1 00:00:00,210 --> 00:00:06,780 This presentation is essentially road testing, framing for a book I'm currently trying to write, 2 00:00:06,780 --> 00:00:15,000 and which attempts to synthesise about 12 years of research that I've done on the politics of land, the politics of agriculture, 3 00:00:15,000 --> 00:00:23,370 social policy and employment in Ethiopia, some of which as part of this Affective States and Inclusive Development Research Centre, 4 00:00:23,370 --> 00:00:30,000 which is based in Manchester and some of it sort of going back to my research some time ago. 5 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:35,760 And so it kind of tries to bring together a whole range of different key informant interviews with senior politicians, technocrats, 6 00:00:35,760 --> 00:00:41,880 donors and then but then also a series of case studies on agricultural investments, 7 00:00:41,880 --> 00:00:47,280 policy implementation, smallholder agriculture and land access and so on. 8 00:00:47,280 --> 00:00:55,710 So the result of that may be that it seems as though I'm trying to cram in rather a lot into quite a short presentation for which I apologise. 9 00:00:55,710 --> 00:01:03,840 I will point skate over some rather big debates quite quickly, so feel free to pull me up on that later on, 10 00:01:03,840 --> 00:01:10,410 and I'm happy to discuss more in terms of what I'm doing now. 11 00:01:10,410 --> 00:01:18,420 First of all, I'll try and lay out the basic rationale of the study and some of the key arguments that are put forward the 12 00:01:18,420 --> 00:01:26,220 analytical framework that I used to analyse the politics of distribution or at least the core components of it. 13 00:01:26,220 --> 00:01:30,090 And then the actual empirical analysis is going to be split into two main parts. 14 00:01:30,090 --> 00:01:30,540 First of all, 15 00:01:30,540 --> 00:01:38,760 looking at sort of the early era of what the TPLF and EPRDF have tried to do in Ethiopia in terms of distribution and then subsequently how 16 00:01:38,760 --> 00:01:48,600 they responded to what they themselves termed as Armageddon or existential crises and the emergence of the developmental states agenda. 17 00:01:48,600 --> 00:01:59,190 And then finally reflecting a little bit on more recent events in Ethiopia and what this means beyond that in terms of the rationale. 18 00:01:59,190 --> 00:02:05,080 I mean, it's basically the purpose is to try and reconcile two quite distinct images of Ethiopia currently. 19 00:02:05,080 --> 00:02:13,530 So on the one hand, you have the shining success stories of industrial parks at a slight railway and the Renaissance Dam. 20 00:02:13,530 --> 00:02:23,310 I did say I've mentioned dams briefly, but I'm not going to dwell on them alongside the Oromo protests that have shaken the country 21 00:02:23,310 --> 00:02:28,830 in the last few years and the current political turmoil that's going on within the country. 22 00:02:28,830 --> 00:02:36,810 More precisely, I mean, the question is essentially why Ethiopia went through a period of relative political stability through 23 00:02:36,810 --> 00:02:43,050 the night and through the 1990s and early 2000s in the midst of pretty modest economic performance, 24 00:02:43,050 --> 00:02:47,100 for the most part. And then just as everything's taking off and you know, 25 00:02:47,100 --> 00:02:55,140 you've got all these success stories which increasingly media and academic receiving a lot of media and academic attention. 26 00:02:55,140 --> 00:02:59,440 At that point, the politics unravels and the whole thing comes crashing down. 27 00:02:59,440 --> 00:03:07,280 Or we'll see where quite where it's going. And the argument is essentially that these are not unrelated to each other. 28 00:03:07,280 --> 00:03:13,770 And so what essentially, what the paper tries to do is to zoom out from some of the sort of, 29 00:03:13,770 --> 00:03:18,900 you know, some have been some really good analysis recently, particularly on the industrial parks looking at sort of how they're trying to 30 00:03:18,900 --> 00:03:24,780 capture capture part of the global value chains and textiles and apparel and so on. 31 00:03:24,780 --> 00:03:31,680 But to zoom out and set those kind of success stories or potentially emerging success stories in a much bigger political economic 32 00:03:31,680 --> 00:03:44,390 historical context and to try and understand how the EPRDF's distributional strategy has changed and evolved over a longer period of time. 33 00:03:44,390 --> 00:03:48,360 And then to sort of link to a kind of the big sort of theoretical question, 34 00:03:48,360 --> 00:03:52,890 essentially that there's been a lot of work on the politics of development, 35 00:03:52,890 --> 00:03:58,950 politics of growth in recent years, including by colleagues of mine in Manchester, but also people like Mushtaq Khan, 36 00:03:58,950 --> 00:04:02,100 people within developmental state literature and so on, 37 00:04:02,100 --> 00:04:08,980 which basically argues that certain forms of politics underpin periods of economic growth that you need certain forms of centralisation of power, 38 00:04:08,980 --> 00:04:18,240 a coherent ruling elite and a coherent long term development vision and so on, and certain forms of state capacity. 39 00:04:18,240 --> 00:04:24,600 Yet the process of structural transformation and economic growth in themselves transforms class structures. 40 00:04:24,600 --> 00:04:29,580 Transfer leads to creative destruction and mobilisation of new political forces, 41 00:04:29,580 --> 00:04:36,390 which then continually challenge the original politics, even if it even if it exists in the first place. 42 00:04:36,390 --> 00:04:41,310 It's continually challenged by the mobilisation that goes with it and rapid economic growth. 43 00:04:41,310 --> 00:04:45,060 So the question then becomes How do you actually manage that process in the longer term, 44 00:04:45,060 --> 00:04:50,850 rather than just sort of the politics underpinning the initial launch of the growth episode? 45 00:04:50,850 --> 00:04:57,700 But how do you actually maintain that and over a longer period entailing structural transformation? 46 00:04:57,700 --> 00:05:05,000 And what the. Typekit doesn't do presentation, doesn't do I should probably clarify from the beginning, 47 00:05:05,000 --> 00:05:12,500 the scare quotes around developmental state is not an accident in that I'm basically trying to sidestep that debate. 48 00:05:12,500 --> 00:05:15,080 I'm not going to get into into the definition of debates, 49 00:05:15,080 --> 00:05:20,420 which I'm not sure are terribly useful about whether Ethiopia is or isn't a developmental state. 50 00:05:20,420 --> 00:05:26,340 It's kind of used in terms of the narrative of what the Ethiopian government calls its development, its development model, 51 00:05:26,340 --> 00:05:28,340 its particular strategy at the moment, 52 00:05:28,340 --> 00:05:35,710 rather than trying to get into sort of a definitional debate about whether it fits the sort of East Asian model or so on. 53 00:05:35,710 --> 00:05:42,920 And I also don't claim to provide anything like a clear sort of a complete explanation 54 00:05:42,920 --> 00:05:46,760 for the Oromo protests and the sort of recent political events which were, 55 00:05:46,760 --> 00:05:49,760 you know, a fundamentally complex issues. 56 00:05:49,760 --> 00:05:58,460 Although I think, you know, this distributional story, which I'll talk about, is part of that of that underlying process. 57 00:05:58,460 --> 00:06:07,160 And also, sadly, I don't give any much of an indication about quite what the new administration is up to currently or what their evolving agenda is, 58 00:06:07,160 --> 00:06:14,240 which I think is speculation from from anyone who really comments on it at the moment. 59 00:06:14,240 --> 00:06:19,040 And so, yeah, the kind of the key arguments which are put forward is one that I mean, 60 00:06:19,040 --> 00:06:25,770 there's been a lot of talk about how the EPRDF has sort of legitimised itself based on double digit growth in recent years. 