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| The Italian Development Cooperation in Ethiopia |
The history of cooperation between Ethiopia and Italy goes back to several decades. The first cooperation agreement was signed on April 5th, 1973 between the government of Italy and the imperial government of Ethiopia in order to initiate projects between the two countries. In 1986, an agreement signed on October 24th laid the ground for the establishment of the Italian Development Cooperation office within the Italian Embassy.
Since then, the development cooperation between Italy and Ethiopia has been strong. For over a decade now, Ethiopia has been topping the list of beneficiary countries of Italian aid. Between 1981 and 2005, the country was awarded 676 million euros in grants.
Italy has been one of the main contributors towards Ethiopia’s fight against poverty. In the past, it has financed many projects in education, health, infrastructure development, and rural development. In the health sector, for example, the Assela hospital in the Arsi zone is a prominent example of Italian aid making a difference in people's lives. The hospital, which was built with 50 million USD, serves a large number of people from a wide region. Without this hospital, the current beneficiaries will have no access to proper healthcare.
The Italian Development Cooperation also financed a project called Program Resource with 20 million euros. This project was designed to help those affected by war and drought. The project funded the rehabilitation of rural roads, construction of hospitals and schools, and restoration of basic services in Tigray, Oromia, and Amhara. Other important, successfully completed activities include the construction of more than 400km of rural roads to make remote areas accessible, water supplies catering to more than a hundred thousand people, reforestation projects, thriving irrigation ventures, and highly successful micro-credit schemes.
Development indicators show that Ethiopia is still one of the poorest countries in the world. According to the UN’s 2005 Human Development Index Report, Ethiopia is ranked 170 out of 177 countries. Forty percent of the country’s population struggles to eke out a living with less than one dollar a day and life expectancy is low due to the high children mortality rate and AIDS. High population growth rate of 2.3 million additional people a year continues to strip away the benefits gained by recent economic growth.
Fortunately, over the past few years, there have been encouraging socio-economic indicators signaling improvement both in the school attendance rate and the basic health coverage. Moreover, in 2004, Ethiopia registered an outstanding GNP increase of 11%. These improvements are a result of the relative political stability over the past decade and the sound socio-economic strategies employed by the government and as well as the commitment of the donor community.
However, a further effort and commitment on the side of international donors is needed to sustain Ethiopian development. The per capita aid received by Ethiopia was only 18.4 USD in 2004 compared to the 32 USD average for Sub-Saharan Africa.
In conjunction with the main multilateral organizations and donors countries, Italy has introduced innovative approaches within the ongoing country cooperation program with Ethiopia. A good example is the Italian Sector Earmark Support to the health and education sectors. This kind of financing, by making adequate technical assistance available and by supervising accomplished results, allows Ethiopia to harmonize the external funds by which both education and health sectors are financed.
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