Ethiopia

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Report
Dam and Sugar Plantations Yield Starvation and Death in Ethiopia's Lower Omo Valley
The report sounds the alarm on the severe humanitarian crisis faced by Indigenous tribes in Ethiopia's Lower Omo Valley and urges government and aid agencies to provide relief assistance.
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Report
Menace sur les eaux africaines : comment l’expansion de l’agriculture industrielle assèche l’Afrique
Alors que la crise climatique menace l'accès à l'eau pour des millions d'Africains, Drying Out African Lands: Expansion of Large-Scale Agriculture Threatens Access to Water in Africa dévoile l'impact dévastateur des grandes plantations agricoles sur le droit à l'eau sur le continent. Depuis la crise alimentaire de 2007-2008, l'Afrique est la première destination des investisseurs internationaux pour les grands projets agricoles. Les gouvernements justifient l’offre des terres et de l'eau aux investisseurs par les besoins de développement et de sécurité alimentaire.
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Drying Out African Lands
Expansion of Large-Scale Agriculture Threatens Access to Water in Africa
As the escalating climate crisis threatens access to water for millions across Africa, Drying Out African Lands: Expansion of Large-Scale Agriculture Threatens Access to Water in Africa unveils the devastating impact of large-scale agricultural plantations on the right to water on the continent. Since the 2007-2008 food crisis, Africa has been the primary destination of private international investors for large-scale agriculture schemes. Governments justify granting access to land and water to investors to meet the needs of development and food security.
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Featured Report
How They Tricked Us
Living with the Gibe III Dam and Sugarcane Plantations in Southwest Ethiopia
Ethiopia’s Lower Omo Valley is home to numerous Indigenous groups, predominantly pastoralists, hunter gatherers, and flood-retreat cultivators. Their livelihoods, culture, and identity are intimately linked with the plains and snaking Omo River, relying significantly on the river’s annual flood for the cultivation of crops and grazing of cattle. But for the past 13 years, these groups have come under threat as the Ethiopian government has pushed forward with its plans to “transform” the region., Footnotes View all CloseMuchira, N.
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How They Tricked Us
Living with the Gibe III Dam and Sugarcane Plantations in Southwest Ethiopia
How They Tricked Us: Living with the Gibe III Dam and Sugarcane Plantations in Southwest Ethiopia, reveals the dire situation faced by the Indigenous in Ethiopia's Lower Omo Valley and calls for urgent action by the government. For years, the Oakland Institute has raised alarm about the threats that the Gibe III Dam and sugarcane plantations pose to the local population in the region. Now, several years on, new field research reveals the true impact on the Indigenous communities, who have called the area home for centuries.
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Miracle or Mirage?
Manufacturing Hunger and Poverty in Ethiopia
As months of protest and civil unrest hurl Ethiopia into a severe political crisis, a new report from the Oakland Institute debunks the myth that the country is the new “African Lion.” Miracle or Mirage? Manufacturing Hunger and Poverty in Ethiopia exposes how authoritarian development schemes have perpetuated cycles of poverty, food insecurity, and marginalized the country’s most vulnerable citizens. A key government objective is to make Ethiopia one of the largest sugar producers in the world.
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Moral Bankruptcy
World Bank Reinvents Tainted Aid Program for Ethiopia
Moral Bankruptcy: World Bank Reinvents Tainted Aid Program for Ethiopia exposes the shameful reinvention of one of the Bank’s most problematic programs in Ethiopia. The report also reveals that the US Treasury violated congressional law when voting in favor of this program.
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Ethiopia's Anti-Terrorism Law
A Tool to Stifle Dissent
Ethiopia's Anti-Terrorism Law: A Tool to Stifle Dissent, authored by lawyers from leading international law firms, provides an in-depth and damning analysis of Ethiopia’s Anti-Terrorism Proclamation. The report examines how the law, enacted in 2009, is a tool of repression, designed and used by the Ethiopian Government to silence its critics.
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Protection de la biodiversité et des agro-systèmes traditionnels en Éthiopie
Dans les Hauts-plateaux de Gamo, au Sud de l’Ethiopie, l’agriculture traditionnelle basée sur l’ensète est pratiquée depuis des siècles, permettant aux agriculteurs de faire face aux variations de leur environnement et rendant la région exceptionnellement résistante à l’insécurité alimentaire. Enraciné dans la biodiversité, l’agro-système traditionnel des Hauts-plateaux de Gamo est un modèle de durabilité et de résilience.
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Sweet Potato to Fight Vitamin A Deficiency and Reduce Malnutrition
Location: Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia Orange-fleshed sweet potato varieties are poorly disseminated in Africa, but several important research-based initiatives are producing the crop and encouraging consumption to reduce undernourishment, especially Vitamin A Deficiency.
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Low External Inputs Technologies and Biodiversity in Ethiopia
Location: Tigray, Ethiopia A low external input approach has been successfully promoted in Tigray to improve local food security, restore soil fertility and reduce reliance on chemical fertilizer inputs. Farmers, researchers, and agricultural experts worked together to devise a system based on local inputs,biological diversity, and ecosystem services; this collaboration restored communities’ control and effective management of natural resources.
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Protecting Biodiversity and Traditional Agro-systems in Ethiopia
Location: Gamo Highlands, Southern Ethiopia In the Gamo Highlands, traditional enset-based agriculture has been practiced for centuries, allowing farmers to cope with variable environments and making the region uniquely resistant to food insecurity. Rooted in biodiversity, Gamo Highlands’ traditional agro-system is a model of sustainability and resilience.

