Ethiopia (Hansard, 19 January 2004)

§ Mr. Bercow
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if he will make a statement on Ethiopia's debt burden. [147339]

§ Hilary Benn
Ethiopia qualified for debt relief under the Enhanced HIPC Initiative in November 2001 when it reached decision point—the first stage of the HIPC process. This means Ethiopia no longer has to service around $1.9 billion of debt. These debts will be formally written off when Ethiopia reaches its completion point as expected in the first half of 2004.
Ethiopia owes the UK £15.4 million but is already receiving full debt relief on this under the UK Government's bilateral policy. This provides 100 per cent. relief on debt service payments starting from decision point and formally writes off the entire debt after completion point.

§ Mr. Bercow
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development if he will make a statement on the joint departmental scoping mission scheduled for April 2004 to consider reform of Ethiopia's security sector. [147340]

§ Hilary Benn
The joint departmental scoping mission for Security Sector Reform (SSR) comprising representatives of MOD, FCO and DFID visited Ethiopia in April 2003 in response to requests from the Government of Ethiopia. The mission recommended a phased engagement by HMG that would help make all parts of the security sector more accountable to the people of Ethiopia. Initial activities to strengthen bodies responsible for oversight and planning are about to begin.
We welcome the Government's recognition that reform of the security sector will enhance its capacity to fulfil constitutional obligations in respect of human rights.

§ Mr. Bercow
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development how financial support from his Department to Ethiopia has been tailored to tackle932W the increase in global acute malnutrition that has occurred in some of the drought affected areas of Ethiopia. [147346]

§ Hilary Benn
Since the start of 2002 we have committed over £50 million of humanitarian aid to Ethiopia making us one of the largest donors of emergency assistance. This has been channelled through UN agencies, the Ethiopian Government and non-government organisations (NGOs).
A mix of interventions successfully helped to address global acute malnutrition (GAM) and severe acute malnutrition (SAM) in the drought-affected parts of the country. For example, we targeted localities suffering high levels of malnutrition with supplementary and therapeutic feeding through NGOs and UNICEF. This helped bring GAM levels in the most affected areas down to about 7 per cent. to 8 per cent. from over 20 per cent. at the peak of the crisis.
Some pockets of malnutrition remain in 2004 largely as a consequence of poor targeting and delivery capacity. We are providing support to UNICEF for building capacity of the emergency system and will continue to play our part as and when further needs arise.

§ Mr. Bercow
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what recent assessment he has made of the level of ethnic violence in Ethiopia. [147392]

§ Hilary Benn
There is still a high level of ethnic violence in Ethiopia. Ethnicity is the basis of most of the major political parties, including the ruling party. Many ethnic groups are politically and economically excluded.
Ethnic tension has led to fighting in Gambella (West Ethiopia) in December 2003. Up to 150 people may have died.
New legislation passed in 2003 will allow Federal Government to intervene in cases of human rights violations at Regional level and below. This indicates a growing willingness by Federal Government to accept ultimate responsibility for human rights violations at Regional or local level.
We take human rights very seriously and will continue to promote improvements through high level political dialogue, budget support indicators and support to security sector reform.