Ethiopia’s Fate After
One Generation
Berhanu Nega
Translated by Yonas
Admasu
I.
Introduction
Let us
talk about a community of people to whom contemplating what its fate would be
twenty-five years down the line is a luxury, if not an altogether alien, even
inimical idea, a community that has left the mere possibility of making it to
the next day entirely in the hands of God. Now, to extend an invitation to
such a community to a serious discussion about the fate/destiny of future
generations may appear as nothing more than an invitation to an engagement in
commonplace wizardry, or in an idle exercise that is tantamount to interfering
in God’s divine dispensation, or even following a dangerous course that would
bring doom on all of us. It may not come as much of a surprise that the idea
of holding such “useless” discussion to begin with was initiated by economists
that have a penchant for prediction, and are continuously trying, in the
process, to improve their techniques and to ever consolidate their conviction
that it is possible to do so. Nevertheless, to cast into doubt the usefulness
at all of making predictions about the future, for fear that any such
prediction may not turn out to be a reality and, accordingly, holding in
derision such an exercise is, on the one hand, failing to realize the value of
thinking about the future, while, on the other hand, it is a pretext on the
part of idle or indolent people for evading disciplined thinking.
It was
some hundred and fifty years ago that the English clergyman and economist,
Thomas Robert Malthus, taking the then existing imbalance between food
production and the increase in the world’s population as a point of departure,
predicted a precarious future for humanity. Although the economist’s
prediction was a little bit too exaggerated and had at the time opened the way
for labeling economics with the indecorous epithet of ‘the dismal science’,
the underlying value of the prediction has persevered as an enduring basis of
human knowledge. The central thesis and aim of such a prediction is that the
rate of increase in human population should be counterbalanced by at least an
equal rate of increase in [food] production; that, moreover, humanity should
realize the danger that the imbalance between the two factors poses for its
survival and, therefore, either seek ways in which food production could be
increased over and above the increase in population or, conversely, regulate
and control the rate of the increase in population.
If we
look deeper into things as they have been and as they are now, we will realize
that one of the manifestations of the differences between development
[civilization?] and underdevelopment [backwardness?] is (granting the
existence of chance occurrences) the ability or inability [success or failure]
to think in a reliable manner about humanity’s future and, based on such
thinking, to come up with plans for that future and to ensure their
implementation. The basic assumption of the natural sciences is that natural
phenomena operate and interact along the principles of regularity and order.
It is its recognition of these principles that makes these sciences the
disciplines that they are and that serves as the main drive for humanity to
study nature in a scientific manner. It is using these principles of
regularity and order as a point of departure that humanity theorizes about the
main tendencies and patterns of the operation of the phenomena; that it tests
the validity of its theories through repeated and continuous experimentation;
and that it predicts, correctly in the majority of cases, the future trends
that the development of nature would follow. It is the ever-growing knowledge
that this scientific approach to nature has managed to develop that has
radically altered and transformed humanity’s material life. In contrast to
this, a society that considers the world as a total mystery and an aggregate
of accidents cannot think beyond fulfilling its day-to-day needs and be in a
position to plan ahead and act accordingly. As long as such a society cannot
do so, the chances for it to improve its livelihood is as proportionally slim
as its inability to think ahead and act for a secured future.
I still
clearly remember a debate between intellectuals in New York, which I was
witness to when I was doing my graduate studies some twenty years ago. There
were two positions taken among the intellectuals concerning the education of
very small children (between the ages of 1 and 2). One side maintained that,
if these children were sent to special schools that would enable them to
broaden their intellectual capacities, they would indeed become the more
intelligent and the smarter for all that. The other side maintained the exact
opposite position: these children should be left alone to play about, as
children in their age-range should, until such time as they were actually
ready for school, for leaving them be what they are would make no difference
at all on the future development of their intellect. The debate was between
child psychologists, who claimed to have conducted research on the matter and
educationists, while the community was closely following up the debate. What
struck me as amazing was not the debate itself. Rather, it was the reaction of
the community. Yes, what amazed me was the fact that there were couples who
did not have children at the time, but who were planning to have some in the
near future and who were wishing to have their children enrolled in such big
and reputable universities. What was amazing was the unrelenting effort that
such parents made to have their future kids registered in such special schools
as the two sides in the debate were talking about. Imagine! Making
preparations now about what university a child not yet born, even conceived,
would go 20 years down the line! Think of how certain such people are about
what the future holds for them! Think of their conviction that they have about
their ability to direct the future of their children the way they want! Think
also of the preparations they make so early for something that may happen in a
twenty-year time span in the future (such as saving money for their children’s
education)! One can certainly conclude from all this that such optimism about
life has certainly contributed a good deal to the stage of development that
they have reached at present. I think this is one of the sources for the
difference between their development and our backwardness.
