Foreign Aid and State Sovereignty: The Ethio-Swedish Aid Co-operation

Sammanfattning: Over the last three and half decades Sweden have provided development aid to Ethiopia. This aid was used to expand Ethiopia's educutional system, public health service and agricultural production. This empiricaI study reveals Ethiopia's response to Swedish aid and its influence. Providing and receiving aid explains the existence of disparity among sovereign states. In spite of the demonstrative inequality in regard to their wealth, level of socio-economic development, standard of living and in other aspects of statehood, all states are regarded as sovereign and legally equal. But, this internationally recognised norm of equality does not say much about the empirical statehood of the recipient states. Foreign aid is provided and received as support for the recipients own attempts to strengthen their sovereignty. Historical background, power disparity or psychological factors may promote or hinder the achievement of the objectives of foreign aid. Here the focus is made on how and why these and other related factors affect the behaviour of state actors, thereby affecing the objective of promoting recipient sovereignty. The interrelationship between foreign aid and sovereignty is defined and explained with the help of the historical, power and psychological approaches. The existence of the dilemma in providing and receiving aid is also discussed by explaining why dilemma exist and how it can be solved. The study suggests that the foreign aid as means to strengthen the sovereignty of the Third World countries needs to be taken with caution.