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INTRODUCTION
1.
At the end of the military rule, Ethiopia was at the
brink of total collapse and disintegration. The country was
strangled by economic policies deleterious to development; the
citizenry was captive of an undemocratic and brutal regime,
and the state rocked by sharp nationalist conflicts and
interminable wars. Let alone its foes, Ethiopia's friends were
convinced that the country's fate was sealed and its
disintegration imminent.
2.
Following the downfall of the military regime, the
policies of the Derg, being detrimental to the country’s
development were removed; policies based on the principles of
free market economy were drawn up, and their implementation
initiated. Among the many states effecting a transition from a
command to a free economic system the timing and execution of
Ethiopia's transition managed to avoid hurdles that would
further weaken the economy or aggravate the crisis. In fact,
the transition was made in a manner that achieved
unprecedented economic growth. In addition to the satisfactory
growth achieved, the experience gained on how to secure rapid
progress was rich, and a firm foundation for further
development laid down. Thus, significant headways were made in
the economic front.
3.
The undemocratic regime of the Derg was removed to be
supplanted by a democratic one. Human and democratic rights
were given constitutional protection and their enforcement has
already commenced. The right to self-determination and
equality among Ethiopia's nations, nationalities and peoples,
enshrined in the Constitution, is also in force. Like what has
happened in endeavors for extensive experience has been gained
in the building of a democratic order. Enabling conditions
have been created to advance the struggle for the building of
a democratic order. Here, too, we have achieved considerable
gains.
4.
Notwithstanding the advances made, the country faces
many a formidable challenge. As is well known, agriculture is
the mainstay of the economy and the source of livelihood for
85% of the population. It is also the sector which has been
entangled, for centuries, with structural problems that were
growing worse by the day. In several regions, soil depletion
has worsened rendering the land uncultivable. Erratic rainfall
and droughts have also become recurrent. Traditional methods
of cultivation expose the population to hunger. The reduction
in the size and yield of farmlands, the recurrence of drought
and the crude state of farming technology militate against the
agrarian population's capacity to feed itself. Agriculture
therefore remains in the grip of deep crisis. The country's
level of industrial development is extremely low and incapable
of manufacturing products that are, in quality or price,
competitive in the international market. Infrastructure is
also highly inadequate. In terms of trained man power,
organization, performance, orientation and outlook, government
institutions have been found wanting to support the desired
development effort. In consequence, the country has been
relegated to charity and dependence. Unless these deep
economic challenges are addressed properly, the ensuing
economic crisis, as witnessed in some African countries, will
open the way to political and civil crisis as well as to
general turmoil and disintegration. Rapid development is
therefore not merely an economic necessity but also a matter
of national security and indeed, survival.
5.
When it comes to building a democratic order,
challenges are rife. A backward and undemocratic culture, born
out of age-old backward and undemocratic political systems,
constrains the peoples' capability to serve as a bulwark of
democracy. Institutions and practices, essential for
democratic governance, are still at their infancy. Civic
associations are not yet vibrant either. Narrow nationalism
and chauvinism, attitudes that undermine unity and solidarity,
are still widely prevalent in the society. As a result,
Ethiopia’s democratization is plagued with varied setbacks.
Unless these challenges are fast addressed, it will prove
impossible to mobilize the citizenry in the effort to speed up
development. In that case we will neither be able to deploy
democracy as a critical weapon of development, nor avert an
economic crisis that poses a threat that could lead to
disintegration. Unless democratization is consolidated in the
nation, home to many nations and nationalities with
parochialism and chauvinism successfully dealt with, our
people will be vulnerable to the grave dangers of
disintegration and destruction. Thus, democracy, in our
context, is not just the preferred route to good governance
but also a matter of national survival. The realization of
peace, and development as well as survival are quite far
fetched without real progress in the democratization
process.
6.
The EPRDF owes its successes over the past decade in
guiding the Ethiopian people under its leadership, to two key
instruments that define its nature; these are its partisanship
to the people and revolutionary democracy it advocates.
Nevertheless, inarticulation in the organization over certain
issues of economic and democratic development, the decline of
democratic principles within the organization and the spread
of corruption at various levels eroded the EPRDF's political
partisanship and undermined its revolutionary democratic
disposition. These flaws not only barred new achievements that
surpass those of the past, but also dissipated past
achievements.
7.
Having thoroughly examined and understood this danger,
our organization, the EPRDF, undertook -- and continues to
undertake-- a broad movement of rectification and renewal. A
clear vision to guide the struggle for economic development
and a democratic order is now in place and the foundation has
been laid down to enable members and supporters of the EPRDF
gain a clear understanding of these issues. We have created
conditions that are conductive to eliminate undemocratic
outlooks and practices and to combat corruption effectively.
This revised EPRDF program is, itself, a result and concrete
expression of this multifaceted movement of rectification and
renewal.
8.
