Recently, the United States (US) announced more than $181 million in aid to address the humanitarian crisis that is unfolding in Ethiopia’s Tigray region. Ethiopia’s northernmost state has been caught in a spiral of violence since November 2020, which has so far killed thousands and displaced millions. There have also been numerous accounts of soldiers perpetrating grave human rights abuses, including mass killings, sexual violence, and ethnic cleansing.
To add to the war-torn region’s woes, the United Nations (UN), in June, stated that more than 350,000 Tigrayans are facing famine and over two million are on the verge of starvation. Ethiopian and Eritrean troops have been accused of weaponising hunger and starvation as a means to impose collective punishment on rebel-held areas of Tigray. In fact, a 2021 report by the World Peace Foundation calls the famine in Tigray “man-made.” In this context, it is not surprising that the vulnerable population depends heavily on humanitarian aid to meet their basic needs like food and shelter.
Aid helps in rebuilding communities affected by conflict and provides immediate relief to those affected by the crisis, especially in the form of essential health care, emergency food relief, water, sanitation, and hygiene-related services. With the Ethiopian government denying reports and claims that its forces are responsible for worsening the crisis in Tigray, aid could prove to be a lifesaver for millions of Tigrayans, and in many cases, it could be the only source of relief for communities that have lost everything.
In fact, relief camps in Tigray have been engaged in providing critical assistance to refugees in the region since the war broke last year. It was reported in February that 1.8 million people in Tigray received humanitarian assistance through relief centres since the start of hostilities between Ethiopian government forces and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) militants. Food distribution centres for Internally Displaced Persons in the region have especially proven to be effective. These food camps earmark local food donations for the most vulnerable, including children, pregnant mothers and the elderly. Yet, despite the role of aid camps in providing quick assistance, the UN and other international organisations keep releasing reports warning of the deteriorating situation in Tigray.
In this scenario, the international community’s response has been to provide more humanitarian assistance to Tigray. Major actors like the US, the UN, the European Union, World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund have been at the forefront of raising funds and delivering assistance to Ethiopia, with the hope of ameliorating the crisis in Tigray.
However, while international aid has become the go-to solution when conflicts and crises arise in different parts of the world, there are many who argue that aid tends to have a negative effect in the long term. They posit that, rather than empowering the vulnerable and pushing them towards self-sufficiency, aid keeps the receiving country and its population trapped in a web of dependency on the donor countries/organisations.
Zambian economist Dambisa Moyo is of the opinion that aid to Africa “has made the poor poorer” and has slowed growth. “The insidious aid culture has left African countries more debt-laden, more inflation-prone, more vulnerable to the vagaries of the currency markets and more unattractive to higher-quality investment,” Moyo argues. While she says that there is a “clear moral imperative” behind the provision of aid, Moyo makes the case that aid merely provides “band-aid solutions to alleviate immediate suffering” and cannot address “long-term sustainable growth.”
Moyo further states that aid helps keep bureaucracy and corruption entrenched in the receiving countries, and this further exacerbates the problem of the suffering populace. She says that aid “is a perfect way to keep an inefficient or simply bad government in power.” According to Moyo, this reinforces the cycle of dependence of the local population and the recipient government on international assistance. “All the government really needs to do is to […] cater to its foreign donors to stay in power,” which, in turn, keeps its citizens “disenfranchised.”
This is especially true in the case of Ethiopia, seeing as the country is one of the major recipients of international aid in recent times. According to the latest OECD statistics, Ethiopia receives $2.14 billion in Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) annually, making it the seventh-largest recipient of ODA in the world. Furthermore, in 2019 Ethiopia was the largest African recipient of US aid, which was around $923 million. In addition to this, the north African country is also one of the largest recipients of food aid in the world. Since 1984, more than five million people in Ethiopia have been dependent on annual food aid, and in 1999-2000 nearly 16% of the population received food aid.
Despite this, many Ethiopians face chronic hunger and poverty. According to World Bank estimates, Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in the world, with around a quarter of its population living in extreme poverty. There is little or no access to safety nets to keep them secure during an emergency. To make matters worse, conflict gets in the way of progress, making it extremely difficult for people to get access to food.
Angus Deaton, the 2015 Nobel prize winner in economics, says that much of the international aid spent on assisting development “may not have ended up helping the poor,” going on to claim that foreign aid can make a government less accountable to its citizens. This is exactly what happened in Ethiopia during the rule of former President Meles Zenawi, who ruled from 1995 until his death in 2012. Deaton argues that the US spent millions in aid to end poverty in Ethiopia during Zenawi’s reign, because of the country’s strategic importance in the fight against “Islamic fundamentalism.” Bolstered by the backing of the US, Zenawi’s rule saw a severe crackdown on dissent, aid being withheld, and elections being stolen.
Also Read: Abiy Ahmed’s Approach to Tigray Could Lead to his Downfall. Here’s Why.
The exact same situation is being played out under incumbent Prime Minister (PM) Abiy Ahmed. When Abiy promised to bring stability to the country after taking office in 2018 and won the Nobel peace prize in 2019 as a result of his efforts to make peace with neighbouring Eritrea, he was encouraged by the international community to continue with his efforts. However, since then, Ethiopia descended into chaos. Abiy’s troops, along with Eritrean forces, have been accused of committing some of the worst atrocities in Ethiopia’s history. Ahmed, who promised to respect the electoral process, has kept on delaying elections, citing COVID-19 pandemic-related problems and the ongoing war in Tigray. There have also been reports of Ethiopian authorities blocking and stealing aid meant for violence-affected communities.
In light of the situation in Ethiopia, it is important to look at international aid from a different lens. While aid has significant benefits, it is also responsible for creating dependency among its recipients. In this respect, it would be prudent to look towards alternatives. Apart from aid, the international community should ensure that the long-term prospects of a community, like economic development and resilience to climate change, are adequately addressed. This would ensure that, in case of a conflict, people can rely on safety nets to absorb some of the negative impacts caused in such a scenario. However, this can only be possible if aid is not seen as the ultimate solution to end a crisis.