At any
rate, these introductory remarks are meant to point to the value of such a
discussion in enabling us to map out, though not with full certainty, but
somehow broadly, the direction that we, as a nation, could possibly follow in
the future. The remarks are also intended as a reminder that such a
discussion, beside helping us ward off possible future risks and dangers, has
its use in prodding us into desiring a better life for the future and bringing
about the necessary attitudinal change that would enable us to make such a
life come true, if not for us now, then for our children. I also mean to use
these remarks as an expression of my heartfelt appreciation to our
Association’s Executive Committee for organizing this forum and, also, for
inviting me to address this audience, believing what I have to say would
contribute to the present discussion.
This
presentation is so organized as to try to address, in the main, the issues
suggested by the organizers in the suggested order. Accordingly, the
presentation has four parts: The first part examines, as thoroughly as
possible, the situation
in which our country and its people find themselves in; the second and third
parts deal with the “predictions.” This section particularly addresses the
question of what the existing situations would look like a generation from now
if they followed the existing trend and attempts to show the transformations
the economy would undergo if certain changes of direction were made to bring
about a better way of life. The fourth and final section attempts to briefly
answer the question of what would need to be done if our vision must translate
into a concrete reality. Along with this, it also attempts to portray the
future Ethiopia--what it will look like--if and when these important issues
are fully addressed and realized. Before getting into a discussion of the main
issues, however, I would like to point out two things to my audience:
1.
Such an
attempt as I am going to make with regard to addressing the issues outlined
above cannot claim to present the full picture of what our life looks like.
This presenter is therefore forced to limit himself to addressing those few
issues that he considers are very crucial. This does not mean, however, that
the issues not addressed in this presentation are not important or that they
are of little use. It only means that my presentation is so geared as to focus
on our economic life and highlight the main issues in that respect.
2.
However, such a presentation cannot be circumscribed within the limits only of
one social science discipline (economics, in this case). The approach adopted,
therefore, is one that attempts to take into account those aspects of our life
that fall outside of the strictly economic sphere, but which, nevertheless,
bear upon our economic life. In so doing, then, the presentation refrains from
going into those fine details as often is witnessed in discussions and debates
among professionals of economics. Having pointed out this, I shall now move
on to tackling the main issues this paper has set out to address.
II.
The Current Situation of Our Country
In
order to answer the question of what direction a given country would follow in
the future, one has to ask the inevitable questions of what the country’s past
was like, as well as what situation it finds itself in at present. Although I
do have neither the knowledge, unlike Professor Bahiru, nor the necessary
economic data to extend my exploration of the country’s past as far back as
the time of Emperor Tewodros, I believe it is possible to explore the
situation by at least starting with the 1950s, during which period proper
collection and documentation began.
A good
indicator of Ethiopia’s general economic performance is its overall economic
growth and the associated per capita income.
For the purpose at hand, the annual rate of increase of this income is
sufficiently reliable to indicate whether or not the population’s livelihood
has been improving. According to the estimate based on this indicator, the
Ethiopian economy has been growing at an annual rate of 2.6% over the last
four decades. At the same time, however, the population has been growing at an
annual rate of a little over 2.6%. Precisely because of this, the people’s per
capita income has not only remained where it had been at the time, it has, in
fact, declined, however little the amount. The average per capita income (at
1980/81 constant prices) was Birr 228 in 1960/61 and Birr 257 in 1964/65,
while the average per capita income for 2001/02 was only Birr 261, and for
1995, Birr 244 only.
