Bilateral support

The bilateral country program for 2015 encompasses an allocation of 82 MSEK plus 30 MSEK for research and higher education.

There are two main sectors of support; 1) Democracy, Human rights and Gender Equality and 2) Economic Development/Private Sector Development. The 82 MSEK are equally distributed between the areas of implementation. The Embassy has also, in relation to the El Nino effect striking Ethiopia in 2015 and the food insecurity following in its footsteps, been able to mobilize another 140 MSEK for 2015/2016 for WFP’s program in the Somali region. This funding lies outside the regular humanitarian allocations and is reallocated from funds assigned for long-term cooperation at the Africa department.

1) Democracy, Human rights and Gender Equality

The portfolio includes contributions to support institution building and capacity building of public, private and civil society institutions and actors, reduce harmful traditional practices, increase access to sexual and reproductive health and rights, reduce and prevent violence against women and contribute to women’s economic empowerment. Some of the contributions below comes to an end in 2015 but have been included as it gives a good picture of the diversity of the portfolio both in terms of thematic areas as well as channels and implementing partners.

Democratic institutions Program, bridging phase

This is a support to two of the Ethiopian public democratic institutions; the Human Rights Commission and the Ethiopian Ombudsman through UNDP following the five year multi donor program that ended in 2012. This program has contributed to the continued development of the operations of these two institutions and resulted in a increased public awareness on societal official complaint mechanisms as well as increased access to legal aid and implementation of the National Human Rights action plan.

UN Gender Joint Program on Gender Equality and Women’s empowerment

Sweden is committed to support One UN programs whenever they exist in countries. This particular support through UN Women together with Norway and  Italy in collaboration with the Ministry for Women’s and Children’s Affairs aims to reach marginalized women in all regions of Ethiopia and improve their livelihoods, raise awareness and prevent harmful traditional practices in line with the GTP and the action plan for Gender Equality.

CSSP - Civil Society Support program

The Civil Society Support Program (CSSP) Ethiopia  is a five year, multi-donor capacity development program which provides support for Ethiopian people through the development of Ethiopian civil society organizations (CSOs).The program prioritizes capacity development  for hard-to-reach CSOs through regionally-led programming, focusing on people affected by social marginalisation, geographic remoteness, under resourcing and neglected development issues. CSSP is managed by a consortium, led by the British Council Ethiopia. The program is funded by six international donors, led by Irish Aid.

UNFPA - Access to SRHR in Gambella

This program seeks to bridge support between the humanitarian and more long term development cooperation through providing SRHR services to refugees in camps in Gambella as well as to the inhabitants in the host communities to prevent unwanted pregnancies, ensure safe deliveries, provide youth services and prevent violence against women in this very vulnerable and conflict sensitive situation.

UNODC – National Integrated Criminal Justice

This program aims at providing technical support to the Government of Ethiopia in developing an effective and responsible National Crime Prevention Strategy and Action Plan and to build the capacity of their criminal justice systems to operate more effectively within the framework of the rule of law, while promoting human rights and protecting vulnerable groups. Criminal justice institutions in receipt of this support include: Ministry of Justice (MoJ), Justice Organs Professional Training Centre (JOPTC), Ethiopia Justice and Legal System Research Institute (JLSRI), Federal Prison Administration, Federal and Regional State Courts, Child Justice Project Office (CPO), State Judicial Administrative Council, and Public Defender's Office (PDO).

CSO Umbrella program

This program includes five larger CSOs/CSO networks that work within a framework to improve the situation for marginalized women and children. These umbrella organization work through a number of smaller CSOs to reach the most hard to reach with service delivery, prevention of genderbased violence and HTPs, improving diversification of livelihoods, girls education and women’s economic empowerment and social accountability. A large number of  these sub-grantees are traditional community based civil society entities that works closely with the local government authorities.

KMG - transforming lives in women led communities

This civil society support in 2 regions (SNNPR& Oromia), 24 Woredas, and 625 Kebeles, has successfully found methods of community conversations to prevent HTPs especially FGM, strengthen the role and voice of women through working with the whole community. The aim is to use the experience from this to promote  best practices to other regions and to build communities’ capacity to be the creators and the owners of their future.

ESMI – Ethiopia School Meal Initiative

This initiative of setting up dairy farm schools to create the opportunity for children at risk of stunting to receive milk and bread in school is an inception to a larger initiative that is owned by the MoH and the run up to the Seqota Declaration ending under nutrition in Ethiopia by 2030. The support encompasses so far 18 dairy farm schools and the organization has successfully liaised with local, regional and federal government to promote a universal school meal program in Ethiopia.

2) Economic and private sector development

The PSD portfolio in Ethiopia is diverse due to a broad strategy mandate combined with a small budget. A common denominator of the programs is that they, directly or indirectly, explicitly or less clearly pronounced, fit into a “theory of change” where conditions are created for poor people to improve their incomes through facilitated commercial activity.

The programs address bottlenecks all the way from “micro level “ of facilitated agribusiness smallholder transactions in particular value chains, to facilitation of market access through hard and soft infrastructure enhancements and strengthening of linkages to critical market players “upstream” in the value chains as well as providers of support services around the poverty-related value chains.

The following project abstracts give an overview of the various components of the portfolio.

IFC, Investment Climate Trust Fund

Advisory service in Ethiopia related to investment climate. This project is a multi-donor trust fund implemented by IFC. Key outcomes: 1) Improved efficiency in trade logistics for exports and imports in Ethiopia. 2) Streamlined procedures and improved environment for registering and operating business. 3) More efficient, transparent and user friendly business taxation process.

IFC Access to Finance Trust Fund

This programme aims to address Access to Finance as a second critical and timely challenge to the pro poor growth puzzle in Ethiopia, after the Investment Climate “sister” trust fund (described separately above). Via strategic engagements for capital markets development, improved SME banking options, leasing practices, corporate governance practices and credit reporting infrastructure, the program sets out to create 8 0000 new jobs, lift 30 000 people above the 1.25$ poverty level and more generally increase incomes for the bottom 40% of the population.

ECCSA Ethiopian Chamber of Commerce and sectorial associations and the PSD/HUB

ECCSA PSD Hub is an extension of earlier cooperation with the Ethiopian Chamber system. The objective of the program is to contribute to the economic development of Ethiopia, by improved entrepreneurial environment though strengthened capacity of the local private sector to constructively contribute to the national dialogue on economic development. A new phase is being established with focus on consolidation of previous work and substantial enhancements in Chamber sustainability; financial, environmental and social. A balanced gender representation in private sector advocacy is an explicit target.

AWEA  Amhara Women’s Entrepreneurs Association

The project aims to further strengthen the capacity of AWEA to become a sustainable and efficient business member organisation providing services to its members. Expected results: 1) Increased operational efficiency 2) member services (provision of land, network service, BDS), 3) income generating activities for AWEA.

ORDA Harvest Plus for Rural Diversification Amhara

The programme supports formation and development of cooperatives and key value chain stakeholders to improve livelihoods for poor people in Amhara. Objectives: 1) Approximately 2150 smallholders will produce and supply high value crops to the market 2) Increasing households incomes 3) Improve household gender relations 4) Improve ORDA's ability to serve the poor in rural Amhara. The programme also actively sets out to reduce and manage environmental disaster risk among poor rural communities in the programme area.

Land Survey Bahir Dar University

Establishment of the first institute for land administration in Ethiopia, with a BSc. programme in land administration at the Bahir Dar University. By enhancing the national skills level in land management, sustainable natural resource management is promoted, environmental degradation is counter-acted and sustainable livelihoods are facilitated for the poor.

MELCA Integrated Land Development in Gambella

The overall objective of the project is to ensure community sustainable development and promotion of the local bio-cultural diversity in Majang zone in Gambella region. Via biosphere establishment, sensitive forest areas are protected from deforestation and degradation, while forest friendly livelihoods improve living conditions for poor people meanwhile they contribute to protecting the forests. Improved and sustainable livelihoods for poor people in the conflict-ridden Gambella region is also expected to have a positive impact on social tensions and public security.

UNIDO PPP Volvo Selam

A public-private partnership project within Vocational training in Ethiopia. The partners are Volvo, Sida, UNIDO and Selam Vocational training academy. The programme supports Selam vocational College to sustainably establish an advanced training programme for heavy duty mechanics in Ethiopia. As a result, unprivileged youths gain access formal employment while key bottlenecks in the highly challenged transport sector are reduced with positive effects on economic growth.

Improving Industrial Relations in the Manufacturing sector ILO, H&M

The project aims to improve industrial relations in Ethiopia with a focus on the textile industry. Main components: improved regulations, working environment, salaries etc. The project falls within ILO’s 'Decent Work Country Programme' in Ethiopia, and also contains a PPP with H&M. This enables the project to function at factory, sector and national level with expected systemic effects on salaries and working conditions for poor people.

Research and higher education

The resources from the research allocation encompass support to Addis Abeba University by a block grant to build capacity in the PhD programs of the University and support to Amauer Hansen Research institute AHRI. This institute was granted legal autonomy from the Ethiopian parliament in January 2016, and so become an independent and fully fledged research institute, something Sweden/Sida and all involved stakeholders have worked hard for and very much welcome. Both programs have a specific objective to ensure quality outcomes of the PhD programs and capacity building of faculty as well as ensuring more women in higher education. The next phase of the research allocation intends to also entail a sandwich training component with Swedish Universities and is planned to cover a six year phase.

Humanitarian aid

Sweden supports the HRFfromSida HQ. In addition Humanitarian NGOs can and apply for specific funding. For 2015/2016 this increased in addition to the above mentioned by 140 MSEK that have been reallocated. For 2016 the humanitarian allocation is estimated to 106 MSEK.

Global and regional programs

There is a large number of other contributions from global and regional allocation accounts that fund interventions in Ethiopia. One example is the large six country Maternal and Newborn health program H4+ led by WHO and encompassing 6 UN organization working from a national framework made by MoH on strengthening of human resource capacity, SRHR and maternal and newborn health service provision. The Cities Alliance program is another program that is in its initial phase where Sweden is a contributor.

Current total funding estimation

The total estimated funding from Sweden to Ethiopia as described above amounts to approximately 320 MSEK for 2015.

Coming strategy

As have been conveyed in meetings and when Ethiopian partners from all spheres of society were invited to consultation meetings in 2014, a new strategy is in the making. Although it is difficult to be very specific on the coming decision as the government has not finalized it yet; it can be said that the environment and climate resilience and social protection are some of the new areas included in addition to the ones in the current strategy and that the funding will most probably increase. There will also be an opportunity to once again have an agreement between the GoE and GoSE. This will be further discussed as soon as a more finalized decision is formulated.