The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) joins the African Union (AU) and countries across Africa to celebrate the Africa Day of School Feeding on 01 March 2020, taking the occasion to underscore that investments in human capital through school health and nutrition programmes can garner huge pay-offs that extend far beyond the schoolyard.
“Investing in the next generation is an investment in our common future. We see how school feeding programmes are changing the lives of millions of people across Africa and the world – especially girls – and unlocking their potential,” said David Beasley, WFP’s Executive Director.
Across Africa, more and more countries have made school feeding a national priority, and over 30 million children now benefit from school feeding programmes across the continent. Ghana, Malawi, Kenya and Zimbabwe all feed over one million children, while South Africa and Nigeria each feed more than nine million children every day of the school year. In West Africa alone, governments are investing US$ 500 million a year on school feeding.
Ethiopia’s school feeding programme is implemented by the Ministry of Education and its regional bureaus and operates in six regions: Afar, Amhara, Oromia, SNNPR, Somalia and Tigray. WFP assists the Government, increasing access and equity for primary school children by alleviating short-term hunger and increasing attentiveness through daily school meals; increasing farmer incomes and marketing opportunities through local procurement and processing; and capacity strengthening.
Well-fed schoolchildren are key to fuelling economic growth
Exhibition on migration opens tomorrow
A new solo exhibition is to be opened at the Alliance Ethio-Francis on March 9, 2020. The exhibition is hosted by Tewodrose Hagos, which show cases the current issue of migration depicting a human tragedy.
The exhibition will be opened on Monday 6pm displaying paintings expressing the never ending situation of migration that is becoming crises of humanity, risk thousand lives of migrants from Africa and Asia on the desperate journey.
“The first inspiration happened when I saw the shocking news about the body of a Syrian boy found lying face-down on a beach near a resort in Greece. From that moment on, I couldn’t stop thinking about this “Desperate journey. Then I started to research further about this issue.” Tewodros added “for how much longer should we watch this human tragedy? Are we trying enough to change this problem from its root? Or are we just getting used to it? What is going on behind all these atrocities?”
The exhibition tries to embed those questions. The exhibition aims to reexamine this never ending situation that is becoming acceptable and wishes to challenge the viewers to raise their concern and act upon it in their own way.
Tewodros Hagos was born in 1974 in Addis Ababa. He has managed to establish a distinct style in portraiture in Ethiopian painters of his generation. His work has been presented at numerous solo exhibitions in Addis Ababa, as well as in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and USA.
Building Baby Dams to Save the Mother Dam: Ethiopia’s Option
By Queen of Sheba
An air of threat and war-mongering against Ethiopia is blowing through the deserts of the Egypt Arab Republic to impose colonial-era agreements on the country in total disregard to a fair and equitable share of the Abay River, which is commonly known as the Blue Nile. Ethiopia, which was never colonized and not party to these agreements, has been openly threatened and explicitly sabotaged by successive governments of the Egypt Arab Republic since time immemorial from harnessing its God-given rights to its water bodies without causing harm to downstream countries. This latest threat is not the first, nor it may be the last.
Anticipated role of South Africa
The head of state of the Egypt Arab Republic just stepped down as the President of the African Union who was supposed to have played a key role in finding an “African solution to an African problem”. And yet, selfishly, deceptively and indecorously insisted on a third party, non-African “mediators” to intervene, in utter contravention of the Cooperative Framework Agreement that the countries have officially agreed in 2015.
The Egypt Arab Republic have shamefully disavowed its continental commitment and responsibility to observe, serve and carry out the key principle of the African Union which embraces “African solution to an African problem” in advancing security, peace and self-confidence of the continent. In fact, it has selfishly insisted on the inequitable colonial era agreements which Ethiopia, the country which contributes more than 85 percent of the water, was arrogantly ignored by the signing parties at the time.
In a blatantly unfair manner that tramples on its sovereignty, the partisan observers, who turned into self-declared facilitators and enforcers, left Ethiopia with a little wiggle room for continuing in the engagement. One would hope that the new Presidency of the African Union, now occupied by South Africa–with a fresh history and first-hand account of such forms of injustices–would play a positive role.