61 00:06:25,770 --> 00:06:31,850 So there's been a sort of a common narrative within the literature. Essentially, it's an attempt to sort of counterbalance that, 62 00:06:31,850 --> 00:06:39,650 that they've always been essentially fundamentally concerned with distributional outcomes as well as just growth at all costs, 63 00:06:39,650 --> 00:06:48,260 primarily because because of the aim, the impact of that distributional outcomes then have on social and political stability. 64 00:06:48,260 --> 00:06:53,510 And second, the way that they've tried to sort of manage this distributional strategy and 65 00:06:53,510 --> 00:06:58,580 manage political stability has evolved over time with changing political economy. 66 00:06:58,580 --> 00:07:02,960 Initially, it was based around this sort of what I would call an agrarian model where they essentially trying 67 00:07:02,960 --> 00:07:09,410 to secure guarantee access to land and to smallholder farmers as a key mechanism of distribution. 68 00:07:09,410 --> 00:07:16,670 But gradually, that's worked through demographic changes, but also the developmental state agenda that's kind of no longer a plausible 69 00:07:16,670 --> 00:07:22,010 option and increasingly resorting to other mechanisms of resource distribution, 70 00:07:22,010 --> 00:07:32,600 particularly social protection. Within that, I mean, the other sort of dimension of distribution is obviously with respect to ethnicity, 71 00:07:32,600 --> 00:07:39,380 and we'll talk about more about that later on. But essentially, there's fundamental tension that exists between the developmental state agenda, 72 00:07:39,380 --> 00:07:49,640 which is inherently centralising projects with the with any kind of real distribution of powers within a federal system. 73 00:07:49,640 --> 00:07:56,210 And finally, yeah, essentially that, you know, the challenges that are facing the country now. 74 00:07:56,210 --> 00:08:02,930 Two of the principal challenges, I would say that are facing the country now in terms of distribution are reconciling with 75 00:08:02,930 --> 00:08:09,930 two quite long standing challenges within Ethiopia that in a new manifestation of them, 76 00:08:09,930 --> 00:08:14,810 but goes back to some of the debates right back to the 1960s and 70s. 77 00:08:14,810 --> 00:08:27,200 In terms of one livelihoods, how do you guarantee that a large section of Ethiopian population access to to, uh, to a secure livelihood? 78 00:08:27,200 --> 00:08:39,140 And secondly, the role of ethnicity within politics? So in terms of the theory, I, as I say, I won't spend too long on this. 79 00:08:39,140 --> 00:08:42,950 But in the starting point is actually the literature on the, you know, 80 00:08:42,950 --> 00:08:48,260 the most of the advanced literature was that in terms of theoretically is the literature on 81 00:08:48,260 --> 00:08:55,460 the welfare state and trying to understand in terms of how distribution is is is managed. 82 00:08:55,460 --> 00:09:02,720 But that literature, I mean, it takes a village to see a very particular starting point and assumes the existence of a labour market. 83 00:09:02,720 --> 00:09:06,770 And the primary challenge in terms of distribution is in terms of the contingencies 84 00:09:06,770 --> 00:09:14,000 and risks that exist with it with respect to an established labour market. So unemployment in old age and so on. 85 00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:16,760 And that then leads to certain forms of social protection, 86 00:09:16,760 --> 00:09:23,150 whether it's social insurance and models or social assistance, you move to an agrarian society. 87 00:09:23,150 --> 00:09:27,350 You face a very different set of challenges. And I would argue the most. 88 00:09:27,350 --> 00:09:31,910 Yeah, the main risks that are faced within an agrarian society would be how to guarantee 89 00:09:31,910 --> 00:09:36,320 access to agricultural production in terms of key inputs that you acquire. 90 00:09:36,320 --> 00:09:46,190 So land, labour and other other agricultural inputs that are required for reliable production. 91 00:09:46,190 --> 00:09:52,640 And within that context, Jeremy Satan's work is being useful in terms of identifying what he calls an agrarian welfare regime, 92 00:09:52,640 --> 00:10:00,780 where he argues many African states have historically both in terms of concrete actions, but also in terms of narratives. 93 00:10:00,780 --> 00:10:05,700 Sought to provide welfare primarily through access to land and other agricultural inputs, 94 00:10:05,700 --> 00:10:14,160 rather than some of your formal social protection programmes. The challenge is that in most developing countries are at sort of intermediate 95 00:10:14,160 --> 00:10:19,890 points where they are making a rather uncertain transition between the two. 96 00:10:19,890 --> 00:10:22,870 So. And as you know, 97 00:10:22,870 --> 00:10:34,380 in terms of the agrarian side you have the agrarian welfare regime is no longer if it ever was able to provide secure and secure livelihoods. 98 00:10:34,380 --> 00:10:43,620 A majority of the population in terms of land shortages, shortage of agricultural inputs and so on, and unreliable unreliability of production. 99 00:10:43,620 --> 00:10:47,540 And at the same time, on the other side, industrialisation, high, 100 00:10:47,540 --> 00:10:53,850 high productivity services haven't necessarily taken off and provided the max employment that many would hope for. 101 00:10:53,850 --> 00:10:59,970 And so there's this sort of balancing act of processes of both the commodification of commodification. 102 00:10:59,970 --> 00:11:04,770 Sorry, in this embedding, creating a labour market and employment opportunities, 103 00:11:04,770 --> 00:11:15,840 but then equally in the planning and planning terms, these attempts to expand social protection and decode modify these processes. 104 00:11:15,840 --> 00:11:22,080 So essentially, what I'm trying to do is sort of set the scope of my analysis in terms of access to land, agricultural inputs, 105 00:11:22,080 --> 00:11:26,760 employment and social protection as the kind of key mechanisms of distribution and how 106 00:11:26,760 --> 00:11:35,560 these are managed within a process of transformation in terms of the politics of this. 107 00:11:35,560 --> 00:11:43,290 Erm, well, I'm going to talk about now draws again quite a lot from the sort of welfare state literature in terms of 108 00:11:43,290 --> 00:11:48,570 viewing distribution as ultimately a political struggle between different interest groups within society, 109 00:11:48,570 --> 00:11:56,190 within the within the institutional constraints and of the existing state structures. 110 00:11:56,190 --> 00:12:00,890 But at the same time, it also builds on a broader body of work, which looks at the role of ideas within politics. 111 00:12:00,890 --> 00:12:05,490 So basically the argument that interest groups you can't just necessarily just read off the material 112 00:12:05,490 --> 00:12:12,540 interests of a particular class is based on based on their position within the system of production. 113 00:12:12,540 --> 00:12:22,650 But ideas fundamentally shape the interests and the and the actions of a different state and societal actors. 114 00:12:22,650 --> 00:12:25,170 Taking that as a starting point and then is necessary. 115 00:12:25,170 --> 00:12:28,980 As you know, there's a lot of literature on the politics of politics and development in recent years, 116 00:12:28,980 --> 00:12:35,880 which highlights that you need to fundamentally reinterpret those ideas because politics 117 00:12:35,880 --> 00:12:39,690 in developing countries very often works in quite fundamentally different ways. 118 00:12:39,690 --> 00:12:44,460 First of all, you can't take political competition for granted. 119 00:12:44,460 --> 00:12:48,240 Very often, political mobilisation is severely constrained. 120 00:12:48,240 --> 00:12:52,500 And so while it's certainly possible for groups to mobilise politically, 121 00:12:52,500 --> 00:12:59,640 very often you have state actors and political elites acts in anticipation of 122 00:12:59,640 --> 00:13:03,930 the threat for their assessment of the distribution of power within society, 123 00:13:03,930 --> 00:13:15,510 rather than necessarily in response to mobilisation, active mobilisation to the class which is ratified within this welfare state 124 00:13:15,510 --> 00:13:22,170 literature in terms of class mobilisation being the key driver of redistribution. 