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The excerpts from the Prime Minster of Ethiopia Meles Zenawi's paper, African Development: Dead Ends and New Beginnings, appear to have created public curiosity. The excerpts have already been reviewed and discussed by some people, even though Meles has indicated that they were from a preliminary draft paper and should not be quoted. I reviewed the paper after observing the growing public interest. And this trend has to do with both our own political attentiveness and the fact that the author is a public figure. For example, we are interested in knowing whether Meles is smart; if his intellectual thinking has influenced EPRDF's policy architecture and state building strategy; or we just want to go political and criticize him. All this is a reflection of the nature of public debate and I hope that we all welcome and appreciate the diversity of views and perspectives.

Meles' paper may be a draft book/memoire or a Ph.D thesis (we don't know for sure), but it is interesting and important, important because it brings the issue of "developmental state" back to the arena of international development debate; this area of debate has been marginalized, if not totally neglected, since the 1980s. The sophistication of writing and analysis in the paper demonstrates Meles' mastery of the field of development economics. However, the paper appears to have been produced in a hurry, which is evident from its lack of page numbers, incompleteness of the biography and misplacement of a chapter (subsections of Chapter 21 organized under Chapter 20). It is also a bit puzzling that a paper of such importance makes no reference to the works of Ethiopians, many of whom had inspired us to focus our studies on Ethiopia. But, let us give this busy and overworked man a break. The way the paper is presented and referenced should not be an issue. What is important is understanding and making sense of its contents.

The paper covers many areas and we can dissect and analyze it from different perspectives. My commentary here focuses on the issue of developmental state. To make a better contribution, I move away from an academic criticism and instead summarize, analyze and explain Meles' work, so that common people in the Ethiopian Diaspora and at home (those who read English) can better understand why he is concerned with the developmental state. In doing so, I also relate the context of the paper to practical public policy and political issues in contemporary Ethiopian society. My motive in this endeavour is not to chart another area of (political) criticism. The intention is to bring some kind of objectivity to the discussion of my commentary and also to point to some areas of improvement in the management of state and politics in Ethiopia; above all, an intellectual dialogue devoid of reality will not be interesting. I welcome the opportunity to get a response from Meles.

Setting the Context

We begin this review by locating Meles Zenawi's paper within this large and dynamic field of study of international development. The debate about developmental state started during the period of independence of many countries from colonialism, in the 1960s. It was about building an effective state that would lead newly independent countries out of poverty and underdevelopment. Be that as it may, the state was not supposed to intervene in income or asset redistribution, but rather facilitate the growth of the national economy through support for urban-based industrialization strategies. This, to use Meles' words, had to do with the belief that "inequality will have to increase during the development process and decrease later..." But, by the 1970s, it became apparent that many countries were not achieving progress in the development process (state policies were not working well), as evidenced by growing social and economic inequalities. And so the debate shifted to searching another state model that balances growth with equity.

By the 1980s, many developing countries were faced with economic crises and this was when the role of the state became seriously questioned. The propagation of non-state actors - NGOs and private sector - had began. E. Shumaker's influential book, Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered (1973), became a source of inspiration for the conception and planning of small-scale, community-based development initiatives, so that a plethora of donor-supported NGOs entered the developing world. At the same time, the champions of global capitalism Ronald Reagan (USA) and Margaret Thatcher (UK) were elected into offices. The Reagan Administration simply told the World Bank and IMF not to deal with socialist states (it meant all states intervening in the economy). Consequently, the World Bank, IMF and other donor agencies began imposing stringent economic reform measures on Africa and other developing countries. To explain, when African governments asked the World Bank and IMF for assistance (loans, credits and grants), they were told to accept packages of reform proposals before the Bank and IMF could consider their requests. Key words in those reform proposals: state-roll back, state withdrawal, state decentralization, public sector downsizing, market liberalization, privatization and deregulation. And the most common reform measures included the removal of agricultural price restrictions; devaluation of currencies; lifting import subsidies; promotion of export-oriented production; reduction of public expenditures; and privatization of state-owned enterprises.

