Does European Aid Work? An Ethiopian Case Study

Abstract

The European Union is never short on controversy; and in the sphere of development aid, a business now worth $US 5 billion a year to the EU,¹ there is certainly much to discuss at present. In 1995, the mid-term review of Lomé IV was completed and an acrimonious dispute was settled about the level of funding available to the year 2000: in neither case was the outcome particularly favourable to developing countries.² Beginning in 1996, attention has turned to the future of development aid after that time, when Lomé IV expires. Here, a Green Paper has been published by the Commission (EC 1996) and there is a many-layered debate. Negotiations will begin in the second half of 1998. The debate ranges from the high politics of first world-third world relations within the grand European project, itself the subject of the on-going Inter-Governmental Conference, to internal issues such as how to allocate development portfolios within the Directorates General of the European Commission.

Paper presented to a conference, ‘Europe and the Developing Countries’, organized by the Euro[ean Development Policy Study Group of the Development Studies Association of UK and Ireland, and held on 17 October 1996 at the Offices of the European Parliament in London. Helpful comments on an earlier draft were received from Chris Stevens and Sean Doyle. Responsibility, of course, is mine.