Participation NOT Self-Exclusion:
"Let us not try to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness in history" MLK
Interview with
Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos,
Professor of Public Policy, School of Graduate Studies,
College of Business & Economics, AAU - 2007
HoF: Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in the world. According to
the UNDP Human Development Report of 2007 the majority of the population live
with less than one USD/day. Half the population live under the national poverty
line. Which poverty reduction strategies do you think are necessary?
Costantinos:
The first part of the question is interesting in that very few in
our world today articulate questions related to poverty reduction in terms of
scholarly approaches to human development. Instead, many jump at finding a
silver bullet answer (such as debt cancellation, more aid…) to the complex
nature of poverty. Poverty is a complex phenomenon of a web of factors leading
to destitution and marginalisation that requires an inter-generational and
interdisciplinary strategic framework to remedy complex web of factors of
impoverishment. I will dwell on the strategies for sustainable
livelihoods (SL).
First and foremost, it is useful to distinguish
different strategies of reducing vulnerabilities and factors of impoverishment
on the basis of the underlying forces of policy-relevant social change which
inform them. One way of conceptualising forces of social change is in terms of
different forms of ‘capital’ – applied here in the broadest sense as resources
or assets which may be utilised to achieve social objectives. For the purposes
of conceptualising poverty-relevant social change, seven forms of capital are
particularly relevant: human; economic; social; political (the network of informal and
formal political alliances that confer decision-making authority; sources of
violence and means of enforcing social norms and maintaining social
relationships) and environmental
capital (natural resources). Changes in anyone
of the above forms of capital interact in complex ways with other forms of
capital to constitute poverty-relevant social change. Analyses based on
different forms of capital may very well lead to similar policy prescriptions.
Hence combinations of the following reasoned poverty reduction strategies that
have direct implications on begetting SL are recommended:
Firstly, we focus our anti-poverty strategies
primarily on human capital development that links investment in education,
health and nutrition with sustainable livelihoods policies, strategies and
action plans to enable human development must per force play a leading role.
Secondly, we
have those mechanisms which increase the primary income
of the poor – with emphasis placed on factors which increase the level or price
of output and/or the returns received by poor producers; whereby output is a
function of factors of production (land, labour and physical capital and
financial capital (credit) and technology). Increasing output entails
increasing the volume, distribution, productivity or changing the relative
prices of factor inputs. The Government has also launched a safety nets
programme to stem poverty and that aim to transfer cash or in-kind income to
the poor by providing subsidised goods, services or employment guarantees don't
rely on the above analyses; but are included because of its importance as
buffers in an anti-poverty strategy.
Finally, the
human security, governance and rights-based poverty
reduction promises to cap the entitlement and equity arenas. Sadly, it has been
primarily and narrowly reckoned in technocrat terms to refer to public sector
management issues (e.g. civil service reform), in public policy terms (market
liberalisation), etc. Needless to say, human security ‘protecting the vital
core of all human lives in ways that enhances human freedoms and human
fulfilment – is protecting fundamental freedoms – - freedoms that are the
essence of life... build on people's strengths and aspirations.... protecting
people form critical and pervasive threats... using processes that build on
people's strengths and aspirations…. creating political, social, environmental,
economic, military, and cultural system that together give people the building
blocks of survival, livelihood and dignity’. In its present use, it embodies
three basic principles: inclusiveness, lawfulness and accountability. To sum
up, a combination of safety nets, investment in education, commercial food
production, health and nutrition and the primary incomes, increasing output
entails increasing the volume, distribution, productivity or changing the
relative prices of factor inputs and human security and development are the
primary tools for human empowerment and hence poverty reduction. The
Government, which is still the main actor in development, has recorded
impressive gains over the past years in terms of economic growth (11.6% for
2003/2004), it has increased its food security spending by 200 fold over the
past few years implementing some of the strategies discussed above. Gross education enrolment
ratio has improved in favour of rural areas and females; while challenges
remain in the health sector; but is being dealt with competently under the
leadership of the current minister.
HoF: 85 per cent of the Ethiopians earn their living with agriculture.
However, food production cannot cover domestic demand for adequate nutrition.
Is foreign food aid the right strategy? What could be the alternatives?
Costantinos:
Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on food aid every other
year, (albeit and indubitably, an essential component of survival now). Food
aid has well documented side effects on our national psyche, moral, economy,
society and polity. We must face up to our donors (such as the G8 resolution)
to help us develop our capacity to use our resources in an environmentally
sound manner. I propose a two pronged solution to persistent poverty that augur
deep in reforming the very strategy and structure of our rules and institutions
of development that would enable self-reliance…
First is to develop an integrated package of
policy, technology and investment strategies together with appropriate
decision-making tools, which are used together to fight poverty and promote sustainable livelihoods by building on
local adaptive strategies (widely promoted by the IISD, CHE, CIDA and UNDP).
