|
| |
The
opinions expressed
in this debate do not necessarily reflect the views of FSS.
|
I agree very much with
your views that the farmers know how to decide what to do. If only they
could be given that right and freedom to make decisions. If only we did not
have to wait for government to, as you say, ‘allow’. When will the farmer
realize that it is h/she that ‘allows’ government to exist and not the other
way around? While that is a purely rhetorical question Mr. Belay I would be
glad for your views on how and who you see bringing about the improvement or
change
in the
constitution article 40 (3) that you recommended.
Is there
any political party in the current election process that has promised to
make this change or any other changes that you think are required? I
personally believe that the only requirement for
converting the current land use rights in to ownership rights
and improving
change the constitution article 40(3) is regime change.
Mr Rob from India,
very nice to see you here and hope you won’t be stranger. India leads the
South -South dialogue and we have a lot to learn from each other. It is the
education, experience and inspiration of India that gave birth to the
Grameen Bank Model in Bangladesh and I hope you can share with us HOW India
has managed to develop implement and sustain its peaceful participatory
development model in more detail. What is the history of this concept in
India and how was it introduced to the Rural people or was the movement
spontaneous actually starting from the grassroots and suddenly dawning on
the civil servants and leaders? I am asking because you have said the ONUS
is on the educated people and I agree but perhaps for the sake of the debate
we can discuss India’s experience in building a successful relationship
between the educated people and those they seek to help. I have Indian
friends who are very educated and am struck by their HUMILITY. They have
invisible egos and I feel that THEY FEEL they are only channels of change
and not change AGENT themselves. Perhaps you can send us an Attitude
Adjustment handbook for some of our own very learned ‘change agents’ who
present their own egos and identities together with the very valuable
knowledge. The process of communication is therefore changed from sharing
information to one of DONOR and Receiver. When you say, ONUS LIES ON
EDUCATED people I think
it
should be humble educated people. Of all the educated people I think those
trained in participatory IT and Telecommunications, if there is such a
field, people in the mass media and entertainment industry who can be
trained to have a rural approach and communication policy planners have the
most urgent and important work to do with regards to ‘spreading feasible
outcomes from discussions on development.’
The other many issues
you raised were also vital for our discussions. In poor countries like ours
the problems, like obsolete pesticides, GM foods, terminator seeds, impact
of food aid on our seeds and agriculture, are many and complex. For instance
you pointed out the need to get rid of middle men and commissioning agents
but in our country these parasites are either related to powerful people or
even the politician himself!!
Instead
we should try and focus on the positive and I hope you will share with us
the strategies for the victories of educated Indians at the grass roots
level as well as the international level like the patent rights to the Neem
Tree. I hope Rob, you have read Mulat’s piece as closely as me, especially
the part that said ‘We have not succeeded in bringing about a system
that encourages the farmer and his family to take action.’
India HAS had resounding success in this.
And although I believe that success is based on a prerequisite success of
having a peaceful and democratic government I hope nevertheless you share
with us best practices from India on how your development efforts became
participatory so we can debate the pros and cons of possible participation
models for Ethiopia and learn.
We must make an effort to network and learn from friends like Rob and
neighbours, however hostile they may be. For example here is an experience
from right next door: http://www.somalilandsurveys.info/
All three contributions have
raised the issue of empowerment and the need for participation of farmers in
the development dialogue. But none more so clearly than Mulat Demeke’s very
brilliant and engaging ‘Weha Mewkat Endayhon.’ This piece so captured my
attention I wished for a chat room at FSS Forum for the purposes of instant
discussion. I foresee a live online debate at FSS very soon and nominate
Mulat to the panel without reservation! In the meantime, in the hopes of a
reply and some dialogue I would like to ask Mulat his views on some points
he raised and share with his my own in a separate posting for Mulat.
On the subject of
environmental degradation an issue, in my view, even more important than the
issue of land reform I want to share three experiences from Konso and Wello.
The first related to a ‘trip’ I was taken to near Konso town, called NEW
YORK. Everyone there knows it as New York and I am sad to tell you it has
become a Tourist Attraction!! New York is dramatic result of erosion where
gulleys have formed in denuded land and sand stone leaving towering blocks
of naked earth and sandstone which from a distance and in a certain looks
like sky scrapers and high rise apartment buildings. In this the new
millennia, this is our New York!
http://re2.mm-c.yimg.com/image/425906912
In Wello
it was even worse where all the mountains are completely denuded of trees
and, in that hard Kremt rain, literally melting. Driving through Wello in
Kremt is like driving through a HUGE BOWL OF SCOOPS OF
SOFT
MELTING CHOCOLATE
ICE
CREAM. Very depressing. On a more positive note I also saw the farming
techniques of the Konso farmers and learned how, from small plots of land
they were able to grow many different things at the same time and in
different seasons. Also, they have fantastic terracing techniques in Konso.