“Hurling some missiles”
This as it may, the Egypt Arab Republic may be feverishly planning to wage an open and blatant war on Ethiopia to recklessly destroy the nearly 70 percent completed Renaissance Dam. Ethiopia may appear a light-weight against the Arab Republic’s ostensible military superiority, thanks to external support. Well, it may be important to note that the Arab Republic also has a massive Aswan Dam—and lives in a glass house. Oh yes, Aswan was built without any consultation with Ethiopia—the mother of Abay!
Needless to say, Ethiopians take immense national pride in building the Dam and thus are hugely eager to its successful completion; and the fallout from this ill-advised and willful threat may be too costly to contemplate, and way too enduring for generations, for sure.
As Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia tacitly conjectured a while back, the Arab Republic may be tempted to “hurl some missiles” possibly on the Dam or vital institutional and infrastructure networks. Yes, Ethiopia may not have the capacity to directly and proportionately respond to this not-so-improbable aggression, but the fortunes of Ethiopians are not as dead-ended as one may wish to think.
Ungrateful nation
Ethiopia possesses an enormous arsenal of endless, terrestrial, virtually “free” and indestructible, but supremely powerful natural missiles which furiously cascade down from the breath-taking Ethiopian highlands, mountains, valleys and gorges. They have continued to empower the mighty “Nile of Egypt” in the form of hundreds of thousands of streams, rivers and tributaries—since time immemorial.
These very natural resources have continued to nourish the thankless nation which has consumed and thrived on the water—without gratitude, let alone, compensation. Regrettably, the Arab Republic has covertly and openly conspired to systematically and strategically weaken and divide Ethiopia—for centuries so that the river flows without any use by its natural owner.
Ethiopia may find it appropriate to refuse to play by the uncharitable, if not uncivilized, warfare book which preaches an eye-for-an-eye should the war between two countries broke out. In reaction to the ever-belligerent position of the Arab Republic, Ethiopia could initiate a sustained campaign to utilize all its waterbodies making up the “Mighty Nile” in a determined, if not retaliatory, manner. An official reaction to resort to such a “passive” national campaign—in retaliation for the aggression—is easy to contemplate given the unflinching national resolve and popular support to build the Dam—oh, yes, on its own.
Building baby dams
Ethiopia may need to consider that the effort to build the Renaissance Dam, the “Mother of All Dams”, is pursued along with building a thousand “baby dams” (BBDs) in the emerging country as a renewed strategy for its development. Ethiopia may have to actively and strategically, formally and informally, officially and unofficially, implicitly and explicitly engage in BBDs in the entire catchment area of Abay, which stretches several hundreds of miles within the country, should the Arab Republic dare attack it.
While Ethiopia has to defend itself resolutely, it may need to refuse to send its natural missiles, by instead building thousands of small-scale, off-the radar “baby dams” at every hamlet conceivable in retaliation for the Arab Republic’s man-made missiles. It should be that BBDs need not be sanctioned by a government or external funding entity but simply built, managed, filled and operated by “poor and illiterate” peasants of Ethiopia—the very victims of the Arab Republic’s explicit and hidden hands of conspiracy and destabilization. Oh, yes, it may be a slightly onerous task for the Arab Republic to hunt down every Ethiopian peasant involved in BBDs.
To be sure, a BBD may be any form of water-containment effort, regardless of size or volume, directed at the country’s development from tourism to agro-industry supported by public and private investments and systematically advanced through a strategic national policy.
A futile attempt?
One may be tempted to call the Egypt Arab Republic to mobilize its citizens to join forces in supporting Ethiopia’s Green Campaign which has an enormous direct benefit to its own insatiable appetite to water as a win-win situation. It would also be an opportune time for the Egypt Arab Republic to reset the diplomatic clock by desisting from threats and sabotages. Alas, this may appear naïve, if not foolish, given the Republic’s well-recorded, enduring and regrettable history of conspiracy to keep Ethiopia weak, divided and under-developed.
In simple terms, a thriving, developed and strong Ethiopia, regardless of the outcome of the current Dam impasse, is not simply palatable to the Egypt Arab Republic. For that matter, one may extend this observation to the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, especially those in the respective riparian region with a potential to use their God-given water resources effectively.
It is an outrage—and an insult—to all Africans and African-descendants around the world who bravely defeated colonialism—to witness its ugly head rearing in the Egypt Arab Republic as it dangerously strives to impose it on Ethiopia—and it neighbors.