Its benefit arises from several features: empowerment, the provision of an
integrated framework, assessment of community assets, adaptive strategies, and
livelihood activities, governance and policy questions and their inter-linkages
are addressed in a cross-sectoral manner. It seeks to improve productivity of
people's own livelihood systems and create new opportunities in a sustainable
manner.
Secondly, the foremost priority is food security.
According to government reports, 74 million hectares or 66% of the total area
of Ethiopia is suitable for agriculture. However, the actual size of land
cultivated is estimated to be only 16.5 million ha or 14.8 % of the total
according to The State of the Environment Report in Ethiopia, Environmental
Protection Agency, August 2003. Ethiopia is the water tower of Africa. Ethiopia's water resources natural endowment is big and generous. Yet our country has only
40 m3/capita water in storage (compare to about 800m3/capita
in South Africa where the variability is much lower). One consequence of this
variability is endemic and unpredictable drought and flood, with enormous
direct social and economic impact. To make matters
worse, the country loses 1.5-1.9 billion tons of soil annually due to erosion,
leaving behind eco-cadavers in the highlands. This must urgently change.
Ethiopia must use its resources to feed its people. Hence, Government and
donors must support the business community, (through various incentives that
are available to other commercial farmers world-wide) to promote large-scale
mercantile food production that can use these resources more judiciously
without hampering the empowerment of nations and nationalities. In this
connection, an external review of the Agriculture policy and strategy
promulgated more than a decade ago is obligatory to be able to craft sound
policies and strategies to emerge out food aid.
Thirdly, I have been on record underlining the
crux of the challenge - creating, retaining and putting to productive use
peoples with such qualities throughout the economy. It is basically about
having the ability and willingness to identify, sequence, and execute
human-centred development priorities and programmes in the face of limited
human, financial and institutional capacities. It boils down to formulating and
executing national and sectoral policies that would enhance aggregate
commitment, will power and capacities to mobilise, develop, motivate, encourage
and utilise all segments of the population. To meet this challenge is
synonymous to meeting the development challenge at large. The results, under
all probability, would lead to the creation of a strong nation, active in both
domestic and world transactions. The
overall objective is to develop a critical mass of human qualities and ensure
their effective participation in the development process in order to provide,
consolidate, expand and sustain the required base for development within a
rapidly shrinking and competitive global environment.
HoF: It is not uncommon to hear discussion among
Addis Ababans these days on the rising cost of living and the inability of
families to make ends meet. While there are visible signs of why this came to
pass (increase in prices of fuel, energy, cement, beef, Teff, etc. which have
cascading effects in the household economy), what are the options for dealing
with it.
Costantinos:
Discussions on the rate of inflation and its impact on the
livelihoods of the people and hedging livelihood strategies are of more recent
phenomena. Such inflation - a rise in the general level of prices, as measured
against some baseline of purchasing power – is usually adjusted through
monetary and fiscal policy instruments. The quality theory rests on the
expectation of a buyer accepting currency to be able to exchange that currency
at a later time for goods that are desirable as a buyer; and the quantity
theory rests on the equation of the money supply, its velocity, and exchanges.
Many theories of inflation combine the two. A cost-of-living index measures
differences in the price of goods and services over time.
Nonetheless, we
should ask ourselves if inflation bad? Well not at all up to a point! Small
rates of inflation are often viewed as having positive ripples as it is
difficult for wages and some prices to be renegotiated downwards. Inflation is
also viewed as a hidden risk pressure that provides an incentive for those with
savings to invest them, rather than have the purchasing power of those savings
erode through inflation. More significantly it gives the NBE room to maneuver,
since, ideally, its primary tool for controlling the money supply and velocity
of money is by setting the lowest interest rate in an economy - the discount
rate at which banks can borrow from the central bank. However, in general,
inflation rates above the nominal amounts required to give monetary freedom,
and investing incentive, are regarded as negative, particularly because in
current economic theory, inflation begets further inflationary expectations. On the one hand it will redistribute
income from those on fixed incomes, such as pensioners, and shifts it to those
who draw a variable income. Similarly it will redistribute wealth from those
who lend a fixed amount of money to those who borrow. It has an impact on international trade, shoe leather costs (the cost
of walking to the bank every too often) menu costs: firms must change
their prices more frequently, which imposes costs; relative price distortions: firms do not generally synchronize
adjustment in prices. The worst form of inflation is hyperinflation as is
observed in Zimbabwe and the DR Congo.