The EPRDF's revolutionary democratic objectives will be
fulfilled only if they trigger a on successful economic
development. Thus, economic development, the major objective
of our organization is the foundation and pillar of all our
goals. Our endeavor for development must quickly overcome the
structural problems and defects in agriculture. In the course
of development, agriculture and industry must grow rapidly
exploiting inter-dependence; and, over time, industry should
take the leading role. However, ensuring rapid economic growth
alone will not suffice. Development that leaves the bulk of
the population as mere spectators of a well-endowed few would
not rescue the country from engulfing crisis. Through rapid
development and the resultant outcome, the people must be the
real beneficiaries and the country must be self-sufficient
cutting dependency to gradually gain economic independence. By
supplying goods and services that are competitive, in price
and quality, to an increasingly globalize market, we must
achieve economic progress, stop food aid dependency, and
faster economic independence. Realizing that we can accomplish
these objectives only by building a robust market economy, we
must strengthen the pursuit of economic development in
accordance with the rules of the market economy, which has
become a fundamental aspiration of the EPRDF. It needs to be
underlined that the clarion call of the EPRDF is to work for
rapid growth, ensure that the multitudes are the real
beneficiaries of growth: and to faster economic self
sufficiency.
9.
To achieve this goal, all forces of development must
fully engage in the task at hand. We have to greatly
accelerate the country's development, ensure that the people
draw meaningful benefits from it, and rid the country of
dependence on handouts and charity. For this, it is essential
to enhance the peoples’ productive capacity, and to contrive
and implement a strategy that optimizes the developmental
capacity of the people so that they can play a pivotal role in
development. It is necessary to create conditions for
voluntary and organized participation of all citizens in
development. The fact that participatory democracy is a key
instrument of development must be demonstrated in practice.
10.
Our task of building a free market economy is
unthinkable without the extensive engagement of the private
sector in development. The present situation encourages not
the private enterprises engaged in development but rather
those seeking a short cut to wealth through rent collection,
exploiting scarcities in the economy and peddling favors with
public authority. In order to allow the private sector to
play its irreplaceable role in development, we need to devise
ways that encourage those who contribute to development and
discourage those bent on rent-seeking. To provide strong
support for the private sector capital in development, we must
do away with all bottlenecks that challenge its ventures into
development. Likewise, there must be a concerted struggle to
exclude rent-seeking. Through such steps, we should create a
strong private sector capable of playing a constructive role
in development. In tandem with this, and in addition to
domestic private enterprises also foreign ones must be offered
the opportunity and support to engage in the struggle for
development.
11.
Government must encourage and support entrepreneurs
with a role in development and the citizenry so that they can
fully contribute to foster effort for development. Conditions
must be created so that these agents of development are able
to export the maximum available resources. Beyond this, there
are indeed areas of development not attended to by these
agents of development --- areas where neglect creates
bottlenecks for overall growth and, which must be addressed in
order of priority and with careful selection. Government has a
twofold responsibility: to support and coordinate the efforts
of the agents of development; and to engage to the extent
possible, in areas where the private sector is unable to
engage while at the same time address red tapes.
12.
If our democratic order is to flourish, the peoples’
constitutional rights must be fully respected. With the
furtherance of popular understanding as well as democracy
culture, ordinary people can freely exercise and protect their
rights. Democratic arrangements and institutions, the pillars
of democratic order, must be strengthened so that they can
fully discharge the tasks assigned to them. The people must
freely organize in ways of their own choosing in order to
secure active participation. We seek a thriving democratic
order based on the free and organized participation of
citizens, where the rights of the people are respected, where
the people exercise their rights to advance their interest,
where the democratic state and popular institutions thrive,
and where popular democratic consciousness and culture develop
based on transparency and accountability.
13.
Democratic order is not limited to respecting human and
democratic rights of the individual. On the basis of these
rights and parallel to them, rights should extend to the right
to self-determination and equality of nations and
nationalities. The peoples of Ethiopia must become
beneficiaries of these entitlements full and an equal footing.
In this regard, their capability to exercise these rights must
be augmented and enhanced. In order to create a single,
vibrant and coordinated economic community, all regions must
have equal right and support to develop. A concerted struggle
must be waged to create unity among Ethiopia's peoples based
on mutual interest and fraternity. To overcome sentiments that
are hostile to the democratic unity of our people requires a
relentless struggle based on democratic principles.
14.
To realize these objectives the EPRDF will mobilize the
people to join its march forward. Our Front is fundamentally
an organization of the peasantry which is the main force
behind revolutionary democracy. In consequence, to rally the
peasantry around our objectives is the first and foremost task
of our struggle. The broad masses in urban areas, workers,
intellectuals, low- income earners of our society are also our
allies and supporters. We shall, therefore, try hard to
mobilize the urban populace to march forward with us. Private
entrepreneurs engaged in real development also play a special
(vital) role in our development endeavor. We shall struggle so
that they do not succumb to parasitic mentality and instead
become our partners in the development endeavors.
15.
