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ABSTRACT
In spite of high capital expenditures, the development of state-owned sugarcane estates in Ethiopia’s southwestern lowlands did not bring the desired success in terms of sugar revenues, employment creation, or the socio-economic development of the local agro-pastoralist population. Yet, the radical and capital-intensive transformation of the Omo River basin was by no means without impact. This paper shows that the Kuraz Sugar Development Project (KSDP) entails ‘side effects’ which manifest themselves in different spatial–temporal dimensions. More technically, the paper examines how water resources are linked to the outcomes of this state-led development intervention and how it increases the degree of legibility from above and outside. It is based on qualitative case study research conducted between 2013 and 2017, which included multiple visits to the study region and in-depth discussions with different stakeholders at the federal and local level.
Acknowledgements
Since 2013, multiple people have provided critical feedback on the research summarised in this article. I wish to express my special appreciation for friends and colleagues in South Omo who took the time to sit down with me and helped me to better understand the on-going changes. I also wish to acknowledge the support of the Ethiopian Sugar Corporation and the openness of several individuals within the organisation during multiple occasions. I owe special thanks to David Turton, Jed Stevenson, Jonah Wedekind, and several colleagues from OTuRN and ABI for their helpful advice. Moreover, I want to thank Alula Pankhurst for his constructive comments on an earlier version of this article presented at ASA 2017, Jason Mosley, as well as the two anonymous reviewers.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Avery, Future for Turkana.
2 MoFED, Growth and Transformation Plan I.
3 Kamski, Kuraz Briefing.
4 Kamski, “Sweet Visions,” 573; ESC, Kuraz Sugar Development Project.
5 Stevenson and Buffavand, “Villagization and Food Insecurity.”
6 Scott, Seeing Like a State; Ferguson, Anti-politics Machine, “Seeing Like an Oil Company.”
7 Oxford English Dictionary.
8 Ferguson, Anti-politics Machine.
9 On the Ethiopian developmental state project see for instance Clapham, “Developmental State”; Vaughan, “Party, State, and People”; Planel, “A Bureaucratic Developmental State”.
10 For an overview of current knowledge on the wider implications of river basin development in the Omo-Turkana basin see Hodbod et al. “A Synthesis of Developments.”
11 Lavers, “Investment in Ethiopia”; Tsegay, “Land Acquisitions and State Authority.”
12 Edegilign, “Insight from Gibe.”
13 Fantini, Tesfaye and Smit, “Big Projects”; Fantini and Planel, “Zones Grises.”
14 Asnake and Fana, “Sugar Industry”; Fana, “Securitisation of Development”; see also Kamski, Kuraz Briefing; Kamski, “Sweet Visions”; ESC, Kuraz Sugar Development Project.
15 Cramer et al. “The Perils of Fieldwork.”
16 Kamski, Kuraz Briefing; Kamski, “Sweet Visions”; ESC, Kuraz Sugar Development Project.
17 Heidegger, Technik und Kehre.
18 Ferguson, Anti-politics Machine, 254.
19 Ferguson, Anti-politics Machine, 255 drawing on Foucault, Discipline and Punishment.
20 Luttwak, Strategy, xi.
21 Ibid., 5.
22 Ibid., 8.
23 Ibid., 18–19.
24 Avery, Future for Turkana; Stevenson and Kamski, “Blue Oil.”
25 Mitchell, Rule of Experts, 21.
26 Vitalis, When Capitalists Collide, 88–89.
27 Mitchell, Rule of Experts, 33.
28 Ibid., 43.
29 Ibid., 45.
30 Scott, Seeing Like a State, 88.
31 Fourie, “China’s Example,” 306.
32 Clapham, “Politics of Emulation.”
33 Verhoeven, Water Civilization and Power.
34 Verhoeven, Water Civilization and Power; Mitchell, Rule of Experts; Scott, Seeing Like a State.
35 Scott, Seeing Like a State, 13.
36 Hodbod et al. “A Synthesis of Developments”; Carr, A Policy Crossroads.
37 Fantini, Tesfaye and Smit, “Big Projects”.
38 Linton and Budds, “Hydrosocial Cycle,” 6.
39 Edegilign, “Insight from Gibe.”
40 See Keeley et al. “Land Deals”; Avery, Future for Turkana.
41 See Kamski and Stevenson, “Ethiopia’s Blue Oil” and Carr, A policy Crossroads on river basin development, particularly the chronology of water resources interventions in the Omo-Turkana Basin.