Within the
Ethiopian context, some important questions rankle though, and for several
reasons – is the government running a budget deficit, (a fiscal policy irony in
itself) where funds will need to come from the issue of government bonds,
international borrowing or - seignorage (the printing of new money)? Has the
government influenced the level of aggregate demand in the economy, in an
effort to achieve the economic objectives of price stability and ‘full’
employment? Will the removal of funds from the economy (Keynesian) reduce
levels of aggregate demand in the economy and contract it, bringing about price
stability? How and how often are interest rates adjusted and in response to
which economic stimulants? So where do we go from here?
Our legislature
should establish a permanent but rotating independent commission of experts to
review progress every three years or so and advise it on the appropriate
interpretation of current statistics. It should enact the legislation necessary
for improving accuracy and timeliness of economic statistics and to reduce the
resources consumed in their development and production; and provide the
additional resources necessary to undertake surveys more frequently, and to
acquire additional commodity detail from alternative sources. Our legislature
must also decide on the substantial over-indexing of various federal spending
programs. If the purpose of indexing is accurately and fully to insulate the
groups receiving transfer payments and paying taxes, no more and no less, they
should pass legislation adjusting indexing provisions accordingly. In relation
to this, it needs to look into the most visible and obvious power of the National
Bank of Ethiopia - to curtail money supply and set interest rates unilaterally
to influence markets. These rates directly affect the market for short term
loans: marginal lending rate, main
refinancing rate and deposit
rates at commercial banks.
The labor
ministry should establish a cost of living index as its objective in measuring
consumer prices and develop and publish indexes: one published monthly and one
published and updated annually and revised historically. A certain level of indexation to keeping
pace with inflation is necessary so that wages and pensions are
automatically hedged – allowing incomes to retain their value in real terms.
There is simply no
alternative to the establishment of sound institutional capacity for real-time
strategy development, sensitivity analysis, policy coordination, and attention
to the details of implementation of employment generations schemes. Strategic
objectives must be clearly defined and specific measures made consistent with
overall polices of a good national economic management. Provision of incentives
to entrepreneurs must be subject to periodic review and continuation and
expansion made conditional upon performance criteria established in advance.
Most important of this is the fact that banking system must be functioning as
efficiently as planned - taking care of the credit market needs of private
sector. An efficient and a development-oriented private sector provide the
nourishment which markets require to grow and function effectively. Markets
themselves provide the credit ingredients which the private sector requires to
grow expand and contribute to development. Thus, there is a reciprocal and
mutually productive relationship between the private sector and credit and
capital markets.
HoF: The Ethiopian government in the last years took rigorous steps
against corruption. Government is making efforts for more transparency,
accountability and a wider social dialogue – what do you make of this?
Costantinos:
Since its emergence in the early 20th century, the modern Ethiopian
State has been typified by autocratic leaders and primarily existed for the
benefit of the powerful elite of the centre. Consequently there was little
popular participation in the political process and has become distrustful,
critical of the state, and wary of having any contact with it. Even under
democratically favourable contemporary global conditions; these historical,
ideological and strategic characteristics make democracy a costly and
insurmountable exercise. Notwithstanding this, the commitment of the Government
to promote openness and transparency by developing legal protection of
constitutionally defined rights, legal and regulatory frameworks to control
corruption and rent seeking, a civil service with appointments based on merit,
systems that subject officials to the rule of law is encouraging. Indeed more
must be done in terms of compensation for civil servants and civil service
career development, creating a range of countervailing civil society
organisations and media that function freely and openly, broadening legal
provision for private ownership of property.
