TITLE:
Foreign Aid and Its Impact on Democracy in Post-1991 Ethiopia
AUTHORS:
Habtie Adane
KEYWORDS:
Democracy, Democracy Assistance, Donors, Ethiopia, Foreign Aid
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Access Library Journal,
Vol.2 No.5,
May
26,
2015
ABSTRACT: Ethiopia is an aid-dependent Horn of African country
that is known to have received various forms of assistance, especially the
humanitarian one. With the Cold War getting over, the country started receiving
democracy assistance being pledged to realize democratic ideals. This article
is concerned with foreign aid and its impact on democracy in Ethiopia in the post-1991
period. Its overall objective is thus to explore issues pertaining to the impact
of foreign aid on Ethiopia’s democratization drive in the stated period. To
substantiate my explanations and analyses, both primary and secondary data are
used once generated through key informant interviews and document analysis. In
this article I argue that issues of ideology, sovereignty, national interest,
and geopolitics have significantly challenged democracy assistance in Ethiopia
in the post-1991 period. I also contend that weak rules and laws, corruption,
and weak mechanisms that govern relations between the Ethiopian government and
donors have had a negative impact on foreign aid in the country. The study
concludes that the contribution of foreign aid in fostering democracy in Ethiopia
in the post-1991 period has been negligible in spite of the fact that an institutionalized
form of democracy assistance, which is currently provided by the Democratic
Institutions Program (DIP) to some governmentally established institutions,
underscores the evolving face of democracy assistance in Ethiopia, albeit it is
criticized by some for favoring governmental institutions at the expense of
non-governmental organizations.