There will be forces that are dissatisfied with the
aspirations and goals of revolutionary democracy. Parasitic
elements who make no real contribution to development, and
seek quick fortunes by peddling favors with authorities or
opportunities offered by economic scarcities will be
uncompromising opponents of the developmental direction
charted by revolutionary democracy. Although these forces
profess to stand for democracy, they are unable to practice
their avowed slogans except as facade covering for their
deeds. To carry out the objectives of revolutionary democratic
embraced by the EPRDF, it is mandatory to fight against these
forces. We must legally foil all their actions contravening
the constitution and the country's laws; we must also make
sure that their rights are respected, provided they pursue
their programmes peacefully and in compliance with the
constitution and other laws of the land. Accordingly, the
EPRDF is obliged to engage them in a political struggle
through peaceful and legal means.
16.
In the world we live in today we find a myriad of
relationships among nations that keep growing stronger with
each passing day. Our country too, must become an active
participant in this system of relations. All Nations seek to
advance their national interest. Likewise, Ethiopia aims at
rapid economic development and the building of a democratic
order-the alpha and omega of our national interest. It is also
obvious that there are countries that would gain from
Ethiopia's successful transition to a free market economy and
to a democratic rule, which would in tandem promote the
people's well being and the nation's economic independence.
However, there would be dimensions in such change with adverse
effects on others. Based on our national interest, we shall
support those countries whose actions contribute to the
realization of our objectives and shall closely cooperate with
them. Actions obstructing our progress will meet stiff
opposition and we shall devise ways of overcoming these
impediments and their impacts from whichever direction they
come.
17.
To see the implementation of the aforementioned basic
goals, the EPRDF has drawn up the following program, spelling
out its economic, political, social and foreign policies. We
call upon all the peoples of Ethiopia, who stand to benefit
from this democratic revolutionary program, to rally around
these objectives and fight for their realization.
II.
POLITICAL PROGRAM
1.
EPRDF'S
STRATEGIC POLITICAL OBJECTIVES.
The EPRDF'S strategic political objective is to put in place a
stable multiparty democratic system whereby the human and
democratic rights of citizens, upheld in the Constitution, are
fully respected and where democratic institutions and culture
flourish through ensuing popular participation in the
country's political and economic life. It strives to ensure a
firm solidarity among Ethiopia's peoples forged through
respect for the rights of peoples and on the basis of equality
and justice.
2. To
enforce respect for rights; to strengthen democratic
institutions and culture.
2.1. To ensure respect for rights recognized in the
Constitution, with all citizens enjoying them to the full,
while progressively strengthened.
2.2. Staunchly fighting for the full exercise of these
rights by the broad masses in a democratic system where rights
of citizens are respected.
2.3. To ensure that parties contesting legally 14 and
democratically for public office flourish that they organize
citizens legally, and that they exercise their rights to free
expression and political participation.
2.4. To ensure the establishment and growth of a free
and vibrant press, which in accordance with the law,
disseminates news, analysis and other media products.
2.5. To ensure the creation and entrenchment of a
fully independent judiciary that is subject and loyal to the
Constitution and rule of law, and which is administered by
capable judges and legal professionals.
2.6. To enable that the executive and the legislative
capably discharge their constitutional responsibilities.
2.7. To enable the full implementation the
Constitutional provisions on independence as well as on checks
and balances among the executive, the legislative and the
judiciary.
2.8. To ensure the development and vibrancy of
professional, civic and other nongovernmental organizations,
essential for a dynamic democracy.
2.9 To ensure, through struggle, the emergence of a
public culture where differences are tolerated and where they
receive democratic resolution, and where political competition
and debate prevail.
2.10. To remain vigilant to ward of and put under
control violations or infringements of rights, or illegal acts
seeking to alter and overthrow the democratic order.
3.
To build a
democratic order rooted in free, active popular participation.
3.1.
To ensure that special attention is given to active,
free and democratic participation of the peasantry and the
urban public through effective exercise of their rights in the
democratic order, upholding the human and democratic rights of
all.
3.2.
To ensure that citizens are freely organized in trade
and civic associations and also to ensure that these
associations are democratic, and to enable citizens to advance
their entitlements and interests.
3.3.
To ensure that conditions are created whereby citizens
directly and through their civic associations can freely and
fully participate in the government’s programs of economic and
social development.
3.4.
To ensure that organs of government- particularly,
districts (woreda) and neighborhood associations (kebele) --
that allow wide and popular participation are granted broader,
legally conferred authority, which provides room for active
participation through trade, civic, self-help and community
associations.
3.5.
To put in place arrangements whereby elected
representatives at all levels are accountable to the
electorate, and, in case of dissatisfaction on the part of the
latter it can exercise the right of recall and elect new
representatives.
3.6.
To ensure that organs of government, at all levels,
discharge their responsibilities with transparency and
accountability; to ensure active popular participation so that
citizens can be the guarantor and beneficiary of governmental
transparency and accountability.
3.7.
To ensure that the people can make effective use of
their rights through universal elementary education, which
creates democratic consciousness and a sense of loyalty to the
Constitution.
3.8.
