As a rule, professional medias publish first an article before analyzing or commenting it, or at least quote the excerpts of the article that they discuss so that their readers could make their own judgement.
From what I know, Aigaforum didn’t publish my article “Ethiopia’s Famine : Deny and Delay” and even didn’t quote some key excerpts in its strong critic (“René Lefort and the Art of Misunderstanding”). So let me at least reply shortly.
First, a detail. You wrote that I am back only now after my book was published at the beginning of the 80’s (“Ethiopia. An Heretical Revolution?”). In fact, I have published a lot of stories about the situation in Ethiopia during the last years, mainly in Le Nouvel Obsverateur (the widest distribution in France among the weekly newsmagazines), the well-known Le Monde Diplomatique, and academic reviews like Nord Sud Aktuell (“A short survey of the relationship between powers – mengist– and peasants – gebäre – in a peasant community of Northern Shoa”) and the well-respected Journal of Modern Africa Studies (“Powers – mengist – and peasants in rural Ethiopia: the May 2005 elections”).
Now the first of the three main points I want to emphasize. You said that I “accused the Government of Ethiopia, among other charges, of deliberately hiding the actualfigures of people who need humanitarian aid”. You are wrong. I wrote that the Government initially denied and then consistently underestimated the food crisis when it began at the beginning of 2008 (one year ago). That’s the core of my article. I think it proves it. I note that your critic doesn’t content any fact that would dismiss this assertion.
You also said that I wrote that “the Ethiopian government admitted that 13 Million people were in need of emergency humanitarian food aid” while, you wrote, it ‘clearly puts the number at 4.8 million, not thirteen” (accusing me of “a three hundred per cent discrepancy”). You are wrong. What I wrote is exactly the following: “the “Humanitarian Requirements” released on 30 January 2009 by the government in Addis Ababa and their “Humanitarian Partners” stated that “13 millionEthiopians – one-sixth of the population – are in neeed of aid” (and not in need of “emergency humanitarian food aid” as you said. From where these figures come from? From official documents of the Ethiopian authorities and of the main donors, including the Humanitarian Requirements. They state that:
4.9 million people (and not 4,8, as you wrote) will require emergency assistance in 2009, beyond those covered by the PSNP.
The beneficiaries of the PSNP number to 7,5 million (or 7,2 million, depending on the sources).
In addition, an estimated 1.2 million acutely malnourished children under five and pregnant/ lactating women require a food aid.
4,9 million + 7,2 million + 1,2 million = 13,3 million.
I wrote : “For over 10 million of these 13 million, the need is urgent”. This figure comes from “Ethiopia – Complex Emergency – February 6, 2009” released by USAID, one of the main donors and signer of the “Humanitarian Requirements”. It states that among the beneficiaries of the PSNP, 5,6 million require an “emergency food assistance”. 4,9 million + 5,6 million = 10,5 million.
Second main point: the Productive Safety Net Programme. You wrote that I didn’t “offer evidence that the programme has failed”. You are wrong. When the Programme was launched in 2005, its official aim was to provide transfers to millions of the most chronically food insecure Ethiopians so that they would be able in a five years period to overcome by themselves a possible shock – like the present drought – by having accumulate enough assets. I wrote that in its fourth year of operation, “three quarters of the beneficiaries of the Safety Net required emergency relief because they could not survive with their regular welfare assistance” given by the Programme. The exact figure was 5,7 million, or 79% of the beneficiaries of the Programme (see for example “Horn of Africa: Complex Emergency Fact Sheet #9 (FY) 2008”, September 26, 2008, USAID, or “Humanitarian Bulletin”, September 29, 2008, OCHA). Taking this essential fact into account, it is evident that I can not share your opinion that “Ethiopia’s safety net programme is largely a success story”, as you stated in your critic.
Third main point: yes, I doubt that Ethiopia is experiencing during the last years the famous “double digit growth’. I never contested, in this article or in former articles I wrote, that Ethiopia’s economy is growing very fast, that the Government has its fair share of this growth, as I never contested the principle of “the agricultural development led policy of the government”. But for years, and only off the record, foreign experts in Ethiopia admitted that this double digit figure was grossly exaggerated. Finally, Ken Ohashi, World Bank Country Director for Ethiopia and Sudan, stated publicly on August 29, 2008 that “the average growth rate from 2000/01 to 2006/07 turns out to be about 7.7%.” It has since declined, if only as a consequence of the drought and of the world economic crisis.
Finally, I would like to underline that by writing this article my aim was never, as you wrote, to express “a deeper resentment with the government” and “to blow every negative story way out of proportion”. It was simply to try to explain why and how localized food shortages, due to erratic rains, have plunge Ethiopia in its deeper humanitarian crisis since 1984/85, despite the early warning systems, despite the Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Agency, despite the very large number ofinternational humanitarian organization in Ethiopia.
I hope that Aigaforum will be fair enough to make these comments known to its readers. I am also willing to debate calmly and objectively any other topics of my article, based on facts and facts only, if you so wish.
Best regards,
René Lefort
—- René Lefort has been writing about sub-saharan Africa since the 1970s and has reported on the region for Le Monde, Le Monde diplomatique, Libération, Le Nouvel Observateur.
He is the author of “Ethiopia. An heretical revolution?” (1982, Zed books).