Table
1: The implementation of Ethiopia’s economic growth
|
|
1991/92-96/97 |
1997/98- 02/03 |
1991/92-02/03 |
1960/61-73/74
|
1974/75-90/91 |
1960/61-
01/03 |
|
Agriculture & allied activities |
3.5 |
-1.5 |
1.7 |
2.1 |
0.6 |
1.4 |
|
Industry |
7.4 |
4.7 |
5.6 |
7.0 |
3.6 |
3.4 |
|
Distributive Services |
8.2 |
4.9 |
6.5 |
7.8 |
2.5 |
3.5 |
|
Other Services |
6.4 |
7.3 |
7.5 |
6.9 |
4.8 |
5.6 |
|
GDP |
5.1 |
2.5 |
4.5 |
3.7 |
1.9 |
2.6 |
|
Per
Capita GDP |
2 |
-0.13 |
1.5 |
1.5 |
-0.9 |
-0.1 |
|
Per
Capita GDP: Agrarian |
0.7 |
-3.4 |
-0.9 |
-0.08 |
-2.2 |
-1.2 |
|
Per
Capita GDP: Non-agriculture |
2.3 |
1.6 |
2.4
1.9* |
4.3 |
0.2 |
0.8 |
Note:
While the figures for 1991/92- 96/97 and 1997/98 – 2001/02 are simple
arithmetic means, the rest have been estimated by OLS method.
* While the rate of growth is 1.9% when
calculated taking the simple average estimate into consideration, what I used
for predicting the rate is the 2.4% estimate based on OLS method.
Table
2: Contributions of the various economic sectors towards overall economic
growth
|
|
1991/92-01/02 |
1960/61- 73/74 |
1974/75-90/91 |
1960/61-01/03 |
|
Agriculture and allied activities |
18.5 |
38.5 |
16.5 |
30.8 |
|
Industry |
13.4 |
17.5 |
20.8 |
13.5 |
|
Distributive Service |
20.6 |
24.4 |
17.8 |
17.9 |
|
Other Services |
47.2 |
20.4 |
44.9 |
39.4 |
|
Public Administration and Defense |
28.2 |
6.4 |
20.7 |
18.4 |
The per
capita income from the agricultural sector has been declining at the rate of
1.2% per annum for the last 42 years. Because the industrial and service
sectors’ share of GDP has shown some improvement, the livelihood of that
population engaged in economic activities outside of the agricultural sector
has managed to stay afloat. Even then, the improvement these sectors have
shown is really not something we can speak of as worthwhile. The per capita
income of the population engaged outside of the agricultural sector has been
increasing at an annual rate of 0.8% in the period under consideration. Thus a
farmer’s per capita income that was Birr 194 in 1960/61 (at 1980/81 constant
prices) and Birr 198 in 1964/65 dipped to Birr 144 and Birr 114 in 2001/02 and
2002/03, respectively. In contrast to the agricultural sector, the average
income of the population outside of the agricultural sector was Birr 519 in
1960/61 and Birr 731 in 1964/65, whereas the average income for this sector,
which was Birr 968 in 2001/02, has declined to Birr 953 in 2002/03. Because of
this, the gap in average income of the urban population and that of the rural
population, which was about two and half times in 1960/61, jumped to three and
half times in 1964/65. This gap increased to over seven times last year
(2001/02), while in the current year it has increased to about eight and a
half times. In our country, where the large majority of the population lives
in rural areas, we need no further evidence than the ever-worsening poverty
situation of the rural population to demonstrate what kind of pitiable
livelihood the rural population and, therefore, the majority of the country’s
population leads. Although, relatively speaking, the livelihood of the urban
population appears better than that of the rural population, there are
concrete data that confirm the increasing proliferation of poverty in the
urban areas as well. According to government estimates, the size of the urban
poor has increased by 12% in the five years between 1995/96 and 1999/00.
