Addis Fortune had an interesting interview with British ambassador to Ethiopia, Norman Ling.
The interview raises several important issues from royal wedding invitation to student visa issuance service. I posted here some of those related to the Ambassador’s view of the quality governance in the country. [You may read the full text on Addis-fortune website.]
Q: Do you agree with the criticism against this government that, due to its ideological predisposition toward a developmental state, it is expanding the state’s domain at the expense of the private sector?
Yes. There you have a single word straight from the representative of the British government. I believe that. This is a centre-left government, which has achieved a great deal with the developmental state model in terms of providing basic services to its people.
However, for the long-term development of this country, there is a real need, right now, for the shackles on the private sector to be lifted and for it to be allowed to develop.
There are a whole series of reasons why that is not happening. Some are better reasons than others, but, it must happen soon if Ethiopia is not to be handicapped in its development.
Q: Considering that the political party in power has a leftist background, the best one may expect from them is, perhaps, to move centre-left. Do you think this country has a credible and viable political alternative that would create more room for the private sector?
One reason why we have not seen the political diversity that Ethiopia requires is the weakness of the opposition parties since 2005. That is regrettable. Every government needs an effective opposition. While they do not always welcome it, they need it.
That is holding back Ethiopia’s broader development. Economic and social development does not happen in isolation. It needs a challenge that a democratic system provides. I hope that will happen.
Q: Who do you blame for the opposition’s weakness: the ruling party or the opposition itself?
As with everything in life, blame is fairly shared.
Q: Over recent years, the British government has closed its foreign aid shops in places such as Russia, Eastern Europe, and some emerging economies with the intention to focus where the need is greatest. As a result, Ethiopia has become one of the government’s largest aid recipients. Do you see any political risk in that?
Those countries are now well adjusted; a few are members of the European Union (EU). They may receive foreign aid from the EU but they do not require it from our development budget. You are absolutely right that we are now focusing our money where there is greater need, and where the results are best.
It is not only a question of putting money in. It is also ensuring that money is well spent and achieves something. Most development aid is being judged against the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of the United Nations.
Ethiopia has a very good track record in those particular targets. That partly explains why we are putting more money into Ethiopia. In other countries, where we maintain to spend in one or two areas, we are reducing.
Will it become contentious?
There is a body of opinion back in the UK, which picks up on the point you made earlier about British government spending cuts, less investment in education and other key areas in the UK. Some Britons are asking, “Should we be giving aid to African dictators, as it is now normally phrased?”
We should not be giving aid to African dictators, but there is a lot of public support in Britain for spending money on people who are demonstrably poor. We can also show that the money is having a positive impact on lifting people out of poverty. There is still popular support for that in the UK.
Q: You are aware of the allegation made by Human Rights Watch (HRW) last year about the “politicisation of aid” in the recipient countries. They accused the EPRDF of diverting aid money to serve its partisan political agenda. I read the statement you made under the Development Assistant Group (DAG), but I want to know whether you subscribe to that view.
I am happy to answer when such an allegation is made. It is very serious because it is the British government’s money that is being given for a purpose and we want to make sure that it achieves its purpose. That it is not diverted for political or any other purpose.
We conducted our own study and made a statement. We also had further discussions with HRW, as we engage with them and have respect for what they are seeking to do, even if we do not always agree with their conclusions.
In this case, we believe that some part of their report is tendentious and that its conclusions are not necessarily accurate. Nonetheless, we entered into dialogue with them, and we will continue to monitor our spending here on all the major programmes. We will also encourage the government to investigate any serious abuses.
Q: There is no evidence whatsoever that the party diverted aid?
The conclusion was that there was no evidence of wide scale and systematic abuse. There were not large numbers of government officials diverting large quantities of aid away from large numbers of recipients. Virtually all the aid that we gave reached the people it was designed for.
There may have been some abuses at the margins of individual cases. Some would say isolated cases, but they are still serious. If one family, which is entitled, does not receive aid because somebody has decided arbitrarily that they should not, then that is an abuse. We will try and deal with and tackle that.
These things will happen in the normal course of events. They should not be a reason to stop assistance. However, if we discovered that hundreds or even thousands of people were being denied assistance for political purposes, that will be very serious and we do not believe that has happened.
Q: PBS[Protection of Basic Services ] was designed to be a temporary mechanism for three years, but it continued. Does it mean that you are comfortable with it? What did you learn from the experience and how long will it continue this way?
I do not know how long it will continue. What I can say is that we are not entirely happy with political governance here; that is an issue for us. We believe it is also an issue for Ethiopians. As we see elsewhere in the world, sustainable development is achieved only if you have good political governance.
Ethiopia’s political governance needs to improve. However, we are reasonably happy with the way in which aid has been spent here over the past five to 10 years, even including since 2005.
We are always looking to improve how we deliver aid. Under our new programme, we will be adding a new element called “wealth creation,” which is designed to particularly support the private sector. For the reasons I gave you before, it is underdeveloped.
We need to support small entrepreneurs to encourage private sector development and growth in the economy more generally. That sends a signal that most of our money, which has been channelled through government channels, will now be channelled through private channels.
Q: Can you elaborate on which part of political governance you are dissatisfied with?
We do not have a fully functioning democracy here. What we have is, as the ruling party has made clear, a dominant party model.
Elections should be free, fair, and transparent. The opposition should be given more space. The media should be given more space to report and more protection when it does so.
We would like to see greater freedoms enshrined in the laws of this country so that people know if they went to court if a case was brought against them, the courts will be truly free and fair [in their rulings].
There are many areas where we believe the political, legal, and judicial systems need to improve. The government here tells us that that is also its objective, that it is working on parallel lines on economic and social development as well as political governance.
We see the evidence on the economic and social side. We see less evidence on the political side.
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