Mr. Kebede Abebe:

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. I am the national director of Habitat for Humanity Ethiopia. I thank the Chairman for the opportunity to appear before the committee. I feel honoured and privileged to be here today to speak about what we do in Habitat for Humanity Ethiopia.
I have served for 12 and a half years as a national director of Habitat for Humanity. By profession I am a civil engineer. When I graduated I had intended to do some private business but slowly, through my service, I realised the seriousness of the housing need and then I started to serve in this area and changed my career.

The housing situation in Ethopia is one of the worst in the world. More than 90% of the people live in substandard housing conditions and 30% of homes do not have water and people have to fetch it from a distance, and 40% of the houses do not have toilet facilities and people have to find other places for sanitation services. Having see it the reality is highly painful.

As members are aware, housing is critical for human beings and is a place of dignity. Families and people who do not have houses cannot have dignity. Housing is the beginning of everything. It is the beginning of development, it is the beginning of growth and education. Because of this housing is one of the strongest instruments in breaking the cycle of poverty and, unfortunately, we live in a world that has not given adequate attention to housing. Because of this, millions of people continue to live in unacceptable conditions around the world. Poverty housing can be characterised by a number of things - houses that are leaking and have stains on the outside, houses that can collapse at any time and unbelievable overcrowding.

Habitat for Humanity started in 1993. We have served 14,000 families or 70,000 persons in the country and have diversified our services. We have started serving vulnerable families and have introduced different innovative interventions in our work, one of which is improving construction in order that it can be done all the year round and cannot be affected by the weather or change of seasons and that we can built from local materials in cheaper ways. When we compare the economic benefit of the newly introduced improved house, we have served more than 83,000 boxes of cement or US$930,000 which is equivalent to 13 million Ethiopian birr by constructing 1,660 houses.

I wish to share one story among many similar ones where family's life has changed a great deal. Mr. Levin and his wife were affected by leprosy in their area of Ethiopia. Before becoming beneficiaries of Habitat for Humanity they were living in plastic sheds, in an isolated place and were stigmatised. They earned their living by begging. After they got a habitat house they started to earn their living by working. Their life has improved. Mr. Levin said he was 65 years old but since he got a habitat house five years ago, he said he is now a five year old person not a 65 year old person. Also on 25 January 2014, when we were giving home ownership certificates he said:

I begged for 35 years, I never thought there was anything better than begging but since getting work and since getting a Habitat house I have completely changed. Now I am opposed to begging. I am proud to start living my life actively by earning through my work.

Our future plan in Ethiopia for Habitat for Humanity for the next three years is to serve 11,000 families through different interventions in housing. Obviously we see many challenges in our work. As the committee is aware funding is limited and also inflation is very high. That is another challenge. Another challenge worth mentioning is the environmental policy framework.

Ethiopia does not have a housing policy and a housing ministry, and because of this, housing has not been given attention, and that makes our work a lot more difficult. To date, we celebrate serving 70,000 people and we have introduced housing for vulnerable groups. We are grateful that we have managed to do this with the support of Ireland. However, the need is still great. We hope that we continue to increase our support. I thank the committee members for giving me this golden opportunity.