Interview with Mulugeta Said, head of food security in Amhara

Mulugeta Said is the head of food security in Amhara region, an area with one of Ethiopia's largest chronically food insecure populations. Here he tells IRIN that despite massive international support more needs to be done by both government and donors to avert another food crisis in Ethiopia. QUESTION: What is the difference between the causes of this crisis and that of 1984? ANSWER: There is a rainfall shortage here but we also have caseloads of impoverished people, so any slight change of weather has catastrophic results. These people are chronically poor so just a slightest change means they will starve. Q: What is the long-term solution? A: Our strategy is to target those drought-prone areas, to rehabilitate those areas and to improve the land. We are also aiming to improve household productivity by generating appropriate technology and improving rural credit and finance in the area. Agricultural productivity could be improved if there is appropriate technology for the area. Q: Do mortality rates help indicate if the systems you have in place are working? A: The early warning system has improved through time and this year the early warning systems were better than in the past. So the government, the non-governmental organisations and the donors have very good access so they shouldn’t let people die, although still it is obvious they are starving to death. But there is no record of deaths although they are on the verge of death unless they get appropriate support. This is the situation we are now facing. Q: Are the people getting poorer in Amhara? A: Definitely, because if you just look at the natural elements there has been recurrent rain failure, erratic rainfall, continuous land degradation, land fragmentation and this hasn’t been properly addressed. There hasn’t been a pragmatic and aggressive solution towards this in the past. The policies we have now could work, but there should be a lot of support and the support we are getting now isn’t sufficient enough to address these huge problems we are facing. Q: Given that the current government has been in power 12 years why are we still looking for solutions? A: A lot of development in infrastructure, a lot of human development has been carried out. But cumulatively the problem, and the recurring problem we have been facing, are not equivalent to the efforts we have put in, so the efforts need to be redoubled. The strategies that have been designed must be aggressively implemented. The support we have been getting is not sufficient to tackle all these problems... I don’t think the international community has made sufficient and enough effort so far, there is an ongoing effort but that must be redoubled otherwise the problems will remain beyond what we are talking now ... We are sure that the problems of this country will not be solved only with local efforts – there must be international efforts. There should be an international focus - this has been misdirected by only supplying food aid that was not linked to development. This time the support should be redoubled in the development endeavours. Q: But isn’t the basic problem that the land is overpopulated? A: There is definitely a population explosion, especially in the food insecure woredas [districts]. The average land hold site per household is close to one hectare, less than a hectare. And there are still people who are landless – the growing younger population are landless because the land is fragmented. So they have to have another option. That is why we are devising a voluntary resettlement with some of the donors. So there are areas to where you can relocate people for additional resources... If we aggressively address education, as we are doing, improve the quality of life through agriculture and when the quality of life is improving, the family will see that they can concentrate on a few children because they are sure there will be no mortality, that there will be no risks that faced in the past. So education and quality of life will make the difference here.