Ethiopia

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines traditional medicine as health practices, approaches, knowledge and beliefs incorporating plant, animal and mineral based medicines, spiritual therapies, manual techniques and exercises, applied singularly or in combination to treat, diagnose and prevent illnesses and maintain well-being.

It is known that many countries in African, Asia and Latin America use traditional medicine (TM) to meet some of their primary health care needs. In Africa, up to 80% of the population uses traditional medicine for primary health care.

The population in Ethiopia is generally characterized by a very young structure, with children below age 18 years accounting to 52% of the national population. Children below age 15 represent 44% of the national population. The number of children living in difficult circumstances is noted to be significant due to social, economic, political as well as cultural factors (MOLSA, 2005). It is currently estimated that there are about 4.6 million orphans, out of which 1 million have lost their parents due to AIDS (UNICEF, 2004).

The Borana rangelands occupy an area of about 95,000 km2 in Southern Ethiopia. The area is semi-arid with low rainfall ranging between 300 and 900 mm per annum, with high spatial and temporal variability. The dominant ethnic group in the area are the Borana, whose life centres around extensive livestock production – predominantly cattle and small numbers of small ruminants, camels and donkeys.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an historical account and a critical appraisal of educational policies in Ethiopia since 1941. The study, if lacking in as much detail as might have been desired, has placed in perspective the educational performance of Ethiopia during a period of nearly one-half of a century.

Natural resources are the foundation of the economy. Smallholder peasant agriculture, in some areas including forestry, is the dominant sector accounting for about 45 per cent of the GDP, 85 per cent of exports and 80 per cent of total employment. Agriculture has also been the main source of the stagnation and variability in GDP growth caused in the main by policy failures and exacerbated by recurrent drought, civil war, natural resource degradation, and poor infrastructure.

Ethiopia, located in the northeastern part of Africa, also known as the Horn of Africa, lies between 3 and 15 degrees north latitude and 33 and 48 degrees east longitude. The total area of the country is around 1.1 million square kilometers. As of 2007, Ethiopia’s population has been growing at a rate of 2.6 percent per annum (CSA, 2007). At this rate the total population will number 88.4 million by 2015. The majority of the population (84 percent) lives in rural areas.

During the last couple of years Ethiopia has had a remarkable economic growth (an average of 10%/year) and the country has achieved notable progress towards many of the millennium development goals (MDGs), including those for poverty, access to education and health. Improvements have also been made in basic infrastructure and in strengthening both regional and national policies and governance capacity.

Government policies in Ethiopia are developing in favour of market liberalization, democratization, and the rule of law. The international finance community is now more willing to invest development capital in the country. These are essential first steps toward the eradication of famine but are not sufficient in themselves.

The National Policy on Women (Women’s Policy) formulated in 1993, aimed to create appropriate structures within government offices and institutions to establish equitable and gender-sensitive public policies. The Government of Ethiopia in 1995, under its new constitution, renewed its commitment towards this policy.

This research explores how global climate policies are articulated within national policy priorities in Ethiopia, which shares many common features with other least developed countries (LDCs) in Africa. The focus of the study is on pastoral communities, which have been adversely affected by climate change, which is generally expected to hit developing countries harder than industrialized countries.This results since LDCs are less capable of mitigating or adapting to climatic changes due to poverty and high dependence on the environment for subsistence (UNDP, 2007).