125 00:13:22,170 --> 00:13:28,410 Class may or may not be the most fun, most sort of salient form of political mobilisation in developing countries, 126 00:13:28,410 --> 00:13:35,940 and it's necessary to sort of examine how class interacts with other factors such as ethnicity, region and region and religion, and so on. 127 00:13:35,940 --> 00:13:41,750 And finally, the informal institutions fundamentally shaped the way that politics actually works. 128 00:13:41,750 --> 00:13:48,030 So you need to go beyond the formal institutions of the state and understanding these processes. 129 00:13:48,030 --> 00:13:56,340 Now. I'm setting myself up for a problem here, and you know this this is my the sort of core of the theoretical framework that I'm looking at, 130 00:13:56,340 --> 00:14:01,710 but obviously this then bleeds into a whole range of issues related to agrarian political economy, 131 00:14:01,710 --> 00:14:06,660 sort of state led developments, global political economy and even demography. 132 00:14:06,660 --> 00:14:14,940 So I'm going to set those theories aside slightly rather than tackle them all and try and then spend an hour talking to you about theory. 133 00:14:14,940 --> 00:14:21,480 But yes, I am wrestling with those issues and I'm happy to discuss more if people have questions. 134 00:14:21,480 --> 00:14:30,450 But I want to move on, first of all, to that sort of more empirical material. 135 00:14:30,450 --> 00:14:38,670 So, yeah, starting with the early years of the TPLF and what that ultimately became the EPRDF. 136 00:14:38,670 --> 00:14:43,650 So for those of you who are not Ethiopian specialists, 137 00:14:43,650 --> 00:14:50,820 the two people after Tigrayan People's Liberation Front began as a sort of anti-government insurgency in the mid 1970s, 138 00:14:50,820 --> 00:14:59,460 gradually for Civil War and ultimately came to national power in 1991 and in the process formed this multiethnic coalition, 139 00:14:59,460 --> 00:15:06,930 the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front, which then came to national power. 140 00:15:06,930 --> 00:15:09,000 Now the argument, of course, is essentially that, you know, 141 00:15:09,000 --> 00:15:16,380 two underlying principles have sort of underpinned their strategy for mobilisation both and from the insurgency and moving forward. 142 00:15:16,380 --> 00:15:25,170 First of all, they pursued in the insurrection was a Maoist political strategy of mobilising the peasantry where right from the beginning, 143 00:15:25,170 --> 00:15:31,270 they basically recognised that tangible, broad based socio economic progress was one of the key means of mobilising people 144 00:15:31,270 --> 00:15:36,960 make basically making it clear to people that they would benefit from TPLF rule. 145 00:15:36,960 --> 00:15:43,830 So the main the main ways they did that initially was intent in terms of land reform and then service delivery in liberated areas. 146 00:15:43,830 --> 00:15:47,310 But at the same time, they also had a very distinct ethno nationalist message. 147 00:15:47,310 --> 00:15:51,900 They mobilised the Tigrayan people based on sort of rationale narratives that Tigrayans had 148 00:15:51,900 --> 00:15:57,930 been oppressed within Ethiopia and that this was the sort of a liberation struggle as well. 149 00:15:57,930 --> 00:16:05,430 And these sort of principles have been taken forward when that when the TPLF came to national power. 150 00:16:05,430 --> 00:16:12,900 First of all, they redrew the structure of Ethiopian politics in terms of creating what's been come to be known as ethnic federalism. 151 00:16:12,900 --> 00:16:24,390 So that's the map of Ethiopia pre 1991. That's what they they redrew from and from the new constitution in terms from 1994 onwards. 152 00:16:24,390 --> 00:16:27,990 Essentially, what they did was try to draw around ethno linguistic groups. 153 00:16:27,990 --> 00:16:37,370 So to provide self-administration for the different ethnic linguistic groups within Ethiopia and to provide them with self self-determination, 154 00:16:37,370 --> 00:16:42,060 that self-determination and decentralised administration. 155 00:16:42,060 --> 00:16:48,210 Now the reality of it is quite different and the decentralised structures were implemented across the country. 156 00:16:48,210 --> 00:16:50,610 But in terms of the actual, meaningful devolution of power, 157 00:16:50,610 --> 00:16:58,230 it was still significantly constrained in terms of both the strength of the federal government over the regional states, 158 00:16:58,230 --> 00:17:05,370 but also the party structure, which you know, had maintained central central powers over over a lot of different policy areas. 159 00:17:05,370 --> 00:17:11,160 Now, as many people have written in the literature, this was partly about maintaining the dominance of the ADF, 160 00:17:11,160 --> 00:17:14,940 undoubtedly, and no doubt the TPLF left within that, 161 00:17:14,940 --> 00:17:24,550 but it's also necessitated by the development strategy that they they employed as the other half of this sort of legitimising rationale. 162 00:17:24,550 --> 00:17:29,060 And so, yeah, quite early on in 1994, they laid out this. 163 00:17:29,060 --> 00:17:34,050 So even in 1993, I think the first version was they laid out this economic development strategy. 164 00:17:34,050 --> 00:17:35,970 This character here is no, 165 00:17:35,970 --> 00:17:43,750 I gave it up who was here last year as part of was a part of the north of the Horn of Africa series or Northeast Africa series of separate event. 166 00:17:43,750 --> 00:17:48,750 And that was a separate event, a separate event, Martin School. But yeah, he was here last year. 167 00:17:48,750 --> 00:17:54,040 He was one of the architects of this strategy, along with the Prime Minister Meles. 168 00:17:54,040 --> 00:18:02,100 And that strategy right from the beginning. I mean, it was fundamentally concerned with distributional challenges as well as economic growth. 169 00:18:02,100 --> 00:18:10,470 I would argue, and particularly the challenge of population growth, marks that out as the single overriding challenge facing the country was. 170 00:18:10,470 --> 00:18:17,730 He expressed it. It was there was the challenge they were facing was a race between population growth and growth in agriculture, 171 00:18:17,730 --> 00:18:22,200 which had to be five had to be one in favour of agricultural growth. 172 00:18:22,200 --> 00:18:26,640 The concern being that population growth is going to result in extreme rural land 173 00:18:26,640 --> 00:18:32,130 shortages is going to exacerbate the existing already existing problem of food insecurity, 174 00:18:32,130 --> 00:18:37,290 which had been an issue since the 84 famine and long before. 175 00:18:37,290 --> 00:18:42,660 And that in the absence of the capacity of the agricultural sector to absorb large numbers of people, 176 00:18:42,660 --> 00:18:51,210 it was then going to result in the persistent onslaught of rural to urban migration and therefore thereby political instability. 177 00:18:51,210 --> 00:18:55,230 So essentially, there was this race against time from from the, in their view, 178 00:18:55,230 --> 00:19:03,690 to raise agricultural productivity and ultimately to industrialise and create industrial employment, which would then be able to absorb this labour. 179 00:19:03,690 --> 00:19:07,770 So this is my sort of stylised version, slightly stylised. 180 00:19:07,770 --> 00:19:14,220 I mean, it's based quite quite close to the literal electoral strategy and in many ways of what 181 00:19:14,220 --> 00:19:18,780 they were trying to do in terms of agricultural development led industrialisation. 182 00:19:18,780 --> 00:19:24,870 So essentially, their starting point was state land ownership, which had been created by the previous Marxist regime. 183 00:19:24,870 --> 00:19:30,620 The TPLF itself, it had reduced. Richard Land in liberated areas, 184 00:19:30,620 --> 00:19:35,060 but state land ownership became a mechanism of ensuring that smallholder farmers 185 00:19:35,060 --> 00:19:39,950 retained access to land and land was relatively equally distributed within the country. 