Each of these reform measures has serious (both negative and positive) consequences for societies. For example, when farmers were allowed to sell their produce at market prices (following the removal of price restrictions), they earned more income. I remember a group of elementary teachers in Gondar complaining that the peasants were drinking beer while they could no longer afford to buy tela or areki (locally produced liquor). The days of government subsidy of urban consumers (Derge's commissars forcing peasants to sell their produce cheap) were gone. I would have liked Meles to give the World Bank and IMF some credit for supporting positive changes like this throughout the African continent. In talking about the negative aspects of World Bank and IMF policies, the promotion of export-oriented agricultural production is an example. Countries were simply encouraged to produce for the global market without sufficient demand for products. This created excess supply on the global market, prices declined and the producers did not benefit. Another example: pubic sector downsizing had meant that governments had to reduce their budgets for essential public services like health, education, water and sanitation, which then meant that the most basic needs were beyond reach for the common people of Africa.

By 1990s, democratization and human rights were added to the national development planning terminology. It was also a period of high hopes for political liberalization in Africa, as some scholars began talking about the "wind of political change" affecting the continent. This had become obvious when (for example), in 1991, Frederick Chiluba galvanized massive support from civil society to unseat Kenneth Kaunda (at that time one of the most important personalities in Africa) from power during Zambia's first multi-party election. Such events unleashed an optimism not only political changes across the African continent, but also the role that could be played by civil society in initiating and leading democratization processes from the bottom-up or what Meles calls (unhelpful) "trickle up democracy". Goran Hyden and Michael Bratton edited a volume entitled Governance and Politics in Africa (1992) and a year later another volume was produced by Richard Sandbrook and Mahamed Halfani entitled Empowering People: Building Community, Civil Associations and Legality in Africa (1993). But, soon all the optimism started to cool down. Many were not sure whether political reforms induced by outside forces (Western donors) would produce viable political outcomes. In fact, Africa experienced deepening political crises in the 1990s, most notably the disintegration of Somalia, the Rwandan genocide and bloody armed conflicts in Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Lion, Sudan and Liberia - Meles' characterization of the situation in post-1980s Africa as "political economy of disorder" is not an exaggeration. Others wrote to warn that some sectors of civil society could be an extension of dominant economic and political interests. As for Frederick Chiluba (who had come to power with massive support from civil society), one commentator wrote that, after 10 years of rule, he left politics "a wealthier man and Zambia a poorer nation". He is currently on trial accused of corruption including stealing tens of millions of dollars and sending it abroad. One cannot then disagree with Meles' point that certain interest groups could "capture" the state using liberal democracy.

In the new century, 2000 and on, state-led development planning became a central theme in the African policy discourse. And there was going to be a massive flow of foreign aid, thanks to the UN Secretary General Koffi Annan and the former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien who led and promoted the "African Agenda" during high-level donor meetings. I do not know Meles' level of involvement in the formulation of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) framework, but he did play a key role in Tony Blaire's Commission for Africa. NEPAD and the report of the Commission articulated frameworks for "negotiated conditionality" (an agreement on conditions under which donors give aid to Africa) and the need to achieve harmonization between donor policies and African development policy goals (Meles stresses these issues in Chapter 21). More importantly, both NEPAD and the Commission's report identified governance (state management) as the most important issue in African development. The argument of Meles' paper is that all this is a good development, but some states – specifically "democratic developmental states" - are more effective than other states for various reasons including political ideology, policy vision and commitment and effective leadership. Let us now review the paper.

Why A Developmental State

For those of you who are not familiar with the neo-liberal notion of market-led economic development, here is one way of describing it: the state supports private sector companies to invest in the economy. Companies establish manufacturing, service and other industries and these create jobs for people. When people have money, they spend it to buy the goods and services and this generates profit for companies which in turn invest and expand, creating yet more jobs and providing more income earning opportunities. The expanding economy increases tax revenues for local and national governments which are used to finance the expansion of public services. Everyone will be better off.

When, in the 1980s, many developing countries faced deepening economic crises (rising poverty, high rate of unemployment, double digit inflation, growing deficits and balance-of-payment crises, rampant corruption, etc), the neo-liberals attribute everything to state intervention in the economy. In his influential book, Markets and States in Tropical Africa: The Political Basis of Agricultural Policies (1981), Robert Bates argued that African economies were in crises, because predatory states were preventing the market from working effectively. He argued that politicians, bureaucrats, local and big industrialists and even the urban work force had all stood together to extract resources from African small producers (especially the peasants) using the state as an instrument of control and exploitation. He called on the "liberation" of small producers from state control, and according to one writer (whose name I could not remember), he might have influenced decision-makers at the World Bank and IMF.

