The Impact that War and Peace Ethiopia - Essay Example

War would always lead to catastrophic effects not only to the country that conflicts but even to the neighboring nations. The results of war would often range from loss of life, property to also the displacement of communities. The effects of war are even more disastrous if the countries engaged in war are developing a nation or between a developed nation and one that is still trying to establish itself. The effects are severe to this nation due to the aspect of a weak economy and little infrastructural development. Most of such countries would always crumple back to poverty and poor leadership that might lead to cases of corruption. In this paper, the focus would be on the effect of war and peace in Ethiopian use of Aid. The article would even go further to analyze the steps that the Ethiopian leadership has taken in dealing with the adverse effects of war.

War would at most times have a negative impact on the nations fighting, and for Ethiopian, they have often affected the distribution of Aid. Ethiopia has had a close tie with the US, and the nation receives about $ 3miliion in aid to fund its development. This assistance has at times hurt the country. A good example was in the period of the No war, No peace campaign, where the nation used the money that they get in the form of aid to wage war against Eritrea (Ferriere & Suwa-Eisenmann 2015). Eretria kept their armies funded but only using their local revenue since they did not have any of such a powerful ally. Since the Eritrean military was well funded, they would wage a mighty war against the Eritrean whose military was underfunded (Morrissey 2015). The aid played an essential role in the fueling of feuds between nations. The funding makes the country feel strong and have the idea that they can defeat their neighbors if they engage in war.

War has often forced Ethiopia to focus their Aid on funding their militaries. Such shift in attention has often led to the underdevelopment of the country since much of the focus is on the war at the expense of economic development. Ethiopian is still a growing nation, and much of its population lives in poverty with no access to basic amenities such as healthcare education and even road networks (Mascagni & Timmis 2017). The funds that they receive from other nations are supposed to be focused on the development of these basic human needs. However, when the resources are diverted the citizens would often remain living in poverty at the expense of war. War deprives the country a chance to develop its infrastructure and provide its citizens with essential amenities.

The leadership of Ethiopian has taken steps to redirect the funds they get in the form of aid to develop the country and deal with poverty. From the period between 2009 and 2015, the national leadership changed the approach that it had used on spending foreign Aid. The then head of European Union delegation to Ethiopia Ambassador Hebberrecht Chantal commented the nation for the effective use of donor funding (Mascagni & Timmis 2017). Chantal mentioned that the money that the country got from aid went into funding projects in agriculture, road infrastructure food security, and good governance. The shift digressed from the previous trend when the funding was used to buy weapons. The nations leadership was keen to make money an avenue for development rather than buying weapons.

The extension of foreign aid has not helped to reduce poverty in Ethiopia. The aid is used to keep the rich wealthier and the poor poorer. In Ethiopia, ordinary citizens only make less than $2 a day. The statistics show that 78 percent of the Ethiopians live under $2 a day (Azadi et al. 2017). The money in which they should be spending on infrastructure and building is spent on armies. Their resources keep on shirking due to the huge cost of funding their military. Also, their leadership takes the money to fund their own lives, and they become too dependent on aid. Poor policy making and misappropriation of resources have thus increased the level of poverty in the nation even when they receive foreign aid.

In conclusion war and peace have effects on foreign aid expenditure. If a nations ally is one of the most lucrative countries in the world while the nations are considered developing, then it has a leg up on the other countries whose ally isnt among the wealthiest nations in the world. The war in developing countries isn't good because it leads to the loss of life. Relocation and abuse are a woman also compounds the problems of war. Aid isnt helping these countries but hurting them because theyve become too dependent on it. When a nation becomes too dependent on funding, then it is often hard for such a state to develop. The problem with most developing nation today is that they do not use the support they get for the right course. Most of the funding goes into buying the weapon and into the pockets of the rich.

Reference

Azadi, H., De Rudder, F., Vlassenroot, K., Nega, F., & Nyssen, J. (2017). Targeting International Food Aid Programmes: The Case of Productive Safety Net Programme in Tigray, Ethiopia. Sustainability, 9(10), 1716.

Ferriere, N., & Suwa-Eisenmann, A. (2015). Does food aid disrupt local food market? Evidence from rural Ethiopia. World Development, 76, 114-131.

Mascagni, G., & Timmis, E. (2017). The Fiscal Effects of Aid in Ethiopia: Evidence from CVAR Applications. The Journal of Development Studies, 1-20.

Morrissey, O. (2015). Aid and government fiscal behavior: Assessing recent evidence. World Development, 69, 98-105.