Famine in Ethiopia
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Ethiopia is one of the worlds larger countries. It has long been plagues with the torment of poverty, illiteracy, hunger and disease. Famine, a reduction in everyday food supply, is a widespread problem that can strike in any corner of the developing world. Although sometimes unnoticed, this shortage of food slowly leads to hunger and malnutrition. The food shortage in Ethiopia is not caused by natural disaster, but instead is a direct result of social, political and economic human forces. Not only are individuals and families dying from starvation there, but also the communities were forced to bear abnormal social and economic activities in order to ensure food.
This is due to their lack of development planning in combating these hardships. Ethiopia is characterized as one of the worlds least developed countries. It ranks number seventeen on the chart. (UN-OHRLLS) This report summarizes the existence of famine in Ethiopia as it related to its causes, both economic and political, resource factors that contributed to the famine and the recommendations for a solution of famine in the future.
When did the food shortage begin? Looking back in history, famine, war, and destruction appear to have always been an integral piece of human history, since the beginning of important human population growth. Its existence in Ethiopia has led to millions of death, especially in women and children. (Wikipedia) The government of Ethiopia, for political reasons, was unwilling to declare an emergency and was hesitant to allow access to relief organizations to the affected communities for aid. Therefore, Western relief assistance went only to restricted areas, where government controlled the structure of the military conflicts, which blocked efforts to reach those victims in need. Wars between government troops and liberation fronts in those affected areas soon became the blame for the destruction and famine. War makes it impossible to get food to the people. “The 1984-85 famine was in fact a political crisis characterized more appropriately by was than by drought”. (Wikipedia) Wars and other hardships have, and still are dominating the attention of the government to try to focus on something besides their own famine troubles.
Most famine conditions in Ethiopia have been associated with crop failures due to drought, flood, war, and lack of proper government intervention and development. Various climatic factors, especially insufficient rainfall, can affect the quality of agriculture. This can cause immediate destruction of crops, sanitary water supply and markets to be used for future agriculture. One of Ethiopias great misfortunes is that rainfall is not dependable. A drought occurs when there is an insufficient