Ethiopia Famine: 40th Anniversary

Baroness Anelay of St Johns Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on securing this debate at such a critical time for the security of the peoples not only in Ethiopia but across the whole region. There are high levels of humanitarian need across many parts of Ethiopia, as has been described. It is driven by climate changes, conflict, disease outbreaks and high inflation. The debate is also timely, since the noble Lord, Lord Collins, has only just returned from his diplomatic visit to Ethiopia.

I thank the Minister for his helpful response to my Question for Written Answer on the humanitarian situation in Ethiopia. I admit that I tabled it only just after he had been appointed as a Minister, so it was rather a testing time but he responded with a very full and helpful Answer, for which I am grateful. He referred to the pledging conference in Geneva in April this year, which was co-led by the UK, Ethiopia and the UN. The conference helped to increase humanitarian funding by pledging almost $630 million, including $253 million from the US and $125 million from the UK. What is the Government’s expectation of the period of time over which those countries—not just the US and UK, but others that pledged—will contribute their pledges in full?

The Minister also referred to the provision of UK support to the Government of Ethiopia’s productive safety net programme. That is welcome and should strengthen food security and resilience for the 8 million people living in extreme poverty in Ethiopia. However, is he confident that this will be fairly distributed among the different and sometimes conflict-affected regions of Ethiopia? The noble Lord, Lord Browne, referred to the conditions in some parts of the country but, indeed, all regions are at times affected by conflict.

I note that one of the commitments made by the Ethiopian Government in Geneva was to facilitate unimpeded and sustained access for humanitarian organisations to reach affected populations throughout the country, including conflict-affected regions, and to ensure the safety and security of humanitarian personnel and assets. We have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Browne, about what has been happening. Can the Minister therefore give an assurance that the UK Government will focus pressure on the warring parties in conflict zones to adhere to international humanitarian law to allow access to food supplies?

The noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, referred to the disastrous 1984 famine; I think all of us here are of a generation that can remember that. It meant, however, that huge progress was made around the world to tackle malnutrition and hunger, not only in Ethiopia but elsewhere. Ethiopia did indeed make remarkable progress after that famine. I had the opportunity to see some of the consequences of that progress when I went on a British Group IPU scoping visit to Ethiopia in February 2019. I went with just the noble Baroness, Lady Barker—I say “just”, but no one could say “just” about the noble Baroness, who is a force to be reckoned with; she is sadly not here today, but that is not her fault—and my then honourable friend in another place, Pauline Latham.

At that time Ethiopia was undergoing a profound political transition, set alongside economic and social transformation. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed had been in office for nearly a year and had set a fast pace of reform. He declared the end of the conflict with Eritrea; appointed women to 50% of his Cabinet posts; appointed the first ever female President; and appointed a Tigrayan woman as Speaker of the House of Federation, with whom we had a very friendly and, I would say, very feisty meeting.

We saw construction under way of a high-tech business park and of a factory for the production of Ethiopian textiles and garments. The latter was expected to give employment particularly for women, who were experiencing high levels of violence and neglect and lacked the opportunity to get legal, regular employment. Our delegation left Ethiopia with hope that there could be a positive future. Later that same year, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Fast forward one year to November 2020, and the same Prime Minister declared a state of emergency in the Tigray region and Ethiopia endured two years of conflict, resulting in the deaths of thousands and the internal displacement of millions of people.

At this stage, we still hoped there might be a way of finding peace and progress. In November 2022, an agreement on a permanent cessation of hostilities was signed by the Ethiopian Government and the Tigrayan forces. However, the World Food Programme has reported that, despite agreement in the Tigray region, intense armed conflict had erupted elsewhere. Conflict combined with projections of severe drought conditions mean that over 8 million people are expected to be at risk of food insecurity this year. The expert briefing from the organisation United Against Malnutrition and Hunger, to which the noble Baroness has rightly referred, points out that some of the progress achieved over the previous two decades had been reversed by the recent two years of conflict but also by governance challenges, disease outbreaks—including malaria, cholera and measles— and natural disasters. By August this year, an estimated 16 million people needed food assistance and approximately 4.7 million children and women required immediate nutrition assistance.

While the Minister was in Addis, I note that he was able to have a meeting with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, which the Minister’s tweet—I follow him on Twitter, obviously—reported was:

“A constructive first meeting to discuss strengthening cooperation on shared priorities: promoting economic growth; bolstering global security; conflict prevention; reducing humanitarian need”.


I was rather concerned that conflict resolution was not in that list. Was it discussed and, if so, what were the consequences?

It is encouraging that the Minister took so much of his time this summer to pay attention, as Minister for Africa, to the very areas that crucially need that attention. I know it has been well received in the countries he visited, but it also means he is able to give us a much more up-to-date report today than we would otherwise be able to get. I look forward to hearing his views on how he sees the future for that region and particularly the future for our relationship with Ethiopia.