Incidentally, one need not go through the pages of many documents to figure
out that these figures are not exaggerated. It is not difficult to grasp how
much of a riddle life has become for the rural population when we consider the
increasing size of the country’s population with no access to the minimum
amount of food required just to survive. At the time of the great famine that
occurred during Emperor Haile Selassie’s reign (the 1973 famine) the number of
people that couldn’t feed themselves was estimated, at the maximum, at 1.5
million, while the areas of the country victimized by that famine was mostly
confined to the northern part. The famine that occurred in 1985, during the
Derg regime, and which is said to have been exceedingly large-scale,
afflicted about 6 million people, while it proliferated into areas in the
eastern parts of the country as well. While the number of farmers unable to
feed themselves due to the current famine has increased to about 14 million,
the number of farmers depending on the charity of others every year, even in
peaceful times with no famine, has increased to 6 million. The traditional
method of farming, which has remained unchanged for centuries, coupled with
the ever-increasing size of the country’s population, has rendered some areas
completely uninhabitable. The size of the rural population during the 1973
famine was estimated at about 29 million. Today, this number has grown to
about 58 million.
The
consequences of economic failure are not limited to economic-related issues.
The turbulence it creates in our social and political life will inevitably
hurl us into the vicious cycle of poverty.
The
relative backwardness of Ethiopia of the 1970s, but especially the sense of
loss and national humiliation that came in the footsteps of the 1973 famine,
coupled with the weaknesses of the intellectual class (elite) of the time and
its inability to bring about even a modicum of change, gave birth to the 1974
revolutionary upheaval. Because it couldn’t bring about even a moderate
reform, the intellectual class of that period abandoned the movement for
ill-considered extremist ideological positions and delivered the society to
the 1974 social upheaval and, eventually, to an excruciatingly terrible
military regime. In the seventeen years that that regime lasted, it bequeathed
us not only poverty and deprivation, but even worse, a psychological pain and
trauma that we have not still been able to emerge from. That regime,
completely blinded by arrogance and ignorance, established administrative
structures that served as nothing more than organs of suppression and wanton
killings and subjected even the most routine individual and household
decisions to be governed by the will of the government. Even when the power of
the imperial regime was at its most absolute, life was considered a sacred
thing better left in the hands of God. But the Derg regime turned this
life into some cheap thing that could be dispensed with according to the whim
and fancy of some armed kebele thug, a commonplace phenomenon totally
at the mercy of the will of the government. Protecting one’s offspring against
imminent danger is an instinctive impulse, not only of human beings but of
animals as well. At that time, however, the Derg regime had so
completely emasculated the society of its dignity and valor that people were
helplessly watching when their children were snatched out of their bosoms and
massacred in broad daylight. The inability of the society to stand up against
those terrible moments as one nation, coupled with some minor ethnic
grievances that prevailed at the time, paved the way to power for forces that
opted for ethnic rather than country-wide solutions for the existing problems.
This, in turn, resulted in the relative undermining of the accord that existed
among the different ethnic groups populating the society. All this loss of
confidence in one’s country, which is a result of the upheaval suffered by the
society, rendered fleeing one’s own country, which was considered humiliation
during the Emperor’s time, a national phenomenon to be keenly wished and
longed for. Moreover, the ever-worsening poverty and administrative injustice,
coupled with certain backward aspects of cultural tradition, opened the door
for unseemly cultural practices that formerly were there, but which, as a
result of modern education, particularly in urban centers, began to rear their
heads, overwhelming the psychological makeup of a good portion of our society.
Envy, pessimism, despair and loss of self-confidence have come to constitute
the deep-rooted core of the society’s psychological wound, creating an
environment too inauspicious for development and growth.
