Ethiopia's food security programme open to all, says official

Ethiopian government denies claims the country's productive safety net programme excludes opposition supporters

The Meles government has been praised for its productive safety net programme. Ethiopia denies the programme excludes opposition supporters. Photograph: Henning Kaiser/AFP/Getty Images

An Ethiopian official has strongly rejected accusations that the government deliberately excludes opposition supporters from its food safety net programme.

Tadesse Bekele, deputy head of food security and early warning systems, insisted that the productive safety net programme (PSNP), which provides food and cash to vulnerable families for work on public projects, worked for the benefit of all Ethiopians regardless of their political affiliations.

Speaking to a small group of European journalists on Monday, Bekele said communities would not allow this to happen.

"Nobody has died because of a lack of food [in the current drought]," he said animatedly. "I hear these stories, but I do not see this when I am on the ground. No one would say to someone you are from the opposition, you can't get food. The community would not allow this to happen. There are places where there are people who support the opposition, but food is reaching them."

Started in 2005, the PSNP provides predictable transfers of food and cash to food-insecure households through a public works programme, or direct transfers to those who cannot work. The Ministry of Agriculture manages the programme and this year it was implemented in 305 woredas, or districts run by local governments. Of the total planned PSNP participants this year, about 6.3 million - out of a total population of 80 million - have been involved in public works, the rest (1.5 million) received direct support.

Questions over the politicisation of food aid in Ethiopia, where 4.5 million people are receiving food assistance because of the drought, is a highly sensitive issue.

Last year, Human Rights Watch issued a highly critical report of the Ethiopian government, accusing it of excluding opposition supporters from the safety net programme, thereby restricting food aid to particular individuals.

Not everyone went along with the HRW report. In its own research, the Overseas Development Institute, said it could find no "significant evidence" that entire communities or areas were being excluded for voting against the ruling party of Meles Zenawi, who has been prime minister since 1995. ODI concluded that political uses of PSNP "appear to be locally specific rather than pervasive or systematic".

The US and international development officials generally credit the Meles government for having put in place an early warning system and the safety net programme, which seem to have served the country well in this current drought, the worst in 60 years in parts of east Africa, and which has hit neighbouring Somalia particularly hard.

Bekele said the world had fulfilled 84% of its pledges since Ethiopia launched its drought appeal for assistance in July. The UK was one of the first to step forward with aid, contributing around $60m (£38m) to the World Food Programme. The UK is a major bilateral donor to Ethiopia and is expected to give an average of around $525m (£331m) each year to the country until 2015.

Bekele attributed the generous international response to Ethiopia to the fact that it had credible and transparent systems in place. Ted Chaiban, the representative of Unicef, the UN children's agency in Ethiopia, agrees that if Ethiopia did not have its food security systems in place, the situation would have been much worse.

Another development official said blatant political use of food aid probably did occur in the past, but with so many checks and balances now, including those from international agencies, the Ethiopian government would be playing a dangerous game, potentially alienating donors if it abused food aid. Not that the authoritarian nature of the regime is downplayed. Development officials fully realise the tight control the Meles government exerts, right down to local levels, with political indoctrination in schools.

Be that as it may Bekele was adamant that no one dictated to him who he should feed. "I am here to save human lives irrespective of ideology," he said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk