CHAPTER FOUR 4. ECONOMIC GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT 4.1 Overview 261 As already pointed out, Ethiopia witnessed a wide range of policy reforms in the economic sphere since the fall of the Derg regime, in May 1991. The socialist command economy has given way to a market-oriented liberal economy, although the state still plays a significant role in economic management. Over the past 18 years, as noted in Chapter Two, the country has pursued different but closely linked strategies and programmes that have stimulated economic growth and contributed to high levels of macroeconomic stability. 262 Overall, the Government of Ethiopia (GoE) continued with reforms that started with the introduction of the Agricultural Development-Led Industrialisation (ADLI) strategy in 1992, the basis for the subsequent adoption of other development frameworks under implementation.23 These include the first generation Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP I) - the Sustainable Development and Poverty Reduction Program (SDPRP) - covering the period 2002/03-2004/05; its successor (PRSP II) - the Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty (PASDEP) - covering the period 2005/06-2009/10; the National Action Plan on Gender (NAP); the Education Sector Development Plan (ESDP); the Health Sector Development Plan (HSDP); and the Rural Sector Development Programme (RSDP). All these strategies are designed to achieve robust and propoor economic growth so as to accelerate progress towards the attainment of the longer-term Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2014/2015, and other international agreed targets. 263 In the context of these economic reform and poverty reduction programmes, government’s primary macroeconomic objective has been to promote rapid, broadbased and sustainable private sector-led growth sufficient to reduce poverty. The target economic growth rate is an annual 7.0 percent. On completion of World Bank Interim Country Assistance (ICAS) in 2007, GoE agreed to a five-year CAS, in July 2008. This meant World Bank support in sustaining high levels of investment in key areas (both physical and human capital as well as institutional capacity building), 23 ADLI is designed to bring about sustained structural transformation of the economy such that the agricultural sector will not only supply commodities for domestic food markets, domestic industries and the export market, but will also expand the market for inputs from the expanding industrial sector. - 119 -