Democratic Assistance to Post-conflict Ethiopia: Impact and Limitations

There is a long history of donor relationship with Ethiopia going hack at least to the early 1940s. Since then, the number of biand multi-lateral donors providing assistance to the country has grown substantially. At present, the U.S., Japan and the Scandinavian countries are the major bilateral donors, while the World Bank, the EU and agencies in the UN system provide the bulk of the multilateral assistance. The international assistance that was offered to the country with the change of regime may be grouped into three categories: a) development assistance; b) humanitarian assistance; and c) assistance for democratization and good governance. Ethiopia has conducted a number of elections in the post-conflict period, the last one being in 2000. At present, the country is bracing itself for a third round of national elections in 2005. A comparison of election costs for selected African countries with Ethiopia shows that the cost of elections in Ethiopia has been quite low given the country's enormous size and its lack of experience in running democratic elections. Ethiopia has received considerable international electoral assistance since 1991 and such assistance has strengthened the capacity of the National Electoral Board and civil society and human rights organizations in monitoring and supervising elections. Donor assistance has also been provided to political parties to make the electoral process more competitive. However, the impact of such assistance in democratizing the election process has