Social soundness of agrarian reform in Ethiopia

This report will be used to predict response to AID programs for Ethiopian rural development. Emphasizing changes in land tenure patterns, the report draws on information from field trips, interviews with Ethiopian officials, and specialized scholarly studies. The first half of the report contains general information on the Ethiopian terrain, population, past and present land ownership patterns, and social stratification. Subsequent sections focus on the major events of radical land reform program initiated in 1974. The varying responses to this land reform, which abolished private land ownership and instituted peasant land reform associations, are discussed in detail. The report concludes by suggestsing methods by which AID can cooperate with the ongoing agrarian reform program in promoting rural development.