The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
September 7, 2012

Currently, various countries in the world are faced with many serious issues, and these problems can make countries collapse. According to Jared Diamond (2011), who is a professor of Geography at the University of California, Los Angeles, “There are four frameworks that cause societies to collapse, consisting of human impacts on the environment and climate change, declining relations with friendly neighbors, relations with hostile societies, and society’s responses to their problems”. Ethiopia is one of the East African countries that is now facing with various national problems, which can be clearly explained by all of Jared Diamond’s frameworks. Ethiopia has a significantly high risk of collapsing in the very near future. One of the most critical factors that Ethiopia faces is the various environmental catastrophes, which deals with the first framework that Jared Diamond has pointed out.
According to the Embassy of The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (2012), most of the land in Ethiopia is highlands, grasslands, deserts with only a few rivers, and Ethiopia is a landlocked country. Therefore, Ethiopia has lacked adequate of water resources. Moreover,
Ethiopia is faced with human impacts on the environment such as deforestation, soil erosion, desertification, and water shortages in some areas (“CIA ­ The World Factbook,” 2012). Another major crisis is the economy, which can be explained by Diamond’s fourth framework. “Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in the world and approximately 29.2% of citizens are below the poverty line” (“CIA ­ The World Factbook,” 2012). Ethiopia also has an average GDP per capita of US$ 1,100 (2011 est.) of GDP per capita with extremely low profits.
Most of Ethiopia’s economy is based on agriculture (41% of GDP) especially coffee, which is a

major export harvest. Ethiopia trades with numerous nations, including Germany, China,
Belgium, Saudi Arabia, US, Italy, and Sudan (“CIA ­ The World Factbook,” 2012). Moreover, Ethiopia has extremely serious issues with health care and education. As reported by “the CIA ­ The World Factbook” (2012), there are several major infectious diseases that have negative effects on Ethiopian citizens such as “diarrhea from bacteria and protozoa, hepatitis A and E, typhoid fever, malaria, meningococcal meningitis, rabies, and schistosomiasis”. The most devastating two illnesses in Ethiopia are AIDS and child malnutrition which affect roughly 34.6% of all children. Ethiopia has a low life expectancy. The average is only 56.56 years, which indicates that Ethiopia has a high mortality. Also, there are high rates of infant mortality of approximately 75.29 deaths per 100,000 live births, which is the fourteenth highest in comparison to the world. All the health problems are decreasing the population growth rate in Ethiopia. In addition, education is a severe issue in Ethiopia. The literacy rate in Ethiopia is only 42.7% of all citizens (“CIA ­ The World Factbook,” 2012). The Ethiopian educational system is inferior because the government allocates only small budget to education, which roughly 5.5% of GDP for education (“Embassy of The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
­ Education,” 2012). Furthermore, for the second framework, Ethiopia has nice relationships with several neighbors. For example, Ethiopia has working on the decision of disagreements in Somalia, and
Ethiopia also has deep beneficial economic cooperation with Sudan, Kenya, Djibouti, and
Yemen (“Embassy of The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia,” 2012). On the other hand,

Ethiopia has hostile relation with Eritrea, which relates to Diamond’s third framework as well.
There is a conflict over land, which started in 1998 and still continues to this day (Shah, 2000). The environmental issues, which deals with Diamond’s first framework are the main problem in Ethiopia, and these problems are related to other framework that Diamond has mentioned, such as societies responses and declining relations. People cut down a vast number of trees to make things, such as furniture, tools, building, and paper. People also are involved in illegal logging because they selfishly want land for development and agriculture. This causes deforestation which leads to soil erosion because there are not any trees to hold the soil when there is an immense flood. Ethiopia also suffers from desertification because the world temperature is getting hotter and drier. Moreover, Ethiopia has water shortages in some areas because they have very few water sources and poor water management. As reported by BBC
News (2012), these problems affect the Ethiopian economy because it is difficult to produce agricultural products during drought conditions, and also lead problems with other countries because Ethiopia cannot export crops to their partners; especially coffee, which is the key export agricultural product. When the economy is depressed, it also hurts Ethiopian citizens. According to “the CIA ­ The World Factbook” (2012), approximately 24.9% of people are unemployed, which illustrates how poor people in Ethiopia. Other society’s responses are that Ethiopia has been dealing with huge health and education problems for decades. These problems illustrate how the Ethiopian government is failing in terms of providing sufficient social facilities for citizen. As reported by “the CIA ­ The

