CHAPTER FIVE
RURAL DEVELOPMENT POLICIES AND STRATEGY OF ETHIOPIA
5.1 Introduction
The rural development in Ethiopia has a relatively longer history than many
sub-Saharan African countries.
• Under the Imperial Era, development policies favored industrial development,
and commercial farmers in and around major project areas.
• During the 1974–1991 periods, the political environment favored collective and
state farms at the expense of individual farmers.
• The post-1991 period is marked with the most prominent and enduring economy-
wide strategies as Agricultural-Led Industrialization (ADLI), the Sustainable
Development and Poverty Reduction Program (SDPRP), Participatory and
Accelerated Sustainable Development to Eradicate poverty (PASDEP) and
successive growth and transformation plans (GTP I and II).
Goals of Agricultural and Rural Development Policy
1. Bring rapid and sustained economic growth,
2. Guarantee maximum benefits to the majority of the population people,
3. Minimize dependency on foreign aid,
4. Promote the development of a market-oriented economy
• The Ethiopian rural development policy states that: rapid economic development
would be insured through agriculture-led and rural-centered development.
Basic directions of agriculture and rural-centered development
• Extensive utilization of human labor
• Proper use and management of land, water and other natural resources
• Agro-ecology based development approach
• Integrated approach to development
• Targeted interventions for drought-prone and food insecure area
• Encouraging the private sector
• Enhancing benefits of the working people
• Enhance Agricultural Technical vocational Education and Training
5.2 Agriculture-Led Industrialization (ADLI) approach
• It was adopted in 1993 as a policy of Ethiopia by considering the development
theories of the 1960s.
The strategy is appropriate ; because:-
• Agriculture is the largest sector in terms of output and, particularly, employment
and exports
• The bulk of the poor live in the agriculture-centered rural areas
• Considerable gaps exist between rural and urban across key dimensions of human
well-being including health, education and income
• There exists substantial potential to raise agricultural productivity
Main strategies of the program
Expansion of agricultural technologies
Investment in agricultural infrastructure, including inputs (fertilizer and seeds)
Boosting rural non-agricultural sectors
ADLI focus on
• Investment in infrastructure
• Enhancing the flow of finance, local governments’ administrative capacity, and the development of
agro-processing industries
• Expanding rural technical and vocational education and training services (TVETs)
• Improve rural microfinance institutions
• Restructuring of smallholder co-operatives.
• Improving in the marketing of agricultural products
• Development of water resources
ADLI's distinctive aims:
Commercialization of smallholder agriculture through product diversification;
Promotion of niche high-value export crops;
Effective integration of farmers with domestic and external markets; and
Tailoring interventions to address the specific needs of the country's varied agro-ecological
zones.
Agricultural Development Led Industrialization’s (ADLI) programs
1. Participatory Demonstration and Training Extension System (PADETES)
• This program launched in 1994/95.
The system try to deliver
• packages of fertilizer
• improved seed and credit
• information on input use and better agricultural practices
2. Sustainable Development and Poverty Reduction Program (SDPRP)
(2002/03-2004/05)
• It was an integrated rural and agriculture development strategy launched in 2002
on account of the limited success of PADETES.
It was the first full Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) developed and
implemented by the Ethiopian government through:-
I. Strengthening agricultural extension services;
II. Training extension agents in technical and vocational education and training
(TVET) and training farmers in Farmers Training Centers;
III. Water harvesting and irrigation;
IV. Improved marketing opportunities;
V. Restructuring peasant cooperatives; and
VI. Supporting micro-finance institutions
[Link] safety net.
3. Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty 2005/06–
2009/10
• This strategy was launched to solve the limitation of the previous programs. (The previous agricultural
development strategy including SDPRP exclusively targeted the smallholder agriculture in the rural
areas).
• PASDEP made important adjustments to SDPRP by broadening the policy scope from smallholder
agriculture to other sectors, especially the industry sector and the urban sector.
• The plan focused more on commercialization and intensification of agriculture to better integrate
farmers with markets both locally and globally.
To achieve these objectives the following instruments were used in the PASDEP:
I. Constructing farm-to market roads
II. Development of agricultural credit markets
III. Specialized extension services for differentiated agricultural zones and types of commercial agriculture
IV. The development of national business plans and tailored packages for specialized export crops
V. Area irrigation through multi-purpose dams
VI. Measures to improve land tenure security, and to make land available where feasible for large-scale
commercial farming
VII. Reforms to improve the availability of fertilizer and seeds
4. Growth and Transformation Program GTP I (2010/11- 2014/15)
• The program was implemented after Plan for Accelerated and Sustained
Development to End Poverty (PASDEP) by aiming to foster broad-based
development in a sustainable manner .
Increasing the share of industry inline with agricultural development is the
major goal of the program.
Major outcomes of this plan
• Double digit growth rate of real GDP
• Poverty decline from 38.7 per cent head count poverty index in 2005 to 29.6 per
cent in 2010/11
• Domestic savings mobilization improved
• Share of gross domestic investment in GDP increased from 24.7 per cent in
2009/10 to 39.3 per cent by the end of 2014/15
5. Growth and Transformation Plan, (GTP II), 2015/16-2019/20
• The Federal Government of Ethiopia in its plan to direct the country toward
becoming middle income and climate resilient country devised the second growth
and transformation plan (GTP II).
