Development in Ethiopia: Changing Trends, Sustainability and Challenges

In recent years, Ethiopia has made significant advances in expanding education and health services and infrastructure. Official government statistics point to a reduction in poverty levels spurred by increasing pro-growth and pro-poor investment in critical social and economic areas. Despite the gains, however, a reduction in poverty levels spurred by increasing pro-growth and pro-poor investment in critical social and economic areas. Despite the gains, however, formidable challenges remain, including pervasive poverty; increasing demographic pressure; a fragile natural resource base, particularly land; and chronic food insecurity. It is against this background, FSS and FES are organizing an international conference on Development in Ethiopia: Changing Trends, Sustainability and Challenges which will critically reflect on the country’s development experience, including successes and challenges, over the past 20 years or so. The papers presented at the conference would be edited and published as a book for wider dissemination. The conference will create opportunities to re-examine the broad development paradigm(s) that the country experimented over the past two decades. It also looks at how the country aims at moving beyond aid dependency and current levels of poverty. The contributions to this conference will also analyse challenges and opportunities the country faced in implementing its development policies. The debates the conference generates are expected to move beyond the conventional clichés evolving around food insecurity and environmental degradation that dominate foreign media coverage of the country so far.