The writer can be reached at QueenOfSheba2020@outlook.com
Women’s Day Thoughts
“The only country I have is my sense and my senses.” Hiwot Adilow from the poem “no preponderance”.
March 8th is Woman’s Day and this year’s theme is “I Am Generation Equality: Realizing Women’s Rights”, marking the 25th Anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. As celebrations take place world wide, tech giant, Apple, chimes in with over 5,000 hours of female-focused sessions of “She Creates” branded sessions highlighting leaders, artists, entrepreneurs and creators. Music is naturally a main feature with artists including Alicia Keys however the new Art Lab, “Playful Portraits” will draw inspiration from visual artists including African American Jade Purple Brown. The New York based graphic artist will transforms everyday photos into art using patterns, stickers and colors using third party Procreate App on iPad Pro. Jade has become a force to contend with in the art scene using her graphic design, illustration and art direction to create content for fashion, beauty and lifestyle brands.
Back home in Addis, yours truly is in the process of curating an exhibition for the USA Mission to the African Union, opening at the end of the month, featuring the art of over 30 works from female African artists hailing from the five regions of the continent and the USA. A majority of the exhibition will be comprised of a collection of works recently shown in Zimbabwe entitled On Balance –curated by Nigerian artist, Numero Unoma Giese. Her vision and realization of a show comprised exclusively of African woman from all 55 countries is a truly remarkable accomplishment and I can’t wait to share a portion of On Balance with Addis Abeba art lovers. However you’ll have to wait for more information on this unique event and incredible curator, Unoma, who’s been coming to Addis for many years by the way.
On Thursday the Alliance Ethio-Francaise hosted an art talk on the occasion of the closing of Left Hand, a solo exhibition by Prince Merid Tafesse. One of the topics that came up in the frank and fruitful panel discussion with the artist and Alliance Director, Christian Merer, which I had to the honor to moderate, was “where are the women?” Though most seats were filled with males, the handful of women did not shy away from expressing themselves on topics such as the direction of the art industry and role of artists and all stakeholders. To sum up, Prince Merid shared his hope in fellow artists and their resourcefulness in creating solutions to space for exhibits and staying true to their calling, amongst other subjects. While Christian expressed the need for round table discussions and special events, bringing all those vested in art and culture together from government, private sector, embassies and academia etc. to plan and implement attainable and practical initiatives. He went on to share the recent launch of a virtual exhibition which features 30 years of Ethiopian artists who have exhibited at the Alliance, an effort to connect artists with art lovers and collectors worldwide. And while females are scarce on the site, the more that women are encouraged to pursue their passion in art and exhibit widely, the more enriched society will become through their narratives. That said, Isabelle Boavida, Portugal’s Cultural Attache,’ lecturer, curator and so much more also expressed her desire to see more women in visual art, art journalism and others aspects of the industry. She noted the increase of female Ethiopian artists over the past decade however the need for more is undeniable. It is interesting, if not ironic, that most of the art spaces in Addis are founded or owned by women including St. George, Asni, Lela, Zoma and Addis Fine Art. So we are making strides, well maybe baby steps, all things considered, but we did agree on an upcoming forum to further deliberate and take action to develop this multi-million dollar industry that can transform lives and livelihoods in Ethiopia.
I close with Hiwot Adilow, a Philadelphia based Ethiopian-American poet who was one of the 2018 Brunel International African poetry prize recipients and one to watch. Her emotive words are filled with her unapologetic truth, stirring the souls of her readers and moving publishers to include her work in several major anthologies. Her poem, “no preponderance,” expresses thoughts that many grapple with in the current changing social and political landscape.
no preponderance
I’m drawing back from invocation now.
I’m leaning in, to the myth/the heresy/the hearsay.
what was it? whatever. what peeled me from the stage
and had me gnashing the walls.
My tongue drips thick embers across the floor, burns bridges and monuments. It ribbons after me like a flag. The only country I have is my sense and my senses. The only language I know is my body and all its flinching notes.
HAPPY WOMAN’S DAY!
Dr. Desta Meghoo is a Jamaican born
Creative Consultant, Curator and cultural promoter based in Ethiopia since 2005. She also serves as Liaison to the AU for the Ghana based, Diaspora African Forum.
