Two stories that update yesterday's "Donors to withhold $375 mln from Ethiopia / EU freezes aid to Ethiopia over political situation":
From the AP, reprinted on Sudan Tribune...
Finance Minister Sufyan Ahmed said Friday that Ethiopia considers it "unacceptable" that donors plan to withdraw $375 million in direct aid to the government following a recent crackdown on the opposition and the independent press.
"Ultimately it is the poor who are the victims of this decision," Sufyan told the Associated Press. "It is their basic services that will be affected at the community level."
Ethiopia receives some $1.9 billion in aid a year - making it one of the largest recipients of foreign assistance in Africa. About $700 million is for emergency assistance while the rest is for development programs. Aid accounts for up to a third of the government’s entire budget.
Direct budget support - aid funds that are pumped into the treasury for the government to use at its discretion - account for about 10% of the Ethiopian budget.
Donors have said these funds will now be reallocated U.N. and aid programs intended to curb poverty among Ethiopia’s estimated 77 million people. This would include improvement of health care and the supply of clean water.
Sufyan said the shift in financing is a lengthy process that will hurt the poor.
Ethiopia is among the poorest countries in the world. Half of all children are physically stunted because of food shortages. Some 30 million people live on no more than $1 a day.
Donors plan to stop channeling aid through the government following political unrest that claimed the lives of at least 46 people in November. Another 42 died in June in similar protests, which began after the main opposition parties accused authorities of rigging May 15 polls that returned Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to power.
Thousands of people were detained in the subsequent crackdown. Among those seized were leaders of the main opposition group, editors, journalists, aid workers and human rights activists.
Meles has said the opposition deliberately stirred up the violence in a bid to topple the government and that some 3,000 people will face charges.
Sufyan said that donors have misunderstood the political situation in Ethiopia, but relations with the government were still good.
"We have tried to explain to them what is going on. Either they have misunderstood what is going on in the country or they are under pressure from certain groups, I don’t know," he said.
"We feel this is an unacceptable decision but it is their (Western donors’) prerogative," Sufyan said. "I don’t think all of them will shift."
From IRIN...
Ethiopia’s finance minister, Sufyan Ahmed, has said that the poor in his country would suffer if aid donors carried out their plan to withhold US $375 million in budget support because of the government's recent crackdown on opposition supporters.
Sufyan said on Friday the donors' decision to shift that money to programmes in the country would delay implementation of the government's poverty alleviation projects.
"We feel this is an unacceptable decision, but it is their prerogative," he added.
Direct budgetary support, he said, made up around 10 percent of Ethiopia's annual budget. "The impact should be insignificant although it is the poor who will be affected," Sufyan added.
Britain, the European Commission and the World Bank are the main providers of direct budgetary support to Ethiopia. They are angered by what they see as the government's reluctance to respect democratic principles.
On Wednesday 129 opposition leaders, journalists and members of the civil society were again remanded in custody on charges ranging from treason to genocide. Most of the defendants were arrested during disturbances that erupted after political parties alleged that the ruling bloc party had massively rigged in elections held in May.
Sufyan said the donors had "misunderstood" the political situation in Ethiopia and that the government had tried, to no avail, to correct the misconception.
"Either they have misunderstood what is going on in the country or they are under pressure from certain groups - I don’t know," he said.
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