While the statists (those who advocate state intervention in the economy) like Meles Zenawi agree with neo-liberals on the predatory, rent-seeking behaviour of developing country states, they bitterly reject any notion of state withdrawal from the economy. According to Meles, the problem is not the state acting to regulate/guide/direct processes of economic development. The problem has to do with state mismanagement, such as a failure to know when to intervene and how to intervene in the economy. More importantly, when a ruling class lacks political commitment to advance the interest of the masses and when politicians and bureaucrats create vertical patronage with dominant economic interest groups, or simply stated, when there are non-developmental states, how can it be possible to promote equitable and democratic development? And so Meles advances a relentless attack on the neo-liberal economic development paradigm including the economic reforms of the past two decades in Africa. He laments that Africa has suffered from misconceived reform measures (as explained in the previous section) that were intended to support domestic and foreign companies interested in getting quick investment returns (profit) while weakening the capacity of states to serve the African people.

Briefly, then, the pre-1980s states were predatory ones serving dominant political and economic interests. The post-1980s states have been acting as "night watchman states" which follow wherever the private sector goes to provide support in the form of infrastructure, protection of property rights, enforcement of contracts, etc. The alternative, Meles' proposition, is a democratic developmental state. Such a state will make the needs and aspirations of the poor masses central to the formulation and implementation of development policies. It will act to overcome the "poverty trap". There are a long list of roles prescribed by Meles for the state including achieving political stability; providing clear policy direction and commitment; manpower training; technological research; providing good quality public services (education, health, transport, water and sanitation, etc); preventing powerful classes from "capturing" the state; providing institutional support to small agricultural and industrial producers (extension services, micro-credit, technologies, market infrastructures, etc); building and strengthening local organizations; effective macroeconomic planing; remodeling the bureaucracy to serve the public interest; and above all, managing market failure. A well-managed and effective state is essential, and in fact necessary, to create the structures of African economies. And the most important aspect of effective state intervention is monitoring and correcting market failure. What do we mean by market failure? Let us consider three examples:

1) A poor man or woman goes to a bank seeking a loan to start a small enterprise. According to bank (market) rules, he/she cannot qualify because he/she does not have an asset (collateral) against which the bank assesses his/her credit worthiness. As a result, this man or woman remains poor, instead of being self-reliant and achieving economic independence. The developmental state ensures access to loans, grants and complementary support systems, such as skills training. The Ethiopian state has such programs, mostly delivered by regional states.

2) There are resource-poor and remote communities in a country. The private sector is not interested in investing in remote areas because they have no profit earning potential. Those areas will therefore remain poor and backward. The population will have no other choice except migration to cities and other areas in search of employment. A developmental state ensures the equitable distribution of state resources to support economic development activities in poor and marginalized areas. Who would not give EPRDF a credit for directing the Ethiopian state to reach out to historically neglected areas across Ethiopia?

3) Unless there are opportunities for what Meles calls "rapid and profitable exploitations" of natural resources, the private sector has no interest in long-term investment in rural areas, where the majority of the population lives. A developmental state makes strategic planning and investments in social and physical infrastructures to improve productivity and growth in the rural economy. This improves the quality of life of rural society. State planing under EPRDF has a good record of rural development planning, although the benefits remain to be fully demonstrated.

According to Meles, historically "successful societies have developed national innovative systems that address market failure". Here, we should consider not only the experience of East Asian countries (for which Meles pays a lot of attention), but Western governments which follow John Keynes' famous theory of aggregate demand management and monetary stabilization. In his The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936) and writing during the US economic depression of the 1930, Keynes had urged governments to regulate the market, as the market could not regulate itself. Adam Smith's notion of a self-regulating market system must be abandoned.

I had stayed in Gondar for nearly a year, 1996/97, which enabled me to observe the political tendency of EPRDF local officials. On this basis, I once wrote questioning whether EPRDF officials were ready to give up power. My explanation was that the Ethiopian state had continued to be their only source of livelihoods. Meles would say that this is an absolute nonsense. The tendency of EPRDF officials to stay on power longer has nothing to do with a bread-and-butter issue. It is strategic. To be effective, the policy of the developmental state requires stability and continuity in political leadership. He writes "Development policy is unlikely to transform a poor country into a developed one within the timeframe of the typical election cycle", more so since "politicians will be unable to think beyond the next election ..." Could this reflect a tendency to advocate for a one-party state? No, says Meles. There are successful examples of coalition parties in Scandinavia and Japan which ruled longer (50 years in the case of Japan) by winning competitive elections. And what kind of coalition? The urban middle class is welcomed as are labour and other groups. But "the peasant will be the bedrock of a stable developmental coalition. With the voters of the peasants who constitute the bulk of the coalition, with the democratic potentials of a socially transformed peasant, the developmental coalition will have what it needs to rule democratically to ensure continuity by democratic means and to stamp out patronage and rent-seeking activities".

