heks

Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in Africa and a HEKS primary-focus country. Ethiopia is well down the scale in all the poverty statistics, ranking 169th out of 177 in the UNO Human Development Index, for example. Ethiopia is characterised by political instability and repeated armed conflicts with its neighbouring countries (Eritrea, Somalia).

The biggest challenges in terms of development are its lack of infrastructure and basic supplies for the largely rural population. Sadly, their poverty is all too familiar to people in Switzerland since the harrowing days of famine, with women and children first and foremost suffering from malnutrition, poor health care, lack of access to drinking water and lack of education.

Aims, points of focus, initiatives:

The assistance strategy for Ethiopia adopted by HEKS, and scheduled to run from 2006 to 2009, places the focus of the work on humanitarian aid and development cooperation in the regions of Oromia and Gambella.

In giving humanitarian aid HEKS seeks to underpin the means of livelihood of particularly vulnerable sections of the population. The people, households and communities benefiting from the aid gain access to material, financial and natural resources. Through its project work HEKS contributes to the sustained improvement of living conditions for the people in the villages.

Those who are targeted for aid stand to gain a life of self-sufficiency and dignity. The initiatives engaged in to this end include safeguarding the provision of food and drinking water, promoting peace, strengthening civil society and imparting technical and social skills.

The two points of focus in the work are closely linked, with sustained development cooperation on the one hand, intended to minimise longer-term humanitarian aid, and with measures needing to be put in place as soon as possible after catastrophes on the other hand, in order to avoid areas of dependency and so as not to stifle self-help at local level.