TAILORING U.S. ASSISTANCE TO BILATERAL REALITIES

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 ADDIS ABABA 001850 SENSITIVE SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR F: CCASEY; AF/FO: JSWAN, AF/RSA: LTHOMPSON, AND AF/E: JWYSHAM USAID FOR AFR: KALMQUIST; AFR/EA: CTHOMPSON AND LKELLEY; OFDA: KCHANNELL; FFP: PBERTOLIN HHS FOR WSTEIGER E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: EAID PREL ABUD ET SUBJECT: TAILORING U.S. ASSISTANCE TO BILATERAL REALITIES REF: A) ADDIS ABABA 1674 B) ADDIS ABABA 1672 C) ADDIS ABABA 1571 D) ADDIS ABABA 1439 ADDIS ABAB 00001850 001.2 OF 004 -------------- SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (SBU) Ethiopia is now the second largest recipient of U.S. foreign assistance in sub-Saharan Africa. However, the preponderance of this assistance is humanitarian, including food aid, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR),the Child Survival and Health Program Funds (CSH),of which a significant share supplements the Government of Ethiopia (GoE) budget. Relatively little assistance, about five percent of the total, directly contributes to Ethiopia's internal economic stability and sustainable growth. Assistance designed to promote economic stability concentrates on agricultural development -- particularly in vulnerable, conflict-prone areas, in order to achieve food security -- and on healthcare services. The increasingly difficult operating environment and growing transaction costs for non-budgetary foreign aid and, in particular, the proposed tight restrictions on non-governmental organization (NGO) implementing partners, call for a reassessment of the mix and effectiveness of U.S. assistance to Ethiopia in order to support U.S. foreign policy objectives. In support of our objective of sustainable growth in Ethiopia, Post recommends a substantial increase in assistance for targeted agricultural development, continued funding for democracy and governance (despite likely new prohibitions),formal negotiated agreements for PEPFAR and emergency food aid, and enhanced dialogue with the GoE at the highest levels on the need for genuine partnership and accountability. End Summary. -------------- CHANGING POLITICAL REALITIES IN ETHIOPIA -------------- ¶2. (SBU) Ref A details the new reality resulting from the steady progression of GoE actions restricting the activities of opposition political parties, media agencies, civil society, and NGOs. Ref B specifically highlights recent legal and administrative actions by the GoE that impede NGOs' operations and foreign assistance efforts. Ref C summarizes the challenges in bilateral cooperation with the GoE across sectors and agencies. ¶3. (SBU) Per Ref A, recent and proposed actions by the GoE are making the delivery and management of U.S. assistance much more difficult. In the last several months, taxation directives, internal policies, and the prospect of highly-restrictive NGO legislation are dramatically increasing the transaction costs of delivering and managing U.S. assistance, and imposing significant bureaucratic impediments to the effective administration of such assistance. Sudden and inconsistent application of taxation to some U.S. assistance implementers is halting and delaying many programs and consumes inordinate amounts of staff time due to lack of clarity and low capacity in finance and revenue authorities. Changing and discretionary internal rules on registration of NGOS and contractors are causing delay and increased costs in administration and forcing Mission staff to hold multiple, often counterproductive, meetings with low-level officials. The prospects of a draconian NGO law, recent actions by some agencies to control NGOs, and well-publicized statements by senior most officials criticizing NGOs (e.g., "They are making money out of our hunger.") are causing uncertainty and further impede delivery of both emergency humanitarian and development assistance. Notwithstanding GoE assurances of exceptions for U.S. assistance programs, taken together these actions reflect a deteriorating environment for U.S. assistance generally, and for NGO implementing partners in particular. -------------- BAD CHANGES AT A BAD TIME -------------- ¶4. (SBU) Ironically, this deterioration comes at a time when the GoE can least afford it financially or economically. According to the IMF and other analysts, the GoE faces one of its most challenging years ever (Ref D). While the GoE is tightening credit expansion and public expenditure to combat inflation, the economy has to ADDIS ABAB 00001850 002.2 OF 004 absorb a one billion dollar oil shock, large increases in food prices, and the effects of the global economic slowdown. The IMF has urged the PM and Finance Minister to seek major investments and assistance which would bring in foreign exchange and help ameliorate