“Finish your food, children are starving in Ethiopia,” said every parent to every U.S. kid in the 1980s. Those efforts resulted in Ethiopia becoming the largest recipient of food aid from the United States. Yet the World Food Program (WFP) and USAID stuck with Abiy’s government as the main partner for delivering aid throughout the country. It is far past time for those developing U.S. foreign policy to accept that trying to trickle-down humanitarian aid through known corrupt systems and power-hungry leaders is equally doomed. In 1984, a BBC report for the first time broadcast images of starving Ethiopian children from the town of Mek’ele into the homes of middle-class families in America and Europe.

Source: Ethiopian News June 26, 2023 22:17 UTC