Education and Training in Ethiopia An Evaluation of Approaching EFA Goals

5.4 Progress Towards Strategic Objectives Throughthe Finnish-Promoted ProjectsEthiopia received the status of a programme country in Finnish development cooperationin 1982. The proportion of Finland in Ethiopia’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) is0.96 per cent of the total ODA, which places Finland 20 th among the donor countries. InThe 1990s, Finnish development assistance focused on agriculture, education, and waterand sanitation. (Tervo, Hailu, Huvio, Kirjavainen, Lasonen, Ovaskainen, Poutiainen,2003). The educational projects supported by the Finnish government (see Appendix X)promoted capacity building with a view to enabling Ethiopia to provide as many people aspossible with access to education and literacy. The aim was to promote good governancethrough concrete cooperation with the Ministry of Education (MoE) decision-makers andlocal public authorities. Both the bilateral and the NGO projects were a response toEthiopian needs. The Ethiopians also took part in planning the projects. Projects funded byFinland have been marked by a substantial degree of local ownership, which has helped toensure that the activities started will continue after external funding ends.The overall goals of the bilateral projects have accorded with Finnish developmentcooperation policies, particularly as regards equality in the population as a whole. Thesystematic implementation of an actual strategy for reducing poverty began in the 1990s.The aim has been to consider poverty in its social context and, at the same time, to adopta comprehensive approach towards its elimination. The goal of reducing poverty refers tothe concept of globalisation and its disadvantages and advantages.In the near future, among the greatest problems involved in globalisation are theincreasing disparities between countries with developed information technology (ICT) andthe developing countries. In the developed countries, information services continue toexpand, and making use of them has become an everyday activity. At the same time, mostof the population of the developing countries has no access to any of this technology, andin many countries the development of information technology is only in its early stages.Accordingly, Finnish projects have contributed to train and equip their counterparts andstakeholders with computers and appropriate software to some extent. The School for Deafin Hosaina has successfully trained Special Needs Education (SNE) students withinformation and communication technology (ICT) skills.When we speak about the growth of a knowledge-intensive economy, a central aspectis the function of ICT in the globalisation process. Use of information technology makes theoperations of the global economy more efficient, but not everyone is a fully empoweredmember of this society. Similarly, there has been little discussion about the global effectsof ICT from the perspective of sustainable development. As a result of globalisation, anycountry must pay particular attention to the following developmental objectives:• ensuring quality and funding of general and vocational basic ICT education;• preventing social, educational and cultural exclusion; and• achieving a suitable balance between globalization demands and localpossibilities by developing competence centres in accordance with local ITlevels.49