Improving Aid Management in Ethiopia

“Stronger systems for tracking and reporting aid help recipients and donors better manage resources for greater development impact.”

 – Christopher Hall, Program Coordinator, Harmonization The World Bank

In May 2005, the Government of Ethiopia completed the first implementation of Development Gateway’s new Aid Management Platform (AMP), a Web-based information-sharing system that streamlines aid reporting and management processes for developing country governments and their donors.

With a majority of its 73 million people living in poverty, Ethiopia’s need for aid is urgent. Yet the lack of efficient systems to analyze and report on aid flows has hampered the full disbursement of committed donor funds. To make matters worse, the challenges of working with the differing reporting rules of multiple donors have been overwhelming, eating up scarce administrative resources that could be put to better use.

AMP is helping change this situation, as part of a larger effort in Ethiopia to build the government’s capacity to carry out the country’s poverty reduction program.

More than a technical solution, AMP supports a new, results-oriented approach to aid management that is in line with the recommendations of the 2005 Paris Declaration on aid coordination and harmonization. By giving governments and their development partners access to standardized information about aid activities in a country, AMP enables better planning, allocation, and disbursement of aid resources. It also facilitates the harmonization of aid among key donors, while reducing the administrative burden of aid on developing country governments.