It made me wonder why
we did not have WORKSHOPS AND CONFERENCES FOR FARMERS so that perdiems were
paid to farmers from all over Ethiopia to meet farmers from Konso and learn
from their techniques. The UN saw fit, recently, to hold the world’s first
pastoralist conference in Ethiopia,
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=45233&SelectRegion=Global
Don’t
we need a national conference of Ethiopia Farmers and Pastoralist first??
Thanks
to all for the pleasure of reading
the
contributions and, again to FSS. |
|
From -serkaddis
motbaynor
Sent -Friday, April 1, 2005 2:43 pm
Subject -SENGA? Leminnay? Balageru Part Two.
SENGA? LEMINNAY?
While I wholly
advocate the participation of all Ethiopian members of the public in the
formulation of land and agricultural/pastoral policy, ultimately I agree
with OXFAMS recommendation that its implementation should be overseen by an
INDEPENDENT National Land Commission. This
NEUTRAL non partisan professional body should, I think, be established to
co-ordinate and manage the process of land reform in Ethiopia.
Only such a
body could
be is responsible for taking
the policy debate to the general public, ensuring their participation and
making sure that the public’s understanding of the issues and their
feedback is used to fine- tune , formulate,
determine or scrap
government policies.
|
Breaking the Land Policy
Impasse Daniel
Land and the challenge of
feeding the Ethiopian people
Siegfried
Pausewang
Disowning the idea of
privatizing land ownership
Bulcha Demeksa
My personal reflections
Abu Moges
Yes, we can talk
Belay
Let’s focus on
the central issue
Bulcha Demeksa
Yes, we can talk
Mulat
Can We Talk2 : To Mulat
Serkaddis Motbaynor
Can We Talk: To Contributors
Serkaddis Motbaynor
Weha Mewket
Endayhon
Mulat Demeke
Contribution from Indian
Rob
Rural Land Policy and
Administration in Ethiopia:
Recent Patterns and
Problems Belay
Balageru
Part Two
Serkaddis Motbaynor
Balageru
Serkaddis
Motbaynor
PRIVATIZE OR PUBLIC
OWNERSHIP OF LAND ? TD
Commentary on Development
TD
Suggestions
Sisay Assefa
|
|
I disagree with
the suggestion made that this forum should be used in any part of this
process. I don’t believe it’s the place. It is also not, I don’t think, the
purpose of this free unfettered unstructured discussion area. The
very suggestion that opinions posted in this forum would be used by
government to cull or test ideas or policies is mortifying. It would be sad
if this forum, the first of its kind, would be used, as suggested, as a
planning tool by government bureaucrats and I hope this birkiyay medrek is
kept forever free from the attentions of any enthusiastic government cadres
doing focus group research, gauging opinion or towing the party propaganda
line and spewing it into the forum. I say this with the greatest respect
to Dr. Sisay Aseffa who I support in his efforts to gain something
tangible and fruitful from our discussion, a productive outcome and
conclusion to our discussions and the opinions to be used in some
constructive way.
I just believe, and please correct me if I am
wrong, that the point of the FSS forum is simply to have the discussion
itself. I also believe that the more free informal and flexible the forum,
the more unstructured the format of discussions, the more people will not
hesitate to participate. Otherwise I will have to think very hard before i
post like preparing for a symposium and people will feel shy and not
participate because the whole thing will look too formal and serious. Am I
wrong? if so 1,000 apologies.
Back to the
subject at hand. Personally I do not see how, having opened the Pandora's
Box of ethnic polarization, and having decentralized government and deleted
zonal authority until it has disappeared into the thin air of empty wereda
administrative offices, how pilot "land certificate" projects can be
successfully implemented monitored and evaluated. In addition,
the whole point of a pilot is to serve as a model
for replication but the model of land certificates in Tigray, with its
‘requiq meret’, is
nothing like the model in Amhara region which is likewise nothing like
the pilot land certification programme now underway in Oromia. Overall a
futile, ill planned un-coordinated exercise. "IKA IKA "chewata, just like
the unfolding Resettlement debacle and as usual the Balageru are the butt of
the joke.
Unaccompanied by clearly promulgated federal law, this "land reform"
initiative is nothing but a patchwork/pot pourrie, a "secondo misto" of
misguided measures at woreda level, cosmetic and completely disjointed
from any national federal level policy recommendations that may or may not
have existed in the first place. In fact I suspect the whole idea of land
certificates was brought about by donor pressure and did not originate in
Deddebit or after deep discussions in the dark dank drawing rooms of
Meneliks Old Palace. In now way does the reality on the ground reflect the
theoretical plans and visions by academics and qualified policy makers who
are forced to work within (or around) the suicidal Iskemegenttel Diress
framework, inside ethnically divided regions and decentralized system of
government and under a government, EPRDF, who is, 15 years on, STILL
EXPERIMENTING ON Ethiopia. (IDYA!)
Ere Lemehonoo... I wonder, what guarantee is a certificate for a plot of
land in a region that could, at any moment, secede and become a country with
its own government? What happens then?