In Chapter 15 Meles wants to discuss the experience of Botswana. Since no details were included with the excerpts reviewed here, let us say a few things about this interesting country. The experience of Botswana provides a good example of how development policy, state performance and political leadership can be combined to advance a country's development. Through effective management of national resources (mainly income from the diamond industry) and foreign aid and good policy planning, Botswana not only avoided the 1980s Africa-wide economic crises, but the country also managed to maintain a positive economic growth, though not at the rate comparable to those of East Asian countries. Compare this with Zambia (equally endowed with mining resources) which achieved little progress in decades or the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) whose leader Mubutu Sese Seko looted all the country's wealth or Tanzania whose leader Julius Nerere wasted time and resources experimenting the African model of socialism (but he was a great intellectual thinker) or our own leaders, Haile Sellassie and Mengistu Haile Mariam, who reduced the proud and progressive ancient nation to one of the poorest countries on earth.

If you have read the report of the Commission for Africa, you will find similar forceful statements of policy ideas in Chapter 21 of Meles' paper. He reiterates the requirements of the "democratic developmentalism", such as persistent political action, policy leadership, active popular participation, broader political engineering and external support (foreign aid). He stresses that the health of African economies and societies will be beneficial to the industrialized countries, since huge African markets will provide business opportunities, and more importantly, Africa will achieve regional peace, security and curtail the spread of international crime and terrorism. He also appeals to developed countries to consider long-term development assistance, such as non-reciprocal trade, instead of practicing what he calls policy-rent (conditional aid).

How does All This Boil Down to Ethiopian Reality?

Meles Zenawi wrote this paper to articulate and communicate his development thinking and policy vision. The review of the paper here thus provides us with an opportunity to raise and discuss practical issues affecting contemporary Ethiopian society. Below I discuss some issues.

To begin with, the paper reflects the evolution of Meles' thinking and his lived experiences in national and international policy debates, politics and diplomacy. For example, consider his criticism of market liberalization policies in Africa and other regions. In reality, Meles has always resisted donors' pressure to speed up the process of market liberalization in Ethiopia. He has continued to argue that he would not just privatize land, because it would result in catastrophic consequences, as poor people sell their holdings and flock to urban areas. Although the issue has been on and off during negotiations with donors' development assistance packages, for the most part Meles has successfully defended his land policy. On the issue of privatization of public enterprises, Meles has also been able to set the pace at which they would be privatized. Whether one calls him a Marxist, Pan-Africanist or "Third World" nationalist, Meles has earned the respect of the international community (although major donors are still dismayed with the way he managed the post-election crisis) and he must be credited for making Ethiopia one of the major international aid recipient countries in Africa.

A medical student (in the 1970s) turned a leader of a guerrilla organization and then a national politician, Meles has always exceeded our expectations. The paper reviewed here will enable him to make his mark in African history as visionary leader and intellectual thinker along with people like Julius Nerere, Kwame Nkrumah and Nelson Mandela. In fact, unlike Nerere and Nkrumah whose policies had not worked well (Nkrumah was even overthrown), Meles has managed to achieve major strides in development. For example, the decentralization policy is working, as regional governments increasingly assume major responsibilities in the planning and delivery of development programs. The recent World Health Organization (WHO) report says that the Amhara region's sanitation program has become a success story in terms of achieving a high rate of area coverage. The recent White Paper of the UK on foreign aid policy identifies the Ethiopian government's safety net program as a good example of "protecting the poor". Other programs (micro-credit, agricultural extension, health, education, rural electrification, irrigation, and so on) will work towards improvements in the quality of life of rural society. Urban planning in Ethiopia has tremendously improved with an emphasis on expansions in housing, water and sanitation, jobs and social services. In a few years, the number of universities will increase to 22 and the number of students enrolled in universities will jump to over 100,000. All this is Meles' legacy.