Combating
corruption and enhancing development lies basically in the enthronement of
democracy, but most essentially through transparency in the leadership with
equal and adequate access of the citizens to popular and informed
participation. There is need to heighten public awareness of the destructive
effects of corruption and restore the confidence of the people in government by
exemplary leadership both of which would create and reinforce the capacity to
combat corruption. The independence of institutions such as the media, the
judiciary, that play the role of regulating the operation of public policies
should be established and safeguarded. Ethiopia’s
development of a grand-corruption-free market economy, without any doubt,
heavily depends on the legitimacy of governance processes that will in turn
depend in important ways on it being perceived as reasonably honest,
predictable, transparent and accountable in the execution of the states’
broader responsibility of providing enabling conditions for national
development. Public sector inefficiencies undermine political, economic and
social stability by undermining citizen’s faith and result in a general loss of
respect for authority and despondency in the general population. It is apparent
that as the country enters this new era of political pluralism there is a need
to overhaul the executive and develop institutional alternatives that have
proved to function elsewhere in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Indeed there has been progress in installing
transparency and accountability and a wider social dialogue. Democratisation is
a very - very long mission -- to install the rules and institutions of
governance that would guarantee human security in its totality. True, the
Western liberal democratic model, often taken as the acme of democratic
governance, is what Ethiopia has set for itself - the attainment of
institutions and practices that have been the basic ingredients of established
democratic traditions. Nevertheless, to label the progress as a success at this
stage is problematique. These are constrained by the low level of awareness and
understanding of democratic norms, practices and processes by the populace at
large. Indeed, a major problem inherent in this is the extreme weakness of the
social movements and their failure to develop coherent strategies for promoting
broad based and well organised citizenry - whose functions are to preserve
basic rights of its constituents and the society at large, educate the citizens
and advocate popular claims, build a consensus and promote political and moral
ethical values, and disseminate them among the populace; it has become
difficult to nurture a sense of civil society. Free and open discourse on
public issues are all foreign concepts that needed to be installed carefully
over the past fourteen years in the minds of the majority of the populace. The
dearth of political culture is clearly manifest in the disarray and inability
of political forces to achieve internal unity.
HoF: How do you see the role of Ethiopia in cooperation with
international donors? What is the role of concepts like ownership,
strengthening of state and society and national efforts such as PRSPs in this
context?
Costantinos:
The Ethiopian version of the PRSP, the PASDEP, encompasses a wide
range of development objectives that are being linked to the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs). At the heart of all this is the role of the Ethiopian
state - the key distinction, which runs through much of in the history of
political theory is between the stewardship on the one hand and guiding role of
the state on the other. Over the centuries, these two images i.e. the shepherd
and the helmsman - have been at the heart of many political governance
controversies. Although neither guardianship nor guiding can be discharged
effectively in isolation, some writers advocate one and others the other as the
primary responsibility of the state. Developmentalists emphasise stewardship
while neo-classical economists augur its guiding functions.
Indeed donors have in recent years taken a large
number of initiatives aimed at directly or indirectly helping Ethiopia develop
its way out of economic chaos and socio-political instability. In this effort
donors provide the bulk of the support, in accordance with the Rome, Marrakech
and Paris declarations on Aid Harmonisation and effectiveness. The budget
support has been now transformed into protection of basic services following
the post-election violence of June and November 2005, when a number of donor
constituencies decided that they could no longer provide assistance to the
Government through the Direct Budget Support mechanism; that hitherto financed
the execution of commonly agreed poverty reduction and human development
strategies. The PBS Project is an initiative designed by the donor community in
cooperation with the Government and various stakeholders in and outside the
country; is designed to expand and sustain the basic human development
programmes that have been almost exclusively provide by the Government today.
In doing so, they rely on a wide variety of
institutional mechanisms and policies. Indeed, growing external involvement in
projects of economic recovery has resulted in increasingly challenging problems
of conceptualising and understanding the role and function of foreign
interventions. This is in marked contrast to the limited thought and effort
exerted by developers of our polity to put the interventions in coherent
theoretical or strategic perspective. The important issues that these queries
suggest are not sufficiently addressed, or even raised, in much of the current
discussion of development. Insofar as the activities of external agencies are
not understood and engaged in partly as indigenous societal potentialities
developing gradually into actual structures, functions and characteristics of
societies and polities, their developmental impact may diminish with their
proliferation. This can mean little more than a weakly co-ordinated
multiplication of projects which have immediately recognisable or measurable
effects in limited areas, but which seem to suspend rather than serve the
ultimate goals of development. The strategic co-ordination of diverse international
activities supportive of development can become a challenge both for the
international agencies involved and for the Government partly because of
limitations in the individual characteristics of the activities and their
narrowly technocratic orientation and limited generalisability and variability.
We are undoubtedly dependent on international assistance in their projects of
reform. Such assistance is vital for the projects in many areas and at many
levels. Yet it must be recognised that external support creates problems as
well as opportunities for development and democratisation on Africa.
HoF: What is your take on Somalia?