42 On the ‘Blue Nile Question’ the reader is referred the special issue by Zeray, Rieu-Clarke and Cascão “Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.”
43 Turton, “Exploration in lower Omo.” Butzer, History of a Delta.
44 Markakis, Last Frontier.
45 Donham and James, “Southern Marches”; see also Mosley and Watson, “Frontier Transformations.”
46 See Abbink, “Paradoxes of Power”; Elias, On the Margin.
47 Turton, “Wilderness, Wasteland or Home.”
48 Markakis, Last Frontier.
49 Ficquet et al. Les peuples d’Éthiopie, 65.
50 Abbink, “Ethnic Conflict,” 676; Markakis, Last Frontier.
51 See Sokol, “Dimensions of Transition Processes”; Bartlett, “European Super-periphery.”
52 On agro-pastoralism, selected aspects of local livelihoods, and inter-group relations in the lower Omo see Turton, “A Problem of Domination.”
53 Personal interviews with the ESC’s Irrigation, Housing & Infrastructure Directorate in Addis Ababa, November and October 2014, March 2016.
54 Personal interviews with representatives of the South Omo Zone Administration in Jinka, June 2014, October 2014, February 2016.
55 Korf et al., “Re-spacing African Drylands.”
56 Meles, Jinka Speech.
57 Kipling, “White Men’s Burden.”
58 Kamski, “Sweet Visions”; ESC, Kuraz Sugar Development Project.
59 Unpublished environmental impact assessment and hydrology studies commissioned by ESC.
60 Meles, Jinka Speech.
62 Scott, Seeing Like a State, 88–90.
63 Clapham, “Politics of Emulation.”
64 Kamski, “Sweet Visions”; ESC, Kuraz Sugar Development Project.
65 The Ethiopian Herald, 4 March 2016
66 See www.ethiopiansugar.com
67 Kamski, Kuraz Briefing; Kamski, “Sweet Visions,” 574.
68 Personal interview with KSDP project management in Hana-Kuraz, February 2016, and the ESC’s Irrigation, Housing & Infrastructure Directorate in Addis Ababa, February 2016.
69 Personal interview with KSDP project management in Hana, February 2016.
70 Phone call with former project engineer working for ESC, April 2017.
71 Stevenson and Buffavand, “Villagization and Food Insecurity.”
72 This assessment was confirmed by ESC managers who acknowledged that the initial target of 175,000 hectares was based on incomplete assessments.
73 Personal interview with state minister Beyene in the Ministry of Public Enterprises in Addis Ababa, March 2016.
74 See Carr, “Humanitarian Catastrophe.”
75 Asnake and Fana, “The Expansion of the Sugar Industry.”
76 See Meles, “States and Markets.”
77 World Bank, “Towards a Competitive Frontier”; World Bank, “Ethiopia’s Great Run,” 3.
78 Dorosh, “Agriculture in Ethiopia’s Economic Development”; Dessalegn, Land to Investors, “Land Investments Revisited.”
79 Turton, “Wilderness, Wasteland or Home”.
80 Wittfogel, Oriental Despotis.
81 Personal Interview in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Addis Ababa, May 2016.
82 Personal observation in 2016 and 2017.
83 Tewolde and Fana, “Development in Salamago,” 9.
84 Personal interview in the Ministry of Water and Energy (MoWE) in Addis Ababa, June 2014.
85 “Ethiopia’s external debt surged to 14 Billion USD.” Hornaffairs, 2014.
86 Deloitte & Touch, “Ethiopia: A Growth Miracle”; Moller, “Ethiopia’s Growth Miracle.”
87 See Kamski, “Sweet Visions” for an overview of contractors and actors involved in KSDP.
88 Bloomberg News, “Shake up Military Corporation,” 1 June 2018.
89 Personal interview with the ESC’s Irrigation, Housing & Infrastructure Directorate in Addis Ababa, February 2016.
90 Multiple group discussions with farm labourers on the KSDP project site, June 2014.