To ensure that policies and plans proposed by the EPRDF
are subject to popular deliberation, criticism, commentary and
recommendations in ways that enhance a democratic public
culture.
3.9.
To ensure that the bureaucracy at all levels has a
sense of public duty, and the human, organizational and
professional capability to fully understand, and implement,
effectively, policies of the government.
3.10.
To enable government bureaucracy at all levels to be
recruited and promoted on the basis of its merits alone;
clearly demarcating political appointment and the bureaucracy;
In this regard, working for gradual proportional
representation of national within the bureaucracy of the
federal government.
4.
To struggle
for the creation of a firm democratic unity based on respect
for the equality and rights of all people's and a sense of
solidarity and fraternity among them.
4.1.
To ensure that the constitutionally guaranteed right to
self-determination of the nations nationalities and peoples
including the right to secession is not eroded.
4.2.
To ensure, through concerted effort, a strong
solidarity among the Ethiopian peoples through free consent
and fraternity in a condition where their constitutional
rights are fully respected.
4.3.
To ensure respect for the peoples' rights to local
self-government, and their right to use their own language and
ensure also capacity building so that they can effectively
exercise all their rights as well as ensure that inequities in
their executive capacity are addressed to close the gap
effectively.
4.4.
To ensure that all people enjoy equal representation in
public institutions, with power to make collective decisions,
and in elected bodies of government; to also ensure that their
representatives in such bodies have the capacity of effective
participation.
4.5.
To ensure public knowledge of the histories of the
peoples, and the preservation and enrichment of their
cultures.
4.6.
To ensure that the people have an equal right to
develop the territories they inhabit and to ensure that
disadvantaged regions receive special support to develop their
implementation capacity, and their capacity to establish the
infrastructure necessary for development; and to ensure that
the effort at balanced development is guided by the goal of
creating a single, integrated economic community.
4.7.
To ensure the strengthening of Ethiopian unity based on
equality, mutual respect and fraternity through unwavering
commitment.
4.8.
To ensure that fight against narrow nationalism and
chauvinism, detrimental to the democratic unity of the peoples
of Ethiopia, continue unabated, and their influence on
citizens overcome.
4.9.
To ensure that the cultural and historical heritage of
all our peoples, a shared legacy, is protected, preserved,
recognized and developed.
4.10.
To ensure mutual interaction, knowledge and cooperation
with respect to collective interests, rights and causes are
strengthened and enhanced.
5. The creation of a capable
national defence and law enforcement bodies.
5.1.
To ensure the building of a strong, popular defence
force that is fully knowledgeable of and loyal to the
Constitution, that stands for popular sovereignty, and that
protects the country against external aggression.
5.2.
To ensure that the defence force, has the required
efficiency and size, with all the necessary structures in fact
to carry out its mission commensurate with the country's
economic resources while it grows more efficient
progressively.
5.3.
To ensure that arrangements are in place to enable
popular participation in defence, and to encourage continual
enhancement and improvement of popular participation.
5.4.
To ensure that the armed forces are firmly united based
on knowledge of and allegiance to the Constitution, its ideals
as well as its own mission; to ensure that its members are
rewarded on the basis of merit and contribution and also to
ensure that the defence force is modern and capable; to ensure
that the composition of the armed forces is a balanced
reflection of the country's national and ethnic composition.
5.5.
With their rights of citizenship respected, members of
the armed forces are excluded from membership in any political
party and to ensure that they are only accountable to a duly
elected government, and remain free of the control or
influence of any political organization.
5.6.
To ensure the establishment and strengthening of a
capable police force that is knowledgeable about and loyal to
the Constitution and the law of the land.
5.7.
To ensure that the police, at all levels, respect and
guarantee respect for the rights of citizens and also; to
ensure that they (the police) have the capacity and
determination to apprehend criminals and the lawless, and to
bring them before the court of law.
5.8.
To ensure arrangements are in place that allow citizens
to participate in the fight against crime and to ensure the
progressive strengthening and improvement of such
arrangements.
5.9.
With their rights of citizenship respected, to ensure
that, the police are excluded from membership in political
organizations and to ensure mutual support and cooperation
among different police forces.
III.
ECONOMIC PROGRAM
6.
EPRDF's
Strategic Economic Objective
The EPRDF'S strategic economic objective is to build a robust
free market economy whereby: rapid economic growth is
guaranteed, where the people are genuine beneficiaries of
growth and development and where the share and position of the
country in the global economy is improved to ensure the
country's economic independence.
7.
Rural Centered
Agriculture Led Development Strategy
7.1.
To ensure that development is centered on the
agricultural sector in recognition of the pivotal role of
human capital in rapid and sustainable development, as most of
the population is rural, and in further recognition of the
fact that it is in agriculture that limited investment yields
great returns in development.
7.2.
To ensure rapid development through land-use policy
whereby farmers have sufficient farming land and that this
resource would be put to optimal use with a view of protecting
and preserving the environment.
7.3.
To ensure that, labour, the decisive developmental
resource, is rendered more productive through education and
training, health care, and the provision of improved
technology.
