The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia is the second largest and one of the most
influential and well known countries in Africa. Ethiopia is also famously one of the few countries
to almost completely avoid European colonialism (aside from a brief stint with the Italians
in WWII). I talked a little bit about Ethiopia’s geopolitical challenges about a month ago
in my video about Egypt’s geopolitical challenges (you know with the dam on the Blue Nile and
all that), but what are the blessings and challenges that Ethiopia faces as a nation?
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So let’s first set our bearings, obviously this is Africa, and if we look here to the
horn of Africa this here is Ethiopia. Ethiopia is one of the first countries ever inhabited
by humans, as it’s right around where the species Homo sapiens first evolved, but nowadays
Ethiopia faces some different struggles. Applying a population density map over a topographical
map, we can see that a large portion of the country’s 110 million citizens live within
the Ethiopian Highlands, a vast system of mountains and plateaus with swathes of fertile
soil between 1,800 and 3,000 meters altitude supporting large-scale agriculture, forming
essentially the core of the country. These highlands are split by the Great Rift Valley,
through which flows the Awash River, flowing into Lake Abbe on the border with Djibouti
and forming what is known as an endorheic basin (basically meaning it doesn’t flow
out into the ocean). The lake is located in the middle of the Afar
Triangle, a lowland region right at the end of the Great Rift Valley, which would pose
a major thoroughfare for invading armies were it not for how hot and inhospitable the area
is. This low-lying area is also home to Dallol within the Danakil Depression, which has the
highest average temperature of any inhabited area on Earth, averaging around 35ºC year-round,
and in the summer getting almost as hot as it was in Portland, Oregon two weeks ago.
The lowest it has ever gotten in Dallol is 21ºC. So uh, I’m no military strategist
but you probably shouldn’t take your army through here.
Okay I’m gonna be real with you all, this kind of looks like a set from an early episode
of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Ethiopia is populated by dozens of different ethnic groups, the four largest of whom being
the Oromos, Amharas, Somalis, and Tigrays, together making up nearly ¾ of the population.
Outside the capital Addis Ababa and the eastern city of Dire Dawa (both of whom are classified
as chartered cities) Ethiopia is divided into 10 ethno-linguistic regional states known
as kilioch, those being Afar, Amhara, Benishangul-Gumuz, Gambela, Harari, Oromia, Sidama, Somali, the
Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples’ Region, and Tigray. This system has only been
in place since 1992 though, and perhaps one of Ethiopia’s greatest challenges has been
keeping all these different groups together, as exemplified in past conflicts in Eritrea
and the eastern Ogaden region, and currently in Tigray.
Okay so uh… editing KhAnubis here just to say that… I picked a really interesting
time to make a video about Ethiopia. Basically, a lot of stuff is going on in Tigray right
now and demonetization aside, this is something I’m absolutely not qualified to cover in
the light it deserves. I’ll acknowledge though how important this issue is (very)
and link some extra sources made by more qualified people, but that’s not what this video’s
about and besides if I tried to talk about these events as they’re still unfolding,
I would misrepresent… everything.
Separatism and insurgencies (or even electricity) however are not the only problems Ethiopia
faces within, with problems including poverty, food shortages, corruption, poor infrastructure,
and lack of access to healthcare. Things are steadily improving though, with the poverty
rate dropping from 44% in 2000 to 30% in 2011. Food however still remains an issue, as while
higher food prices mean higher incomes for farmers, they also make it harder for many
to afford this food. Although only around 15% of Ethiopia’s land area is arable, 45-50%
of its economy relies on agriculture, meaning it could potentially be vulnerable to droughts
or flooding. Infrastructure though has been a major focus
in recent years. One of the biggest projects touted in Ethiopia is the partially Chinese-built
Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway, a freight and passenger railway connecting Addis Ababa and
Dire Dawa to Ethiopia’s neighbor Djibouti, providing landlocked Ethiopia with a connection
to the sea, alongside a largely abandoned previously built meter-gauge railway. This
railway was inaugurated in October, 2016 in Ethiopia and about a year later in Djibouti,
however it did not commence commercial operation until January, 2018.
The railway was built without proper connections in mind, with little in the way of trunk lines,
branch lines, storage facilities, or even road connections. The goal was to build a
cheap railway first, with it being assumed that all the connections would be easy to
install, however even after commercial opening many passenger stations are located far outside
the city-centers of whichever city they serve. The new Furi-Lebu station in Addis Ababa for
instance is located outside the city limits and the last 3km of road on the route hadn’t
been finished when it was opened, meaning a taxi between the station and the city center
could often cost more than the train tickets themselves.
Within Ethiopia’s borders however only flow one navigable river, the Baro, which flows
for 306 kilometers before joining with the Pibor to make the Sobat river, a major tributary
of the White Nile. The only major city along the Baro though is Gambela, with a population
of around 40,000. Needless to say Ethiopia is not exactly a river-based nation. It is
however home to Lake Tana, which is the source of the Blue Nile, and is a major tributary
of the Nile, itself fed by numerous other rivers in the country, perhaps somewhat ironically
giving Ethiopia the title of Africa‘s water tower.
Now about a month ago I made basically this exact video but for Egypt, in which I mentioned
the dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (or GERD),
so what does it all look like from Ethiopia’s perspective? For context, the dam is a project
Ethiopia recently completed near its western border on the Blue Nile, which joins with
the White Nile in Khartoum, Sudan and creates the Nile-Nile we all know in Egypt. Since
the Blue Nile is by far the largest tributary of the Nile, Egypt has expressed concern that
the building of the dam and the filling of the reservoir behind it would choke their
water supply should it happen too fast. Thus Egypt wanted the reservoir to be filled over
a longer period-- say 12 years-- however Ethiopia hoped to have it filled in closer to 4 years,
as it would be a major source of electricity for the country, potentially even to export
to neighboring countries. The reservoir started filling up in July, 2020 and is expected to
take 4-7 years to fill to capacity, depending on what happens in the reservoir and further
downstream. Ethiopia might not exactly have the best geography
a country could ask for, however it never being colonized has garnered itself huge respect
from other African countries, and in fact the African Union’s operations are largely
based in Addis Ababa. How Ethiopia avoided colonialism though doesn’t have so much
to do with its geography as its history and politics. Covering that would require a separate
video, which maybe I’ll make in the future (but also don’t hold me to that promise,
that’s still a maybe).
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