Foreign aid to Ethiopia

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Ethiopia

This article is part of the series: Politics and government of Ethiopia

President Girma Wolde-Giorgis Prime Minister Meles Zenawi Parliament House of Federation House of People's Representatives Elections in Ethiopia: Parl.: 2005 Pres.: 2007 Political Parties Subdivisions Foreign relations Foreign aid Human Rights

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During the post-World War II era, Ethiopia received small amounts of economic development aid from such countries as the United States and Sweden. Such aid disappeared under the military regime except for food aid during the mid-1980s. Large aid inflows began in the early 1990s aimed at reconstruction and political stabilization but declined during the war with Eritrea. The post-2000 period, however, has seen a resumption of large disbursements of grants and loans from the United States, individual European nations, and Japan, and from the World Bank, the European Union, and the African Development Bank. In 2001 these funds totaled US$1.6 billion. In 2001 Ethiopia qualified for the World Bank-International Monetary Fund-sponsored highly indebted poor countries (HIPC) debt reduction program, which is designed to reduce or eliminate repayment of bilateral loans from wealthy countries and international lenders such as the World Bank. In Ethiopia’s case, the program aims to help stabilize the country’s balance of payments and to free up funds for economic development. A noteworthy advance toward these goals came in 1999, when the successor states to the former Soviet Union, including Russia, cancelled US$5 billion in debt contracted by the military government in and after the later 1970s, a step that cut Ethiopia’s external debt in half. HIPC relief is expected to total almost US$2 billion.

This article contains material from the Library of Congress Country Studies, which are United States government publications in the public domain.