"Miracle or Mirage? Manufacturing Hunger and Poverty in Ethiopia"

As months of protest and civil unrest hurl Ethiopia into a severe political crisis, a new report from the Oakland Institute debunks the myth that the country is the new “African Lion.” Miracle or Mirage? Manufacturing Hunger and Poverty in Ethiopia exposes how authoritarian development schemes have perpetuated cycles of poverty, food insecurity, and marginalized the country’s most vulnerable citizens...

While some effort was made to support smallholder farmers to increase production, the promotion of large-scale industrial farming has been the key governmental strategy to drive development. “By 2011, the government had earmarked 3.6 million hectares for large-scale agriculture, and recently announced that over 11.5 million hectares are available to investors,” said Frederic Mousseau, author of the report. “Tens of thousands of farmers and pastoralists have been forcibly resettled through the government’s ‘villagization’ program to free up fertile lands for investors. With their traditional livelihoods destroyed, many people now rely on food aid for their survival.”