ETHIOPIA: Statistics on Ethiopia make gloomy reading. Of every 1,000 children born, 116 die before their first birthday. Sixty per cent of the population is illiterate. Only 25 per cent have access to safe drinking water. Incidence of HIV and AIDS, together with TB, is rising, writes Kieran Cooke
Yet there are some rays of hope, and examples of instances where relatively small amounts of financial and organisational assistance can change the lives of a great many people.
In the poorest of the poor areas in Addis Ababa - officially the city's population is three million although most estimates put the number at over five million - I met Ayisha Mohamad, a street vendor. A mother of five, for many years she barely scratched a living buying and selling grain.
Recently, with €1,000 of capital and management help from the Irish aid group Concern, a woman's co-operative was formed, linking vendors like Ayisha.
Now she can borrow money at low rates and, while the profit from each bag of grain she buys and then sells on in small quantities amounts to less than a euro, it's a big improvement on her earnings before.
The Republic, under the Development Co-operation Ireland programme, is budgeted to give €29 million to Ethiopia in aid next year.