ABSTRACT
Post-1991 Ethiopia has been one of the largest recipients of international develop-
ment aid from Western countries and a wide array of other donors. In the last two
decades the EPRDF government has received some USD 26 billion in development
aid from donors, notably the US Agency for International Development (USAID),
the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Union,
Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID), GTZ (Germany),
CIDA (Canada), Japan, the Netherlands and Italy.1 In recent years Ethiopia received
approximately USD 3 billion in funds annually more than a third of its annual budget. This makes Ethiopia ‘‘the world’s second largest recipients of total external
assistance after Indonesia and excluding wartime Iraq and Afghanistan’’.2 Although
international development aid has precursors during the imperial and the Derg
period it has exponentially risen since 1991. Donors’ increasing involvement in
Ethiopia also has an organizational expression the Development Assistance Group (DAG). Established in 2001 as a forum for donors to share information, the main
objective of the DAG has become ensuring more effective aid delivery and utilization
of development assistance to Ethiopia.3 Since 2005 the DAG has served as a platform
for donors to coordinate positions in the ‘‘policy dialogue’’ with the EPRDF. Today,
the DAG comprises 26 bilateral and multilateral development agencies.