7.4.
To ensuring the creation of organizations and
associations that encourages broad, active popular
participation in development; and to ensure the independence
of these organizations and associations so that they can serve
as arena for active, free and democratic participation.
7.5.
To ensure that our efforts agricultural development
improve the productivity of land and labour.
7.6.
To ensure the building of infrastructure supporting
agricultural development: education and training, health
services, irrigation schemes and the like. To ensure also
organizational forms that enable greater coordination of
agricultural development programs. To strengthen executive
bodies of government, particularly at the district (Woreda)
and local (kebele) levels.
7.7.
To ensure that agricultural development is governed by
the market-- particularly, the global market --- and is
attuned to its mechanisms and to ensure the growth and
enhancement of cooperatives as a means of improving the rural
market. To ensure that farmers produce commodities that are
in demand and competitive in quality and price, by gaining
access to new technologies; and also to ensure the
participation of the private sector in the agricultural
market.
7.8.
To ensure that agricultural development releases
agriculture itself from confinement to the cultivation of a
few crops and to a limited range of activities. To ensure that
it extends its scope to: animal husbandry, environmental
protection and agro-forestry cultivation of crops fruits and
other plants spices and products needed for industrial
production. To ensure that different areas regions select from
these activities a set that promises optimal yield in their
specific overall condition and environment. To ensure also
that some areas diversify while others specialize, and that
there is mutual support between specialization and
diversification.
7.9.
To ensure that there is coordination and mutual support
between agriculture and other sectors of the economy. To
ensure that the agricultural sector contributes labor, capital
accumulation and markets to the other sectors so that
gradually industry, commerce and service will become the
leading sectors of the economy. To ensure that agrarian
finance grows stronger and better organized in order to
support the envisioned direction of development.
7.10.
To ensure the country's food security. To ensure food
security through improved land use and proper selection of
agricultural work with optimal yield in a given area, and
through efficient use of rainfall and dry land water. To
ensure also food security through improvement of trade among
rural and urban communities. To ensure better food security
through voluntary resettlement and free movement of labour. To
ensure food security by launching income-generating activities
based on agriculture. To ensure that such schemes are fully
realized in practice through coordination, and attention to
local peculiarities.
7.11.
To ensure animal husbandry flourishes among
pastoralists through improvement in the number and quality of
animals, and growth in the market for animals and animal
products. To ensure that pastoralists in selected areas are
provided an opportunity to lead sedentary life. Also to ensure
that pastoralist development is planned and is progressively
improved through cooperation with pastor list communities and
community leaders.
7.12.
To ensure that land tenure is in strict compliance
with constitutional provisions.
7.13.
To ensure that the right of pastoralists to use land
is secure and to institute measures to improve effective
exercise of this right. To ensure that modern farms that can
widely utilize pastoralist labour can lease rural land for
extended periods. To ensure that such practices do not
displace rural labor or create rural unemployment.
7.14.
To ensure that investors who seek to develop modern
farms are granted long-term leases and other incentives for
investment. To ensure that these areas well-built in
infrastructure crucial for development. To ensure also that
labour employed in modern farms is provided with adequate
work. To ensure that investors in rural development are
provided with training and services.
7.15.
To ensure that agricultural development is supported
by sustained research and that it is an integral part of
agrarian development both by enhancement of domestic research
and by transfer of foreign technology research and knowledge
ascertained to be adaptable and appropriate to our conditions.
To ensure growth, both in quality and magnitude, of
agricultural research.
7.16.
To ensure rapid, and high productivity of agricultural
technology and to effect a transition from subsistence to
commercial agriculture through the provision of training that
capitalizes on the expansion of rural primary education. To
ensure also that this trend receives coordinated support from
education and training, research and technology, market and
financial services. To ensure in the middle and long term that
agricultural development is guided by the same strategy.
8.
Optimal and
Coordinated Use of Resources.
8.1.
To ensure that the rural as well as the urban
population fully participate in development through better
health care, education and training and other inputs to human
productivity. To ensure, also, that strategies in industrial
development focus on areas that are labour-intensive and that
promote the productivity of labour.
8.2.
To ensure that government focuses on providing
support to popular initiatives for development, as popular
participation is indispensable to rapid, sustainable growth.
8.3.
To ensure that investors engaged in the production
of goods and services that contribute to economic growth are
supported, since the private sector plays a unique role in the
building of a free market economy. To ensure that domestic
private enterprises receive special support and encouragement.
8.4.
To ensure that the private sector engaged in
development receives full and coordinated support so that it
can produce goods and services that are competitive. Ensuring
that it has access to efficient infrastructure at competitive,
reasonable cost; adequate financial services, information
services, expertise and training. To ensure that government
contrive means of working in cooperation and partnership with
the private sector.
8.5.
To encourage local entrepreneurs operate without
any restriction to capital in all areas, save those reserved
for government. To ensure that foreign entrepreneurs are
encouraged freely in all areas, save those reserved for
government and local entrepreneurs.
8.6.
