Sunday, September 20, 2009

Ethiopian Economics

TED conferences videos have a collection of speeches made by prominent academics and other public figures who talk about their "ideas worth spreading." Speakers from across the globe represent a variety of disciplines including economics, engineering, biology, religious studies, political science, and psychology.

The Common Theme Community at MC has selected a group of short videos of speakers in the areas of Peace and Justice from the TED collection. I found the following video especially interesting and quite relevent to what we have been discussing in class.

http://www.ted.com/talks/elene_gabre_madhin_on_ethiopian_economics.html

Please watch the video and put down your comments. Please make your postings non- repititive. If someone has commented on a question, please try to post something that is different from that comment or try to answer a different question. If this video has left you with questions, your posting can raise your own questions, but please elaborate on them and make responses that suggest some solutions or directions.

Comment on any of the following questions :

1. What did you learn about markets after watching this video? Is there a role for government in creating markets?

2. Why was grain left in the fields to rot in Ethiopia in 2002? Were you surprised to learn this? What does this say about the role of markets and government in an economy?

3. How will ECEX help ethiopian economy?


4. What are the different components needed for agricultural market to be set up?

5.What did you learn from this lecture?


6. How can an economist contribute to peace and justice?




8 comments:

  1. The basic role of Ecx (Ethiopian exchange commission) in Ethiopian economy is to create a modern market system between farmers and consumers. As it was mentioned in the video the northern part of Ethiopia had suffered a lot from famine while the southern farmers produce in surplus. This shows lack of technology and communication played a vital role for the disastrous famine. The objective of Ecx as Dr. Eleni said is to create a market where buyers and sellers determine the price. The transaction will happen in secure payment system in addition to that grading of the produced goods and reliable information on prices are some of the roles of the Ecx. Reliable market system will help farmers to produce more and agricultural products can reach the area where they are most demanded. However, there are some difficulties facing Ecx one of them is the growing concern from coffee exporters blaming Ecx for monopolizing the coffee market, and there are some farmers who still do not know about its existence. I also found this documentary film about Ecx very interesting. http://www.ethiotube.net/video/5037/Dr-Eleni-Gabra-Medhin-The-Market-Maker

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  2. I learned that sometimes a market has to be created by the government if it does not create itself. The creation of a market system can be very costly, and only the government has the ability to establish it. But in the lone run, the entire country and the government will benefit greatly from the market. It seems that the creation of a market is of great positive externalities.
    Zhihui Zhao

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  3. I learned from this video that Africa has recently been making great strides towards becoming a more advanced nation. These include technological advances as well as a greater understanding of economics. Due to inefficiencies in farming, produce was actually left uncollected to due it being unprofitable to actually harvest it. This was not surprising to me due to the lack of communication in the market place. However with the innovation that ECEX brings goods will be more efficiently allocated. One of the innovations is a system in which buyers and sellers will determine prices and help in finding a price equilibrium in the market place. I learned from this lecture that basic levels of technology which we take for granted can vastly improve the quality of life in developing nations. Economists can contribute to peace and justice by satisfying basic human desires such as food and shelter and allowing people to focus on advancing themselves and their society.

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  4. Ethiopian economics in last some decades was in the absence of the government’s role and lack of ecosystem mechanism. Transportation and information technology were extremely poor. Although agriculture is Ethiopian major business, farmers did not know any market information, such as demand and price equilibrium, and how to sell their product. There was not market network to connect sellers and buyers, and transactions were within local narrow markets. That created speculators or monopolies. Food was at a surplus, but a lot of people died or were going to die of starvation. Even worse, 300,000 tons of grain was left in the fields to rot in 2002. Such the government and market were not helpful in order to satisfy society desire.
    ECEX (Ethiopian Commodity Exchange) is commodity exchange that characterizes as a market-place for all, integrity, efficiency, transparency, and risk management. That means Ethiopia is learning and changing to create a system that serves all people who want to buy and sell, opens information and free of competition, innovates productivity technology, prevents surplus or shortage risks.

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  5. Grain rotted in fields because of ethiopia's weak marketing system. This led to a drastic drop in maize prices, which made it unprofitable for most farmers to harvest the grain. The amount rotted is surprising given the number of people dying from starvation in that country. A suitable market and goverernment to regulate the market is needed to have a more efficient economy. Africa's economy as a whole is weak due to a lack of a suitable infrastructure and updated technology that would allow them to increase their market and reduce the cost of production.
    Tariq Uqdah

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  6. we always hear about how bad the market systems in Africa are but one thing we never hear about are solutions to how to solve this problem.from this video i learn that with a little bite of help in educating african farmers on efficient ways of farming the farmers will be able to see a profite and also if the government will step in and give susidies in the form of fatalizers to grow the crops, and trucks to move the crops. this is the part of the video that strock me as suprising the fact that some food went to waste because farmers could not transport their crops bad enough that some people were starving while food go to waist
    Aminata Kamara

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  7. What I learned about the market after watching this video, is that no matter how great of a product you have to sell, share or make any profit if you don't have the technology and the business knowledge to pursue your goals. Just like the incident that happened in 1984 in Ethiopia. The fertile southern part of Ethiopia there were surplus of crops to feed all the people in Ethiopia. In the northern part of Ethiopia, there were famine going on and people are dying due to starvation because they could not excess the surplus food available to purchased. As a result, the southern part have to destroy there the extra crop that they have because there were so much of them. If only if there were technoloy there to transport the surplus crops from the south to the north, then nearly a million of people would have survived today.
    That also goes to the same situation for 2001 & 2002 in which there were surplus crops in parts of Ethiopia where the farmers have to let the crop sit out to rot due to weak marketing. As a result, about 14 million people died due to starvation where the land were so dried because there weren't any rain that year. Of course, famine and starvation could've prevented if they have the proper technology, communication and equipment for those to excess the surplus food. I was very surprise when I heard the reason why so many people died and I think it is pretty darn sad that it happened this way. It shouldn't be this way and didn't have to if the government were involved with the market but in a limited level. I think government should be involve especially when there is a crisis such like this one and any incidents before it leads to a catastrophic situation. As for the role of market, I think it is an important part of peoples' live to trade, sell, buy, share and profit as long as there is a system involve and a resolution when crisis occurred. The role of market is the way people can prosper for survival with the assistance from the government, technology and business knowledge in order to get the best out of the economy and achieve their goals.

    Quynh Ly

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  8. Thank you for your postings in this space.

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