But a legacy must be a living legacy. That is why we are concerned how the progresses achieved under EPRDF (ruling party) could be sustained, given the continuation of political uncertainties in the country.

At the conceptual level, the developmental state should function like a family unit. The family ensures that all the children are provided with equal chances in life including equal opportunities of access to household resources and their proper socialization into culture and society. In the same way, the developmental state should ensure the provision of equal opportunities of access to material, organizational and intellectual resources and political space for social, economic, political and cultural interest groups, so that they can articulate and formulate their ideas, visions and strategies of existence and their roles in society. Like parents managing households, political leaders managing the state must exercise responsibility to ensure equitable access by all groups in society to the resources of the state.

In present day Ethiopia, we have one party, EPRDF, on power controlling state resources. Confident and determined, the leaders of EPRDF want to carry out the business of the country in their own ways. The other parties, opposition parties, are struggling to seize state power, some considering any means necessary (including armed struggle) to have it. They are disorganized, arguing against each other and, in the case of the Ethiopian Diaspora, some of them are intimidating anyone who meets Ethiopian government officials. The fact of the matter is that the level of political fragmentation in Ethiopia is not acceptable. Consider the list of political parties: the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Party (EPRDF) (including many organizations orbiting around it), Coalition for Unit and Democracy Party (CUDP), United Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF), Oromo National Congress (ONC), Ethiopian Democratic Party (EDP)-Medhin, Diaspora CUD, Diaspora UEDF, Ethiopian Peoples Patriotic Front (EPPF), Ethiopian United Patriots Front (EUPF), Sidama Liberation Front (SLF), Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), and more. As Addis Fortune once rightly pointed out, EPRDF has also increasingly adapted "inclusion within the fence" approach to dealing with its political opponents (i.e., dealing with only those parties which have entered parliament), which leaves certain groups out of the political process and so perpetuates the current situation of political stalemate. I believe that it is time that Meles and other EPRDF leaders exercise their public and citizenship responsibilities to create the conditions necessary for political development.

I do not intend to propose a solution here. I believe that the solution can be found from within Ethiopian society. Nevertheless, I want to seize the opportunity here to present a simple proposal which suggest a first step towards seeking a solution to the current political situation. I propose the establishment by the Ethiopian government of a group of prominent Ethiopians to facilitate political dialogue and reconciliation. This group could be drawn from retired civil servants and veteran army officers (with clean records), religious leaders, academics and parliamentarians (representing all political parties). Supported by experts and analysts, and drawing from the rich social and cultural traditions of the Ethiopian people, the group of prominent Ethiopians can:1) identify discussion topics and develop programs (e.g., town hall and community meetings, roundtables and focus groups, as appropriate) to facilitate dialogue and reconciliation among political parties and their supporters at home and abroad; 2) seek the support of Ethiopian civil society leaders and intellectuals at home and abroad to facilitate the political dialogue and reconciliation process; 3) seek the support of Ethiopian communities at home and abroad to create measures that encourage the use of information communication technologies - especially the Internet - to advance the best interest of the Ethiopian people; 4) produce a report of the political dialogue and reconciliation. The Ethiopian government initiates a public education program to disseminate and promote the lessons identified in the report. This program will help Ethiopians make informed choices during the next election; and 5) to create a conductive climate for political dialogue and reconciliation, the Ethiopian government releases all political prisoners.

My proposal is an addition to initiatives already proposed by diplomats and national and international organizations. The public debate in the Ethiopian Diaspora and at home has shifted to peacemaking and development. There is no need to continue the current political stalemate by keeping the leaders of CUDP in prison. Let us resolve this issue and move on to focus our attention on development work. Ethiopia is running against time to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Meles and other EPRDF leaders should not ignore the voices of people like us from the silent majority in the Ethiopian Diaspora. Many of us were leading simple and quite lives before the 2005 election. We entered the public domain only after witnessing the extreme polarization of the political debate. We wanted to contribute to the development of Ethiopia.

To continue, the building of a strong developmental state requires the institutionalization and practices of accountability and transparency at all levels of society and government. For instance, while Meles writes attacking the predatory state for mediating vertical patronage, the Ethiopian public remains wondering why some EPRDF-owned companies were able to flourish in just a few years of their existence. Could they have used their political connections to get easy access to government contracts? It is time that an independent body or an auditor look at how these companies do business. This builds public confidence in the effectiveness of the Ethiopian state and political leadership.