the balance of payments situation. In a recent GoE-donor meeting to review the GoE's poverty alleviation strategy (PASDEP) the Minister of Finance urged donors to "scale up" aid to help cover the one and half billion dollar financing gap in the out years of the strategy (through, of course, more budgetary support rather than NGO programs). Yet, at the same time the GoE, both willfully and due to confusion and lack of capacity, is making operations for assistance providers increasingly onerous and costly. The IMF even subtly cautioned the leadership on taking actions which could put at risk any aid flows, including those from NGOs. However, the leadership appears to be taking actions to the contrary. -------------- PRIORITIZING AID FOR MAXIMUM EFFECT -------------- ¶5. (SBU) Given this situation, Post asks what are the best, highest priority uses of U.S. assistance and how can it most effectively be delivered? Should there be as much funding and, hence, emphasis on PEPFAR as our largest single U.S. program in light of both Ethiopia's relatively low infection rate and dramatic development needs? While there is a humanitarian imperative to continue emergency food aid -- the largest portion of U.S. assistance, this year and in many years past -- are we doing enough or obliging the GoE to do more to promote sustainable development (i.e. in the agricultural sector) in these most vulnerable areas of the country? Should we continue to provide assistance, which serves effectively as indirect budget support for the GoE or supports the GoE's own statist economic approach? What should be the criteria for continuing assistance in various sectors and what should we rightfully expect from the GoE as a good-faith partner? Has U.S. reliability in providing humanitarian relief assistance to Ethiopia established a precedent of moral hazard in which the GoE is not forced to alter its restrictive and statist economic policies because it knows the U.S. will mitigate the effects of their failures? In light of Post's sense of the answers to these questions, now may be the time for a more fundamental interagency review of our bilateral assistance portfolio toward Ethiopia to consider a shift to maximize the sustainability of our assistance and the utility of our foreign assistance toward achieving our foreign policy objectives. -------------- -------------- PLENTY FOR DISEASE AND HUNGER - WHAT ABOUT DEVELOPMENT? -------------- -------------- ¶6. (SBU) Two programs make up the largest portion of U.S. Assistance to Ethiopia: PEPFAR, at USD 340 million this year, and PL-480 Title II emergency food aid, which could reach as much as USD 450 million this year. While a large portion of PEPFAR provides for technical assistance and training, a significant portion, USD 60-70 million, indirectly supports the GoE's budget through health systems strengthening and facilities construction. Of the PL-480 title II allocations, approximately USD 150 million in food aid through NGOs directly supports the GoE's multi-donor Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP),which provides food and cash to build "productive" assets, primarily rural works, in most vulnerable areas. While this program generally uses food aid wisely to build assets (and thus resilience) in the most vulnerable communities, it lacks adequate support in agricultural development credit, technologies, and expertise to accelerate development. ¶7. (SBU) Other emergency PL-480 food aid is usually delivered based on a U.S. assessment rather than on inevitably late and under-estimated GoE appeals. PEPFAR and food aid are political and humanitarian mandates which will not change. However, despite their size and importance, neither of these huge programs (with the exception of the PSNP component) is negotiated with any formal agreements with the GoE spelling out responsibilities and expectations. The largest portion of U.S. assistance to Ethiopia has no clear mutual understanding of responsibility and accountability. ¶8. (SBU) Two other substantial portions of U.S. assistance are USAID's training and grant programs with the Ministries of Health and Education. These programs are negotiated to support closely GoE ADDIS ABAB 00001850 003.2 OF 004 priorities in the two sectors while meeting congressionally-earmarked or USAID priorities, such as reproductive health, girl's education, etc. In view of our full agreement with, and support of, the GoE's ambitious reforms in primary health care and basic education, these programs provide critical non-budgetary inputs to improve the quality and timely implementation of these reforms, while fulfilling congressional mandates. In view of Ethiopia's rapid population growth, both girls' education and reproductive health programs could be viewed as strategic. ¶9. (SBU) U.S. support for economic growth is very modest