Twenty Years to Nowhere: Property Rights, Land Management and Conservation in Ethiopia

Preface  This study focuses on Ethiopia's attempt at introducing soil conservation and afforestation innovations aimed at reversing the process of degradation of its agricultural resource-base. It considers the tenure ambiguity, uncertainty, and insecurity stemming from the state ownership of land under which these innovations were attempted. It tells the story of how rural people responded to the project-induced adoption of measures to protect the land even though their holdings remained under a constant threat of reallocation. This story concerns issues arising from over-population, revolution, agrarian reform, population relocation, land reallocations, internationally financed projects, and not least, civil war.  Questions of soil conservation and afforestation, and land tenure are issues of fundamental importance to the millions of rural families in Ethiopia. In fact, in the long-run, they may be more may be as important to the people of several Sahelian and Sub-Saharan African nations that have opted for state ownership of land. The study deals with the variety of ways in which institutional arrangements such as property rights regimes directly and indirectly influence the outcome of attempts at externally inducing innovations, and contribute in defeating the intentions of planners as well as their new strategies. In this study, I take exception to a good part of what the soil conservation and afforestation program in Ethiopia has done; but, in no way do I wish to question the personal motives of the overwhelming majority of the people that worked for it.  The present work is a cumulative product of my involvement with the study of the social aspects of environmental degradation and conservation issues spanning over the past 12 years. In the course of this period, I have been involved in a number of studies looking at different socio-economic aspects of soil conservation and afforestation in Ethiopia and, to a small extent, also in Kenya (see references).

Business & Money

Admassie, Yeraswork

Economics

Red Sea Pr

Preface 
This study focuses on Ethiopia's attempt at introducing soil conservation and afforestation innovations aimed at reversing the process of degradation of its agricultural resource-base. It considers the tenure ambiguity, uncertainty, and insecurity stemming from the state ownership of land under which these innovations were attempted. It tells the story of how rural people responded to the project-induced adoption of measures to protect the land even though their holdings remained under a constant threat of reallocation. This story concerns issues arising from over-population, revolution, agrarian reform, population relocation, land reallocations, internationally financed projects, and not least, civil war. 
Questions of soil conservation and afforestation, and land tenure are issues of fundamental importance to the millions of rural families in Ethiopia. In fact, in the long-run, they may be more may be as important to the people of several Sahelian and Sub-Saharan African nations that have opted for state ownership of land. The study deals with the variety of ways in which institutional arrangements such as property rights regimes directly and indirectly influence the outcome of attempts at externally inducing innovations, and contribute in defeating the intentions of planners as well as their new strategies. In this study, I take exception to a good part of what the soil conservation and afforestation program in Ethiopia has done; but, in no way do I wish to question the personal motives of the overwhelming majority of the people that worked for it. 
The present work is a cumulative product of my involvement with the study of the social aspects of environmental degradation and conservation issues spanning over the past 12 years. In the course of this period, I have been involved in a number of studies looking at different socio-economic aspects of soil conservation and afforestation in Ethiopia and, to a small extent, also in Kenya (see references).

Araqe is a traditional home-distilled beverage that is made from an assortment of cereals such as wheat, sorghum and maize, and has a high level of ethanol. A ubiquitous feature of present day Ethiopian society, with the exception of the predominantly Muslim communities, Araqe is more than the alcoholic drink of choice for people living in rural and small towns. Thanks to its qualities of divisibility, long shelf-life, portability, and high unit value, it is also an important commodity that is produced by, traded between, and consumed in most rural and urban areas of the country. Its negative effects notwithstanding, it is a major object of exchange that ties cities to their rural hinterlands and with one another, thus becoming an important component of the social fabric of the society. It is an important social fact that cannot be dismissed as a fringe phenomenon. But in spite of the substantial amount of araqe that is distilled, traded, and consumed within the informal sector, and the important place it holds in the socioeconomic fabric of the society, no comprehensive study has to date been undertaken on its interrelated aspects at a national level. The general objective of this study is to assess and document the processes (origin, introduction and spread), patterns (arenas, manners), trends (currently evolving forms and future directions), as well as impacts (on environment, economy, social, health and security) of the production, marketing, and consumption of the homemade liquor, araqe, with the ultimate aim of indicating how and to what extent these factors contribute to economic development/stagnation and social cohesion/disruption in rural Ethiopia in particular as well as the country at large.

The Araqe Dilemma. The Socioeconomics of Traditional Distilled Alcohol Production, Marketing, and Consumption in Ethiopia

Politics & Social Sciences

Amdework, Ezana

Social Sciences

Forum for Social Studies

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