A few weeks ago, Addis Fortune reported that Meles got furious when the opposition parties raised, during a parliamentary debate, the issue of possible misspending by regional states. Their allegation was based on the finding of the auditor general who reviewed the accounting books. Meles dismissed this concern as "no business" of the federal government, instead of seizing the opportunity to talk about initiating measures that strengthen systems of accountability. In our Decentralization and Local Autonomy: Regional Planning in Ethiopia (New Regional Planning Paradigms, 2001), Fraser Taylor and I noted the importance of federal oversight of the functions of regional states considering the lack of sufficient institutional capacity in regions.

Throughout my review of his paper, I felt that Meles has little interest in civil society organizations, questioning their role in fostering trickle-up democracy and pointing out that some of the actors in the civil society sector painfully articulate "development" only to secure their own welfare. True, there have always been questions about the ways some of the civil society organizations work including their internal democracy and management of organizational resources. Yet, the fact of the matter is that the existence of vibrant civil society is a measure of democracy. The Ethiopian state should facilitate the development of civil society organizations in rural as well as urban areas.

It can be easy to articulate the idea of building a strong rural coalition that serves as a bedrock of the democratic developmental state. Organizing the peasantry within the organizational frameworks of rural Kebels, cooperatives, women associations and youth associations are examples. The challenge for EPRDF is how to democratise the structures and processes of such organizations. During my stay in Gondar, I became surprised by the wide spread sentiment in some Kebeles of being ruled by kutara (kids). The leaders of rural organizations were in their 30s and some in their early 20s. Local people claimed that the elections of these young people into Kebeles and other rural organizations were highly orchestrated by local EPRDF cadres. Why? Because, according them, young people were obedient to government authorities, whereas "conservatives" (matured people) would always question government policy. Some of the local leaders were so socially despised and politically hated, like one Kebele EPRDF party secretary who, during the land redistribution process, redrew the sub-Kebele boundary to incorporate fertile land to his sub-Kebele (where he lives), so that he could distribute it to the members of his extended family. No wonder that the EPRDF candidate in the area had a hard time getting elected during the 2005 election. Interference by EPRDF officials in the decision-making processes of Kebeles and other rural organizations is unwanted and it undermines the functions of grassroots democracy - the epistemological foundation of democratic developmentalism.

Finally, EPRDF leaders must avoid, as much as possible, adapting paternalistic approaches in their relationships with the Ethiopian masses. To rephrase the arguments of noble prize winner economist Amrita Sen, people do not behave like animals. If you feed animals, they are happy. If you feed people, they are happy too, but they also have other needs, such as freedom, spiritual satisfaction, participation, institutional representation, respect, sense of belonging, and so on. Talking about peasants as "bedrock" of the developmental state is not enough. EPRDF must take serious measures to build the capacity of rural organizations to achieve autonomy and participate fully in policy-making and political processes. The peasants will owe no loyalty to the developmental state unless they have their share of ownership of the development process and institutions of the state.

Conclusion

Meles Zenawi's paper contributes to an understanding of historical and contemporary issues in African and international development. The sophistication of writing and analysis of the paper demonstrates Meles' self-discipline, hard work and heart-felt interest and passion for development studies. I truly appreciate his work reviewed here.

Meles advances a good argument in favour of the developmental state. The challenge is how to translate a theoretical construct of such a state model into reality. But, let us give him a credit. The performance of the Ethiopian state has tremendously improved under EPRDF leadership, as evidenced by how public money and international development assistance are being used for investments in health, education, infrastructure, rural development, safety nets, etc. In just 15 years (even without considering all the times wasted to construct a federal state and fight a war with Eritrea) EPRDF has done what Haile Sellassie's feudal regime would not have done in 100 years or Mengistu Haile Mariam's Workers Party in 60 or 70 years!

Sustained economic, social and political development would be achieved when state policies are formulated through a consensus among different political and interest groups. If EPRDF continues its "do-it-alone" approach to making decisions, all its legacies could wither away when another party comes to power. The building of the developmental state should not be a political project of the EPRDF ruling elites, rather, it should evolve out of broader political, social, cultural and economic processes and interactions.

Getachew Mequanent

Ottawa, Canada, September 14,2006