World Factbook” (2012), hospital bed density is only 0.18 beds per 1,000 people. This demonstrates that Ethiopia has shortage of infirmaries and medical appliances, not enough of treatment centers for care of people. This problem impacts the quantity population, which has particularly high mortality rates. In term of education, the government spends only few budgets to the education system, so the education in Ethiopia is lacked of quality and quantity in terms of teachers, schools, and lessons. In addition, there is gender inequality in the education system because there were only a few girls that go to schools (“Embassy of The Federal Democratic
Republic of Ethiopia ­ Education,” 2012). Ethiopia also has the problem that deal with the third framework. The conflict between
Ethiopia and Eritrea is a dispute about the exact location of their borders and inconsequential real estate which began after Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993. The borders of these two countries were not defined clearly (“Ethiopia / Eritrea War,” 2000). According to Shah
(2000), the principal reason that Ethiopia fought with Eritrea was that Ethiopia does not have a boundary next to the Red Sea, so Ethiopia has to ship and trade goods by through Eritrea.
Moreover, the BBC News journalist, Plaut (2012) said that Ethiopia and Eritrea are starting a new border war again, similar to the disagreement in 1998 to 2000, which caused around
100,000 people to die.

Despite the complexity of the issues in Ethiopia, a few plausible situations exist. The

most likely solution to the environmental calamities that Ethiopia currently facing deals with the
Ethiopian government raising awareness of the precarious environmental situation and

convincing other principal countries to become greener. There is an international agreement that can help Ethiopia in order to get cooperation from other nations called “the Kyoto Protocol”.
“This agreement was created under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change (UNFCCC) in Kyoto, Japan in 1997 and came into force in 2005”. The Kyoto Protocol key aims are to decrease the greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) of industrialized nation and the
European community with no less than 5% under 1990 levels through 2008 to 2012 (“Australian
Government ­ Kyoto Protocol,” 2012). According to UNFCCC (2012), the developed countries that are chiefly responsible for damaging the environment have been releasing lots of GHG from industrial activities for more than a decade. Thus, the drought problems that Ethiopia is facing lessen in severity because the Kyoto Protocol will force countries to reduce the emission of GHG to mitigate global warming, which is the core reason of climate change. Another solution for the environmental issues is that the government should legislate stricter laws and punishments to prohibit deforestation. For instance, people should be immediately prohibited from logging in conservation areas, and if people or industries cut down trees, they have to be forced to replant trees in a sustainable way.

A further suitable solution is that the Ethiopian government should allow the international

organizations to help the country. The Hunger Project is one of the realistic organizations that can empower Ethiopian citizens to have better lives. The target of this organization is to assist people to recover from a malnutrition, poverty and diseases problems. To deal with the food shortages, the Hunger Project supports peasantries with trainings and materials to enlarge and transform their food production, and the food bank, which was established by the Hunger

Project, gives food grains to Ethiopian farmers. Moreover, as physical health is another problematic situation in Ethiopia. The Hunger Project also works on health issues in Ethiopia by improving diseases prevention and hygiene. The Hunger Project teaches all Ethiopians about general health issues, and creates quality health centers to supply elemental healthcare for all citizens, especially women and children. “This organization has cooperated with the District
Office of Women's Affairs and District Health Office to offer training, such as gender equality, harmful traditional practices, traditional birth attendants training, family planning and HIV/AIDS awareness workshops”(“The Hunger Project,” n.d.). Furthermore, another solution is to enhance education which is extremely important factor that the government should emphasize. As reported by Embassy of The Federal
Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (2012), the administration of Ethiopia has strived to improve fundamental education which has a low level of standard in quantity, quality, and effectiveness.
The Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) has realized that poor education impacts the economic and social development in the country. Therefore, they put more interested and emphasized to minimize the amount of illiterate people by constructing more new institutions, especially primary and secondary schools (“Embassy of The Federal Democratic
Republic of Ethiopia ­ Education,” 2012). Thereafter, every children and teenagers will have a chance to have high­quality education. In the future, citizens can get better careers because they are educated. Additionally, there should be more equality in terms of gender by the government should allowed girls to have the same education opportunities as boys.

