Portraits of Poverty and Instability

By Dave

Foreign Policy has two heart-rendering photo essays on the Worst Slums in the World and on the World's Most Fragile States. Here is a snippet from the latter:

16. ETHIOPIA

Desperate thirst: Drought is one of many problems that continually afflicts the northern African country of Ethiopia. Lack of water not only kills crops, meaning starvation, but also causes violent conflicts over scarce vital resources. Inadequate sanitation has made water-borne diseases the No. 1 cause of infant deaths in the country -- where 300,000 children under age 5 die every year. Here, a boy near the town of Moyale drinks from a muddy puddle.

I almost had a chance to go to Ethiopia last year on a school project. I would have loved the opportunity to go make a difference. It is a country desperately in need of development. Jeff Sach's book The End of Poverty is a great read about development economics and talks a lot about the challenges facing Ethiopia and other African countries. I highly recommend.

(Picture From Foreign Policy: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/06/22/portraits_of_instability?page=0,15)