Food security in Ethiopia : a case study comparing the food security frameworks of the Ethiopian Government, the European Commission and the US Agency for International Development : final report

Major conclusions are detailed below. (1) Current collaborative efforts are of insufficient scale to meet the challenge of doubling food availability and increasing entitlement to food by all Ethiopians between 2000 and 2025. Both USAID and the EC focus on increasing access to food by a relatively small sub-set of Ethiopia"s population. There is need not only to increase access on a much larger scale, but also, and just as importantly, to increase the availability of sufficient food in the future. If USAID and the EC continue to focus on access, who will help increase production or increased ability to import? This may be an area where the World Bank and other major donors need to step up involvement. (2) The present devolution to the regions of responsibility for FS programs has both good and bad elements. Serious issues of national food marketing are adversely affected by the tendency of regions to limit inter-regional food and other trade. There are food security priority-setting needs that transcend any individual district and must be dealt with at the national level. (3) There has been a dearth of productive communication between the donors and the government on national FS since the joint government-donor review in late 1998. There is need for a constant high-level dialogue between the government and donors in order to move toward consensus on the national FS program and its implementation. To this end, the Prime Minister"s Office should appoint a designated interlocutor and assign responsibility for overall implementation of the program, presumably to the Ministry of Economic Development and Cooperation (MEDAC). (4) FS donors must establish a permanent working group with a membership of the EC, USAID, and the World Bank as the core group, but including representation of other donors who have strong interest and possibly greater involvement in FS programs. Specific factors to be considered in the future EC- USAID-Government of Ethiopia collaboration are identified in the report. There is also need for an FS database, periodic updating of which can be an important tool for improving food security- related planning, implementation, and evaluation, particularly as a means of reducing duplication. (5) There is need for greater future coordination and collaboration between EC and USAID staff in Addis Ababa on FS matters. A formal FS dialogue mechanism is needed in which the World Bank is an active participant. (6) A comprehensive FS strategy in Ethiopia requires parallel efforts to reduce the rate of net population growth and decrease the stunting rate among Ethiopia"s next generation. No FS strategy is likely to be successful if the population rate doubles every 24 years and the principal factors causing stunting are not identified and aggressively reduced. (7) The New Trans- Atlantic Agenda (NTA) could be an important player in a major Ethiopia-specific FS initiative. Its role could be to focus resources more effectively between the two major donors and advocate with the government the need to improve dialogue with the major donors on the national FS program.