Paper short abstract:

An analysis of how and why DFID and the World Bank ignore human rights violations and a total lack of democracy as well as their own complicity in repression in Ethiopia in order to maintain their assistance to the government

Paper long abstract:

DFID and the World Bank, more than any other donors, have increased funding to Ethiopia in the face of a dramatically deteriorating human rights picture in the country since 2005. They have done this despite mounting questions and evidence about the role of their own funding and programs in underwriting repression. Why? Firstly the paper will examine the pressures on both of these institutions to disburse regardless of their own human rights policies and regardless of the long term compatibility of authoritarianism with their own goals. Policy is medium term based (neither short term in its concern with political cycles, nor long term and concerned with stability over several elections), focused almost exclusively on socio-economic factors and structurally blind to basic human rights and democratic indicators. Secondly, the paper will look at this 'technical' approach and discourse which renders political context and experience into a technical challenge, whose solution is (seemingly apolitical) spending of more money. Thirdly, the paper will discuss the limited operational space in Ethiopia, the control of the discourse and data by the government which neuters criticism, and the delusions of the aid community.