IMPLEMENTING AGENCIES

Of the different institutions that have dealt with resettlement tasks in Ethiopia so far three deserve attention - the SA, the RRC and the NDPNC of the WPE. These played a major role in resettlement programme in Ethiopia.

6.4.1 The Settlement Authority (SA)

This was the first organization charged solely with settlement/resettlement functions. It was established mainly to complement the land tenure reform of 1975. It aimed at settling farmers with little or no land, engaging the urban unemployed in agriculture and also at transforming the nomadic mode of production

"into modern pastoral and arable farming." Another function of the SA included resettling farmers who would be dispossessed of their lands by projects, and also to bring under cultivation "lands that remain idle."

The Settlement Authority lived for only four years, but it laid down the general pattern of resettlement operation in Ethiopia which its successor agency (the RRC) followed in the main, it laid the basic criteria of recruiting settlers, defined models and processes of settlement/ resettlement and decided the necessary services rendered to the different types of settlements, etc.

The government decision to establish the SA was based on the assumption that landlessness or unemployment could be done away with through a settlement/resettlement programme. The assumption that the peripheral lands could be easily put to use prevailed then. But soon the high cost of resettlement discouraged the government from continuing the programme and sought to carry it on with relief and rehabilitation resources obtained from abroad.

6.4.2. The Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (RRC)

The RRC was, from December 1979 until September 1987, the legal authority responsible for resettlement in Ethiopia. The Commission was charged with tasks of:

1. Co-ordinating relief activities and distribution of relief aid to disaster-affected people;

2. Rehabilitation of disaster affected people;

3. Preventing or minimizing the consequences of possible disaster; and 4. Settling people and organizing them in co-operatives.

SSflSflfe™Siiiiaj.

36

The Commission had an Advisory Council composed of 9 ministers or their representatives, the EPA and other "mass organizations." The Council met at least once a year. The RRC has established a Settlers Administration and Co-operative Department to undertake its settlement activities.

6.4.3. The WPE and Natural Disaster Prevention National Committee (NDPNC)

Organization of the WPE and the NDPNC: In October 1984 the WPE drafted a face-saving, massive programme of relief, rehabilitation and resettlement of the famished population. A Natural Disaster Prevention National Committee (NDPNC) was established under the guidance and control of the Party to implement this.

The RRC was neither dissolved nor replaced by this Committee. Instead the Party assummed all charges of the new campign putting various agencies under its command for relief coordination, transportaion, settlement, agriculture, state farms , construction and water development, etc. The RRC was made to provide relief suplies to the new settlers. The MOA provided technicai support to enable the settlers become serif-sufficient. It created a Settlement Affairs Follow-up Office (SAFO) to assign development personnel, provided tractors and farm implements services and undertakes rural deveiopment works among the settlers. Other agencies were similarly assigned different tasks in line with their areas of responsibilities.

Aims and Targets of the Programme Under the WPE/NDPNC: The Action Programme of the Party contained two parts:

1. Providing relief aid to the drought striken people, and

2. Reestablishing the production system disrupted by the drought.

The purposes of the new resettlment programme were three fold, to:

- Move people living in areas repeatedly hit by drought (areas generally degraded);

- Obtain additional production by utilizing hitherto unused land;

- Increase the productivity of the resettlers by providing them with agricultural inputs and extension services.

Two main targets of the new programme were stipulated: resettling over 1.5 million people in two phases , and bringing 300,000 hectares of new land under cultivation in the two phases to obtain 5,340,00 guintals of grain. This was a stupendous task for a poor country like Ethiopia to launch upon. National capacities were insufficient to accomplish it and the government was unaware of this. But urged by political considerations it insisted and launched the campaign beginning in January 1985.

6.5 RESULTS and PROBLEMS

6.5.1. The Old Settlement/resettlements

Up to 1976 the RRC re/settled 28,000 nomads who had lost their herds in the 1973/74 drought on 5000 hectares of land along the Wabi Shebelie Valley. In 1978 it also resettled in Bale, Wellega and Keffa Regions 26,743 family heads from Wello, and 1870 from Tegrai in Wellega.

The SA (1976-1979) created 51 resettlement sites. By 1979 there remained 20,306 family heads (61,963 resettlers) and cultivated about 40,000 hectares of land.

Major problems identified concerning the old settlements include the following:

1. Forced settlement /resettlement: About 80 per cent of the re/settlers were recruited and resettled by force and on the sites these naturally remained disinterested in the programme.

!-. !T- :\ZJ Ct

^il Ie-i wi thin the region.

1' O bi~ t ■';« Fopul at ion He sett \ enient

t«,000

TOTAL125397

DO —J

41391I483258971633369

i

i6387

CO ■ 1 1

2505

tn 3- Co 1—> CO CO CO 1 1

29657101122 KEFFA

ci=

32313I517317575|15058226342977 69992997151063

c— cr" So-

1511471220636

CO ft)

21367 en1127985609

1—i e-* «=: CD »>■ to

2550946717!7222621343!24372457152827555759 Destinatior. Headofhouseholds

CD<t> i-rto Ul0 I ■-a CD

Headof!houseIDepen-holdsIdents Total iieadofhouseholds

IDCD

Headofhouseholds Dependents Headof!house!Depen-holdsIderits Headofhouseholds Dependents

ttJCO ai—■ =JfD i—»>ji c— -a pa CO

Pi

1

^-^yi^jfflFa^^

Dans le document Evaluation of rural development experiences in Africa: the case of Ethiopia (Page 36-40)