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Walking barefoot, Oumar Gellete, 49, appears to be
oblivious of the chilly weather that is typical to
6,063 residents of Bura Totose Kebele, an hour walk
from the town of Chacha, 110Kms northeast of Addis
Abeba, in the Amhara Regional State. Even at lunch
time, the Angolela and Tera Wereda near Debre Brehan
town could get as nippy as any place with
single-digit degree centigrade temperature.
He ploughs any of the three scattered plots he has
until dusk, without covering himself with anything
warm or protective cloth; his were worn-out Chinese
made pants and jacket. That is what it takes to
support a family of nine, including seven of his
children. Five of them go to school.
Life is just manageable, according to Oumar. Unlike
before, when he used to harvest a single crop -
barley - he now has diversified his produces, and
started growing vegetables in his backyard. He
recently built a house where the family sleeps,
separate from where the cows and donkeys are kept.
“The cattle used to eat our food before we got up
early in the morning,” Oumar laughed, remembering
the days when the livestock shared a small hut with
him and the family.
He even bought a radio set, the only symbol of
affluence in the house.
His battle against poverty, and his marginal
improvement, albeit slow, led him to be nominated as
one of the “developmental heroes” from his area:
These are farmers whose accomplishments are
recognised by regional government authorities across
the country and decorated with medals and
certificates handed to them by the Prime Minister.
Yet, in spite of these positive developments over
the past few years, Oumar still finds himself on a
borderline, unable to feed his family throughout the
year. He falls in the category of what development
experts describe as “food insecure”.
His is hardly an isolated story; Oumar’s family
vulnerability to poverty puts it in the list of
11,269 food insecure people found in his Woreda,
which is one of the seven in North Shoa Zone, where
2.23 million people live. About 7.28pc of them are
food insecure.
And these are people the federal government, with
the help of donors it often calls development
partners, wants to support in their daily struggle
to overcome hunger.
They have developed three years ago, and are
implementing, a nationwide programme, Productive
Safety Net, a.k.a safety net. Oumar enrolled
in this programme along with 2.5 million
beneficiaries in the Amhara Regional State, a region
where 30.5pc of its population is found to live
under abject poverty, according to surveys conducted
last year by Food Security Coordination and Disaster
Prevention Office of the Regional State.
The introduction of safety net came in the aftermath
of the 2002/03 drought, which had exposed 13.2
million Ethiopians to famine. Responding to the
federal government’s appeal, donors of food aid
mobilised one of the largest ever humanitarian
responses.
Contrary to the sheer size of the population exposed
to famine, hardly anyone died. They also learned a
lesson that the response is only temporary. It was
only a matter of time before another drought struck
the nation.
This was a realisation that has brought a new
coalition of donors to support the government in its
effort and priority to ensure food security in the
long term. The federal government developed a new
food security strategy that comprised a resettlement
programme and a household food security package
aimed at helping each farmer accumulate assets. The
idea was that such farmers could survive trying
times without dying of hunger, whether or not
drought leads to famine.
A five-year safety net programme was launched in
2005, with the support of eight donors, including
the World Bank, the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID), the British
Department for International Development (DfID), and
the European Commission (EC).
Alarmed by a growing symptom of dependency syndrome
following massive international food aid since the
great famine of the mid 1980s, the federal
government decided to see safety net implemented in
food insecure areas in a manner that involves
beneficiaries doing public works in exchange for in
kind or cash help.
At the beginning, 7.2 million beneficiaries were
enrolled in four regions: South, Oromia, Tigray and
Amhara regional states. The latter, where Oumar
lives, accounts for 30pc of all beneficiaries
registered nationwide. Lately, though, the Harari
Regional State and Dire Dawa City Administration
were included in the programme.
Beneficiaries in 276 weredas in these regions
receive grain or cash after taking part in labour-intensive
public works, according to Wout Soer, head of the
donor coordination team of the programme. These
include constructing roads, building terraces,
maintaining schools, clearing ditches or developing
springs, as well as conserving the environment.
But it is not very restrictive. Those qualifying for
a set of criteria - such as old age, pregnancy or
terminal diseases - are entitled to direct support.
They are provided with three kilogrammes of wheat
per head, daily, without being required to
participate in public works.
Their number is however small compared to those
doing public works in order to be eligible for
support, as is the case with Kemissie town, 325Kms
north of Addis Abeba; of the 411 beneficiaries in
the town, only 47 are entitled to such direct
support.
Dawa Chefa, one of the weredas in the special zone
of Oromo nationalities, in the Amhara Regional
State, has its offices in Kemissie town. There,
1,436 people are entitled to direct support, from
the 21,420 people of the 145,000 residents that are
threatened by constant food insecurity.
The majority of beneficiaries across the country,
where Oumar belongs to, are included in the safety
net programme only after involving themselves in
public works. Although he too gets direct support of
810 Br for three months, owing it all to his
children under 18, Oumar has taken part in public
works such as environmental conservation activities,
constructing a farmers’ training centre in his
kebele, terracing and reforestation.
Farmers like Oumar get paid a daily wage of six Birr
for five days of public works provided in any given
month. March is in the six-month period, starting
from December, allotted for such public works. This
period of time is considered as a “slug period” for
farmers.
Payment in cash takes up the bigger portion in the
programme that cost donors a total of 200 million
dollars, although payment in kind shares no less.
Those who chose to be paid in kind receive three
kilogrammes of wheat and 0.6lt of edible oil per
day, calculated to be worth six Birr.
For instance, beneficiaries in Dawa Chefa Wereda are
provided with 7,190qts of food aid, which represents
40pc of the programme. Such is a contribution in
food aid that cost donors 150 million dollars a
year, according to Mr. Soer.
Originally designed to expire in 2009, although that
now appears to be very unlikely, the safety net
programme requires an additional 600 million dollars
and one million metric tonnes of food should it
succeed. To their credit, both the government and
donors have committed to measurable results for the
programme to be called successful.
Each year, no less than 20pc of the beneficiaries
should graduate from the programme, after
accumulating enough assets in their households as
benchmarked by each region and wereda. Graduation
is, nonetheless, a mounting task, it was found.
Hardly anyone could demonstrate the uncertainty and
the challenge of this process better than Oumar’s
experience in life.
He settled at Bura Totose Kebele, coming from a
nearby village located in the Oromia Regional State;
he had left his family during childhood to work as a
shepherd for rich farmers in the kebele.
When coming of age, he was conscripted to the 1978
Ethio-Somalia War, one of the 300,000 militia
solders who fought for their country, only after a
three-month hush-hush training. Oumar sustained a
bad injury and thus discharged from the military. It
was not to be his last battle.
Although he returned to Bura Totose, where he was
granted a plot and settled as a farmer, a desperate
government forced him and many of the Ethio-Somalia
War veterans in the late 1980s to hold the unabated
rebels at bay. Oumar was deployed on the Jerru
front, 150Kms north of Addis. No sooner did the
veterans arrive at the battle front, when they began
to retreat; only after the EPRDF took power in May
1991 did Oumar returned back to Bura Totose.
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