• It was built on the success of GTP I. The plan will extend up to 2020. it also
extended up to now.
• In this plan, emphasize will be a high-value crops and livestock, and market
orientation
5.3 Policy with in Agriculture
A. Land Policy
• Access and use of agricultural land is one of the most important development issues in Ethiopia.
• The constitution states that land belongs to the people and that the government, particularly
regional governments, should administer it on behalf of the people and indicates what role the
federal government should assume in this respect.
The policy states that
every Ethiopian who wants to make a livelihood from farming is entitled to have a plot of land free of
charge.
private investors, who wish to engage in large-scale agricultural activities, have a right of access to
land on a long-term lease basis.
Farmers operating at a large-scale agricultural production level have access to land on a long-term
lease.
Landholders must be permanent residents in the farming community,
land cannot be sold, exchanged for other property or mortgaged.
land cannot be used as collateral for bank loans.
farmers can lease their plots of land to a third party, or use family labour to cultivate the land.
land can be transferred, inherited or leased to investors for a determined amount of time .
B. Labour Policy
• Our policy towards labour focus on labour intensive techniques. Use a heightened
productive capacity of the agricultural labor force to the fullest extent possible.
• Labor-intensive strategy is well placed to promote quality as well as quantity of
agricultural production, as its reliance on labor will allow close monitoring of
agricultural processes.
Labor-intensive agricultural development strategy
is a strategy by which only the required amount of labor will be employed on each plot of
land.
is a strategy, which enables the development of the agricultural labor force so that it may
more readily utilize improved agricultural technologies and methods
enable the significant development of labor-intensive technologies in agriculture and
large increments in output as such technologies are applied.
is a strategy, which enables the agricultural labor force to reach higher levels of education
and training.
is a strategy, which utilizes irrigation, promotes the production of high-value agricultural
products and promotes production techniques that maximize yield per unit of land.
C. Policy on Technology
Agricultural technologies enhance agricultural production, productivity,
processing and marketing at both household and commercial levels.
In addition to enhancing the production capacity of agricultural labour force it is
better to work on the supply, duplication and diffusion of continuously improving
technology.
While applying technology in the agricultural sector, that technology should
• Labor-intensive
• Market sensitive
• Responding to the needs of varied agro-ecological conditions
• Practicality
Generally Ethiopia’s strategy focus on significantly augmenting our research
capacity both in terms of volume and quality.
D. Settlement policy
Settlement of The Landless Rural Population
• Peoples lived in drought prone area will resettled in to areas where there is enough
land and rainfall.
The Dergue experience
This days settlement program
• In order to practice an effective settlement program the following aspects should be
critically considered.
o Settlers should be volunteers
o There should be unoccupied land
o Within region settlement is better instead of between regions
o Instead of moving the hole family at once it is better to settle the household head first
and engaging him/ her in development work
E. Integrated Approach to Rural Development
• Every development effort requires coordinated and integrated management of
different tasks.
Agricultural development
Must create linkage among activities and products
Should create linkage with social development sectors such as education and
health and infrastructural projects such as road construction.
is closely inter-connected with sectors such as trade, finance and industry
Our development strategies must determine when such developments need to
take place simultaneously or when one needs to cede to the other; and, ensure
that this is carried through.
F. Marketing Policy
• Developing rural market through marketing policy is mandatory.., because
Agricultural Development not Driven by Market Forces Cannot be Rapid and
Sustainable
Tuning Agricultural Sector to Produce Goods Having Demand in the Market
Building an efficient Agricultural Marketing System is necessary for
• Grading Agricultural Product
• Provision of Market Information
• Promoting and Strengthening Cooperatives
• Improving and Strengthening the Participation of Private Capital in Agricultural
Marketing
G. Policies on NGO’s
It is more than 30 years since many of present NGOs first began working in
Ethiopia.
First are involved to mitigate the effects of the droughts of 1973/74 & 1984-85.
Today the important engaged challenges are in the fields of rehabilitation and
development, advocacy, in human rights and civic education.
At Africa hall in 1998 over 200 NGO representatives, endorsed the final draft of
self-regulation code of conduct
It seeks to ensure that the activities of NGOs are “people-centered,”
NGOs adopt strategies that would promote effective participation by the intended
beneficiaries in development projects
The code of conduct
The Code of Conduct:-Set of norms, principles and values to standardize the
conduct, action and behavior of NGOs.”
Encourage more effective and efficient ways of working.
Improve the partnership between the NGO sector, the government and the private
sector.
Contribute to an enabling environment for all sectors and to the sustainable
development of Ethiopia and its people
In summary, it is recognized that economic policy, particularly as it relates to rural
and agricultural development, can be effectively translated into practice only if the
public at large and implementing institutions at various levels build a common
awareness of the importance of these policies and rise in unison for their full
implementation.