January 9, 2009 | Read Time: 1 minute
Michael Kleinman, a consultant to aid groups who blogs at Change.org, weighs in on a restrictions imposed on relief organizations imposed earlier this week by the Ethiopian government.
The law bans international aid groups from certain kinds of work, including human rights, children’s rights and the rights of disabled people, conflict resolution, and criminal-justice issues.
Ethiopian nonprofit groups that receive more than 10 percent of their money from abroad are also barred from working in those areas.
The Ethiopian parliament says the new law is aimed at preventing foreign interference in Ethiopian issues, a contention Mr. Kleinman finds absurd.
“[A]fter all,” he writes, it’s hard to think of anything more threatening than children’s rights, let alone the rights of the disabled.”
Human Rights Watch says in a press release that the new law is “part of a broader trend toward political repression.”
Mr. Kleinman wonders how governments will react to the new law. In fiscal year 2007, Mr. Kleinman writes, the country won $213-million in U.S. government support alone.
The United States and other governments have voiced “deep concern” at the new law, but Mr. Kleinman doesn’t think they are likely to cut off aid. Given the scale of suffering in Ethiopia, few donors would be willing to walk away, he writes.
And while the decision by other governments to look the other way might rankle, it’s also understandable. “It’s easy to say that the U.S. and others should cut assistance,” says Mr. Kleinman, “at least until we read the stories — and see the pictures — of Ethiopians suffering from drought and hunger. We are, all of us, caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.”
How do you think private and government donors can, and should, react?
