Suspended funding redirected to poverty alleviation

Six months after suspending direct budgetary aid to Ethiopia over governance concerns, the World Bank and Great Britain decided on Friday to transfer US$390 million of the funds to programmes to improve health, water and education for the country's poor during the next two years. "The poor people of Ethiopia should not be made to suffer because of these political problems," said Paul Ackroyd, representative of Britain's Department of International Development in Ethiopia. "The political signal we want to send today is [...] we want you [the government] to continue your work on poverty while at the same time we have concerns on the human rights issue." The World Bank board of directors has approved a decision to put $215 million in a basic-support fund, while Britain agreed to contribute 94 million pounds sterling ($174.8 million). "The programme reflects a determination to protect the country's poorest citizens from unnecessary setbacks flowing from the contested elections and the ensuing period of political uncertainty," said Isaac Diwan, the World Bank's representative for Ethiopia and Sudan. "This is not a blank cheque that we are signing now. This is a cheque we sign in the hope there will be some progress in reducing poverty and in the political and human rights situation." The funding is expected to increase primary-school enrolment from 62 percent to 68 percent, with an additional 3.7 million children entering school during the next two years. Some 20 million more people will have access to clean water as new wells are constructed and existing ones repaired. The government of Ethiopia has come under criticism for its suppression of opposition-sponsored demonstrations against alleged rigging of general elections in May 2005. In June and November 2005, at least 84 people died, many of them at the hands of the police, and thousands were detained. Some 111 people, many of them opposition officials, are on trial for allegedly attempting to overthrow the government.