Famines in Ethiopia: Implications for Food Aid and Rehabilitation
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Malnutrition and Mortality During Recent Famines in Ethiopia: Implications for Food Aid and Rehabilitation HELMUT KLOOS and BERNT LINDTJORN The 1972—73 and 1984—85 famines varied significantly among different populations within famine areas at the regional, community and household levels. Political and social factors were crucial in this pattern. Evidence from both pastoral and farming areas indicates that the development of community-basedresources may be less disruptive sociall y and economically and result in less morbidity and mortality than dependence on relief shelters. Areas needing further study are identified. Famine conditions are likel y to persist for strategies because social and economic many years in Ethiopia, despite the cur- activities, and psychological and physiolo- rent peace process and restructuring gical adaptation to poverty and crisis, have efforts. Mesfin Wolde Mariam (1984) iden- always been significant in reducing famine tified famine conditions in different awrajas risk in Ethiopia (Rivers, 1990; D'Souza, each year for the period 1958-1978 , and 1990). Analysis of the occurrence of mal- Kloos and Lindtjorn (1993) reported large nutrition and associated mortality in numbers of Ethiopians affected b y famine different ecological settings and relief for all subsequent years up to 1992. There shelters may contribute to an evaluation of is an urgent need for a better understand- the constraints experienced by communi- ing of the ecology of acute malnutrition, ties and relief organizations in providing particularl y the vulnerability to famine of an adequate food supply and viable pre- different populations and socioeconomic ventive measures. classes, as well as their coping strategies, Asmerom Kidane analyzed the results morbidity and mortality experience during of interviews in Metekel and Gambela times of disaster. The purpose of this resettlement schemes and concluded that paper is to contribute to the debate about the consequences of the 1984—85 famine differential drought and famine occurrence were general, affecting rural populations and nutritional impact during the 1973 - 74 in northern Ethiopia regardless of socio- famine, when an estimated 250,000 people economic status and place of residence died, and during the 1984-85 famine, (Asmerom Kidane, 1989). The perception when about 1,000,000 people died of an indiscriminately severe famine was (Asmerom Kidane, 1989). We review strengthened by the fact that mostly land- selected works on vulnerability and coping owning peasants were resettled during the DISASTERS VOLUME 18 NUMBER 2 © Basil Blackwell Ltd. 1994 , 108 Cowley Road, Oxford 0X4 1JF , UK and 238 Main Street, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA. government's resettlement programme. (Dewey, 1981). Other high-risk groups This, it was reasoned, was in sharp con- commonly identified by emergency relief trast to the resettlement programs in the programs include children, pregnant 1970s, when a few vulnerable groups, women, the old, the sick, the urban poor, mostly urban poor, landless peasants, and refugees. charcoal burners, and destitute pastoral The approach used by most emerg- nomads were resettled. Nation-wide mal- ency programs, namely to focus on the nutrition in 1984 — 85 was considered to be impact of famine rather than on its predis- largely the result of the supposedly equi- posing factors, has come increasingly table distribution of wealth after the 1975 under criticism in recent years as being less land reform. The persistence of many effective in the control of famine in the parameters of socioeconomic differentia- long term than community-based and tion after the revolution, as well as the equitable rural development programs. ecological and cultural diversity of Ethio- Examination of predisposing factors, or pia were not, however, considered, (Kloos vulnerability, and the coping behavior and Aynalem Adugna, 1989). The news developed by populations living in famine- media contributed to the view that starva- prone areas may identify still poorly tion was universal, not only during the known constraints and potential opportu- 1984—85 famine but also during the one in nities suitable for community-based pre- 1973 — 74, when the press first reported on vention and rehabilitation programs that an Ethiopian famine (McCann, 1987, pp. may be more effective and less disruptive 245-267; Alemneh Dejene, 1990, 73, 74). economically and socially than the hazar- But there is considerable evidence, dous journey to and stay in feeding both from Ethiopia and other developing centers. countries, that vulnerability to famine and malnutrition varies between and within FAMINE VULNERABILITY AND SURVIVAL different socioeconomic