Topic:
Country: Ethiopia
Delegate Name: Stella Yakima
Date: November 19, 2023
Committee: Disarmament and International Security Committee
Country: Ethiopia
Subject: Reducing military budget
Ethiopia’s National Defence Force (NDF) budget is currently $1.8 billion. Compared to other countries near Ethiopia, Ethiopia’s budget is very high. Although Ethiopia does spend a lot of money on their military and government, they are still one of the poorest countries and have one of the highest growing populations. As of 2023 Ethiopia’s population is over 126 million people and accounts for nearly 2% of the world population!
Hypothetically, reducing the military budget would be necessary for the country of Ethiopia to thrive and continue to grow. Ethiopia has had one of the highest poverty rates in the world since 2000 but the country has made a lot of improvement and reduced the population of Ethiopian citizens living in poverty by 33%! Agricultural growth played a huge role in bringing the country out of poverty. People could now get jobs selling the produce they’ve grown, providing them with the funds to finally support themselves and potentially their family too.
Providing funding for agricultural growth from the military budget could help this country greatly but another thing that would greatly benefit from the military budget would be access to sanitation and attended births. Both of these are huge safety risks mainly for women and girls. Access to sanitation and healthcare would help the community very much, not only because it would make Ethiopia a safer place to live, but because it would also entice people to live there. People need places to live that are clean and healthy. In addition to agricultural and health initiatives, the Ethiopian government could shift a portion of their military funding towards education so they would not only be helping the citizens escape poverty and keep them healthy, they would also be helping educate them.
Bibliography:
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/ETH/ethiopia/military-spending-defense-budget
https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/rest-of-africa/ethiopia-region-s-biggest-military-spender-in-2022-4217016
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2022/country-chapters/ethiopia
https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/entities/publication/c4161170-c4a7-5049-a2bb-bb7e418200d1
https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature/2023/08/01/boom-bust-fallout-war-and-drought-leaves-ethiopians-mired-poverty
