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Malnutrition During Recent Famines in Ethiopia Helmut Kloos Bert Lindtj0rn University of Bergen Famine conditions are likely to persist for many years in Ethiopia despite the current peace process and restructuring efforts. There is an urgent need for a better understanding of the ecology of acute malnutrition, particularly the vulnerability of different populations and socioeconomic classes to famine, their coping strategies and nutritional deficiency diseases , and their mortality during times of disasters. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the debate of differential drought and famine occurrence and nutritional impact during Ethiopia's 1973-74 famine, when an estimated 250,000 people died, and during the 1984-85 famine, when about one million people died.1 This paper reviews selected works on vulnerability to famine and coping strategies because considerable social and economic activities and psychological and physiological adaptation to poverty and crisis have always been significant in reducing famine risk in Ethiopia and because their disruption is a major factor in the causation offamine.2 Analysis of the occurrence of malnutrition and associated mortality in different ecological settings and in relief shelters may contribute to an evaluation of the constraints experienced by communities and relief organizations in providing an adequate food supply. Asmerom Kidane analyzed results of interviews in Metekel and Gambela resettlement schemes and concluded that the consequences of the 1984-85 famine were general, affecting rural populations in northern Ethiopia regardless of socioeconomic status and place ofresidence.3 The perception that this was an indiscriminately severe famine is strength-©Northeast African Studies (ISSN 0740-9133) Volume 1 Number 1 (New Series) 1994, pp. 121-136121 122 Helmut Kloos and Bert Lindtj0rn enea by the fact that many land-owning peasants were resettled in the government's resettlement program. This, it may be reasoned, was in sharp contrast to resettlement programs during the famine in the 1970s, when a few vulnerable groups, mostly urban poor, landless peasants, charcoal burners, and destitute pastoral nomads, were resettled. Nationwide malnutrition in 1984-85 was considered to be largely the result of the supposedly equitable distribution of wealth after the 1975 land reform . The persistence of many parameters of socioeconomic differentiation after the revolution, as well as the ecological and cultural diversity of Ethiopia were not considered, however.4 The news media contributed to the view that starvation in Ethiopia was universal, not only during the 1984-85 famine but also during the one in 1973-74, when the press first reported on an Ethiopian famine.5 But there is considerable evidence from Ethiopia and other developing countries that vulnerability to famine and malnutrition varies between and within socioeconomic groups and between geographical areas. Some investigators have argued that pastoral nomads are more vulnerable to famine and disease than sedentary farming populations owing to their full dependence on the natural environment for food production,6 while others believe they enjoy a higher health status than farmers at least during nonstress situations. It is, however, more commonly agreed that there are wide variations in wealth among lineages and households in pastoral societies.7 Nutritional advantages have been reported for many pastoralists who settle on commercial farms and characteristically maintain some oftheir livestock.8 Subsistence farmers settling on commercial agriculture , by contrast, often suffer nutritionally from unbalanced diets.9 Other high-risk groups commonly identified by emergency relief programs include children, pregnant women, the old, the sick, the urban poor, and refugees. The approach used by these emergency programs, namely to focus on the impact rather than the predisposing factors of famine, has been increasingly criticized in recent years for being less effective in the control offamine in the long term than community-based and equitable rural development programs. Examination of predisposing factors, or vulnerability , and the coping behavior developed by populations living in famineprone areas may identify still poorly-known constraints and potential opportunities suitable for community-based prevention and rehabilitation programs. These may be more effective and less disruptive economi- Malnutrition During Recent Famines in Ethiopia 123 cally and socially than the hazardous journey to and residence in feeding centers. Famine Vulnerability and Survival Strategies The studies ofJames McCann in northern Shewa and in Wello showed that famine risk varied...

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