groups and geo- STRATEGIES graphical areas. Some investigators have argued that pastoral nomads are more The studies of McCann in northern Shewa vulnerable to famine and disease than and Wello administrative regions showed sedentary farmers due to their full depen- that famine risk varied significantly among dence on the natural environment for food households, primarily as a function of production (Meir, 1986; Holt et al., 1975), production capacity, particularly the while others consider them to enjoy a number of oxen owned. Other farmers at higher health status than farmers, at least risk were former tenants and less favored during less stressful periods. It is more offspring who cultivated more marginal commonly agreed, however, that there are land, and women alienated from land and wide variations in wealth among lineages property (McCann, 1987) . While endow- and households in pastoral societies ment and a higher social status provide a (Roboff , 1977; O'Leary, 1990). Nutritional certain degree of insulation from the advantages have been reported for many effects of the drought, there are other pastoralists who settled on commercial factors in famine vulnerability. They farms and characteristically maintained include pest infestation, soil exhaustion, some of their livestock (Bradbury, 1984; the ability of individual peasants to cope Meir and Ben-David, 1991; Kloos, 1982). with these crises and, after the revolution, Subsistence farmers turning to commercial the relations of individuals with their agriculture, by contrast, often suffered peasant associations and producer cooper- nutritionally from unbalanced diets atives, and the stepped-up civil war. Some © Basil Black-well Ltd. 1994 DISASTERS VOLUME 18 NUMBER 2 of the survival strategies employed by disaster or could not be implemented, as many peasants included reduced food in the northern war zone. According to the consumption and dietary changes; the most extensive survey of foods needs consumption of famine foods, such as wild carried out in Ethiopia, conducted by plant products; the sale of household cadres of the EPLF in 1987, which covered goods, personal belongings, livestock and a quarter of all villages in Eritrea, military land; and temporary migration to towns activities and insecurity significantly and commercial farms to seek employ- increased famine risk through increased ment. If all failed, then farmers tended to social and economic isolation of both rural move to relief shelters, often sending their and urban communities. Specifically, wives and children first, the men staying sharp reductions in food production were behind in the hope of cultivating in the associated with lack of access to grazing event of rain. Many old and sick persons areas, fields, off-farm employment/ and were abandoned during these migrations markets (Cliffe, 1989), and many urban (Dessalegn Rahmato, 1991; Adhana Haile populations starved during military sieges Adhana, 1988; Wood, 1976; Mesfin Wolde and food blockages by the warring Mariam, 1985). The strategy of moving factions. spontaneously to better grazing areas in Social relations, marketing structures, nearby areas and adjacent administrative and agricultural activities were not regions, which involved thousands of pea- uniformly affected in northern Ethiopian sants from Wello, Tigray and Gondar in communities. Mesfin Wolde Mariam the 1960s and early 1970s, was no longer reported that one village in Raya Kobo, possible after the revolution, when the one of the most severely affected awrajas in registration requirements of the peasant Wello, did not experience food shortages associations prevented such movements. after 1972, despite its refusal to take relief Similar coping behavior was reported food , reportedly due to its strong social for several pastoralist groups, including organization and sense of economic self- the Mursi in the Omo Valley (Turton, sufficiency (Mesfin Wolde Mariam, 1984, 1977) and the Afar in the Awash Valley p. 188). In Ambassel Awraj a in 1985, 75 per (Kloos, 1982). But whereas the Mursi cent of the peasants had no harvest at all response to famine has been described as a and depended on food relief ; but 11 per success story (Turton, 1985), the Afar have cent had been able to obtain enough increasingly become marginalized econo- harvest and store food to last them for mically in the wake of the development of three months, 10 per cent had enough corporate farms (and later state farms) in food for six months; and 3 per cent for the their best grazing areas, new towns, roads, whole year. A similar situation existed in and Awash National Park, and the Kallu Awraja, and western Desse Zuria, encroachment by Isa Somali pastoralists Wore-Illu, and Borena awrajas , all of which and peasants from the Ethiopian High- experienced only minor production lands.