186 00:19:39,950 --> 00:19:49,010 The idea was that if you provide technology to these farmers that doesn't replace labour but raises productivity things like fertilisers, 187 00:19:49,010 --> 00:19:54,020 improved seeds, irrigation. Oops, wrong way. 188 00:19:54,020 --> 00:20:02,180 You'll be able, first of all, to raise agricultural productivity, providing wage foods, industrial inputs, primary exports, 189 00:20:02,180 --> 00:20:08,150 which will then be able to earn you foreign exchange internationally and ultimately 190 00:20:08,150 --> 00:20:15,110 help you to support a conscious effort on promoting labour intensive urban industry. 191 00:20:15,110 --> 00:20:20,810 And then the idea is that you'll then start to be able to provide linkages back and forth between them that smallholder agriculture, 192 00:20:20,810 --> 00:20:29,810 as farmers become more wealthy, will be able to, will be will become a domestic market for locally produced industrial goods. 193 00:20:29,810 --> 00:20:34,130 You can then start to produce value added exports and as industry really takes off. 194 00:20:34,130 --> 00:20:42,020 Ultimately, you'll be able to transfer surplus labour from the agricultural sector into the industrial sector. 195 00:20:42,020 --> 00:20:46,370 Now, this is a sort of a strategy for essentially resolving all of Ethiopia's problems. 196 00:20:46,370 --> 00:20:52,460 The assumption is that essentially, oh quite explicitly, all farmers will be able to benefit from these technologies. 197 00:20:52,460 --> 00:21:00,050 Essentially, there'll be scale neutral, and so it will solve both the problem of food insecurity, but also raising productivity. 198 00:21:00,050 --> 00:21:06,510 It will drive industrialisation. But it was also fundamentally a political strategy and quite explicitly so. 199 00:21:06,510 --> 00:21:11,780 The idea was you keep people in rural areas where they can't be a political problem initially, 200 00:21:11,780 --> 00:21:17,450 and you only allows the rural to urban migration as employment is created in the industrial sector and to gradually 201 00:21:17,450 --> 00:21:26,480 allow that transition to take place with state land ownership being one of the key mechanisms by which this is done. 202 00:21:26,480 --> 00:21:31,820 And in many ways, this sort of typifies this agrarian welfare regime that I mentioned before. 203 00:21:31,820 --> 00:21:41,390 And you know, it's a it's a mechanism of providing welfare and support to small farmers through access to land and access to agricultural interests. 204 00:21:41,390 --> 00:21:50,210 Now it was always a bit aspirational. I think it's fair to say that the idea of a land land as a safety net, probably in 1993, 205 00:21:50,210 --> 00:21:55,720 like the last land redistribution and most of the country where in the late 1980s, 206 00:21:55,720 --> 00:21:59,090 you know, landless ness at that point in time was with was fairly low. 207 00:21:59,090 --> 00:22:03,350 But already by 2001, when they relaunched this strategy, you know, 208 00:22:03,350 --> 00:22:09,290 there would have been sizeable numbers of people 10 years or more after the last land redistribution, 209 00:22:09,290 --> 00:22:11,960 who would have thought it would have lacked access to land. 210 00:22:11,960 --> 00:22:17,990 And in terms of the implementation, you can point to various different failings of what actually happened on the ground. 211 00:22:17,990 --> 00:22:27,590 Nonetheless, this was a sort of an important attempt in terms of a distributional strategy that was relatively egalitarian, 212 00:22:27,590 --> 00:22:34,670 as Prime Minister Meles, who is well aware of the challenges that they were facing and the limitations. 213 00:22:34,670 --> 00:22:41,540 So in his view, what constitutes the nightmare scenario would be that you don't have agricultural productivity increases, 214 00:22:41,540 --> 00:22:48,230 you're not able to create or farm employment. Essentially, you have extreme food insecurity, rural landless ness. 215 00:22:48,230 --> 00:22:49,190 And as a result, 216 00:22:49,190 --> 00:22:58,970 large numbers of people coming to the cities where they're going to can cause all kinds of trouble and threat a threat to political stability. 217 00:22:58,970 --> 00:23:09,500 Now, essentially, what you had in the early 2000s was and continuing since then are manifestations of that central challenge, I would say. 218 00:23:09,500 --> 00:23:17,750 You had what the political leadership at the times, the deputy prime minister, Marla's and others termed a series of Armageddon. 219 00:23:17,750 --> 00:23:25,610 So these existential political crises, which ultimately sort of in Iraq, wasn't the sort of a one off reform, 220 00:23:25,610 --> 00:23:34,250 but a gradual process of evolution of strategy led to changes in and in in the development agenda. 221 00:23:34,250 --> 00:23:38,990 The key facts being first of all in terms of the urban protests in 2001, 222 00:23:38,990 --> 00:23:45,410 starting in the university and spreading across the city, but then also in 2005 and with a heavily contested elections, 223 00:23:45,410 --> 00:23:50,600 then essentially the recognition within the leadership that this strategy focussed on 224 00:23:50,600 --> 00:23:57,410 agriculture to a significant degree to the neglect of urban areas was no longer supportable, 225 00:23:57,410 --> 00:23:59,720 that it brought severe risks not, you know, 226 00:23:59,720 --> 00:24:06,440 not assuming that focussing on agriculture and assuming that ultimately this was going to lead to an urban transformation as well, 227 00:24:06,440 --> 00:24:14,780 and that you needed to do something about urban areas much more urgently rather than just waiting for agriculture to deliver number one, 228 00:24:14,780 --> 00:24:20,540 the food crisis in 2003 kind of really question many of the rationales underpinning Adley. 229 00:24:20,540 --> 00:24:27,600 In that year, some 14 million people required emergency assistance and as a. 230 00:24:27,600 --> 00:24:34,620 Result of a major drought, but it's the big question this narrative of agricultural productivity increases. 231 00:24:34,620 --> 00:24:40,320 Solving the food insecurity problem. Raising raising productivity and creating a surplus in general. 232 00:24:40,320 --> 00:24:50,340 And ultimately the TPLF splits where which basically led Somalis emerging as sort of uncontested leader within the TPLF 233 00:24:50,340 --> 00:24:58,440 and ultimately the EPRDF and centralising power around him essentially enable this switching strategy that followed on. 234 00:24:58,440 --> 00:25:03,990 Now, as part of that, they're also through a range of different people, academics and advisors that they may engage with. 235 00:25:03,990 --> 00:25:07,230 They particularly talked about Amazon's and apparently mothers. 236 00:25:07,230 --> 00:25:12,120 Read Alice Thomson's book sometime in the late 1980s and then told all his economic advisers they 237 00:25:12,120 --> 00:25:18,540 have to read this wonderful book and then a range of other people who were brought in to advise, 238 00:25:18,540 --> 00:25:26,490 advise them at different points in time. And it's hard to chart exactly what influence that had, but clearly was part of the story. 239 00:25:26,490 --> 00:25:31,350 And then the final part, I think, which is also important was the following 2001. 240 00:25:31,350 --> 00:25:38,880 They they they carried out this process of decentralisation, which massively increase the capacity at local government level and levels, 241 00:25:38,880 --> 00:25:46,480 and actually gave them a realistic chance of being able to implement some of this agenda at local levels. 242 00:25:46,480 --> 00:25:52,000 So what this has ultimately turned into is this developmental state agenda. 243 00:25:52,000 --> 00:25:58,900 I mean, roughly speaking, I think you can chart it to around about 2005, but it's definitely a sort of an evolution and sort of over a period of 10, 244 00:25:58,900 --> 00:26:06,340 15 years, the pictures along along the right hand side of what sort of is normally associated with this agenda. 245 00:26:06,340 --> 00:26:17,220 So you've got a down there industrial park, which is one of the most recent ones and horticultural farms, large scale investors and sugar plantations. 