Nutrition In Ethiopia

The Federal Democratic republic of Ethiopia is a sub-Saharan Africa nation with an approximated population of 97 million. With a land size of 1,104,300 km2, it makes up most of the peninsula known as the horn of Africa in north eastern Africa (CIA, 2014). Unlike most African nations Ethiopia was not colonised by western countries, apart from a short Italian occupation from 1936 – 1941. Ethiopia has a long history of famines with the most recent lasting from 1983 – 1985 (Milkias, 2010). Amongst some of the countries worst problems are poverty, food insecurity and environmental degradation: resource imbalance and climate conditions with a growing population; it is amongst the lowest 10 of 180 countries on the human development index (UNDP, 2009). In particular, attention needs to be drawn to the economic and social vulnerability of pregnant women, and stress the importance of concomitant broader strategies.

This essay will discuss the United Nations’ millennium development goals, specifically MDG 5, Improving Maternal Health and the progress that Ethiopia has made in meeting the targets. As suggested by Wills(2004), we can see the health issues in this country through a sociological imagination template that approaches to historical, structural, cultural and critical aspects (as cited in Germov, 2009). There are several determinants of high maternal deaths in Ethiopia; malnutrition from generic poverty status, communicable diseases, low empowerment, early giving birth, inaccessible health service. Best-case example, however, demonstrates that the government of Ethiopian set a target to further reduce maternal mortality ratio from 590 to 267 deaths per 100,000 live births by the year 2015 in the new HSDP IV (MoH, 2010).

The Millenni...

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...3) has previous suggested that “satisfying the unmet need for family planning alone could cut the number of maternal deaths by almost a third.”. On average, those with a relatively lower educational attainment and with lower decision-making autonomy are poorer than those with better economic status, educational attainment and empowerment (Gebreselassie, )

However, the Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH) has shown to be making a commitment to reducing the prevalence of maternal mortality, though mostly through foreign funding provided through the MDG Achievement Fund (MDG-F PDF). The Health Services Development Programmes (HSDP) have been used to increase services, medicines and immunizations, strengthening the health system and deploying extension workers through the Health Extension Plan (HEP) (Federal Ministry of Health, Family Health Department, 2005).