The
international situation that developed in the aftermath of the collapse of the
Derg regime and the fragmentation of the former Soviet Union had, at
the time, opened, on a limited basis to be sure, a new vista and ushered in a
new hope for Ethiopia. Although the extremist socialist position of the EPRDF
at the time, the ethnic orientation of its organization, and the secession of
Eritrea that came along with all this had created a high suspicion among many
people, some measures taken since the transitional government, particularly
the right to freedom of expression (together with the proliferation of the
free press), incorporating this and such rights into the constitution, the
temperance, for the most part, of the gross human rights violation that was
characteristic routine during the Derg regime, creating broader
opportunity for the development of the private sector, etc. were all measures
that perhaps sparked some hope that our future would, after all, be a
promising one. On the other hand, however, such actions of human rights
violations and, sometimes, massacres based on ethnicity (e.g. Beddenno, Weter,
etc.), to such an extent as has never been witnessed in the country’s history,
and appearing as if they had all the blessing of the government, have cast
gloom over the burgeoning optimism of the people. Although the new regime has
managed to greatly reduce its crude show of force, as used to be the case with
the Derg regime, it has used the extensive administrative network that
it bequeathed from the Derg regime to demonstrate to citizens employed
by it that disagreement with, or opposition to, the government could mean
losing one’s job and, thus, facing economic hardship. (One need only recall
the teachers expelled from the Addis Ababa University.) The new regime has
also gone into competition with the private sector by establishing huge
enterprises owned and controlled by the ruling party and, even going further
steps from intimidating private business persons to incarcerating those whom
it considers have gone beyond the confines prescribed by it and have,
therefore, dared to challenge it. In so doing, it has continued to inculcate
in the minds of the people the idea of the sovereignty or supremacy of the
government and its dominance over the people in ways that nobody ever
suspected would happen.
Consequently, although the political and social distraction and turmoil that I
mentioned above, which were widespread during the Derg regime, are not
currently as bad as they were then, one cannot, in all honesty, say they have
been fundamentally removed. There still exist instances of human rights
violation; the mutual mistrust among nationalities still has not improved, if
not getting worse; because of the fact that losing confidence in one’s own
country and the attending phenomenon of fleeing to other countries have become
so deep-rooted, any hope that remains of the youth (including children of the
elite/intellectual class) for a better life in this country has completely
diminished (so much so that we have reached a stage where getting the
opportunity to go out of the country and not using that opportunity to do so
is considered mere stupidity). It appears that the government’s absolute
dominance, rather than being on the wane, is, in fact, getting ever stronger.
After 12 years in power, the EPRDF has simply proved incapable of building the
democratic system of governance that the majority of the population believes
to be fundamentally correct and just. Moreover, our humanity and dignity,
which the Derg regime had managed to smother in fear through years of
cruel persecution, still has not managed to extricate itself from the hole it
has hidden itself in. I would venture to say that, perhaps, the EPRDF’s
greatest weakness lies in the fact that it has not been able to emancipate the
individual Ethiopian from this fear. It appears to me, therefore, that our
fate, our future hangs precariously between our ability to achieve this
internal freedom and our failure to do so.
I can
clearly understand that this picture I have attempted to paint of our present
situation appears very dismal. But I also believe that we can indeed live a
better life. For this to happen, however, there are many bold steps that we
have to take both as individuals and as one country. Unless this is made to
happen, I can imagine, the resulting scenario could even be worse than it is
now. The next section attempts to demonstrate both the virtues and vices of
the situation.
Before
proceeding to the next section, however, allow me to give a short answer to a
question that may be bothering you even as I speak now: namely, “who is
responsible for the current predicament we fin ourselves in? The answer I have
to this question is very simple. It is all of us. As much as the intellectuals
who prodded the 1974 social upheaval onto a course of extremism, the
pre-revolution elite of Haile Selassie’s regime that were too impotent to urge
Haile Selassie’s government to bring about even a minor reform, our religious
leaders who failed to speak out even one word against the gruesome persecution
and massacre inflicted on the population by the Derg, and all those who
simply chose to watch quietly all that injustice and atrocity as long as they
were not personally affected, all these groups as well cannot elude being
answerable to history. Answerability to history is not a monopoly of only
those who engaged in, or were accomplices to, evil deeds. Those who were not
of the resolve and willingness to prevent evil deeds from happening will be
held accountable as well.
III.
What Form Could the Life of Ethiopians Assume in the Future if Things Were to
Follow the Existing Trend of Development?
Any
prediction about what kind of situation would emerge after a given period of
time largely depends on the validity of the assumptions forming the basis of
the prediction. To the extent that these assumptions, serving as points of
departure, change, the results of the prediction based on those assumptions
also change. Moreover, there are many variables that, in practice, determine
the outcome of human behavior and activities. It is impossible, therefore, to
include all these variables in our attempt to predict the future. Accordingly,
there is no alternative to basing the prediction on a narrower model that
would enable us to indicate the general direction of the development process.