There is a strong but silent view at the international level that land and
land holding is NOT the main issue that should underpin Ethiopia's
development plans. These critics are mumbling under their breath that the
issue of land tenure it is a red herring at best and at worst a marxist
maoist fetish or capitalist carpet-baggers ploy. They point to historical
precedents and note that it was education and employment that liberated the
former slaves in America's deep South and not 40 acres and a mule!!
Development, these critics add, rests on a viable national
economic strategy, developed by a nationalistic government, interested in
nation building and rehabilitating a NATIONAL economy ( as opposed to
holding "killil competitions" and "biher bihereseb boxing matches" with
the winner getting all or most of the scarce resources.)
I am not an economist but I have read many strategies developed by
nationalistic ‘hager-bekel’ experts. Among them, published in the Ethiopian
Journal of Development Research, Vol 13, No. 2 October 1991 is Dr. Ayele
Tirfie's "Resource-Based Development: A Strategy for Ethiopia and for Others
in Similar Conditions. It is a short but precise and SCIENTIFIC clear paper
written long before the time that Addis Ababa University went through
ethnic-cleansing dismissal of Amhara teachers, when Dr. Ayele was Associate
Professor, Department of Management and Public Administration.
The aim put forward by Dr. Ayele's paper is clear: inter-egional economic
integration.
So I wonder if anyone can help me understand, What EXACTLY is the aim of
farmers getting temporary ownership of their land when there is no overall
VIABLE NATIONAL economic strategy? If there is no actual demarcation and
title deed then where is the security for the farmer? Ye Hilm Hambasha!
Our present development strategy is, as I said before, is not based on any
science but is an unknown entity, mysteriously shrouded, like a cross legged
ttenquay, in the alchemy of ALDI.
Agricultural Led? Nowhere in this magic formula of Meles's is there specific
mention of, or dovetailed approach to addressing the needs of Ethiopian
Pastoralists. Before parceling out plots of land willy nilly and indeed in
this forum itself, should we not ask ourselves if Ethiopia has a successful
agricultural economy worth rehabilitating or a successful PASTORAL economy
worthy of more investment, policy and programme support. Don't we need
to decide whether scarce resources time and expertise should focus first on
the farmer or on the Arbito Adaree? Which comes first the chicken or the
camel?
It is Ethiopia
that puts the horn in the horn of Africa and yet I have yet to see any
debate, discussion or policy specifically targeting our resourceful
pastoralist and their valuable assets of black headed sheep, tasty goats and
resilient camel herds with their nutritious milk,(that has proven to be much
more effective in sustaining life during hardship and drought than any DPPC
handout)I hope someone can reply so that I can read and learn great things
from other participants’ postings on these and other subjects in this new
debate.
Once again thanks to FSS for the opportunity.
|
|
3.If the land is given to the present farmers who are using
it, and are allowed to sell it, it would help them with an initial sum of
money that could help them in resettlement in urban areas until they obtain
employment.
4.Migration of farmers from one place to other regions of
Ethiopia would help integration and unity of Ethiopia instead of the present
ethnic enclaves where each ethnic group has its own region (only urban areas
are diverse ethnically, religiously, etc...).
5.If land is privatized, individuals could relatively easily
own large tracts of land, and this would make commercial farming viable
(economies of scale).
6.If farmers migrate to urban areas, it would shift the
burden from the land which is unsustainable due to huge rural population to
urban areas. In the process would help the environment?
7.This migration would create new types of consumption and
demand helping the business community. It would also help in shifting the
economy from subsistence to that of monetary.
If land is retained as a public or state owned property as it
is at present, it could have the following advantages :
1.The farmer would stay where he is located now preventing
destabilizing conditions, criminal activities, destitution worse than at
present.
2.Would help the farmer's family stay/sustain together rather
than dispersing due to several factors. Staying as a basic economic unit
albeit subsistence.
3.Costs less due to the farmer taking care of himself except
during famine which seems to be persistent in some places.
4.Instead of selling the land, if the farmer leases the land
to third parties as is now in some places, this would generate at the same
time a decent income and employment for the farmer and his family.
5.If the farmer stays where he is, he/she would take care of
the land as its own contrary to present arguments helping the environment.
6.Would prevent modern constructions being built everywhere
preventing environmental degradation.
In conclusion I support the present form of ownership. Even
though there seems many reasons for privatizing land, I am of the opinion
that the time is not right for privatization. For one thing, the prices of
agricultural produce won't fetch a high price because little demand and low
purchasing power of the consumers.
If farmers migrate to urban areas in large numbers, they
wouldn't get employment as the urban economy wouldn't absorb them and this
would be a destabilizing factor.
I am of the opinion that change should be gradual. A shift of
population from rural to urban areas slowly as the economy grows and can
absorb them and at the same time privatizing land slowly step by step.
For the time being that's all I have got to say. |
Back to debate first page
Next Page
|
Address: Forum for Social Studies, P. O. Box 25864 code 1000 Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia
E-mail: 
Telephone: (251-
Home page: