Eritea wants US help despite asking USAID to go
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Eritrea voiced hope on Wednesday that its request for the US government’s overseas development agency to leave the poor Red Sea state would not bring the end of aid from its biggest food donor.
In July, Eritrea asked the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to stop working in the drought-stricken country, one of the most food aid dependent nations in the world, saying it was uncomfortable with the agency’s activities.
“It is our hope that the departure of USAID would not result in the stoppage of emergency assistance and development assistance to Eritrea,” Woldai Futur, Eritrea’s Minister of National Development, told Reuters.
Diplomats in Asmara speculate the request may be linked to the central role the US agency has assumed within the nongovernmental organization (NGO) community, or that it upset Eritrea by making a June aid announcement unilaterally.
A senior US delegation, including officials from USAID, arrived in Eritrea at the weekend for talks with the government and other aid groups, though diplomats say decisions on US aid will be made in Washington.
“We very much see our position on USAID as separate from our desire to maintain and strengthen our cooperation with the United States,” Futur added, listing the Eritrea-Ethiopia border stalemate, terrorism, and trade as areas of mutual interest.
He did not specifically explain Eritrea’s discomfort with USAID’s work, saying it was a bilateral matter.
MONEY WELL SPENT?
But he questioned the efficiency of the $75 million spent by the United States on aid and development programs in the fiscal year 2004, most of which went for food.
“The US buys its food from the US market, so it is a subsidy to US farmers, a very high price. It transports the food in US vessels which costs you four times as much,” he said.
“If it (the $75 million) were used to buy food from the international market, it would have gone a long way.”
The United States has provided Eritrea with a total of 774,679 metric tons of food over the last five years.
In June, the US government announced it would provide extra food aid to cover more than 100 percent of Eritrea’s cereal food aid needs this year.
Futur said food aid was a short-term solution for Eritrea.
“Food aid is important to save lives, but food aid is not the way we can reduce poverty,” he said.
“Probably Eritrea could do better with $40m (than the United States with $75 million),” he added.
Eritrea’s rebel movement-turned-government has a history of sensitive relations with the aid community due to its desire for self-reliance and resentment at the international community’s perceived favoritism for neighboring Ethiopia.
Ties with the aid community have been particularly strained in recent months by the impounding of vehicles and a new proclamation to regulate the activities of NGOs.
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