Ethopia -Eastern Africa, west of Somalia

Brief background of ethiopia

Unique among African countries, the ancient Ethiopian monarchy maintained its freedom from colonial rule with the exception of a short-lived Italian occupation from 1936-41. In 1974, a military junta, the Derg, deposed Emperor Haile SELASSIE (who had ruled since 1930) and established a socialist state. Torn by bloody coups, uprisings, wide-scale drought, and massive refugee problems, the regime was finally toppled in 1991 by a coalition of rebel forces, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). A constitution was adopted in 1994, and Ethiopia's first multiparty elections were held in 1995. A border war with Eritrea late in the 1990s ended with a peace treaty in December 2000. In November 2007, the Eritrea-Ethiopia Border Commission(EEBC) issued specific coordinates as virtually demarcating the border and pronounced its work finished. Alleging that the EEBC acted beyond its mandate in issuing the coordinates, Ethiopia has not accepted them and has not withdrawn troops from previously contested areas pronounced by the EEBC as belonging to Eritrea. Economic overview One of fastest growing non-oil economies in Africa. Depends heavily on agriculture, which is often affected by drought. Coffee is a key export Ethiopia's economy is based on agriculture, which accounts for 41% of GDP and 85% of total employment. Coffee has been a major export crop. The agricultural sector suffers from poor cultivation practices and frequent drought, but recent joint efforts by the Government of Ethiopia and donors have strengthened Ethiopia's agricultural resilience, contributing to a reduction in the number of Ethiopians threatened with starvation. The five-year Growth and Transformation Plan that Ethiopia unveiled in October 2010 presents a government-led effort to achieve the country's ambitious development goals. The banking, insurance, and micro-credit industries are restricted to domestic investors, but Ethiopia has attracted significant foreign investment in textiles, leather, commercial agriculture and manufacturing. Under Ethiopia's constitution, the state owns all land and provides long-term leases to the tenants; land use certificates are now being issued in some areas so that tenants have more recognizable rights to continued occupancy and hence make more concerted efforts to improve their leaseholds. While GDP growth has remained high, per capita income is among the lowest in the world. Exports - commodities: coffee, khat, gold, leather products, live animals, oilseeds Imports - commodities: food and live animals, petroleum and petroleum products, chemicals, machinery, motor vehicles, cereals, textiles GDP - real growth rate: 7.5% (2011 est.)

8% (2010 est.) 10% (2009 est.) Reserves of foreign exchange and gold: $2.665 billion (31 December 2011 est.) $2.766 billion (31 December 2010 est.) Population 91,195,675 (July 2012 est.) 0-14 years: 44.6% (male 20,342,615/ female 20,319,812) 15-64 years: 52.6% (male 23,840,978/ female 24,138,560) 65 years and over: 2.8% (male 1,155,374/ female 1,398,336) (2012 est.) country comparison to the world: 14 2.9% (2012 est.) country comparison to the world: 12 birth rate 38.5 births/1,000 population (2012 est.) country comparison to the world: 15 death rate 9.3 deaths/1,000 population (July 2012 est.) country comparison to the world: 61

Ethiopia-Unemployment Generally, it is difficult to measure unemployment in less developed countries such as Ethiopia because of the lack of reliable records and the existence of various informal types of work. However, based on Ministry of Labor surveys and numerous other analyses, a general assessment of unemployment in Ethiopia can be made. According to the Ministry of Labor, the unemployment rate increased 11.5 percent annually during the 1979-88 period; by l987/88 there were 715,065 registered unemployed workers in thirty-six major towns. Of those registered, l34,ll7 ultimately found jobs, leaving the remaining 580,948 unemployed. The urban labor force totaled 1.7 million in 1988/89. The Ministry of Labor indicated that the government employed 523,000 of these workers. The rest relied on private employment or self-employment for their livelihood.

According to the government, rural unemployment was virtually nonexistent. A l981/82 rural labor survey revealed that 97.5 percent of the rural labor force worked, 2.4 percent did not work because of social reasons, and 0.l percent had been unemployed during the previous twelve months. However, it is important to note that unemployment, as conventionally defined, records only part of the story; it leaves out disguised unemployment and underemployment, which were prevalent in both urban and rural areas. For instance, the same rural labor force survey found that 50 percent of those working were unpaid family workers. What is important about unemployment in Ethiopia is that with an expansion of the labor force, the public sector--with an already swollen payroll and acute budgetary problems--was unlikely to absorb more than a tiny fraction of those entering the labor market.