In my round-about way, this is what I am getting at. The present crisis demands emergency action, but if structural changes are not made, we will all be right back here dealing with the same problem next decade. I suspect that there are resources, mineral or otherwise, that could form the basis for a real economy.
At what price development? At the price of no longer having to deal with mass starvation every time the weather cycle changes. In their acerbic way, "Kenton" and "Billy_bob are pointing to the same problem. Any country can have an emergency. A country that has emergencies every decade without fail has other underlying problems. Emergency aid alone is not enough. Aid must be a bridge to allow time for the necessary reforms.
"Under Ethiopia's land tenure system, the government owns all land and provides long-term leases to the tenants; the system continues to hamper growth in the industrial sector as entrepreneurs are unable to use land as collateral for loans. " CIA World Factbook
"Although it had reported the existence of a wide range of minerals throughout the country, the government had authorized little exploration." Library of Congress Country Study
They have natural gas. There is evidence of oil. They are actively mining gold, and other minerals are there. Decades of war was a turn-off for investment, as was its insane Marxist government during the eighties. But the war and the Marxists are past tense, so there must be other limits to investment in the economy. Maybe there is someone out there who has personal knowledge of the facts on the ground, who can comment.