Ineffectiveness of Official Development Assistance in Ethiopia and Sudan

Abstract

ODA is aid given by governments, NGOs, and other agencies aimed at reducing poverty through support to developing countries. There is large agreement that assistance of some type is necessary to help certain developing countries end chronic impoverished conditions that prevent them from becoming stable, self-sustaining members of the world community. There is large disagreement, however, on what form that assistance should take. Despite billions of dollars being spent on development assistance over the past sixty years, the net effect has been a strengthening of the status quo and the forces which keep people poor. It is time to radically reform aid policies. Thus, there is much debate on whether ODA is even effective in achieving its long term goals and whether it should be discontinued in favor of other forms of assistance.In questioning why ODA is ineffective, this research project identifies some of the principal reasons, hypothesizing that donor countries’ aid policies fail to address fundamental policy problems, aid program implementing organizations are inefficient, and aid recipient countries’ governments are ineffective. It specifically examines ODA to Ethiopia and Sudan, which received the largest share of ODA to sub-Saharan Africa in 2008. Although, billions of dollars in ODA are poured into developing countries each year, the largest recipient countries remain impoverished and so ODA is viewed by many as a poor assistance tool. If some of the reasons behind the ineffectiveness of ODA can be identified, subsequent ODA policies may be modified to enhance ODA effectiveness, allowing greater improvements in the targeted developing countries to be realized and/or more appropriate allocations in ODA across the spectrum of recipient countries.Conclusions from this research indicate several reasons why ODA is ineffective. Among them are the lack of development policy coherence in donor countries’ individual aid-related organizations and among the donor countries and INGOs, failure to effectively manage and measure aid impact, inefficiencies of INGOs’ operations, and recipient countries’ inabilities to govern effectively.