiha district, where natural vegetation has grown back rapidly, helping the local population.
After the visit, the delegates told Sudan Tribune that they were encouraged by the tangible progress achieved and to see the program operating successfully.
“I have come to witness the program taken in past 5 years is taking off and is lifting the community into new future; a possibility that will allow people improve their livelihood and ultimately improve their well being in the long run”, World Bank Representative, Wolter Soer told Sudan Tribune.
“We are really encouraged by the progress we have seen here. I would like to congratulate both program staff and people working under the program”, he added.
John Sewel Member of the British House of Lords and who chaired the subcommittee of NATO parliamentary section visiting the Tigray region, hailed the ongoing efforts to assure local food security via the program.
“The NATO parliamentary assembly main interest is security. This is in real way shows how in the 21st century, global security is being achieved because you don’t get global security unless you get local security”, he said.
“Local security in countries like Ethiopia is all about development; making sure the people have economic and social opportunities so they no longer fear food shortage and food insecurity.
“I am amazingly impressed by the way in which the local community has got involved in leading in development and changing the whole nature of the environment and water management and dealing with problems of soil degradation and all with the objectives of increasing food production and food security.”
“This is really a remarkable achievement and I want to say to the community stick with it you are winning’’, Sewel added.
He called on the international community to collectively heighten efforts to make sure people can live in a world where food insecurity is vanished forever.
Despite repeated allegations of aid abuse from rights groups, the horn of Africa’s country claims to be on the right track in achieving development.
Responding to Human Rights Watch’s report that accused Ethiopia of politicizing foreign aid, state ministry of foreign affairs last week said the report as “unfounded”.
“It is impossible to believe from its latest report that these are principles to which Human Rights Watch is prepared to adhere to in any genuine manner”, the ministry’s statement said.
“It is, therefore, hardly surprising that Human Rights Watch should try to threaten the provision of development aid to Ethiopia.”
The statement claimed that the country is currently achieving considerable success in development and has reached four of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals and is on track for two more. It said the rights watchdog had a vendetta against Ethiopia.
Ethiopia, one of the world’s largest recipients of foreign aid, received more than $3 billion in 2008 alone.
Currently the safety-net program reaches about 7 million citizens in a bid to help them lift themselves out of poverty.
(ST)
Wolleyewu
Ethiopia: World Bank delegates impressed by food security program
Dear readers, First and for most, I would like to point out the mere fact that the World bank , IMF and NATO or other western dominated international organizations are full of corrupted mercenaries gambling on the the human rights of the people of Ethiopia favoring Dictator Meles Zenawi and jhis parties over the oppressed majority.
What they had recently visited is the areas in TIGRAY, the home land of Meles ZENAWI and his criminal associates. That is what the oppressed citizen of Ethiopian are complaining about. The developmental aspect is biased to only one region Tigray while others are experiencing unbearable poverty,
If Ethiopia had natural resources like oil in Sudan they would have been along side with the people of Ethiopia but now they have turned bind eyes to what Meles and his party perpetrated against the people of Ethiopia.
Anyways, we have learn t a lot for the last two decades that westerns are as brutal as Dictator Meles Zenawi proving that they are the back bone of the regime flooding billions of dollars in aid having known their crime ever committed on the people of Ethiopia.
Down with Dictators and their sources of income, Westerns