From aid negotiation to aid effectiveness: the case of food and nutrition security in Ethiopia

This paper looks at aid ownership through the lens of negotiations that take place between a country and its development partners (DPs). Based on the case of Ethiopian food security policies, it combines a structural analysis of the negotiation capital of both parties with an actor-oriented analysis of the institutional setting through which negotiations take place. First, it shows that the growing influence donors have come to have in the shaping of Ethiopian public policies results from the relative loss of legitimacy the government has experienced after the 2005 political crisis and its greater need for external economic assistance. Second, the more recent creation of a negotiation platform between the Government of Ethiopia (GoE) and its DPs has allowed the GoE to enhance donor’s alignment with its development policies and regain some control over its development agenda, while giving them more room to contribute to several food and nutrition security policy reforms which have been positively evaluated. The paper stresses the need for donors to better recognise the centrality of politics in any aid intervention.