246 00:26:17,220 --> 00:26:27,540 And it's notable that in terms of analyses of actual actually of Ethiopia's growth experience, these don't actually figure very much. 247 00:26:27,540 --> 00:26:33,010 They not very notable in terms of the analysis in the case studies in the Sun shining examples, 248 00:26:33,010 --> 00:26:37,390 the main sources of economic growth and Ethiopia has been growing very rapidly in recent years, 249 00:26:37,390 --> 00:26:44,380 have been massive debt financed public infrastructure in terms of railways, roads, dams and so on. 250 00:26:44,380 --> 00:26:47,080 And then in urban construction boom. 251 00:26:47,080 --> 00:26:55,300 Yeah, alongside that, these there are, you know, there are some fun and other important economic priorities as well within the smallholder sector. 252 00:26:55,300 --> 00:27:01,510 There was essentially a recognition that this idea you could provide technology to every single smallholder in 253 00:27:01,510 --> 00:27:06,760 Ethiopia and raise that productivity has been sort of accepted that that was not that was never going to happen. 254 00:27:06,760 --> 00:27:10,630 And there's been attempt to focus on the high potential farmers. 255 00:27:10,630 --> 00:27:19,150 So concentrating supplies of agricultural inputs to what they've been termed model farmers who tend to be amongst the most wealthy. 256 00:27:19,150 --> 00:27:22,210 But then also it's a strategy for political mobilisation, 257 00:27:22,210 --> 00:27:33,970 as well as an increased focus on commercialisation have been land reforms which have gradually started to introduce market incentives into the 258 00:27:33,970 --> 00:27:43,970 land into land tenure by removing restrictions on rental and most recently allowing mortgaging in certain parts of the country and soon to be, 259 00:27:43,970 --> 00:27:47,550 it would seem, across the country. 260 00:27:47,550 --> 00:27:54,400 And very recently, there's there's a push that now they've building these big agro industrial parks, which will link. 261 00:27:54,400 --> 00:28:01,580 The theory is at least 400000 smallholder farmers to go to a central agro processing plant, 262 00:28:01,580 --> 00:28:06,970 which was then add value to the crops that smallholders are producing. 263 00:28:06,970 --> 00:28:10,750 So all initiatives focussed around commercialisation of the most, 264 00:28:10,750 --> 00:28:16,020 the highest potential farmers alongside these capital intensive agricultural investments. 265 00:28:16,020 --> 00:28:20,620 So broadly speaking, you can make a distinction between the horticultural farms, 266 00:28:20,620 --> 00:28:26,770 many of which have been quite successful around Addis Rift Valley and other sort of other key 267 00:28:26,770 --> 00:28:32,470 sort of transport centres and the large scale plantations that the guy with the tractors, 268 00:28:32,470 --> 00:28:42,430 RAM Khatri, a large scale Indian investor who amongst other large investors, has been a complete disaster and a massive failure. 269 00:28:42,430 --> 00:28:44,890 And then finally, you have industrial policy. 270 00:28:44,890 --> 00:28:53,890 So I mean, there's been there was a push right from the beginning to explicitly target labour intensive industrial sectors, 271 00:28:53,890 --> 00:29:01,480 particularly textiles and apparel, based on the assumption that these would be these would create, create more employment, absorb more labour. 272 00:29:01,480 --> 00:29:05,890 And and I think I mean, research has shown, I mean, they are quite impressive. 273 00:29:05,890 --> 00:29:11,440 There has clearly been a lot of thinking going on from the government side. They have been clearly quite proactive. 274 00:29:11,440 --> 00:29:18,610 Yet in terms of the overall economic contribution is still pretty minuscule as these industrial parks that they visit and by all accounts, 275 00:29:18,610 --> 00:29:19,360 it seems that many, 276 00:29:19,360 --> 00:29:28,600 many major global firms are set to relocate significant chunks of their production to Ethiopia, so there's a potential for it to grow quite rapidly. 277 00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:32,820 But for the time being, it's remains quite limited. 278 00:29:32,820 --> 00:29:38,980 And so in terms of the sort of continuity and changes, I mean, there's a clear continuity in aspects of this, 279 00:29:38,980 --> 00:29:44,260 and the Ethiopian government still says that it is pursuing Adli. 280 00:29:44,260 --> 00:29:51,100 And there are continuities in the sense that, you know, there's a common focus on industrialisation and structural transformation of the economy. 281 00:29:51,100 --> 00:29:54,910 There's a focus on, as I was previously on, linking agriculture and industry. 282 00:29:54,910 --> 00:30:00,890 So you sort of you add value within Ethiopia rather than rather than exporting primary commodities. 283 00:30:00,890 --> 00:30:06,520 And yet there are also important changes. So they've kind of ditched the agriculture first approach. 284 00:30:06,520 --> 00:30:13,630 And now it's sort of a dual agriculture and industry at the same time, but trying to promote linkages between them. 285 00:30:13,630 --> 00:30:18,520 But fundamentally, they focussed on high potential rather than this, a broad based strategy. 286 00:30:18,520 --> 00:30:25,030 And in that sense, I think that's the key fundamental differences in terms of this distributional strategy. 287 00:30:25,030 --> 00:30:30,370 That, first of all, is X and now an explicit intention to differentiate between smallholders. 288 00:30:30,370 --> 00:30:38,680 So not the assumption that everyone will be able to benefit, but an acceptance grudgingly in many quarters that the least able are going to have 289 00:30:38,680 --> 00:30:44,860 to move out of agriculture and land reforms that allow rental first in Amhara. 290 00:30:44,860 --> 00:30:53,720 Now? Now. Under consideration by the federal government and these and the provisions to allow mortgaging of land are clearly targeted 291 00:30:53,720 --> 00:31:01,470 towards allowing providing the highest potential farmers with the opportunity to expand production and intensify production. 292 00:31:01,470 --> 00:31:06,350 And with the result that many of those less able are going to have to move out of agriculture, 293 00:31:06,350 --> 00:31:11,330 that's completely different from the rationale of idli and something that wouldn't have been considered for a long time. 294 00:31:11,330 --> 00:31:15,740 Indeed, for many years, it was. The assumption was that mortgaging was against the Constitution. 295 00:31:15,740 --> 00:31:22,230 It's only roughly that people have looked at the wording carefully and wondered whether perhaps it isn't, after all. 296 00:31:22,230 --> 00:31:26,390 And so there's the assumption that people will now start to move out of agriculture. 297 00:31:26,390 --> 00:31:32,630 But the challenge is that the question is where where do they actually go from that? 298 00:31:32,630 --> 00:31:40,970 You have a situation of mass landless ness. So there has been, as I said before, there's been no redistribution in most places since the late 1980s. 299 00:31:40,970 --> 00:31:48,050 Massive population growth in that period. About to do another census in another in a couple of months. 300 00:31:48,050 --> 00:31:55,910 But according to the last census in 2007, somewhere in the region of 80 percent of the population would have been less than 18 301 00:31:55,910 --> 00:32:01,520 in the late 1980s and therefore would not have access to land through redistribution. 302 00:32:01,520 --> 00:32:03,740 Now, some of those people would have inherited land. 303 00:32:03,740 --> 00:32:09,360 Some of them would be able to sort of use a bit of land from their parents on a more informal basis. 304 00:32:09,360 --> 00:32:14,270 That's a huge chunk of the rural population that don't have access to land. 305 00:32:14,270 --> 00:32:23,870 And so this rationale of land as a safety net that the government had pushed for years is no longer supportable in any meaningful way. 306 00:32:23,870 --> 00:32:26,450 There's a lack of data, but yeah, I mean, 307 00:32:26,450 --> 00:32:36,440 there's a couple of studies recently who suggested that somewhere in the region of 30 to 40 percent of the rural population lacks land. 308 00:32:36,440 --> 00:32:42,470 On the other hand, you've got this sort of emerging success story in manufacturing some major firms relocating to Ethiopia. 