Ethiopia!

First off, just to let everyone know I’m here safe and things are going great. My couchsurfing host is fantastic and has been a huge help to me. I’m not sure yet where I’ll be staying in the long term, but for now this place is great! More on my experiences later.

OK, so many of you may be wondering why Ethiopia? First, let me tell you a bit about the country. Ethiopia is located in the Horn of Africa, and is currently the second most populous nation on the continent with roughly 95 million people. When one first thinks of Ethiopia, imagines of deserts and famine may flash into ones mind, but this is just a small part of the countries rich history. Ethiopia is a very large and diverse country, actually ranking the most populous landlocked country in the world! It’s classified as a federalist democratic republic split on ethno linguistic lines, though upon reading Ethiopian history you quickly learn how complex the country is with over 80 languages (200 dialects) currently spoken.  

During the first two months I’ll be spending much of my time in the capital city, Addis Ababa. Addis is located roughly in the center of the country, surrounded by the Oromiya killil (think state. The killil is the largest form of government district in Ethiopia with 7 in total). Although close to the equator, the city is actually the third highest capital in the world, located at 7,726 ft, and therefore is very moderate in climate. Lucky for me, the sun rises every day around 6, with highs consistently around 70 and lows about 45-50. The city has roughly 3.5 million people, and is regarded to as the political hub of Africa since the United Nations (UN) and African Union (AU) are based here.

During the following two months I’ll be working at the United Nations Economic Commission on Africa (UNECA)! I’m hoping to spend only a few days a week here, as I plan to spend as much time as possible in the surrounding area talking with farmers, learning as much as possible about the country, and conduction some dissertation fieldwork. During the third month Emily will be joining me for much adventuring around the country!

In a nutshell, my work is on agrarian development in Ethiopia. The crux of the research is focused on the fact that Ethiopia and most other African economies have largely failed to expand employment despite a decade plus of positive economic growth. Thus with limited employment options pro-smallholder (i.e. small farm) development strategies are paramount to the improvement of rural livelihoods. My first paper I’m finishing up argues small farms produce more per unit of land. Additionally I find the fragmentation (farmers having multiple plots. In Ethiopia this is usually seen as a big issue by the government since the ‘average’ farmer has about 3 plots that are not contiguous) is positively associated with yield. During my time here I plan to explore this latter finding. I hope you’re all sufficiently bored now! 

Ethiopia quick facts:

Regarding the economy, Ethiopia is still an agrarian society. Roughly 80-85% of the population still works in the agrarian sector, vast majority of which are subsistence farmers. In fact, Ethiopia is one of the least urbanized countries in the world! Currently GDP per capita is hovering right below $500, though growth numbers have been very promising. Schooling remains dismal with average yrs of schooling currently at 2.2. I did find at yesterday that the government just eliminated the fee for schools for roughly the bottom 80-85% of the population! This appears to be great news, but I have much to learn about the education system here. 

Time – although Ethiopia is 7 hours ahead of the east coast, time is actually told on an entirely different system. In Ethiopia, the day starts at dawn (6 AM). Therefore, 8 AM in Ethiopia (1 AM on the east coast) is actually called 2 in the morning there. Likewise, say 7 PM in Ethiopia is called 1 in the evening.

Ethiopia is consistently the top / one of the top US and UK aid recipients (non-war). Why is Ethiopia a favorite? Well, that’s a complicated matter but a lot of this has to do with the countries political stability in the Horn and its assistance to the US in routing Al-Shabaab, the al-Qaeda affiliate based in Somalia.

Ethiopia is often referred to as the only country on the continent that wasn’t colonized, except for a relatively short occupation by the Italians during WWII that lasted 6 years.

As mentioned above, the country has many languages with a total of 82! The two languages most frequently used (Amharic and Oromo) are only spoken by about 1/3 of the population. In Addis however the vast majority of residents speak Amharic. Although Amharic is the chosen language of the government, English is used throughout the Universities and taught during secondary school.

That’s if for now! Hope you’ve learned a bit about Ethiopia. I’ll keep you all posted on how the adventure is going!