Comments:UN: 4.8 million Ethiopians in need of food aid

You Know what I find strange? The fact that they have to continue to export most of thier food to pay off debt incurred when the World bank ( or one of those orginizations) Gave thm a "loan". 164.116.47.179 (talk) 15:46, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Two things: Much of what is exported from Ethiopia is Coffee, not food. That is one of the primary sources of money for Ethiopia, and without that, the country would fall to tatters. Secondly, Ethiopia has a population of 80 million. Only 5 million of them need food aid. That's not bad for a very poor country. Ethiopia could be doing much better with proper management (especially given its vast water supplies, but near total lack of irrigation), but it's not doing that bad, all things considered. Gopher65talk 16:49, 11 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Which sort of brings us to the crux of the situation - is aid going to improve them from "not doing that bad" to "doing good"? The discussions involving the pros and cons of aid of any form inevitably break down to discussions of the value of life and so on, but the issue of hunger in Ethiopia is hardly new - one can trace at least 30 years of concentrated aid efforts dating back to the massive famines of the 1980s, and statistically, there has been little change since then. Immediate food aid feels very much like putting a band-aid on a wound that's already infected - it might ameliorate problems in the immediate area, but the infection is eventually going to kill the whole body. Real solutions need to create long-term change - taking advantage of the aforementioned water supply would be a very good start, as would improvement of farming technology. Unfortunately, until Ethiopia and its neighboring countries can assume a semblance of government that doesn't threaten positive investment in its future, the 5 million starving Ethiopians are likely to continue to periodically go hungry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.3.63.153 (talk) 04:41, 12 December 2009 (UTC)