Paper details

Paper authors	Eleanor Davey
In panel on	Armed non-state actors and humanitarian action
Paper presenter(s) will be presenting	In-Person / Online

Abstract

This paper is about a short-lived collective of aid agencies that operated during the 1980s and early 1990s, the Eritrea Inter Agency Consortium (EIAC). This fluctuating group of mostly European organisations facilitated relief and development aid for Ethiopian citizens who lived in or had fled from the secessionist region of Eritrea, during the civil war that resulted in Eritrea’s independence. The consortium’s only partner for this aid was the Eritrean liberation movement – nominally its ‘independent’ aid wing, the Eritrean Relief Association (ERA), but frequently the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) itself. The article discusses the work of the Eritrea Inter Agency Consortium – its inception, its relationship with its Eritrean interlocutors, and the challenges it faced as its programmes expanded. It highlights how the politics of national liberation were debated in the Eritrean case and the campaigning done in Eritrea’s name, including campaigning by individuals associated with the aid effort.

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