Over 17 million helped by government aid agency

More than 17 million people have received aid over the last five years, according to an Ethiopian government aid agency. The Ethiopian Social Rehabilitation and Development Fund (ESRDF) says it has set up over 3,000 projects countrywide. "Without this support many people would have suffered needlessly," the deputy general manager of the ESRDF, Afework G’eyesus, told IRIN. "The benefits to these people are clear. We believe that more than 17 million people have benefited from the provision of better health care, water, basic education and irrigation. It means that they are able to generate their own incomes and grow agricultural products in places where they could not. They learn to help themselves." According to end of year figures - following the completion of the ESRDF's five-year programme - US$ 133 million has been spent helping people. All development projects run by the fund must come from the community which must also provide ten percent of the cost. "If a local community does not have the money then it provides labour or materials," Afework said. "This system works very well and means that the community has an interest in what it is doing." The ESRDF is now turning its attention to four specific areas of the country where it says the need is critical, although all 11 regions of Ethiopia have received aid from the fund. Gambella, Afar, Somali Region and Benshangul-Gumuz are now the target areas for the next five-year programme that starts in January 2003. Afework said the fund still has much to do in a country of 65 million people where the average income is US $100 per annum and the illiteracy rate runs at 60 percent. The programmes run by the ESRDF are focused on rural water supply, education and health and sanitation. But, he said, it was also beginning to focus on environmental issues as well. The total cost of the projects run across the country totals US $242 million – of which US$190 million is from international donors and creditors. The Ethiopian government provides 21 per cent of the total costs of the projects. Most of the money for the ESRDF comes from the International Development Agency, the loan arm of the World Bank. The ESRDF, which was first set up in 1996 under the prime minister's office, is also holding an international conference to learn from other countries about development. "We need further assistance from the international community and we have lots to learn from them," Afework said. "Other countries can also help us by showing where they went wrong and how we can avoid errors of the past."