Ethiopia: Poverty Reduction Strategies to Incorporate Basic Rights

from All Africa

The Reporter (Addis Ababa)

Asrat Seyoum
Addis Ababa

It was noted that policies designed to combat poverty in a developing nation like Ethiopia would be more fruitful when they take into account basic individual rights such as property right, labour rights and related legal matters.

At a consultative meeting held at the Imperial Hotel, Dr Constantinos Berhatesfa, president of the Center for Human Environment, said that important legal aspects like property right have linkages to the economic well-being of the society. Specially, he said, land tenure policies have essential linkages to food security and natural resources conservation issues.

Dr Berhatesfa added that farmers will be more motivated to improve their land holdings in terms of increasing its productivity as long as there is security of the tenure. According to him, the tenure system covers various forms of rights which range from simple possessory right to ownership or freeholding of immovable property.

After discussing the land tenure policy in Ethiopia, participants raised a point that that land under state ownership has somehow hurt the incentive to improve the land which is the primary resource of agriculture. This is because the farmers would not be motivated to invest on the betterment of their land since the tenure system would induce them to do so.

At the meeting, four finalized papers labor rights, property rights, entrepreneurship, access to justice were presented and the participants discussed the concepts in detail. The event was initiated and organized by the Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor (CLEP) which was set up in December 2006 with aim of making policy recommendations towards reducing poverty through the creation of an enabling environment that expands business opportunities.