As Oxfam releases a new report highlighting the need to rethink food aid in Ethiopia, famine survivor Birhan Woldu explains why she agrees.
My name is Birhan Woldu. In 2005 I came to realise that I had become the face of the Ethiopian famine, although as a young child in 1984-5 I knew or understood little about this disaster. I was featured in a Canadian TV documentary as the ‘face of hope for Africa’ who survived the famine and that TV interviewer Brian Stewart became a friend of my family. Twenty years later, in 2005, I was on stage with Madonna and Bob Geldof for the Live8 concert in London. I have now graduated with a diploma in agriculture and a degree in nursing.
All of this has been possible because, 25 years ago, my life was saved by Irish nursing sisters who gave me an injection, and food aid from organisations like Band Aid. So it may seem strange for me to say now that to get food aid from overseas is not the best way. As well as being demeaning to our dignity, my education has taught me that constantly shipping food from places like the USA is costly, uneconomic and can encourage dependency.
We are a big country and when there is famine in one part of the country there is plenty in another. So we need better infrastructure and communications to move food around to where it is needed. Above all we need education. We Ethiopians are an intelligent, tough, and hard-working people with a culture going back thousands of years and all of us want education. For example, my father is a farmer but he is not educated. With my diploma I have been able to show him better ways to farm more efficiently and get better yields.
But until these longer-term programmes take effect we cannot simply rely on imported food aid. We know our vulnerabilities. We are a proud people. Let us grow our own food and help manage our own systems so we are not hit so hard when the next drought or flood comes. We need to approach disasters in a different way, that is more dignified and more sustainable than imported food aid. We can do this by building on communities’ own approaches.
I finish with a quote from Bob Geldof from when I was on his 2005 Live8 show in Hyde Park, London: ‘Band Aid was supposed to be just that - a “band-aid”. And it is a disgrace 20 years later we should be here today, with half the youngsters in Africa still going to bed hungry.’ What happened in 1984-5 was bad, and while we should not dwell on the past we should learn from our mistakes to ensure a better future and a country free from famine, starvation and poverty.
Does Birhan Woldu recommend that people in Britain support Oxfam?
What else can we do to support the kind of developments she says are needed in Ethiopia?
December 8th, 2009 at 2:42 pmHi John,
People in the UK can support the kind of developments Birhan recommends in two ways. Firstly, we can push our own elected representatives – MPs and MEPs – to change the way the UK addresses recurrent shortages of food and water. The country should be investing more in managing the risk of disasters rather than just focusing so heavily on reactive aid once a crisis occurs. Of course, as the paper also indicates, humanitarian aid will remain important when there is a crisis (e.g., the nearly 5million people are currently in need of immediate food aid). But investing in greater resilience today means less need for crisis response tomorrow.
The second way is to support organisations like Oxfam that are already doing this kind of work to help communities build their resilience to disasters. Oxfam is working with partners and directly to invest in community-based disaster risk management activities, and we couldn’t have the kind of impact we’re having without the continued support of people in the UK.
I wouldn’t want to put words in Birhan’s mouth, but from the conversations we have had and from the foreword she wrote for this paper, it’s clear that Birhan is a passionate advocate for what ‘Band Aids and Beyond’ is calling for. This means not only Oxfam’s work but also the wider changes that need to happen to replicate the examples of good work that are already happening in Ethiopia.
Nick Martlew
December 11th, 2009 at 12:40 pmOxfam GB Humanitarian Policy Adviser, Ethiopia
Oxfam International Policy Lead, Ethiopia