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tified by their respond to the questions that asked if their country is democratic, only 6.5% says it is democratic and 38.7% says it is a democracy with a problem while 48.4% says it not a democracy. Equally, only 6.7% are very satisfied with the type of government while 73.3% are not satisfied with their type of government. This survey correlates with the measurement of the Polity IV that both express dissatisfaction over the type of government in The Gambia.
In the same vein, when asked if human rights are respected in their country, only 9.7%
says it is fully respected, 35.5% says partially respected and 48.4% agrees that human rights are not respected in The Gambia. Again the respondents views correlates with the well-researched reports of Freedom House that for the past years gives very low scores to The Gambia with respect to civil and political rights of individuals. For a breakdown of responses, refer to appendix on page 1002.
5.2 NON -TRADTIONAL DONORS VERSUS EU AID
EU aid to The Gambia with all the attached conditionality for democracy and respect of human rights failed to produce a respectable system of democratic governance that also respects basic human rights. Thus, I ask the questions whether the availability of non-traditional donors affects EU aid effectiveness for democracy and human rights promotion in The Gambia. I observe that the European Union is still the second
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est donor to The Gambia since 1994. However, such amount of aid and the manner EU provide the aid do little to move The Gambia toward best democratic and human rights practices. The data indicated that from 1994 to 2014, the volume of aid EU provided through the European Development Fund far outweighs aid from Taiwan and Kuwait. Nonetheless, the allocation of the aid differs, while EU aid targets gov-ernment institutions and budget supplement, most of Taiwan aid and Kuwait aid tar-gets projects that have most significant impact on the lives of the populations. For in-stance while the EU is engage in supplementing government budgetary programmes base on national indicative programmes (NIP), Taiwan and Kuwait sponsor pro-grammes that impact on the basic day to day lives of the people such as the girls edu-cations programme and agriculture in the case of Taiwan. The Kuwaiti fund like that of Taiwan also targeted road infrastructures, University of The Gambia and irrigated rice development. The funds from Taiwan and Kuwait also provide the regime with not only physical projects that attracts loyalty and supports but also provide extra un-accountable cash for the free utilization by the regime. For example the Taiwanese government in August, 1995 provides a grant of five millions US dollars and a interest loan of thirty-five millions US dollars to the Government of The Gambia, purpose of which until now is unspecified.
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Thus, EU leverage over The Gambia is lessening due to the availability of funds from not only Taiwan and Kuwait but also other non-traditional donors. As demonstrated by the impact of EU leverage had in 1994 prior to The Gambia’s established relations with Taiwan especially, the sanction chiefly from the EU was enough to pressure the military regime to reduce the transition period from four years to two years and lift the ban on political parties. However, after continuous sanctions from 1994-1996, the military regimes was pushed to look elsewhere for support and this led to the estab-lishment of relations with Taiwan , Libya, Cuba and strengthened cooperation with Kuwait, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. These provided live blood for the regime. After the 1996 elections and transition to democracy, data indicates the EU aid declined while aid from the new donors slightly increases particularly in the social sector. For in-stance, total net EU aid from 1994-2014 to The Gambia amounted to US$192.880, 000. On the other hand, Taiwan alone provides the regime with more than US$50,344,506 through Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) and US$ 16,249,390 through international cooperation development fund (ICDF) from 1995-2013. Kuwaiti fund also provides a total of US$87, 8968 in the same period. Even though the EU aid compared to aid from Taiwan and Kuwait still outnumber them in total, the fact that
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these sources are available and provide comparable amount is a vital explanation to why EU conditionalities may not be coherently adhered to.
The availability of these new donors do not only serves as substitute of EU aid that keeps declining over the years, but also is more reliable, flexible and consistent.
The new donors also enable the regime to carry on significant development projects that until today greatly serve as reasons of support to the regime. These projects funded by either Taiwan or Kuwait unlike EU projects are not based on government fulfilment of conditional requirements such as adherence to democracy and human rights but rather commitment to strengthen relations in the case of Taiwan and repay-ment obligation in the case of Kuwait.