on an absolute scale, but especially when compared to food aid and social services. It consists of a range of USAID programs in agricultural policy implementation (land rights, support to safety net, agricultural marketing),export promotion (including horticulture, leather, meat, credit guarantees, assistance in benefiting from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA),and supporting Ethiopia's World Trade Organization (WTO) accession),and improving livestock/pastoral systems. All these programs involve the GoE at the advisory level, and some strengthen regulatory agencies; however, most work directly with private sector producers and service providers. These are our leanest and our most cost-effective assistance programs, with substantiated impacts and improvements in productivity, primarily in commercial agriculture, which are likely to support sustained economic growth. ¶10. (SBU) The success of these targeted programs for agriculture and the dire need for agricultural development in vulnerable, conflict-prone areas -- and the high cost in food aid without it -- argue for a substantial, but targeted expansion of such programs. (NOTE: USAID started such an expansion with a large addition of "famine funds" in FY05-06; however, the limit of two years to use these funds did not enable the sustained effort necessary for widespread impact.) Agricultural development is the only way to improve food security in, and to stabilize, vulnerable, conflict-prone areas. Making a more significant and sustained effort in agricultural development in the areas at the "tipping point" between subsistence and starvation and stability and conflict will serve U.S. objectives well. It will bring greater internal stability to the most conflict-prone areas of Ethiopia, while saving the U.S. the great expense of regular, huge, and increasingly costly shipments of food aid and other emergency assistance. -------------- DEVELOPMENT WITHOUT DEMOCRACY? -------------- ¶11. (SBU) Finally, U.S. assistance to promote democratization in Ethiopia, notwithstanding a large earmark in FY06, has never been substantial; it rose from a few million dollars to almost USD 10 million, then dropped back to USD 4 million in FY08. Nevertheless, with recent modest funding, Post is leading the discourse in several GoE-donor fora and has developed a range of USAID programs in strategic areas of local conflict mitigation, broadened political dialogue, judicial strengthening, and human rights capacity building, which could have significant impact. However, the prohibitions in the proposed NGO law, if passed, would effectively preclude continuation of these nascent programs, forcing considerable reduction of democracy and governance (DG) programming opportunities. While DG programming is clearly necessary in the run-up to the 2010 elections, there appears little if any scope for the effective use of increased funding in this area at this time. -------------- NEEDED: PARTNERSHIP AND ACCOUNTABILITY -------------- ¶12. (SBU) Operationally, senior State and USAID officers at Post will have to devote greater level-of-effort with senior and working level officials to negotiate with, and hold accountable, the GoE for our assistance programs. We must make crystal clear that we cannot continue programs in which the GoE is not a fully cooperating partner that ensures an enabling environment, and responsibly resolves bureaucratic impediments, especially for NGO implementing partners, in a timely manner. We must use existing agreements and negotiate new agreements to ensure that expectations and responsibilities are agreed upon for all programs. Certainly, both PEPRAR and emergency food aid (beyond the PSNP) - the largest amounts of U.S. assistance and programs, in which NGOs' participation is a sine qua non - must include prior agreements ADDIS ABAB 00001850 004.2 OF 004 which specify expectations and responsibilities. -------------- CONCLUSION -------------- ¶13. (SBU) U.S. assistance to Ethiopia can be more supportive of U.S. foreign policy objectives of building regional stability and safeguarding against external threats. Post recommends: a) An increased and unified "full court press" of dialogue with the full participation of Washington and hold the GoE accountable for ensuring an enabling environment for donor partner assistance and facilitating assistance programs; b) A substantial increase in assistance for agricultural development targeting the most vulnerable, conflict-prone, and food aid dependent areas; c) Introduction of formal agreements for PEPFAR, emergency food aid, and any new assistance programs across the board, particularly those involving NGOs; d) Maintenance of current levels of assistance to implement health and education reforms, especially girls' education and family planning, as well as for DG. YAMAMOTO