SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This thesis is about a charity, Christian Aid (CA) and the experience of that charity working in Ethiopia over three decades. The thesis looks at the evolving capabilities of CA in the world of relief and development. It asks whether CA has learned anything from its experience. The study looks at CA from the beginning of the 1960s through major famines and through a process by which charities have grown from small apolitical organisations to prominent political players, both in the southern countries where they work, and in the northern countries where they undertake publicity, lobby and advocacy. With changing priorities and demands on aid, practical experience on its own, has not been enough to ensure a coherent institutional response. There is a significant danger that CA has not had time to reflect on what has happened. This thesis provides an institutional memory, a historical reflection on CA's own development. The thesis sets CA in the context of development in general and Ethiopia in particular. It looks at the charity as an organisation, at its evolution and positioning within the broader institutional and theoretical setting. It explores the different levels of policy and concern within the organisation. The various paradigm shifts in development policy over the past 30 years are examined, setting up debates that had real meaning for the charity around a set of specific policy concerns in Ethiopia. The main body of analysis focuses on CA's performance in Ethiopia. The charity's experience of famine in the mid-1970s and mid-1980s is explored and its response analysed. How CA articulated development policies in Ethiopia from the late 1980s is examined. Throughout, the focus is on how CA has positioned its mandate, how theory related to practice and how the experiences of the past have informed the present.