Assessing Progress in Ethiopia Towards Eradication of Extreme Poverty and Hunger as Part of Goal one of the Millennium Development Goals
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Date
2012-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
In Ethiopia, just like many African countries, it is the high incidence of poverty and hunger that served
as a push factor for the adoption and integration of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in to
the national development plans. The progress towards achievement of the MDGs and eradication of
extreme poverty and hunger in Ethiopia has not been researched after 2005 as a result of the
unavailability of data i.e. the 2010 HICES and WMS. In addition to this, the agglomerated impact of
external challenges such as the global economic challenge, recurrent drought and low agricultural
productivity on the achievement of the MDG goal one has not been researched. In line of these gaps,
the following research objectives were set including; i. showing the achievements made so far in terms
of meeting the MDG goal one targets ii. Identifying the challenges encountered, opportunities gained
and prospects for achieving the goal by 2015. To achieve the objective of the study secondary data
were acquired from Welfare Monitoring Surveys and Household Income, Consumption and
Expenditure surveys published by the Central Statistics Agency. To complement the aforementioned
data, the results of Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey, variety of reports published by
Ministry of Finance and Economic Development and, various agencies of the United Nations have
been used. With the help of poverty headcount, gap and severity indices, the progress made so far in
terms of reduction of poverty have been addressed. In addition to this, the issues of inequality and
hunger have been discussed with the help of gini coefficient, Lorenz curve and anthropometric
measures of nutrition. To date significant progresses have been observed in terms of halving the
proportion of the poor and those who suffer from hunger. However, there appears to be a long way to
go for the creation of decent employment opportunity for all. Despite the progresses made in terms of
halving the proportion of the poor and those who suffer from hunger, the overwhelmingly high
dependence of the government budget on external assistances and loans, the poor macro-economic
management that resulted in soaring inflation and increasing trade deficit, the traditional and drought
stricken nature of agriculture, climatic change and global economic challenges such as rise in food
and oil prices, and the limited ability of the government to cope up with such shocks make the
progresses made unsustainable and make many vulnerable to slip back again to poverty. Hence, the
continuation of the current trend of strong economic growth and pro poor spending, focus on export
oriented and import substituting industries and, the structural transformation of agriculture and the
introduction of commercial farms are critical in terms of ensuring the continuity of the progresses
made
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Keywords
Development goals, Millennium, Poverty and Hunger