been distributed. Fuel from a mixture of ethanol and benzene is being produced; this allows a
reduction of 5 percent of total benzene imports.
All these energy developments are part and parcel of the Government‟s initiative to build a „Green‟
economy and it is a strategy that will put the overall development activity of the country on a secure
and sustainable foundation. Considerable work has been done in road construction, the provision of
drinking water, irrigation development, and expansion of the telecommunication services as well as
in electric power generation. Satisfying results have been achieved. In construction and urban
development, education and health sectors, citizens have participated and benefited greatly from
these developments. The national road coverage has grown from 26,550 km in 1997/8 to 52,042
km in 2010/11. In 1991/92 the number of citizens enrolled for education was 2.7 million. By
2010/11 the number had risen to 20 million at all levels of education, 43.5% of whom were women.
Similarly remarkable achievements, which mean Ethiopia will achieve the relevant Millennium
Development Goals, have been reached in the health sector.
In continuation of the development plans that brought about this accelerated economic growth and
achieved these encouraging results in meeting the Millennium Development Goals, the Government
prepared and embarked on the Growth and Transformation Plan for the 5 years period, 2010-2015).
The overall aim was to help achieve the country‟s vision to eradicate poverty ad become a middle
income country by raising the per capita income of citizens to the level of middle income nations by
2025. As indicated above, the GTP was prepared with popular participation and is being
implemented with the active engagement of the general public. The Plan will improve the living
standard of all citizens and ensure accelerated, sustainable and equitable growth. All regional states,
executive organs and sectors have taken full advantage of their right to development by drawing up
and implementing their own growth and transformation plans to achieve the goals and targets set
out in the GTP.
As a result of the measures taken so far the per capita income of the citizens, which was 146 USD in
2004/ l5 rose to 392 USD in 2010/11 (and then to USD550 in 2012/13). The perceived income
(consumption) gap in among citizens, according to the Gini coefficient, was reduced from 3.0 in
2004/5 to 0.29 in 2010/11. The national food security index was reduced to 33.6% in 2010/11
from the 38% it was in 2004/5. Head count poverty rate was reduced from 38.7% in 2004/5 to
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