309 00:32:42,470 --> 00:32:47,840 This was kind of the has been the holy grail for the Ethiopian government for several decades. 310 00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:53,960 Yet at the same time, it's not creating the employment as yet and possibly seems unlikely to ever do so. 311 00:32:53,960 --> 00:33:00,110 That is required to absorb this enormous, enormous amount of surplus labour. 312 00:33:00,110 --> 00:33:06,320 So currently, the industrial parks have to provide somewhere in the region of 20 or 30000 jobs. 313 00:33:06,320 --> 00:33:13,070 There are some optimistic targets that by 2025, they might create some two million jobs, 314 00:33:13,070 --> 00:33:16,490 which, if it ever happens, will be a great achievement, undeniably. 315 00:33:16,490 --> 00:33:21,350 But at the same time, it still pales in comparison to a population of 110 million people, 316 00:33:21,350 --> 00:33:31,250 where somewhere in the region of a million new young adults enter the job market every single year. 317 00:33:31,250 --> 00:33:44,990 And studies suggest that if the limited studies that exist suggest very high rates of urban unemployment and rural endlessness and. 318 00:33:44,990 --> 00:33:49,760 Yeah, and at the same time, then these industrial parks themselves are then built on labour suppression, 319 00:33:49,760 --> 00:33:55,220 so there's been increasing concerns about the working, the working conditions within the industrial parks themselves. 320 00:33:55,220 --> 00:34:02,120 And essentially they're based on internationally. They're competitive because of the extraordinarily low wage costs, 321 00:34:02,120 --> 00:34:15,200 not because of any any any higher productivity within Ethiopia is basically a low wage mechanism of trying to secure parts of the global value chain. 322 00:34:15,200 --> 00:34:24,980 And alongside this, you've got the developmental state and displacing people for a range of different rationales. 323 00:34:24,980 --> 00:34:30,410 So I mean this this this state land ownership has gone through various different phases in terms of the objectives, 324 00:34:30,410 --> 00:34:33,560 the rationales by which it's justified. Increasingly, 325 00:34:33,560 --> 00:34:41,990 it's been justified in terms of the centralisation of rents and the ability for the state to allocate factors of production to priority sectors. 326 00:34:41,990 --> 00:34:46,580 So what this means is essentially that people are displaced for agricultural investments, 327 00:34:46,580 --> 00:34:51,410 for industrial parks, for infrastructure development and also a key issue being urban expansion, 328 00:34:51,410 --> 00:34:58,340 which cities across Ethiopia are expanding extremely rapidly to provide an example of what this actually means in practise. 329 00:34:58,340 --> 00:35:02,210 This is from a study we did recently in Adama. 330 00:35:02,210 --> 00:35:07,950 So Adam has gone through waves of different expansion, both the suspension of the city, but also then in terms of infrastructure. 331 00:35:07,950 --> 00:35:14,600 So back in 2008 and then near to the city, there was the expansion of the Whenshe show a sugar factory, 332 00:35:14,600 --> 00:35:20,570 which displaced a certain number of small farmers. At that time, they were paid 800 per square metre. 333 00:35:20,570 --> 00:35:26,420 So currently, the exchange rate is somewhere in the region of thirty five to the pound. 334 00:35:26,420 --> 00:35:33,110 But yeah, it would have been a bit less at that time 20 10, 12 per square metre for the expressway, 335 00:35:33,110 --> 00:35:41,510 linking a dominant Addis 15 verse to the railway that goes from Addis through Adama on to Djibouti 53. 336 00:35:41,510 --> 00:35:48,650 But for the most recently for the industrial park that was built there at the same time in terms of illegal land sales. 337 00:35:48,650 --> 00:35:58,070 By all accounts, you can buy. You can sell land for up to 1000 birds per square metre on illegally on the legal illegal land markets. 338 00:35:58,070 --> 00:36:02,630 Now, unsurprisingly, this is quite a strong incentive for people to sell land. 339 00:36:02,630 --> 00:36:10,970 So essentially what you've got, it seems increasingly clear that around most urban centres, around most of infrastructure development, whether where, 340 00:36:10,970 --> 00:36:19,220 where there's clear sign that at some point the state is going to come in and dispossessed you with with very minimal compensation, 341 00:36:19,220 --> 00:36:23,810 there is what was described by one respondent as an economy of anticipation. 342 00:36:23,810 --> 00:36:31,490 Essentially, this rush to sell land as quickly as possible before the state arrives and essentially, 343 00:36:31,490 --> 00:36:38,420 although still formally it state ownership privatisation of land is well underway in many places. 344 00:36:38,420 --> 00:36:42,560 Now, the government's aware of this in the current context. 345 00:36:42,560 --> 00:36:50,660 Local governments are unable to intervene. Stop this. These practises, and there's discussions within federal governments, 346 00:36:50,660 --> 00:36:54,380 are talking about a new draught compensation proclamation, whether it will come to pass or not. 347 00:36:54,380 --> 00:37:00,470 I don't know. It's been stuck for a little while now. By all accounts. But yeah, the provisions within that, 348 00:37:00,470 --> 00:37:06,230 the revised provisions within that are only that will increase compensation rates by somewhere in the region of 50 percent, 349 00:37:06,230 --> 00:37:07,320 which obviously is going to come, 350 00:37:07,320 --> 00:37:18,350 not even going to come close to closing that gap between current compensation and what you can actually get by by selling land. 351 00:37:18,350 --> 00:37:24,500 So into this mix of mass landless ness and very high rates of unemployment. 352 00:37:24,500 --> 00:37:32,240 Essentially, what you're seeing is the emergence of a new forms of redistribution, and this has been going on over over an extended period of time, 353 00:37:32,240 --> 00:37:40,700 both in response to these earlier Armageddon, but also in response to this embedding processes of the developmental state. 354 00:37:40,700 --> 00:37:50,810 So, you know, the principal programme within this is the productive safety net, which was this a direct response to the food crisis back in 2002 03, 355 00:37:50,810 --> 00:38:01,190 which was yeah, as one of the largest social protection programmes in Africa, covering up to 10 million people in terms of cash and food transfers. 356 00:38:01,190 --> 00:38:08,630 This was initially intended by government to be, as I termed, a mechanism of keeping things calm while we're implementing this other economic agenda. 357 00:38:08,630 --> 00:38:17,150 It wasn't really seen as a solution in itself. The solution was rapid economic development, industrialisation and employment. 358 00:38:17,150 --> 00:38:24,650 But yes, the SNP was seen as a sort of intermediate sticking plaster, which would keep things calm while it was being implemented. 359 00:38:24,650 --> 00:38:29,990 But yet, 14 years later, enrolment increases rather than decreases. 360 00:38:29,990 --> 00:38:33,950 It's still somewhere in the region of eight to 10 million people enrolled in it. 361 00:38:33,950 --> 00:38:38,900 In informal discussions, many government officials will admit that yes, 362 00:38:38,900 --> 00:38:43,440 that is a massive underestimate and really, you should have somewhere in the region of five. 363 00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:49,650 Four more million people who should who who meet the criteria of being chronically in food insecure, 364 00:38:49,650 --> 00:38:54,420 which is the rationale for inclusion in the programme and so should be on the on on it, 365 00:38:54,420 --> 00:38:59,760 but it's considered politically unacceptable to actually increase the numbers at this point. 366 00:38:59,760 --> 00:39:07,140 And you also have responses and social protection responses in response to the urban crises of 2001 2005, 367 00:39:07,140 --> 00:39:13,110 most directly in the sort of youth development package which promoted messages from 2006, 368 00:39:13,110 --> 00:39:18,570 food subsidies from 2008 and most recently, then this urban safety net urban counterpart, 369 00:39:18,570 --> 00:39:27,210 where some half a million people will soon be receiving support. Now, of course, a poor, productive history regime that seems to be emerging. 