To ensure, alongside support for private enterprise
engaged in development, that those in the private sector nor
engaged in real development, seeking quick enrichment through
corruption, illicit trade, rent collection and the like are
fully checked and discouraged.
8.7.
To ensure comprehensive support for the private
sector engaged in development, government shall create a
stable macroeconomic environment conducive to economic
progress and capacity building and all round support for
development inertia.
8.8.
To ensure that government is widely engaged in the
creation and expansion of the infrastructure for rapid
development. To ensure, in this regard, that road construction
is carried out in full cooperation between government and the
people. To ensure that national and foreign private
enterprise fully participate in the production of electric
power and to ensure also that private enterprise work in
partnership with government in the expansion of
telecommunications.
8.9.
To ensure, in addition, that government invests in
sphere where there are bottlenecks to development, and areas
where the private sector is unable to engage itself at a
desirable scale and quality, and to ensure, likewise, that
government breaks away from areas free from such setbacks.
8.10.
To ensure that defence industries are under
government and that in this area there are cooperative efforts
to facilitate technological transfer and managerial
improvement.
8.11.
To ensure expansion of the financial sector by
guaranteeing access to national and foreign private
enterprises and improvements in the quality and
competitiveness of the financial sector as well as creating
favorable conditions for the management of financial
institutions by foreign nationals or firms in order to
alleviate managerial deficiencies of government or local
private enterprises in finance, also to ensure greater
efficiency in the financial sector by facilitating greater
competition.
8.12.
To ensure that the bureaucracy lives up to its
goal of providing public service, and of supporting citizens
and entrepreneurs engaged in development. To ensure the
removal of bureaucratic bottlenecks to development. To ensure,
likewise, that institutions of government secure trained
manpower, better organizational capability and systems of work
so that they can serve as instruments of development. To
ensure that these measures undergo sustained improvement.
8.13.
To ensure that government pay special attention to
capacity building so that it can coordinate and enhance the
capacity of other agents of development as well as to
guarantee its own effective agency in development.
9.
To enable
balanced development in all regions and to enhance the
country's economic development.
9.1.
To ensure that development in various regions is
guided by the twin aims of speeding up the country's overall
economic growth, and creating a fully integrated, single
economic community. To ensure widespread and free movement of
capital and goods across the country.
9.2.
To ensure equality of rights and opportunities among
regions so that they can achieve the optimal growth possible.
To ensure balanced growth in the executive capacity of
regions, key to overall balanced growth. To ensure that
special capacity-building support is extended to regions
disadvantaged in implementation capacity.
9.3.
To ensure that all regions have access to a fair share
of infrastructure compatible with the requirement as the
construction of developmental infrastructure promotes rapid
overall growth, speeds up economic integration and is
cost-effective.
9.4.
To ensure that subsidies to regional budgets are made
on the basis of transparent formula of appropriation. To
ensure that the formula are reviewed for improvement. To
ensure that regions disadvantaged in development receive
additional subsidies to that effect.
9.5.
To ensure maximum popular participation in development,
since the people are the decisive resource in the quest for
balanced development. To ensure that the private sector is
encouraged to participate fully in all areas of development.
To ensure that a policy of incentives for private enterprise
is in place in regions extremely disadvantaged in development.
9.6.
To ensure our county's share and standing in the global
economy, since overcoming dependency on both relief and aid
hinges on the country's ability to be a real player in the
powerful and growing relations of globalization. To ensure
that we have the capacity to produce goods and services that
are, in quality and price, competitive in the global market.
9.7.
To ensure that our developmental resources can rescue
us from relief and economic dependency provided they are
deployed to maximize and sustain growth. To ensure, in this
regard, that all options and opportunities are fully explored.
9.8.
To ensure that the purchasing capacity of the people is
enhanced in order to create an interdependent and integrated
domestic market, essential to the achievement of rapid
development and economic independence. To ensure that the
interdependence of rapid economic growth and a large domestic
market is recognized and exploited.
9.9.
To ensure close economic cooperation and integration
with countries in the region and across Africa that would help
the effort to overcome economic dependence and to gain
economic autonomy.
9.10.
To ensure peaceful international relations and
cooperative ties that offer opportunities for avoiding
dependence and attaining economic independence. To ensure that
challenges that obstruct such ties are removed or alleviated.
To ensure that devices are found for securing rapid growth and
economic autonomy in pace with changes in international
relations. To ensure progressive improvements in these methods
and devices.
10.
To draw up and
realize an urban development strategy that speeds up
development.
10.1.
To ensure the establishment of cities and towns that
support rural development and serve as hubs for commercial and
industrial development closely linked to agriculture. To
ensure that urbanization and urban development is planned in
coordination with agricultural and industrial development.
10.2.
To ensure that the infrastructure services of cities
are tailored according to their role in the economic
development of their environs. To ensure that the function of
urban centers and their infrastructure is clearly determined
and implemented according to plan.
10.3.
