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Meles Zenawi - He is the current president of Ethiopia. Ethiopia's geography is mostly dry. There can be terrible droughts where most people there suffer from starvation. The economy revolves around farming. Their main export is coffee. The population is Ethiopia is 84.9 million. Two thirds of the people there are illiterate, but the major language there are Amharic, Tigrinya, Somali, and Oromo.

Background- When Zenawi graduated high school he went to Addis Ababa University to study medicine. He left two years later to join the TPLF, which was an armed group fighting against a dictator. When the dictator fell Meles Zenawi came into power.

References- Meles Zenawi is very protective of the wild life in Ethiopia. Mwai Kibaki is also portective of the wild life in his country, Kenya. The African Wildlife Foundation is partly set up in Kenya, which means Mwai Kibaki must like the wildlife or else he would never have agreeed to have the African Wildlife Foundation be in his country. Another reference is Pierre Nkurunziza, president of Burundi. Both countries had just ovethrown the last government. Both leaders are leading a newly formed government so they have to be very active to satisfy the people. A third reference is Muammar Gaddafi of Libya. Libya also has a strong regard towards education. In Libya education is free adn children from ages 6 to 15 go to primary school and then they go to secondary school for another 3 years. Meles Zenawi also thinks thats education is important, just like Muammar Gaddafi.

Mo Ibrahim Foundation benchmarks: Safety and Rule of Law- Ethiopia scored a 49 on safety and rule of law. Ethiopia's average was a 44. So that means that safety and rule of law is a strong point. Meles Zenawi defintly improved safety by trying to build more dams on the Nile, so everybody has clean drinking water. Participation and Human Rights- One of the most outstanding things Meles Zenawi did was give more rights to women. Over all in this catagory Ethiopia scored 35, but within it they scored 48 in Gender. More women rights organizations are poping up and there are job opportunities for women. Sustainable Economic Opportunity- In this catogory Ethiopia has scored a 49, mainly because Ethiopia farms for most of its income. As long as there is rain they can farm and grow; which means more jobs. When Meles Zenawi came into power he made sure that farmers had enough land to grow crops, mainly coffee. Human Development- In 1991 onlt 27% of kids there went to school. In 2006 85% of children went to school. This is probably why Ethiopia scored 44 in education and 42 over all in human development. Also, in 2004 there was a movement to relocate people in arid highlands west so they could have easier acces to food and clean water.

Bibliography- "BBC News - Ethiopia country profile." //BBC News - Home//. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2011. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/country "Meles Zenawi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." //Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia//. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meles 2010 Libraham Index of African Governance Country Rankings and Scores