AID AND ABET?

The exposure of whats been done with aid in Ethiopia by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and BBC 2's Newsnight should make the UK Westminster Government and other Western Governments think about the consequences of misdirected aid and the form by which aid is offered to repressive governments in Africa and elsewhere. There is a need for a full, frank and periodic accounting of exactly how foreign aid is spent and who actually gets access to it on the ground.

Meles Zenawi and friend

Sadly this is old news, as observers have for many years been concerned that Western aid to Africa is being used to prop up some pretty grim autocratic regimes. The direct link between aid and political repression was demonstrated last year in “Development without Freedom,” an extensively documented new report on Ethiopia by Human Rights Watch. Based on interviews with 200 people in 53 villages and cities throughout the country, the report concludes that the Ethiopian government, headed by prime minister Meles Zenawi, regularly uses aid as a political weapon to discriminate against non-party members and punish dissenters, sending the population the draconian message that “survival depends on political loyalty to the state and the ruling party.”

Ethiopia is Africa’s largest recipient of foreign aid (at $3.3 billion in 2008 and rising), and is frequently described as a country where western assistance is providing a safety net for the poor and laying the groundwork for country-wide economic growth. The UK is the second largest aid doner in Ethiopia after the USA. Donors working in Ethiopia, cite progress on six out of the eight Millennium Development Goals, claiming that aid has had a significant impact on improving the lives of the poorest families.

Ethiopia which is a predominantly Christian country that borders two unstable Islamic states (Somalia, and Sudan), not to mention Africa's newest independent state (South Sudan) is seen as strategically important by the West. Former communist Ethiopia is seen as a crucial if not vital ally in the ongoing and floundering so called war on terror.

Human Rights Watch contends that the Ethiopian government abuses aid funds for political purposes—in programs intended to help Ethiopia’s most poor and vulnerable. For example, more than fifty farmers in three different regions said that village leaders withheld government provided seeds and fertilizer, and micro-loans because they didn’t belong to the ruling party. Some villagers have been asked to renounce their views and join the party to ensure that they receive assistance and aid.

Human Rights Watch, investigating one program that purportedly gives food and cash in exchange for work on public projects, the report documented the fact that farmers who have never been paid for their work and entire families who have been barred from participating because they were thought to belong to the opposition. Still more disturbing local officials have denied emergency food aid to women, children, and the elderly as punishment for refusing to join the party.

None of this should surprise anyone, not really, Meles Zenawi has for many years charmed and won the trust of Western leaders even as his government becomes increasingly repressive. Numerous journalists, editors, judges, academics, and human rights defenders have all been forced to flee the country or languish behind bars, at risk of torture. New laws that were passed in 2005 have made opposition political activity more difficult than ever.

The Ethiopian Government has used almost every tool in the book to from handing out fertilizer, credit loans to its supporters and denying them to its opponents which helps to crush the opposition. Human Rights Watch says that the umbrella group that representing the 26 donors to Ethiopia intend to continue more or less with business as usual. The overall response has been to reject the blatantly reject the conclusions of the Human Rights Watch report, stating that their own research, has not found any evidence of systematic or widespread distortion.

There is a growing awareness in the aid community of how foreign development support has sustained anti-democratic regimes, yet little has changed and the dictators continue to receive a third of all international aid expenditures, and much of the remaining portion goes to countries that are at best only partly free. A study of aid recipients over the past three decades shows that this failure on the part of western aid donors to separate themselves from autocratic rulers is not just confined to Ethiopia—or even just to Africa.

One excuse, and it may be a genuine one, is a real concern for the poor, hungry and sick who will suffer or die if the government stopped providing vital social services as a result of aid cuts. Lets be brutally honest another less than generous reason is that aid agencies literally exist to give aid; careers and empires have been constructed within what is now the aid industry and organisational incentives push aid bureaucrats to keep the money flowing, to keep their field offices open, and secure their own jobs.

In Ethiopia's case, a violent government crackdown left 200 dead in 2005 and seriously embarrassed the donor community into an unusually frank reconsideration of their strategy. Until the 2005 crackdown, many donors had been giving aid through the mechanism known as “direct budget support,” by which money goes direct into the Ethiopian federal government budget (rather than directly to specific projects).

Even the World Bank (back in 2006) possibly disturbed by the Ethiopian government’s repressive behaviour decided to channel aid through local government to prevent funds being used for domestic political projects. The World Bank which has been no great friend of democracy let alone sustainable development in the recent past, stated that it would reduce aid to Ethiopia if governance did not improve.

Even before the Human Rights Watch report came out, impartial observers had noted how hollow the World Bank’s threats were as local governments in Ethiopia are also under the direct control of the ruling party. Donors have however been reversing this feeble step, as they have argued for a quick return to direct budget support, citing questionable progress in institution-building and small improvements in governance.

Blatant indifference to democratic values is both tragic and lazy as there are many ways the aid community might help Ethiopians rather than help their rulers. Aid donors could insist that investigations into aid abuse be credible, independent and free from government interference, and they could cut support to programs that are being used as weapons of repression against the opposition. Donars could speak out against repressive legislation that aims to weaken or destroy Ethiopian civil society. Donars could also find ways to bypass the government altogether, channeling funds through NGOs instead, or giving direct transfers or scholarships to individuals.

As a final last step, if the Ethiopian government moves to prevent attempts by donors to reach beneficiaries, then aid to Ethiopia could be suspended entirely. A complete aid cutoff under these circumstances cannot further hurt those who are not getting any aid in the first place. Aid donors need to recognise that the current status quo is unacceptable.

Repeated failures by the West to link development aid with the democracy, human rights and the rule of law during the Cold War and afterwards have led to this situation. We have reached the crazy situation where Foreign aid to Ethiopia ends up not improving (or even saving) the lives of those most in need. Much needed Foreign aid has actually ended up by financing the people's oppressors, and has made a bad situation even worse. Doing nothing is not an option, but, clearly we need to think again and ensure that foreign aid gets to where it can do the most good rather than prop up unsavoury regimes.