Awra Amba RJ 300612 EN - Contacter un comité local d'Attac

Awra Amba, a current experiment of utopian socialism
These committees meet at least once a year and vote by a show of hands (Jo10b/9).
Committee Men Women Total
Development 4 1 5
Controlling development committee 1 2 3
Weekly development 4 1 5
Controlling weekly development committee 1 2 3
Education 3 2 5
Patients care 2 3 5
Elderly care 3 2 5
Sanitation 2 1 3
Problem solving 1 2 3
Work assignment 1 2 3
Complaint hearing 1 2 3
Security 3 0 3
Lost money handling 2 1 3
Reception 2 2 4
By law preparation 8 7 15
Total 38 30 68
Table 3:
Participation to the fifteen 2005 committees (Atnafu, 2005/62). Colours indicate the
egalitarian (in blue), or very low participation (in red) of women.
4.2. Economic activities
According to Ya08/2 and 126, the Ethiopian are familiar with collective and cooperative work, in
agriculture (Debo, Wenfel), trade, army, as well as for many social events (Idir, Equb). In addition, in
the recent past, the cooperatives were encouraged by the government for improving the economy of
the communities. However, the Awra Amba cooperative has not been created at the initiative of an
external authority, but at the initiative of the cooperative members themselves.
The economy of Awra Amba is partially an agricultural economy, following the alternately dry and
wet seasons: the agricultural work is more important during the wet season, the cooperative taking
over during the dry season mainly through weaving.
The cultivated area is 10.23 ha according to Ya08/97 (much more – 28.2 – according to At05/28),
and is not irrigated (At05/38). It gives a cultivated area per household of 0.11 or 0.29 ha, which is
much lower than the average figure of the woreda of 1.4 ha. When the areas of grassland are
included, we get a surface farmed per Awra Amba household of about 0.16 ha or 0.41 ha, whereas
the figure for the woreda is 2.1 ha: Awra Amba is far to be able to live from its land. Its cereal
production per inhabitant was anyway in 2006 39 kg/inh/year, when the standard is 225 kg/inh/year
in wheat (Ya08/103).
Surface (ha) Production (q) Yield (q/ha)
Tef 5.75 32 5.6
Maize 3.73 118 31.6
Beans (bollokie) 0.75 5 6.7
Total 10.23 155 15.1
Table 4: Farming production and yield of the cooperative in 2006, acc. to Yassin (2008/98).
The main productions are sorghum (or maize: the author mentions sorghum in the text and maize in
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