Stories from the Field

Improving Malaria Microscopy through Quality Assurance

Malaria transmission in Ethiopia is unique. Unlike other sub-Saharan African countries, malaria is caused by two malaria parasite species in Ethiopia: Plasmodium falciparum and P. vivax, which account for 60% and 40% of cases, respectively. Ethiopia’s treatment guidelines recommend artemether-lumefantrine as the first line treatment for P. falciparum and chloroquine for P. vivax malaria. To ensure that patients are appropriately treated with the correct drug, it is important that patients...

Using Micro-planning to Accurately Quantify Needs for Antimalarial Commodities

Accurately quantifying antimalarial commodity requirements in Ethiopia is a challenge for multiple reasons. Transmission of malaria is highly variable and characterized by frequent and often large-scale epidemics. In addition, both artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) and rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) have a short shelf life. At the district level, poor quantification has often resulted in either an over-supply of antimalarial drugs and diagnostic kits and their subsequent expiry, or...

Enriching Communication: The Malaria Research Network of Ethiopia

Malaria is a major public health problem in Ethiopia, with 75 percent of the over 80 million inhabitants at risk for malaria epidemics. Although significant progress has been observed in scaling up malaria control interventions over the past few years, limited efforts have been invested in using research results to inform national malaria policy and the implementation of malaria control. Currently, considerable malaria research is being conducted by in-country stakeholders, including the...

USAID Revives Boys and Girls Scouts in Ethiopia

For five days beginning on September 17, 2012, approximately 500 scouts from two city administrations and the 9 different regions of Ethiopia gathered at the Defense Engineering College in Debre Zeit for the 4th Ethiopian National Scout Jamboree. This is the first jamboree (an international term used to describe a large gathering of scouts) since 1966! Scouting in Ethiopia began in 1934, but various political upheavals interrupted the scouting movement until it was reinstituted in 1992. However...

The Education Alternative

Through an innovative USAID-sponsored project, over a quarter of a million rural Ethiopians living beyond the reach of the formal system now have access to basic schooling. In just 10 years, the “it-takes-a-village” model is outperforming some of the country’s more established schools. In Ethiopia, as in much of sub-Saharan Africa, pens are a treasured commodity. Give a child a pen and you will see a smile worth all the Western world’s Christmas mornings. Yet lack of basic school supplies just...

Peace Brokers

A dusty town in the Somali region of Ethiopia, Hudet had been the focal point of a longstanding conflict. For decades, four clans—the Gari, Guji, Gebra and Borena—had competed over scarce resources and fought over a vast territory along the disputed borderlands between Ethiopia’s Somali and Oromiya regional states. Clashes among the groups had regularly escalated into violence that destabilized pockets of the region. Historically, these clashes included cattle-raiding and revenge-killing,...

Putting Local Wealth to Work in Ethiopia

Abebaw Gessese is a poultry farm owner in the rural town of Mojo, a few hours south of Ethiopia’s capital. Poultry farming, however, wasn’t always Gessese’s profession. He majored in accounting at Addis Ababa University and spent a decade working in the Development Bank of Ethiopia before deciding to take the risk that every entrepreneur must take: giving up the security of a constant paycheck to pursue a dream. You could say that starting a farm was in Gessese’s blood. Both of his...

A Powerful Piece of Paper

A USAID-backed land-certification scheme has not only transformed property rights for men and women alike, but has also addressed declining agricultural productivity, resource degradation and conflict over boundaries. With certificate in hand, new rights-holders agree: “There is nothing better than land.” Kimya Ahmed never imagined how a simple piece of paper would change her life. But that is exactly what happened after she and her husband received a formal certificate of land use from the...

Interview with Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Ethiopia’s Minister of Health

Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has led Ethiopia’s Ministry of Health since 2005. An internationally recognized malaria researcher, and often cited as a visionary in the field of global health, Dr. Tedros recently spoke to USAID about his government’s efforts to reform the country’s health system, some areas of major success and the road ahead. FRONTLINES: You were chair of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, chair of the Roll Back Malaria campaign, and you’ve been...

The Female "Army" Leading Ethiopia's Health Revolution

A fleet of 35,000 frontline extension workers and their “model” families are helping carry out Ethiopia’s mission to provide universal access to basic health services and are empowering communities to take charge of their own health from the grassroots. Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous nation, is also overwhelmingly rural. Bucking the global trend of mass migration to cities, over 80 percent of Ethiopians still live in hard-to-reach areas. This isolation presents a formidable...

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