Consequently, the variables that I used to indicate our future direction
mainly are population size, population settlement, especially rural-urban
population distribution, and estimates about minor changes to be made with
regard to capital productivity. Before going into this, however, let me start
with the question: If everything continued to operate along the same line as
it does now, what kind of economic situation will emerge by the year 2020,
Ethiopian calendar?
As we
all know, we have, in the last forty years and under different regimes,
recorded varying rates of economic growth. Taking the 40-year average estimate
in one lump will not serve as a good indicator of what the future will
possibly have in store for us. As indicated in the tables above, different
growth rates have been recorded during the three regimes of the Emperor, the
Derg and, now, the EPRDF. If we leave the period of the Derg
regime out of consideration because of the fact that the country’s economic
activity was at its worst (considering that the average per capita income was
declining at the rate of 1% per annum), we will see that the rate of economic
growth during the imperial regime and, now, at the time of the EPRDF,
approximate each other (considering that in both regimes the average per
capita income has grown by 1.5% per annum). Moreover, when we consider these
two regimes, because the EPRDF’s regime has shown a minor improvement,
particularly in the macro-economic sector, and also because this period is the
closest to the future, it would be a better alternative to take the economic
growth achieved under EPRDF as a point of departure for our prediction. Even
this has its own problems, however. And that problem is that, the economic
performance undertaken in the years that EPRDF has been in power are not
homogeneous. They have been highly inconsistent. For instance, if we divide
the 12 years EPRDF has been in power into two equal parts, we see that the in
first six years the GDP of the country had been growing at the rate of 5.1%
per annum, whereas during the second six-year period, the growth rate has
declined by half, recording a growth rate of only 2.5%. Because of this,
while during the first half the average per capita income was growing at the
rate of 2% per annum, during the second half, however, it has been declining
by 0.13% per annum.
Consequently, the possibility of definitely determining which period
constitutes a good point of departure to predict what will happen in the
future if things continue along the same line as they are doing now is
debatable. In order to have some idea of what things would look like in 2028,
the estimates for the prediction made on the basis of four different
situations (namely: the average growth rate during the first half of EPRDF
regime; the whole period of EPRDF; the second half of EPRDF regime; and the
last 42 years) are given below in Table 3. To show what the situation would
look like in the year 2028, some initial assumptions have been made; namely:
1.
On the
basis of the existing population census, the country’s population would reach
124.5 million in the year 2028, of which 78% or 96.7 million will be
constituted by the rural population, while the urban population will have a
share of 27.8 million;
2.
The
existing output elasticity of capital (0.17%) continues and assume that for
every 1% increase in capital, production will grow by 0.17% (this estimate
has been arrived at through growth regression). And the investment will
continue with the same trend as now;
3.
Economic and other policies, particularly the settlement pattern of the
population will continue to follow the existing trend;
4.
Other
situations will continue to follow the same trend as the existing one.
Taking
these assumptions as a point of departure, and if the existing trend of
development continues into the year 2028, it will not be difficult to see the
economic difficulties we are going to face. As has been indicated in Table 1,
if we take as a point of departure the rate of growth during the first six
years of the EPRDF, during which relatively better economic activities had
been witnessed, we will see that our society’s livelihood will make only some
improvement. Accordingly, in the year 2028, the population’s annual per capita
income will increase to Birr 659; of this amount, the rural population’s
annual income will be Birr 195, while that of the urban population will be
Birr 2274. This means that, while the livelihood of the rural population will
improve by 50%, that of the rural population will improve by more than two and
half times. Similarly, the disparity in income between the rural and urban
population will grow by more than 11 times of what it is currently. Mind you,
however, that the basis of this estimate is supposed to be the very best!
Table 3: Ethiopia’s economic situation 25 years from now, if the current trend
of economic growth continues unchanged
|
Basis for prediction of economic growth
rate |
GDP in million of
birr (at
1980/81 constant
prices) |
Value Added in
the agricultural sector |
Value Added in
the non-agricultural sectors |
Share of the agricultural sector |
Per Capita income |
|
Overall |
Agriculture |
Non-agricultural
sectors |
