The Swedish Government has decided to increase development cooperation with Ethiopia with approximately $20m over the next two years.

The new funds aim to support the ongoing reform process in the country and to strengthen Sweden’s opportunities to support government institutions as well as civil society organizations what work with democracy and human rights.

Examples of areas where the new funds can be used include election support, legal sector support, interventions that will strengthen the national peace architecture as well as capacity building to human rights organizations.

The decision also opens-up for more direct Swedish development support to the Government of Ethiopia again, both on national, regional and local level.

“The development in Ethiopia has, over the past year, been very positive, although the challenges remain substantial. With this decision, we want to contribute to strengthening and deepening democratic development in Ethiopia and contribute to peace and reconciliation. Supporting reforms that increase the democratic space and strengthen human rights in Ethiopia is essential, and especially when the democratic development in other parts of the world goes in the opposite direction,” says Peter Eriksson, Minister for International Development Cooperation.

Sweden’s strategy for development cooperation with Ethiopia has three main focus areas: a better environment, limited climate impact and greater resilience to environmental impact, climate change and natural disasters, democracy, human rights and gender equality, as well as better opportunities and tools to enable poor people to improve their living conditions.

With the revision, the strategy comprises a total of $120m for the period 2016–2020.

Sweden also provides humanitarian support ($14m in 2019), research support (approximately $5m in 2019) and special support to resilience ($10m in 2019) to Ethiopia – as well as support through the European Union and through global core and project funding to many of the multilateral institutions eg. the United Nations programs and funds.

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