Ethiopia's aid intake; rising or slowing?

This following article may have a bit of accountant double speak, but we share it because it has important information on the use of aid dollars in Ethiopia's government budget.

The Ethiopian government now says that foreign aid makes up a smaller percentage of it's overall budget. Meaning more revenues for the government have been collected from within it's own boarders. However, the entire budget has increased, so the amount of aid dollars taken in is also growing.

From the Walta information Center, we find this further explanation that we hope will be less confusing.

Information and Public Relations Work Process Owner, Haji Ibssa, told WIC that share of foreign aid and loan has been declining over the past successive years.

The volume of foreign aid and loan Ethiopia is getting has increased over the past years, he said, however, the share of foreign aid and loan has declined to 28.4 percent during the current budget year from over 31 percent previously.

This fact is the result of the effort Ethiopia is making to alleviate its dependency on foreign financial sources, Haji said, underlining that only 10.4 billion birr of the 64.5 billion birr annual budget approved for the 2002 budget year is expected form foreign sources.

Looking more to domestic sources would contribute to efficiently fund and carryout poverty reduction efforts, he said.