Costantinos:
Rising from the
ashes of brutal dictatorship and the warlords’ sordid motives of the ultimate
scale, the ICU was a spontaneously formed populist uprising. From the looks of
it, the ICU had developed an overwhelming camaraderie and fellowship among the
ordinary Mogadisho-Somalis. Indeed support for the ICU from local businesses,
tired of the extortion by warlords, was widely considered a critical factor in
their victory. On the flip side of the coin, however, the ICU’s anachronistic
fundamentalist rule and Jihad on Ethiopia generated fears that this was the
earliest sign of a Taliban-like hard-line Islamic regime to come. It was clear
form the beginning that terrorist infiltrations such as al Ithad into the ICU
could not be ruled out completely in this stateless nation. Especially with the
appointment of hard lines to top the ICU will only entrench those who submit
that the ICU was after all an al Qaeda invention that seems to have levitated
to see the light of day. Coupled with the alleged support provided by
neighbouring states to destabilize the Horn; this was a potentially dangerous
situation that will have guaranteed heightened humanitarian crises in
defenceless Somaliland and Djibouti and the IGAD region that already hosts
close to over ten million internally displaced peoples, 11% of the world’s
total.
Ultimately, the true renaissance of Somalia will
only happen only and only if it can join the league of peaceful and law-abiding
nations of the world; in friendly terms with its neighbours. The quest to
accomplish this task would not only require the willpower and buoyancy to
propel Somalia against the wild waves of mistrust and revulsion that prevails
in the failed state and among its citizens today, but also a synergized
political and economic aid of material benefit to a populace traumatized by
poverty. This will indubitably have an inimitable prospect to prove right those
who believe that Somalis deserve a life free of rampant killings, famine and
hunger, gender-based violence, torture, extortion, trafficking (children, women
and drugs), outright robbery, lack of access to education, health and livelihoods…
This may even reverse the brain drain and bring back the Somali Diaspora back
home to build a nation from scratch. Between euphoria and frustration, clarity
and confusion, moderates must develop a sustainable alternative to the
lawlessness that paralyzed Somalia for over fifteen years, and find a platform
to showcase that”. IGAD with the support of the International Contact Group,
the AU and the UN must focus on building the rules and institutions that will
govern Somalia -- including a timetable for elections that would bring in a
popularly elected state power. Chances are that a ‘Hamas-type’ outcome might
rein in any democratic experiment in Somalia hardly to the liking of the
international community. This may or may not necessarily assure a level playing
political field for all Somalis; but these are the paragons of democratic
pluralism that the post-Berlin Wall era has held high on the moral ground and
that we may all have to come to terms with this in our thirst for a Government
of the People in Somalia.
HoF: my final question, the Ethiopian Diaspora,
many believe, has been counter-productive in its call for aid withdrawal
compromising the livelihood of Ethiopians?
Costantinos:
I do not believe you are suggesting that the Ethiopian Diaspora must
alienate itself form their mother land; as there is sufficient evidence that
the Diaspora's involvement can have a very serious impact on our development
and contribute sustainably to determine the rules of the game on how this
nation is governed. Today, the majority of elected opposition politicians are
in parliament exercising their prerogatives to represent the populace who have
elected them. Nonetheless, the final outcomes of the political mêlée
between the incumbent and the opposition leaders is a sad story that every
Ethiopian at home or in the Diaspora has taken to heart – indeed a regrettable
outcome of a historic sea change that could have launched our nation in a
different trajectory. 
But Ethiopians
have survived the brutal military dictatorships of the recent past and there is
no reason that to believe that this level of resilience has lost its steam.
Hence the need for the Ethiopian Diaspora to take a long term view of our
national development --- as rising from the ashes every time we change regimes
violently has indeed made us vulnerable to the whims of nature, famine and
pandemics that haunt us every single day. In the end, it is the poor who
pay for this. Beyond classic examples such as India, Pakistan, Yemen, Egypt,
Ghana… the role of the Ethiopian Diaspora has been amply demonstrated in
Ethiopia by the Technology Park project initiated by the Ethiopian Diaspora
soon to see the light of day -- ENAHPA's medical capacity building, P2P
Programmes, and AHEAD in Canada, many supporting human development focused on
the individual citizen, and hundreds if not thousand that have come back home
and invested successfully (such as the booming flower industry, textiles and
real estate ) and meaningfully here at home, bringing many citizens in
destitution out of poverty.
It was the reverend Dr. Martin Luther King that
said, "let us not try to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from
the cup of bitterness in history". "We must not let our
creative militancy to degenerate into physical violence… we must fight physical
force with soul force". Thus was how the emancipation of African Americans
was achieved; only 40 years ago in the world's mightiest nation that many
Ethiopian have adopted.