370 00:39:27,210 --> 00:39:37,350 Essentially, this is this is the poorest part isn't sort of a reference to the sort of tradition of providing narrowly targeted poor relief. 371 00:39:37,350 --> 00:39:44,520 I'm going back to the English Paulos. The productiveness part is this of long standing rationale within the ADF. 372 00:39:44,520 --> 00:39:48,690 For any support that you provide to people has to come back with contributions. 373 00:39:48,690 --> 00:39:54,210 So people have to they can't just be given money or resources without contributing themselves. 374 00:39:54,210 --> 00:39:58,590 They have to also work and be seen to be working for the support they receive. 375 00:39:58,590 --> 00:40:03,570 So there's this rationale that these programmes are going to make a productive impact as well, 376 00:40:03,570 --> 00:40:09,810 which argue about whether that's actually materialised in practise. 377 00:40:09,810 --> 00:40:18,450 And so in terms of, I haven't mentioned ethnicity for some time, which is probably probably relevant in that, 378 00:40:18,450 --> 00:40:21,410 you know, the developmental state agenda has essentially I mean, 379 00:40:21,410 --> 00:40:26,370 I would I would argue this is fundamental trade off between the interventionist developmental ism, 380 00:40:26,370 --> 00:40:34,440 which is fundamentally a sort of centralising development model and real and real federalism. 381 00:40:34,440 --> 00:40:40,110 So whether that's in terms of, you know, federal government allocating land for agriculture investments, 382 00:40:40,110 --> 00:40:45,150 could there control over the creation of industrial parks, infrastructure and so on? 383 00:40:45,150 --> 00:40:50,280 It requires federal intervention into regional states and essentially, I mean, 384 00:40:50,280 --> 00:40:57,390 in addition to a whole range of political motivations in terms of centralising power just in terms of the economic strategy itself, 385 00:40:57,390 --> 00:41:02,040 as as a fundamental tension between the federal and regional governments. 386 00:41:02,040 --> 00:41:09,180 And now the challenge that sort of increasingly come up is that, you know, and very, 387 00:41:09,180 --> 00:41:16,880 very often the narrative is that Ethiopia, you know, Ethiopia is making this big sacrifice for national development. 388 00:41:16,880 --> 00:41:20,370 You know, there's a process of delayed gratification rather than necessarily seeing the benefits. 389 00:41:20,370 --> 00:41:27,630 Now you're saying, you know, these are these are necessary steps to sort of create development over over the coming years. 390 00:41:27,630 --> 00:41:33,570 Now the problem is that within a ruling party that continues to be continues to have been, 391 00:41:33,570 --> 00:41:38,730 I should say, perceived as dominated by the two by one minority ethnic group. 392 00:41:38,730 --> 00:41:43,740 This then, rather than national sacrifice, comes across as ethnic exploitation. 393 00:41:43,740 --> 00:41:54,720 And over the years, you've seen an increasingly assertive set of ethno regional administrations, the regional states contesting federal control. 394 00:41:54,720 --> 00:42:01,620 Now, I would have said this was happening to some degree before Melas passed away in 2012. 395 00:42:01,620 --> 00:42:09,650 So, yeah, particularly governments and Oromia and Ham are increasingly protective of their own autonomy, but very much since then. 396 00:42:09,650 --> 00:42:16,050 The removal of the kingpin, the removal of the central central power and the fragmentation of the centre has led to this sort 397 00:42:16,050 --> 00:42:22,890 of devolution of powers in practise and regional governments becoming increasingly assertive. 398 00:42:22,890 --> 00:42:31,380 And the result is that gradually distribute distributional concerns have become increasingly influenced by ethnic politics as much as anything else. 399 00:42:31,380 --> 00:42:34,080 So let's take a couple of recent examples. 400 00:42:34,080 --> 00:42:42,900 You know, this strategy of building industrial parks is influenced very much by the criteria of fairness between the between the different regions, 401 00:42:42,900 --> 00:42:45,220 rather than necessarily a strong business case. 402 00:42:45,220 --> 00:42:52,320 The most obvious example being the decision to build an industrial park in a sofa in the far west of the country, 403 00:42:52,320 --> 00:42:55,350 which has no rationale in terms of trade linkages. 404 00:42:55,350 --> 00:43:02,550 In terms of labour of availability or anything else but is based is basically a political decision based 405 00:43:02,550 --> 00:43:07,860 on the balancing act across Ethiopia's regions and equally within the industrial parks themselves. 406 00:43:07,860 --> 00:43:22,800 There are quite clear ethnic ethnic quotas of where you know, of the labour of the labour and employment opportunities within the industrial parks. 407 00:43:22,800 --> 00:43:30,190 I feel I should mention or go through the guys have a discussion about the Oromo protests themselves quite explicitly. 408 00:43:30,190 --> 00:43:36,590 And essentially, I'm sure many of you are already familiar, so I wouldn't say anything terribly new. 409 00:43:36,590 --> 00:43:45,470 Widespread anti-government protests beginning in 2014, but really accelerating in 2016 17 and culminating in 2018. 410 00:43:45,470 --> 00:43:50,780 They were very brutally put down by the military initially. And but yeah, 411 00:43:50,780 --> 00:43:54,800 that felt have failed for any significant period to stop them and ultimately 412 00:43:54,800 --> 00:44:01,700 culminated in the resignation of Prime Minister Hailemariam Mariam about a year ago. 413 00:44:01,700 --> 00:44:11,900 Almost exactly. Yeah, there were a range of different flashpoints within this, but central concerns were both. 414 00:44:11,900 --> 00:44:17,240 The flashpoints were around land territory displacement and growing ethno nationalism, 415 00:44:17,240 --> 00:44:22,610 and this perception of the oppression of the Oromo dominance of the Tigrayans within government. 416 00:44:22,610 --> 00:44:28,370 But the these were these were protests conducted mainly by young men in rural areas, small towns. 417 00:44:28,370 --> 00:44:30,810 Exactly the kind of people who have you know this? 418 00:44:30,810 --> 00:44:38,060 This emerging development strategy offers no real answers to the people who see no real options within the agricultural sector, 419 00:44:38,060 --> 00:44:44,780 their chances of inheriting land and having a viable agricultural livelihood pretty much gone. 420 00:44:44,780 --> 00:44:50,930 Many of them are quite well-educated now, and so agricultural livelihoods aren't particularly desirable anyway. 421 00:44:50,930 --> 00:44:58,640 But equally, in urban employment, opportunities are quite limited. There's a handful of industrial jobs in industrial parks, but then, yeah, 422 00:44:58,640 --> 00:45:02,540 poor working conditions or perception of poor working conditions within them. 423 00:45:02,540 --> 00:45:09,410 And the other alternative being they labour in urban urban centres, which is unreliable and poorly paid. 424 00:45:09,410 --> 00:45:16,730 And so it's yeah, particularly this group who you know, who've seen little little option from the current distribution system, 425 00:45:16,730 --> 00:45:26,560 which worked well amongst the main protagonists in the protests. And I haven't mentioned Abby hardly at all. 426 00:45:26,560 --> 00:45:38,230 Yeah. So he took power in April last year and as unless at least all kinds of manner of political reforms upended the political landscape in Ethiopia. 427 00:45:38,230 --> 00:45:41,470 I'm not going to comment too much on that other than, you know, 428 00:45:41,470 --> 00:45:47,230 the implication of this analysis is essentially that there are two fundamental distributional strategies which he 429 00:45:47,230 --> 00:45:56,080 or indeed his successor were to lose power in elections which are supposed to be held next year will have to face. 430 00:45:56,080 --> 00:46:00,370 And that one how do you create employment opportunities, 431 00:46:00,370 --> 00:46:07,060 livelihoods for a rapidly growing number of Ethiopians who also have also increasing expectations 432 00:46:07,060 --> 00:46:11,120 given the educational attainment that they've that they've increasingly been getting? 