Millennium Villages Blog

Ethiopian MPs watching a demonstration at a nursery in Ruhiira, Uganda

For the first time ever, more than 35 Ethiopian Parliamentarians took a two-week long tour in Kenya and Uganda in October 2009 to learn more about their counterparts’ efforts towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the region.

The visit, coordinated by the MDG Centre, East and Southern Africa, and UNDP Ethiopia, came on the heels of the creation of the Ethiopian Parliamentarian Caucus on the MDGs, which aims at sensitizing both Members of Parliament and their constituents about the Goals and ways to implement them in Sub-Saharan Africa before the 2015 deadline.

The tour kicked-off in Nairobi with a series of official meetings, including with Prime Minister Raila Odinga and the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly Farah Maalim. ‘Our main enemy is poverty. The role of Parliament in alleviating poverty is paramount,’ said Hon. Wolderufael Alemayehu, head of the Ethiopian delegation.

The delegation also had a long discussion with the Kenyan Caucus, headed by Ntoitha M’Mithiaru, which was formed in March 2009 and has already started lobbying Parliament in favor of the MDGs. Ethiopian MPs were interested in knowing how they could participate in MDG implementation instead of just monitoring and sensitizing, and how they could make implementing ministries accountable to Parliament.

‘We took a good lesson from the presentations. We will try to implement what we have seen in our respective regions,’ added Hon. Alemayehu. A subsequent consultation with non state actors, including civil society and development organizations, highlighted the partnerships around MDG implementation nurtured between all key stakeholders. The need to pursue regional integration to boost cross border trade synergies was also underscored.

MPs at a fish pond in Sauri introduced by the MVP

Next was a two day visit to the Sauri Millennium Village (Western Kenya), the first to be launched in 2004 and currently the biggest in terms of population with 70,000 inhabitants. There, the delegation witnessed muti-sectoral achievements in agriculture, health, education, etc.

’This is real progress at the community level. It‘s amazing what farmers can do with just a little push from a development project like this one,’ noted Dr. Mesrak Mokonnen, Speaker from the Amhar Region in Ehtiopia.

In Uganda, the delegation first met the Speaker of the House Edward Ssekandi Kiwanuka, who briefed its members about the national MDG Forum and the role it plays in promoting the Goals, along with sector committees on social services (health, education and gender). Then, the Ethiopian Parliamentarians had a lively discussion with their colleagues from the Uganda Forum on the role of MPs in advocating for increased funding to meet the MDGs, the role of local governments, and the decentralised governance system. The Chair of the Uganda Forum, Hon. Rebecca Lukwago, spoke about the opportunities and challenges they face and urged the Ethiopians to form a similar structure.

The delegation also had the opportunity to discover the cultural face of Kampala with a visit to the Uganda Museum, Makerere University, Kasubi Royal Tombs, and Christian and Muslim places of worship. They participated in a traditional dance with the Ndere Cultural Troupe, a multi-award winning dance and music company that has been gracing stages for almost 25 years.

Visiting a school nursery in Ruhiira

Then the visit moved to the field and the Millennium Village of Ruhiira, set in the South-East of the country on lush hills covered with banana fields but plagued by malnutrition and other problems. There, they also learnt about successes registered at village level and the road ahead towards achieving the MDGs, especially reducing maternal death thanks to improved health facilities and mobile technology. The Ruhiira field trip was crowned by a Health Day at Kanywamaizi Primary school ground, attended by over 7,000 community members. During that day that has become an important gathering for the community, men, women and children are offered free health services, such as immunization, voluntary HIV testing, malaria and malnutrition tests, ante-natal services, etc.

The visit concluded with a debriefing session in Kampala attended by Mary Symmonds, Country Director for UNDP, as well as other UN staff, and Dison Okumu, head of the Uganda Parliamentary Development and Coordination Office.

Once again, Hon. Alemayehu spoke of the role of legislators at all levels of governance – federal, regional and lower - in the implementation of the MDGs. Building on what the delegation heard and saw in both Kenya and Uganda, he also mentioned the possibility of having forums at the regional level, in addition to the federal level. ‘We appreciated the visit to the MVP, especially the integrated nature of the project, community empowerment and local government engagement,’ he said, adding that the delegation would examine the possibility of scaling up lessons seen in the villages, especially health ones.

Ms. Symmonds closed the meeting by talking about UNDP’s interaction with the Uganda Parliamentary MDG Forum and the need to strengthen it further.

The Parliamentarians went back to Ethiopia armed with the conviction that their efforts would make a difference in the march towards the 2015 deadline. On their program was one last significant visit: the Koraro Millennium Village, to see how their own country was able to deal with the MDG challenges.

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