Journalistic 2-Mainstream

Ethiopia’s Food Aid Addiction (BBC.com, February 2, 2006)

Summary: BBC correspondent, Peter Greste, takes an in-depth look at Ehtiopia’s dependence on foreign food aid and the ways in which it disrupts their country’s economy and hampers their chances of becoming financially independent.

Topic: Should the state department of the Obama Administration double foreign aid for Africa?
Category: Mainstream Journalism
What is it? News article from the BBC

Title: Ethiopia’s Food Aid Addiction
Publication Information: BBCNews.com, February 2, 2006
Author: Peter Greste, BBC East Africa Correspondent
Location: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4671690.stm
Accessed: February 13, 2009

Support:
• Dessalegn Rahmato, economist for the Forum for Social Studies in Ethiopia’s capital
• Woldu Menameno, Ethiopian farmer
• Addisu Legesse, Deputy Prime Minister of Ethiopia
• Anonymous senior official of USAID
• Dr Assefa Admassie, Director of the Ethiopian Economic Association
Rahmato is quoted as stating information about droughts in Ehtiopia and how they are a fact of life that the Ethiopian economy should be able to handle by now but they still can’t. Woldu Menameno comments on how dependence on food aid made the Ethiopian people lazy and instead of participating in movements to become independent, they would just sit in their houses dreaming of how to get more. Legesse admits that the huge amounts of grain they import from abroad throws off their economic cycle. An anonymous USAID official is quoted off the record as having said that, though USAID knows food aid has a negative impact, they can’t reform their practices without congressional approval, something congress is not willing to partake in. Dr. Admassie comments on the psychological impact of food aid.

Audience and Agenda: BBC.com reaches more than 35.5 million unique users each month in North America and Europe alone. They are an independently run news corporation that is primarily funded by advertising dollars. They pride themselves on impartial and honest reporting. They have a massive audience so they must favor unbiased reports and medial politics.

Usefulness: This report uses a lot of reliable first-hand sources and governmental officials within Ethiopia, who all comment on how foreign food aid is not helping them in the long run, but hurting them. It’s addressing a global audience of those who believe that foreign aid is the best way for the West to assist struggling African nations. It argues that foreign aid does nothing more than put a band-aid on a problem that warrants 46 stitches. It focuses solely on Ethiopia, so it’s leaving out all the other struggling nations and their individual problems that are different from those of Ethiopia. This source is comparable to a scaled down version of this Kenyan case study from the Brookings Institute. Both focus on specific regions within Africa and comment on their ability (or lack thereof) to cope with the amount of foreign aid they are receiving. This article would argue that doubling foreign aid for Africa with this current system could very well do more harm than good, if African nations can’t handle the influx of what they’re given.

Works Cited:
BBC about page and advertising information
Peter Greste’s journalisted.com profile