Ethiopia

Abstract

We (Jean Ziegler, Sally-Anne Way and Christophe Golay) conducted a mission to Ethiopia from 16 to 27 February 2004.¹ During this mission, we were honoured to be received by senior members of the Government, including Dr Alemu, State Minister of Foreign Affairs, Commissioner Simon Mechale of the Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Commission, the Minister of Water Resources and the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development. We were also received by a wide range of international and national NGOs working on food security, the right to food and human rights issues. The programme included field visits to the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR) and to the Tigray region. We were not able to visit the regions of Somali or Gambella, for security reasons. WFP organized thevisit to SNNPR and the non-governmental Ethiopian organization REST (the Relief Association of Tigray, which developed out of the Tigray liberation movement) organized our visit to Tigray. These field visits provided the opportunity to understand the very complex and diverse realities of Ethiopia and enabled us to meet with regional government authorities and local representatives of civil society and NGOs. The objectives of the mission to Ethiopia were (a) to analyse the situation of famine, hunger and food insecurity, from the perspective of the right to food; (b) to learn from positive initiatives being taken in Ethiopia; and (c) to play a catalytic role in promoting the right to food in practice.