Our Take

Our Take
Development Gone Wrong
“I am not afraid of being arrested. I am afraid of being tortured.” These words from Pastor Omot Agwa, an Anuak land rights defender, are a poignant reminder of “development” gone wrong in Ethiopia. The agricultural sector, seen as the driver for development by the Ethiopian government, has been used to lure foreign investments for agribusiness ventures — large industrial plantations as those set up by Saudi Star and Karuturi in Gambella, Ethiopia. The local indigenous communities bear the cost.
Our Take
The Release of Ethiopian Political Prisoners: Stifled Voices amidst False Promises
For years, the Ethiopian government has denied that there are political prisoners in the country. This is despite its consistent use of the draconian Anti-Terrorism Proclamation to stifle dissent and detain thousands of politicians, journalists, religious and indigenous leaders, and students.
Our Take
Ethiopia Silences the United States on Human Rights Abuses
In July 2017, when a House Resolution on human rights and democracy in Ethiopia (H. Res. 128) was heard in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, support for the bill was resounding. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) called the Ethiopian government a “corrupt regime” and “a dictatorship that knows no bounds.” Committee Chair Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA) warned that the Ethiopian government must “take tangible steps to ensure opposition voices are protected, are respected, and are welcomed.” “The U.S. Capitol Building - Washington DC.” Credit: www.GlynLowe.com. Image overlaid with text, modified background.
Our Take
A Fire under Ashes: The Ongoing Struggle for Human Rights in Ethiopia
As massive protests swept across Ethiopia last year, the dire human rights situation in the country made headlines around the world. The Financial Times described it as Ethiopia’s “Tiananmen Square moment,” and then-US Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Tom Malinowski called the government’s crackdowns on dissent “self-defeating tactics.” A poster of Olympic silver medallist Feyisa Lilesa at a protest in Oakland, California. Making the crossed arm gesture is now a criminal offense under Ethiopia’s state of emergency. Credit: Elizabeth Fraser.

Press Releases & Public Statements

Sugar plantations next to the Omo River
Press Release
"Development" Projects Yield Starvation and Death in Ethiopia’s Lower Omo Valley
New field research reveals a severe humanitarian crisis unfolding in Ethiopia's Lower Omo Valley. Local Indigenous tribes face disease and acute hunger, resulting in starvation deaths.
Menace sur les eaux africaines rapport graphique
Press Release
Un nouveau rapport révèle la menace que font poser les grandes plantations agricoles sur l'accès à l'eau en Afrique
---POUR DIFFUSION IMMÉDIATE--- 15 mars 2022, 6:00 AM PT Contact médias :Anuradha Mittal, [email protected] +1 510-469-5228 Leonard Shang-Quartey, [email protected]; +233 242303423/+221 707634061 Un nouveau rapport expose l'impact dévastateur des grandes plantations agricoles sur l'accès à l'eau, aux moyens de subsistance et à la sécurité alimentaire en Afrique.
Soldiers in Kibish, 2012. Credit: The Oakland Institute
Press Release
Massacres in Lower Omo, Ethiopia, Call for Urgent Action by the Nobel Laureate PM Abiy Ahmed
---FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--- October 30, 2019 Media Contact:Anuradha Mittal [email protected] +1(510)469-5228 Oakland, CA—In the past few weeks, we have received information that Ethiopian security forces have undertaken major operations to disarm two local tribes in Lower Omo Valley — the Mursi and the Bodi — because of incidents related to the sugarcane plantations. The disarmament operation has led to indiscriminate killings of civilians, mass detentions as well as horrific abuses including rapes, beatings, and various forms of humiliation by security forces.
Kara parent and child sitting along the bank of the Omo River. Copyright: Kelly Fogel
Press Release
The Guardian Reviews the Oakland Institute’s Findings: Indigenous Face Devastation in Ethiopia’s Lower Omo Valley
---FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE--- June 18, 2019 Contact:Anuradha Mittal [email protected] +1-510-469-5228 Oakland, CA — The Guardian has reviewed and confirmed the findings of the Institute’s latest report How They Tricked Us, which exposes the devastation of the Gibe III Dam and associated sugarcane plantations on Indigenous communities in Ethiopia’s Lower Omo Valley. How They Tricked Us: Living with the Gibe III Dam and Sugarcane Plantations in Southwest Ethiopia details how local communities have lost essential farmland and grazing land as a result of these projects.

News Articles

African Arguments
“After the dam, nothing is good”: How Ethiopia’s mega project devastated centuries of survival strategies
Over thousands of seasons across hundreds of years, eight distinct peoples honed their strategies for surviving in the Lower Omo Valley. The dry and often unforgiving conditions in this semi-arid region of southwest Ethiopia would be inhospitable for most, but these groups learnt to adapt to unpredictable rainfall and the ebbs and flows of the Omo River.
Mongabay
Dams and Plantations Upend Livelihoods in Ethiopia’s Lower Omo River Valley
Food insecurity, famine and malnutrition have blighted the agropastoralist communities of the Lower Omo River Valley in southwestern Ethiopia. Researchers and human rights advocates say the drought has only exacerbated fundamental changes to the cultures of these peoples brought on by the construction of a dam and the establishment of sugarcane plantations in the region.
Mongabay
‘Development’ Projects in Ethiopia Leave Starvation, Disease in Wake: Report
By John Cannon Indigenous groups in southwestern Ethiopia are suffering from starvation and disease after being displaced from their land for construction of a dam and the installation of large-scale sugarcane plantations, according to a report from the Oakland Institute, a California-based think tank.
Geeska Afrika Online
Ethiopia: The Regional Upheavals Caused by Chinese Investments
Djibouti (HAN) October 25, 2020 – Regional Investment projects and financial initiatives.