|
ASMARA, May 5 (Reuters) - One of the world's poorest and most aid-dependent nations, Eritrea, hopes a new cash-for-work scheme will help end its reliance on international relief.
But with strained ties between the isolationist Horn of Africa nation's government and the foreign aid community, relief workers are still anxious about the fate of food aid held up in warehouses. Some aid has appeared for sale on the street. The U.N. estimated last year two-thirds of Eritrea's 3.6 million people needed aid. But President Isaias Afwerki's government is eager to become self-reliant, believing foreign powers have sometimes used food relief for political pressure. State media were this week singing the praises of a drive to replace handouts with direct payments for useful labour to replace "creeping dependency" with "a good work ethic." An official article, published this week on the Information Ministry's website shabait.com as well as other media, said aid was a "stop-gap measure" and "a transient instrument" while Eritrea's economy recovered from its 30-year independence war. Eritrea secured independence from neighbouring Ethiopia in 1993, becoming Africa's youngest nation. Reconstruction efforts by Isaias' guerrilla movement-turned-government were also hampered by a 1998-2000 border dispute with Ethiopia. "Free distribution of food aid and food-for-work entail negative consequences that outweigh their positive utilities," said the article, citing "lethargy towards work", distortion of markets and corruption. OIL ON SALE Late last year, the government cut distribution of free food by more than 94 percent -- from 1.3 million people to 72,000. Aid workers said a "food-for-work" scheme considered by the government last year has not been implemented. It appears to have been replaced by the so-called "cash-for-work" programme. This policy would, the article said, "maintain the incentive to work and would eliminate the tendency to be continually aid dependent." Under the new policy, individuals would help with food production schemes such as irrigation, the article said. "The government of Eritrea hopes that all our partners will extend their support to this scheme," it said. The article did not, however, say where the cash would come from or how Eritrea would cover short-term food needs. Details of the new scheme began to trickle out last week when the U.N. Secretary General's Special Humanitarian Envoy for the Horn of Africa, Kjell Magne Bondevik, visited Asmara. Touring drought-stricken countries in the Horn of Africa, Bondevik was unable to persuade Eritrea to release 100,000 tonnes of food locked in government warehouses. Last month, aid workers feared the food aid might be rotting. Now they worry it is being milled or sold in breach of contract with the donors. "We have no means of verifying that the cash will end up in the right hands," one said. Five-litre containers of U.N. World Food Programme-refined canola oil -- a gift of Canada -- have been on sale for 300 nakfa ($20) in at least one Asmara shop this week. Aid workers say they respect the desire to be self-reliant, but worry they have no dialogue or information to organise a quick and appropriate response if a humanitarian crisis brews. In the last nine years, Eritrea has only produced an average 30 percent of its cereal needs - though the figure has varied between eight and 70 percent each year - according to U.N. data. source: Reuters |