433 00:46:11,120 --> 00:46:18,400 And but then equally, how what role does ethnicity play in politics in Ethiopia or what role should it play? 434 00:46:18,400 --> 00:46:27,190 And particularly this challenge of how do you reconcile the sort of the centralised state that's underpinned this period of rapid 435 00:46:27,190 --> 00:46:36,470 economic growth with the desire and increasingly the reality of real federalism and real devolution of power from the federal government? 436 00:46:36,470 --> 00:46:39,580 Now, in many ways, I mean, it's far from a perfect match, 437 00:46:39,580 --> 00:46:44,680 but these are sort of new manifestations of two central challenges that go back to the 1960s. 438 00:46:44,680 --> 00:46:45,430 As I said before, 439 00:46:45,430 --> 00:46:55,180 in terms of the land of the land to the tiller campaigns in terms of land redistribution and also the national question as it was framed. 440 00:46:55,180 --> 00:47:00,820 So it's something of an irony, then, that despite the fact that if you had the IDF, which came out of that movement, 441 00:47:00,820 --> 00:47:10,810 identified these two factors as the central concerns for its own power has been unable to definitively resolve, either. 442 00:47:10,810 --> 00:47:16,720 And while I'm particularly recently the sort of ethnicity element has attracted a lot of attention in terms of 443 00:47:16,720 --> 00:47:24,490 there've been widespread conflicts which have often ended up polarising along ethnic lines and over the last year. 444 00:47:24,490 --> 00:47:37,810 I suspect it may well be the former, which is at least as hard, if not harder, to actually resolve resolve ultimately as a follow up to that. 445 00:47:37,810 --> 00:47:43,480 And the debates points within this has been sort of a question of whether this state led 446 00:47:43,480 --> 00:47:49,510 development model that the IDF has been pursuing should be retained as though it's a choice. 447 00:47:49,510 --> 00:47:55,690 Certainly, that was the sort of more or less the framing of Alex Devil's piece that you wrote last year, which was quite good in many ways, 448 00:47:55,690 --> 00:47:56,590 which basically said, you know, 449 00:47:56,590 --> 00:48:04,420 these are the challenges of ditching the developmental state and pursuing a political marketplace that this theory puts it. 450 00:48:04,420 --> 00:48:13,900 Yet to my mind, the politics that under underpin this state led development model have evaporated quite some time ago. 451 00:48:13,900 --> 00:48:22,450 Essentially, I think there is this fundamental tension between state led development and the form that's been pursued in Ethiopia and real federalism. 452 00:48:22,450 --> 00:48:26,470 Currently, the ruling coalition is fragmented into all kinds of different factions, which, 453 00:48:26,470 --> 00:48:31,880 you know, the idea of getting any kind of coherent vision out of them is it seems highly unlikely. 454 00:48:31,880 --> 00:48:36,460 It's unclear even what Abiy or anyone else wants in terms of the development model that points. 455 00:48:36,460 --> 00:48:42,070 They've sort of said we're going to continue with the developmental state and state that development, other provinces liberalisation. 456 00:48:42,070 --> 00:48:44,260 Is unclear, but ultimately, 457 00:48:44,260 --> 00:48:54,550 I think Ethiopia is probably just too diverse and politically mobilised at this point to submit itself back to this sort of highly centralised, 458 00:48:54,550 --> 00:48:58,960 somewhat coercive developmental state agenda. 459 00:48:58,960 --> 00:49:06,520 And there's increasing this push for distribution now rather than delayed gratification for for the future. 460 00:49:06,520 --> 00:49:14,650 And the final point, I mean, it's clear from case studies that we've been doing across the country in the last year or so. 461 00:49:14,650 --> 00:49:21,850 Well, Somalia is one of the one of his claims of one of the crowning achievement was in terms of building state capacity. 462 00:49:21,850 --> 00:49:25,240 And in his terms, he said, runs in every village or something, 463 00:49:25,240 --> 00:49:30,610 somewhere that affects essentially whatever they decide at the top would get implemented at the bottom. 464 00:49:30,610 --> 00:49:38,560 They have that capacity across the country. Now is this probably still existent agreeing to a significant degree there is this. 465 00:49:38,560 --> 00:49:41,950 The central control in those structures are there at local level. 466 00:49:41,950 --> 00:49:50,410 Case studies we've done in Amhara and Oromia in the last year, they just not like the valley administrations, 467 00:49:50,410 --> 00:49:55,510 you know, local local population very often just telling them to get lost. 468 00:49:55,510 --> 00:50:03,850 Essentially the sort of instructions that come down from the top to mobilisation, the campaigns, you know, being required. 469 00:50:03,850 --> 00:50:10,000 If those local administrators are brave enough to try and try and rally the rally, local population, 470 00:50:10,000 --> 00:50:15,790 local people are ignoring them and the the structures through which they're mobilised. 471 00:50:15,790 --> 00:50:21,660 These development teams, these one to five groups, which groupings of households and subsections. 472 00:50:21,660 --> 00:50:24,750 Within within a village of evaporated. 473 00:50:24,750 --> 00:50:33,070 So they still exist in Tigray, but India and the rest of the country, they don't seem to be a major feature whatsoever anymore. 474 00:50:33,070 --> 00:50:41,650 And I decide to stick this last slide in, which is a bit more speculative, but I would be keen to get people's thoughts. 475 00:50:41,650 --> 00:50:43,030 So I'm to my mind, 476 00:50:43,030 --> 00:50:52,000 there's been a lot of analysis of and talk about African industrialisation and in the last few years and some very good analysis of which 477 00:50:52,000 --> 00:51:00,040 Ethiopia is kind of at the forefront and it clearly has had a very clear industrial policy and has had certain successes that flowed from it. 478 00:51:00,040 --> 00:51:06,460 So the question comes back. So if this is the success story and in many ways, it is the success story. 479 00:51:06,460 --> 00:51:12,760 What does ultimately African in the success of the success of African industrialisation look like? 480 00:51:12,760 --> 00:51:18,700 Now, I don't pretend to have an answer, an answer to this, but it does raise a whole series of questions around, 481 00:51:18,700 --> 00:51:24,040 you know, going back to the agrarian question of labour, Henry Bernstein and others in terms of the role, 482 00:51:24,040 --> 00:51:29,650 the role of agricultural labour within a capitalist economy, particularly given growing population pressure, 483 00:51:29,650 --> 00:51:36,800 landless ness, decreasing farm size, very clear trends in terms of industrialisation from the early industrialised. 484 00:51:36,800 --> 00:51:44,320 This through to the present of increasing capital intensity and reducing labour intensity of industrial production. 485 00:51:44,320 --> 00:51:54,290 And what Tanya Murray has to have term this challenge of surplus labour labour that isn't required by capital and what to do with it. 486 00:51:54,290 --> 00:51:57,880 And so it raises the possibility, at least, that, you know, 487 00:51:57,880 --> 00:52:01,450 one one sort of interpretation of where Ethiopia is heading is that maybe it 488 00:52:01,450 --> 00:52:05,860 will continue with its success in terms of industrialisation and manufacturing. 489 00:52:05,860 --> 00:52:06,320 But essentially, 490 00:52:06,320 --> 00:52:14,440 you might end up with a sort of high productivity manufacturing sector in a sea of relatively low productivity services and agriculture. 491 00:52:14,440 --> 00:52:20,020 Now the government is clearly thinking in those terms and has been trying to establish links to the rest of the economy. 492 00:52:20,020 --> 00:52:26,350 But the successes so far seem to have been quite modest, and we'll see where it goes in the future. 493 00:52:26,350 --> 00:52:31,798 I will leave it there, and I welcome your comments. Thank you.