Donor Aid and Corruption in Ethiopia

In March 2010, Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a 59-page long report on Ethiopia entitled: “One Hundred Ways of Putting Pressure: Violations of Freedom of Expression and Association in Ethiopia.” This publication was followed by another 105-page long assessment that was made available in October of the same year and was entitled as: “Development without Freedom: How Aid Underwrites Repression in Ethiopia.” Both reports showed the myriad ways in which the regime used donor resources, such as emergency food aid and benefits from the Safety Net Program as political weapons. On March 3, 2010, the BBC aired a documentary indicating that a substantial part of the money that aid agencies gave, including those raised by Band Aid and Live Aid to feed the 1984-5 famine victims were siphoned off by the Tigrayan Liberation Front (TPLF) to buy military weapons when it was a front. On August 5, 2011, the BBC, in collaboration with the Bureau Investigative Journalism presented evidence indicating that the Ethiopian government was using development aid as a tool for political oppression, which included denying villagers and communities from having access to donated food, access to credit, seeds, and fertilizers, etc. In her article titled as “Cruel Ethiopia”, Epstein (2010), who traveled around many of the rural areas in the country as a healthcare researcher, described her observation about the many things that local powerful government cadres, who themselves “earn meager salaries… control access to food aid programs, fertilizers, educational opportunities, jobs, plots of land, small business loans, and even health care” and accused donors subsidizing brutality and aid agencies turning a blind eye to a regime that uses donor aid as a weapon for its repressive tactics. Albeit being happy that these reports have finally both raised international attention and outrage, many Ethiopians were, however, perplexed why and how these reports unnerved the world community. For, the conversion of donor aid for military purposes and other atrocities committed by the TPLF had been repeatedly documented by both foreigners and Ethiopians, including former leaders and members of the TPLF itself. The abuse of the so-called Safety Net Programs (SNP) has also been reported earlier by (Hassan: 2009). This work uses newly found evidences and survey results as well as facts, interviews and testimonials accumulated over many years to show famine aid scamming goes beyond weapon purchases. We document, in addition to being used for political repression, humanitarian and donor aid had indeed led to a legacy of corruption, thievery, cruelty, brutality, banditry, money laundering and the establishment of ruthless oligarchy. Our work also shows how donor aid has poisoned the wells with deep corruption and, by implication, shows the unholy alliance between donor aid and corruption and donor aid and tyranny when it comes to Ethiopia. We also provide analytical support behind aid and corruption, aid and extraction of rents, why aid abuse could be inevitable and document the various powerful ethnic, social, personal, regional, political and economic groups in Ethiopia who are using donor aid to extract rents and for political survival. Readers may also benefits from our summary of the immense literature dealing the efficacy (or the lack thereof) donor aid and its relationship with corruption.