Paradigms and politics: The cultural construction of environmental policy in Ethiopia

In the wake of the 1985 famine, the Ethiopian government launched an ambitious program of environmental reclamation supported by donors and nongovernment organizations and backed by the largest food-for-work program in Africa. In retrospect, it is clear that much of this effort was wasted or counterproductive. While many factors contributed to the reclamation program's poor performance, this essay is primarily concerned with the role of a neo-Malthusian environmental policy narrative that was used by government and donors alike to justify the rapid, massive and widespread use of standardized environmental management “packages” without research on their environmental impact or their economic costs and benefits. Understanding the context in which this happened is important for key elements of the narrative still inform thinking and planning in Ethiopia. There is mounting evidence that the use of narratives in this type in environmental management programs and, more generally, in many other types of development planning is widespread and costly.