To ensure that the provision of urban land and
infrastructure accords priority to commercial and production
plants to be established in the area. To ensure that land is
reserved for these purposes in keeping with the rate of urban
growth.
10.4.
To ensure that problems surfacing during the
implementation of urban land-lease policy are speedily
resolved. To make sure that the grant of leases encourages
development and is both transparent and efficient. To ensure
that these steps are progressively improved.
10.5.
To ensure popular participation in the political
administration, security and development of urban centers. To
ensure that urban planning and implementation is based on
popular participation.
10.6.
To ensure capacity- building in municipal services,
urban growth, and the drawing up and execution of master
plans. To ensure that the role of experts in such activities
is enhanced and also to ensure advancement of the capacity of
urban administration.
10.7.
To ensure that urban centers develop their capacity to
raise funds and collect the revenue necessary for urban
administration and development. To ensure that municipalities
develop the capacity to raise funds at least covering running
costs.
11.
To guarantee
rapid industrial development.
11.1.
To ensure that expansion of industry is based on
agricultural growth and coordinated with the agricultural
sector.
11.2.
To ensure that new industries are as far as possible
labour-intensive.
11.3.
To ensure that industrial growth focuses on the
production of exportable commodities that are, in quality and
price, competitive in international markets.
11.4.
To ensure that adequate support is given to encourage
private enterprise to play the key role they have in
industrial development; to ensure that public development
enterprises are privatized, and that those that remain in the
public sector extend full support to industrial development
undertaken by the private sector.
11.5.
To create favorable conditions to foreign enterprise
to boost industrial growth. To ensure close coordination and
cooperation between local and inter national industrialists.
11.6.
To ensure consolidation of local industrialists by
encouraging their effort to organize; to ensure close
coordination and cooperation between government and
industrialists based on the shared interest in rapid
industrial growth.
11.7.
To ensure support for the spread and growth of small
private development enterprises that can strengthen industry
and furnish it with a broad base. To ensure that trained youth
are encouraged to engage in these enterprises.
IV
Social Programme
12. The Strategic Social
Objective of EPRDF
The strategic social objective of EPRDF in integration with
our economic development is to realize rapid social
development out of which the people will savour utmost gains.
To effect this social objective it will implement the
following social programme.
13. Establish a
high standard, expanded educational and training system that
is integrated with our production and development activities.
13.1
Provide primary schooling for all. Design the education
in such a way that it produces duty-board productive citizens
well award of their rights with entrenched democratic
attitudes..
13.2
Expand secondary school education in parallel with
economic development. Design the education in such a way that
it generates productive, duty-bound citizens well aware of
their rights and duties promoting democratic attitudes.
13.3
To enable citizens who have had primary and secondary
education actively engage in the on going development
activities, specially in our efforts to rapidly bring our
farming technology to highly improved state and to make
cardinal participation in strengthening the capacity of the
public, government and investors to expedite our industrial
development. Design a broad vocational training system
oriented towards our development strategy that qualifies
citizens to extensively participate in the aforementioned
activity and equip them with new ideas and career that makes
them productive and job-creating as well. Encourage investors
put paramount contribution into this system. Make this
vocational training system evolve and improve constantly
instep with our economic development.
13.4
Expand higher education in coordination with our
economic development. The educational system has to produce
researchers, citizens highly aware of their rights and duties,
with deep democratic understanding as professionals.
13.5
Enable the higher institutions to be extensively
engaged in researches essential for the economic, social and
political development of our country. Design the education in
such a way that it is of high standard and functions together
with our development efficiently. Effect a cost sharing system
with supports higher learning financially without giving rise
to school drop outs in consequence of financial difficulties.
13.6
Expand as much as possible informal and specialized
education, increase nursery schools through the involvement of
the public and investors.
13.7
To directly involve the public in the administration of
schools and make the public contribute in educational finances
and particularly in school building activities. Exploit all
available opportunities that enable schools to engage
themselves in income generating schemes during the course of
the teaching learning activities so that they may cover
certain expenses.
13.8
Encourage investors and non-governmental organization
to participate in educational services at all levels and
disciplines within the range of the curriculum set by the
government.
13.9
Give extensive training that helps to upgrade teacher's
professional ethics and capacity and see that there is capable
administrative systems put in place. Create favorable
conditions to improve the lives of teachers and safeguard
their rights. To ensure that teachers and students have
extensive democratic participation in school administration.
14. Build Prevention
Oriented Health Service System
14.1
Make our health service tasks mainly focused on disease
prevention. Coordinate this activity with our city and rural
development endeavors. Professionals have to be trained for
this purpose and the prevention system must be well organized
and expeditious. This system must be developed and improved
unceasingly.
14.2
Taking into consideration the impact of AIDS pandemic
on social and economic development of our country and the
challenge against the very existence of our people, continuous
and constant participatory anti-AIDS campaign have to be
launched, with presentations at the core activities.
14.3
To make the health service focus on basic health
services and benefit the public in general and specifically
the rural population, who so far had been denied of this
service.
