If you have read the 1993 National Population Policy,
produced by the Prime Minister's Office, a comparison
with present day Ethiopia reveals an impressive
implementation of the activities called for exactly 13
years ago. This document called for promoting
contraceptive use, expanding family planning services,
improving population data collection and analysis,
integrating family-related topics in education,
raising the status of women in society and in the
education system, slowing urban migration, and much
more.
Most of the activities called for in the National
Population Policy have been implemented to some degree
or other; all in an impressive attempt to influence a
reduction of population growth and the harmful effects
it can have on livelihoods and the distribution of
benefits from economic growth.
Yet, still today, Ethiopian women have an average of
six children. At this rate the country gains two
million people every year and the UN estimates that
Ethiopia will go from approximately 80 million today
to 183 million in 2050.
As has happened in virtually every country on earth,
Ethiopia is living through a demographic transition, a
period of imbalance between birth and mortality rates.
From a state of high and balanced birth and mortality
rates, the country has managed to significantly reduce
its mortality rate. Until the birth rate falls to
mirror the mortality rate, the population will
continue to rise.
This phenomenon is taught in school rooms around the
world and has had a tremendous impact on human
development the world over. It relates to resource
utilisation, to the provision of services, to
available labour, to market pricing and directly to
every aspect of civil governance. But conditions are
different in every country, the length and impact of
this transition can vary greatly.
Social values change with time, and never more quickly
than with a new generation. Used loosely, the term
'generation' could be defined as an age group with
similar characteristics. Considering the changes in
modern Ethiopia , it would be legitimate to consider
the children born since the fall of the Derg as a
generation. These children have had better access to
education, have grown up in a relatively free society,
been exposed to foreign media and values and are faced
with an entirely different set of rules than were
their parents.
With hindsight, demographers and historians alike have
linked the major shifts in human development to the
characteristics of specific generations. They will
eventually do the same with Ethiopia , and probably
with the whole of Africa , concerning the present
demographic transition. The pressures of demography
are wholly unavoidable; they come slowly but surely to
transform societies. Resisting this transformation is
not nearly as important as adapting to it.
This is Ethiopia 's first widely - though not
uniformly - educated generation. It is also its
biggest ever. The children growing up now have
different views of women's rights and of the role of
government, they have different aspirations and access
to different resources, they have also been taught
about democracy and about professional development. If
the entire estimated 47pc of the population that is
under 15 years of age reaches adulthood, their values
will overtake those of their elders.
Whether Ethiopians realise it or not their society
will change irreversibly in the next 20 to 30 years.
The question is to know how the change will manifest
itself. The prospect of a larger and more educated
population without the opportunities they feel they
deserve is daunting. In the worst of cases, these are
the ingredients for a revolution. Ethiopia has seen
this happen before.
Ethiopia is not as solid as it may appear at first
glance. The government has tenuous popular support,
too much of the economy is artificially inflated by
public spending, millions still risk famine and
malnutrition every year, conflicts threaten on its
borders, environmental degradation is rampant and
public discourse is restricted. Considering the power
of demography and of changing generational
aspirations, certain combinations of circumstantial
developments are more worrisome than others.
Excluding worst case scenarios, the arrival of a new
Ethiopian generation will nonetheless bring with it
new demands. A new generation, with new values and the
power of numbers, can influence their country simply
by making daily decisions. If they prefer certain
fashions, certain music, certain types of products,
then markets will strive to appeal to those choices.
This is true even for the very poor. As they reach
voting age, the people of this generation will vote
with their new values and ideals.
Most famously, the West's "baby-boom", following the
Second World War, transformed every aspect of life in
the countries that experienced it. The governments of
those countries were forced to adapt to the priorities
of the baby-boom generation.
Ethiopia's population policy is a vital instrument
helping to slow the population growth in this country,
but it is not intended to stop the arrival of a new
generation. More significantly, the determination of
this government to achieve Millennium Development
Goals (MDG) such as universal education are helping to
guaranty that the next generation will be more active
than any before it.
Knowing all this, the government is forced to
recognise that its position in power will be tested by
the growing demands of an evolving society. Will they
risk collapse by resisting the winds of change with
rigid bureaucratic reservation, or will they allow it
to flow through rewardingly with the opening of
reforms?
By Nicolas Moyer
The writer can be reached at
myopinion.fortune@gmail.com
