Dula's Blog

Ethiopia is the unhealthiest and the second poorest country in the world. Ethiopia the unhealthiest-country in the-world and the second poorest.

This is despite the regime  telling the world that it has ushered the fastest growing economy and plan to meet the Millennium Development  challenge. For the last 20+ years, countries like Singapore, Indonesia, China and many Asian countries were able to transform  their economy because they had a  leadership that put the interest of the people rather maintaining just power. Now a creeping famine is taking a toll mostly among the children.

A young boy waiting  in front of his tukul for his mother as she arrives with a body of his 4-year older dead sister  who died of malnutrition in Shashemene, Ethiopia: Source: Creeping Famine: Alemayehu G. Mariam. Creeping famine-is-back-to-Ethiopia

Hate to mention it, to get the jest of  the Ethiopian economics, read my piece entitled “Voodoo Economics”.   Ethiopia is the least connected country in Africa in terms of  the Internet, because the regime of Meles Zenawi  denied  the Ethiopian people access to technology, nationalized land, telecom, and other industries that are critical to grow an economy. Thus driving the country to the dark ages economically and socially.

In 1996, knowing the reality of Ethiopia, with the help of the Mickey Leland foundation,  Ethiopia was granted $12 million U.S. dollars to wire with broadband Internet Ethiopian schools to give Ethiopia a leg up and to leapfrog it into a technology driven society to rid off its perennial famine. This opportunity was exceptional because no other country had such undertaking in place due to the infancy of the Internet then.

Meles  and Dawit Yohaness refused the grant because they were afraid the people will use the Internet to organize and overthrow them. Their interest came before the interest of the very survival of Ethiopia. In 2009, we tried to ship a container to supply 15 high schools with computers, the regime again refused to accept it and the Djibouti government ended up confiscating the container.

By deploying  ethnic biased economic policy and governance, the current regime is pushing Ethiopia into a brink of disintegration and the peoples life at risk. With their huge PR machine, they won accolades from Nobel laureates such as Joseph Stiglitz and others for their economic policy despite deploying a very centralized and crony capitalism.  They masked the stats to record a double digit growth and some agencies took the numbers for granted and gave the credit to the regime.

Ethiopia by any definition is no more economically viable and politically stable nation. Even if the current regime relinquishes power,  Ethiopia has little chance of becoming  a viable nation because of many missed opportunities. Subsequent rulers have succeeded in fracturing  it as a nation and degraded its economic viability. Sad to say, the future is bleak and scary. NBC news nightly-news narrates about the creeping and perennial famine.

According to many observers, the streets of Addis are filled with hapless and young prostitutes as young as 12  who are forced to chance the odds of disease and other crimes to just barley put food on the table for their parents.

Jonas Clinton of Canada, a development expert and a visitor to Ethiopia described his feeling as ” sad and confused” because the streets of Addis are literally full of young prostitutes mirroring the poverty that exists in the country and could not reconcile of what he heard of Ethiopia.

Pilot, Hailemedhin Abera Tegegn hijacked his plane to show the world the horrible situation in Ethiopia for Ethiopians. He took the most unimaginable and desperate action  in attempt to tell the world that something is indeed wrong with Ethiopia.

Even Ethiopian who were abused and sometimes rapped by Saudi Arabian Shabab were found to be sad and confused to return to Ethiopia. The question is why feel miserable and scared to return home from such a brutal Arab country.  Because the Woyane Ethiopia is scary , as well as bleak.

The poverty and ethnic conflict in Ethiopia is manmade.  In order to overcome poverty, you need  talented and trusted leadership. Unfortunately, things have progressively gone wrong for Ethiopia to recover from this potential made Armageddon and it may be too late. According to the annual Human Development Report Ethiopia has the second highest percentage of people who are MPI poor in the world,  next to the west African nation of Niger, ranking at the bottom. The MPI measure deprivations across health, education and living standards.   The MPI goes beyond previous international measures of poverty. It is holistic and includes nutrition, child mortality, years of schooling, school attendance, cooking fuel, sanitation, water situation, electricity, floor, assets and more. Government control of the economy and cronyism have a choke-hold on economic activity. Detailed Report just for Ethiopia.

Ethiopians need peace, security  and development. However, it will not have peace and security as long as the regime policy of divide conquer is in place. There will not be development as long as the state or the Woyanes control all the facets of the economy. The wanton killing in Ambo and the arbitrary arrest of journalists are a few examples of a government ran amuck against its own people. Given the current state of conditions, Ethiopia’s future is scary and bleak.