The last solution addresses improving relations with hostile societies. As Ethiopia has faced long time conflict with Eritrea, there are some international organizations that can realistically act as intermediaries by helping establish agreements and treaties to end the conflict.
For example, The Organization of African Unity (OAU) has made a peace plan and gave suggestions to both nations on how to withdraw their troops from the disputed areas (“Ethiopia /
Eritrea War,” 2000). Moreover, in order to mitigate the conflict, both sides should avoid violence, and they should negotiate rationally.

Of all the proposed environmental calamity solutions, the one that seems to be the most

plausible is to create stricter laws and punishments in order to avoid deforestation by the government, and the government just has to make the laws for citizens. Moreover, the government does not have to require any further investment. The government can use the
Deontological Ethics in which actions are based on laws and rules with punishments. This ethic can help citizens to follow the laws. However, this solution can be negative impact on some logging companies. Secondly, the Kyoto Protocol is less effective to solve the environmental issues because the Kyoto Protocol is an agreement that controls and minimizes the greenhouse gas emissions. This protocol is disadvantage to the developed countries because they are the main source of producing carbon dioxide gas, which is the cause of the greenhouse effect.
Consequently, there are some countries that disagree and refuse to join the Kyoto Protocol, such as the United States, India, China, and Brazil (Gardiner, 2005). Those countries that do not accept Kyoto Protocol should be more ethical based on Classic Utilitarianism Ethics: good consequences are right “the greatest happiness of the greatest number”.

Moreover, the second solution that deals with The Hunger Project to help people from lack of food, poverty and unhealthy problems is absolutely necessary. Because this is an international organization, they have resources and experiences. However, this will be a long term solution and require lots of funds which the organization may not have because the financial assistance has to be provided to other countries that this organization works with. Deal with the Classic Utilitarianism Ethics, even this solution seem would be feasible, but the solutions that the Hunger Project do are benefit to all Ethiopian. Additionally, education development is the major project that the government should do immediately. This is a definitely effective solution that can also help other problems in the country. This solution is also based on Utilitarianism Ethics because the government trying to help all Ethiopian children to get a better education. If the citizens have a high quality of education, this will improve poverty, health problems, the economy, and reduction of a conflict between nations. Notwithstanding, it will be a long term solution, which will require a substantial investment on the part of the government. The government has to divide the budget of the country to support this project. Lastly, it is the most difficult to solve the conflict between nations. Although using international organization, such as The Organization of African Unity (OAU) to be an intermediary is the best way to avoid war, they cannot solve all the conflicts because the disputes between countries are extremely delicate. For example, In Ethiopia, the conflict that Ethiopia

faced with is about land resources. Hence, it is not easy to mediate with this issue. However, even the OAU is not success on solving hostile relationship between Ethiopia and Eritrea, but the
OAU is success in term of Ethical; the OAU do a great moral to help humankind.

All in all, Ethiopia has dramatically high precarious of fall state in global societies

because Ethiopia is facing such numerous serious issues currently. Firstly, environmental catastrophe, the biggest problem, which can relate to economic, poverty, and declining relations with neighbors. Secondly, Ethiopia encountered with huge physical health and education problems such as diseases and uneducated. These are the results that show the Ethiopian incompetence to afford enough social facilities for their population. Also, Ethiopia has a conflict with Eritrea about borderland, and this problem will impact on the economy and cost a lot of budgets for military. Furthermore, many people will be killed during the conflict. All these problems illustrate that Ethiopia will easily collapse if they did not try to solve specifically.

In order to make a country collapse, the country has to have many problems in their

country not only one or two, and the problems are national issues which are difficult to solve.
Studying the country that is risk to collapse make me know that most of the problems are all related together, and we have to solve the main problem to stop other problems. From doing this term paper, I have learned that it is impossible to solve problems by only one person or organization. Nevertheless, everyone should cooperate and be part of it. It may be slow to solve because it is major national issues, but in long­term the problems will be solved.

References

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