14.4
The government, shall as much as possible, build
hospitals of varied status. Make these health institutions
have a system that enables them hire and maintain highly
qualified professionals. Improve and upgrade this system
consistently.
14.5
Encourage investors and non-governmental organizations
to extensively participate in rendering health services.
14.6
To extensively involve the public in building health
service institutions especially in the basic health service
facilities. To have the public share health care expenses.
Expanding health insurance system inline with our economic
development.
15. Standing
unflinchingly for the right of the workers and equality
of women.
15.1. Fighting for improvement of wages and working
environment in an integrated manner with the economic
achieved. Enforcing constitutional rights of workers to
organize, negotiate and call strike. Ensuring organizational
independence and democratic operation of trade unions.
Supporting workers to improve productivity through sustained
training.
15.2. Putting in place a system that guarantees
pension and social welfare. Enabling the system to gradually
cater for the private sector.
15.3. Exerting efforts for sustainable industrial
peace, pivotal for development; encouraging and coordinating
integrated endeavours by government employers and employees
for sustained improvement in productivity of workers.
Improving wages and working condition, based on these
undertakings.
15.4. Encouraging workers the have a conscious, free
and democratic involvement in nation building and political
activities. Adhering to a direction that will allow organized
undertaking to this end.
15.5. Fighting for participation on equal footing of
women in political, economical and social affairs while
savouring equally the benefits of economic growth.
15.6. Encouraging the formation of women's
association and consolidating them to foster the struggle for
equality of women, working for heightened in dependence and
democratic operation of the association. Encouraging women to
boost their democratic participation in their associations.
Raising women's educational participation to the level of men.
15.7. Ensuring their right for maternity leave and
respecting their right for pension and promotion on equal
footing with men.
15.8. Ensuring women's right to property ownership,
management use and transfer; ensuring the right of rural women
to get access to land in order to use it.
15.9. Enabling the younger generation acquire
innovative ideas; professional competence, good ethical
background in order for it to engage with vigor in development
and the building of a democratic order; encouraging the youth
the organize independently paving the way for its engagement
in the political, economic and social arena and reap the
benefits at all levels.
IV.
Foreign Affairs Program
16. The EPRDF strategic
foreign affair policy objectives
The EPRDF's strategic objective in foreign affairs policy is
to create international and regional conditions fostering to
our chief national interest of building a democratic order and
establishing a thriving market economy. Our aim is to create a
lasting peace essential to the attainment of those
aspirations, which are the central expressions of our national
interest and sovereignty. To realize our strategic goal in
foreign affairs policy, we shall carry out the following
program.
17.
A foreign
policy that safeguards the rights and interests of citizens.
17.1. To ensure that our foreign affairs policy is
guided by and is in the service of programmes guaranteeing
rapid development that benefits the people and promotes our
economic independence, in which, in turn, the pillar and
foundation of our national interest, democracy can take root.
17.2. To ensure friendly and cooperative relations
with all countries that is of mutual advantage. To ensure
support for all activities that are mutually advantageous, to
oppose and do away with activities contrary to the national
interest.
17.3. To ensure, through firm commitment the peace and
stability of the region as regional peace is of great
importance for the flourishing of our democratic order and for
our rapid development. Our contribution to regional peace is
potentially of considerable significance. To ensure that the
principles of the equality of peoples, the cooperative
advancement of shared interests and noninterference in
internal affairs are observed. To ensure the use of political,
diplomatic and economic means to check disruptions of regional
peace. To ensure that these measures are used in cooperation
with peaceable forces. To ensure the arrest of any acts of
subversion directed at the nation.
17.4. To ensure firm support for African unity and
African cooperation. To ensure also that Ethiopia plays a
constructive role in the expansion of African fora.
17.5. To ensure support of international efforts for
peace, justice and development.
18.
Capacity-building in implementation of the program in foreign
affairs policy.
18.1. To ensure that government has the institutional
and organizational capacity to execute foreign policy and to
guarantee respect for the national interest and national
sovereignty. To ensure capacity - building. To ensure that
capacity building is progressively improved and sustained.
18.2. To ensure the creation and strengthening of
centers of foreign policy research and study that can carry
out sustained research and investigation on foreign affairs
and national security. To make sure that the findings of such
centers enhance the conduct of foreign policy.
18.3 To ensure that institutions responsible for the
execution of foreign policy have the requisite consciousness,
commitment and expertise to implement the program on foreign
policy.
19. To encourage
broad popular participation in the execution of foreign
policy.
19.1. To ensure that the public has a firm grasp of
the fundamental direction of foreign policy and that it is
provided with timely and adequate information to enable its
participation in the conduct of foreign policy.
19.2. To ensure encouragement of fora where experts
and the public can deliberate and debate on topical issues of
foreign policy. To ensure adequate public knowledge and
deliberation about the meaning and purpose of international
agreements and relations entered by government.
19.3. To ensure that the rights and interests of
Ethiopians residing in other countries are respected in
accordance with international law. To ensure encouragement of
their participation in Ethiopian political and economic life
as well as in foreign policy implementation. |