His email is [email protected]
“René Lefort and the Art of Misunderstanding”
(The following is what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs published in its weekly propaganda page – “A week in the Horn.” )
After a long hiatus since his last book, Mr. Rene’ Lefort is back with an article entitled “Ethiopia’s Famine: deny and delay”, in which he accused the Government of Ethiopia, among other charges, of deliberately hiding the actual figures of people who need humanitarian aid. Some of the points raised in the article are very misleading and even false. It is therefore necessary to address some of these in order to set the record straight.
Mr. Lefort’s article is full of exaggerations and in some cases downright inventions. His language betrays a much deeper resentment with the government and shows his readiness to blow every negative story way out of proportion. He uses the word famine all too liberally, and the word is often used interchangeably with drought. He is equally liberal about statistics which nobody knows where they come from. His penchant for doom-saying starts right at page one. He claims, for example, in the first paragraph that, despite previously downplaying the gravity of the specter of famine, the Ethiopian government admitted that 13 Million people were in need of emergency humanitarian food aid.
Interestingly, he claims to have found the figure in “the humanitarian Requirements report released on 30 January 2009 by the government in Addis Ababa and their “Humanitarian Partners””. Interestingly, the same report, which was officially released after a joint study conducted by the Ethiopian Government and its partners, clearly puts the number at 4.8 million, not thirteen. To call a three hundred per cent discrepancy in reporting an exaggeration could perhaps be a gross understatement.
But the same proclivity to exaggerating figures by manifold is one of the common threads that run through the article. Trying to go after each such exaggerations and deliberate ‘misquotes’ is going to be tiresome. But there are a couple of points that need to be raised here.
His article is not only full of exaggerations, but also in many ways, erroneous and unfair towards the development endeavors of the Ethiopian government. Generally, his article is meant to show that claims by the Ethiopian government that it is registering a significant economic growth is not what it is held out to be by some in the international community. It appears that his focus on the issue of famine is just to make this point more clearly. He is so enthusiastic about his attack on the government’s track record on the economy he even goes to the extent of putting his own words and figures into the mouths of senior officials.
He clearly disdains the ‘blind’ confidence the Ethiopian Government places in its safety net programs and also the fact that there are international donor organizations who are “…convinced that they have a key weapon”, in the Productive Safety Net Programme. He is clearly angry at those who ‘inadvertently’ encourage the government by refusing to criticize it for every problem in the country and elsewhere He even ridicules the claim by these organizations that this is indeed “the biggest social protection instrument in Africa”, all the while not bothering to offer evidence that the programme has failed to prove its mettle. That there were still areas which were affected by drought—mainly in the pastoralist regions—is cited as proof positive that this has indeed failed. Reading the article, one could not help imagining Mr. Lefort gnashing his teeth at those who make laudatory remarks about what he calls “the so-called double digit growth” of Ethiopia. In what could amount to a strange display of shadenfraude, he even belittles Ethiopia’s claim to be on the course of its renaissance, the celebration of its Millennium; and more importantly, he expresses resentment at Ethiopia’s unbridled ambitions “to become a middle income country in about 20 years” and “never [to] stretch our hands to beg for what we need, ever again”. That people who are out to get the government would always cherry-pick small nuggets of failure amidst a pool of otherwise commendable success stories is a thing to which Ethiopia is accustomed. But even by the most traditional standards of many in the western media, Mr. Lefort’s gleeful reporting about the “collapse” of the “arrangement like a house of cards” is beyond comprehension. Whether he disdains it or cherishes it, Ethiopia’s safety net programme is largely a success story. Ethiopia today, more than ever, is poised to embark on the path of fast economic growth. That the likes of Mr. Lefort so passionately antagonize the agricultural development led policy of the government does not add or detract from this truth.
He also claims, with the firm conviction characteristic of the entire article, that the failure was a result of weaknesses in the early warning system. He argues that that the government did not see the drought in 2007 summer coming was its most fatal mistake. To argue whether any one nation on earth would have the capacity to forecast every small dent in climate would be to trivialize the issue. But what Mr. Lefort seems to suggest is that the Government deserves a spanking for not delivering miracles. In fact, the government has performed well in this score. Although Mr. Lefort may not like this fact, the strategic food reserves the government managed to put together went a long way to avoid starvation and death on a level which he would perhaps have liked. And more importantly, the government understands full well that its efforts—despite the success so far—are a far cry from the level of growth that will ensure that the aspirations of the people of Ethiopia are fully met.
It is also necessary to point out that Mr. Lefort’s article had a more toxic title than most of what his allegations—all grossly exaggerated at best—seem to indicate. In the first paragraph of the article it is clearly stated—with the figure inflated three hundred per cent—that Ethiopia declared that “13 Million people are in need of aid”; the “deny” aspect of the title is a stark contradiction at best or an intentional defamation at worst. The record of the Ethiopian government shows that it takes the lives of its citizens seriously and does not believe even for a second that hiding any problem—no matter how insignificant—will ever take the problem away. Ethiopia has a lot more to show than to hide. Much to Mr. Lefort’s disappointment, the government has a mechanism that enables it to work with donors to identify areas of intervention and devise ways of addressing problems when and if they arise. This is a transparent process and it is open for the entire world to see. The physical evidence to this transparent cooperation was of, of course, the January 30 Report, which Mr. Lefort took the pain to grossly misunderstand.
