View From Arada | May 29,2021
January 5 , 2020
Ethiopia averaged 9.9pc annual GDP growth from 2008 to 2018, an impressive record by any standard. It has experienced uninterrupted and unprecedented expansion in the economy from six billion dollars in 1988 to 97 billion dollars it is projected to reach in 2020. Before all foreign news stories about Ethiopia started with the sentence, “The reformist Prime Minister of Ethiopia who came from humble backgrounds . . .,” they started with, “One of the fastest-growing countries in the world . . .”
There was no falsity to that narrative. Ethiopia averaged 9.9pc annual GDP growth from 2008 to 2018, an impressive record by any standard. It has experienced uninterrupted and unprecedented expansion in the economy from six billion dollars in 1988 to 97 billion dollars it is projected to reach in 2020. Per capital income has surged seven times as well.
But growth brought with it almost as many problems as it solved - income inequality was the most evident of these. Ethiopia added two percentage points in the Gini-coefficient index in 2015, from 33 points five years earlier, showing an evident increase in the gap between the poor and wealthy. Economic inequality reared its ugly head higher and higher as growth sped along.
At the same time, as Karl Marx had predicted, it became clear to the economically disenfranchised that they were getting the short end of the stick and decided to rise up. Together with a range of social and political demands, income inequality became one of the catalysts in driving the anti-government movement that climaxed in April 2018.
PUBLISHED ON
Jan 05,2020 [ VOL
20 , NO
1028]
View From Arada | May 29,2021
Editorial | Mar 09,2019
Radar | Apr 22,2022
Viewpoints | Jan 26,2019
Viewpoints | May 25,2019
Fortune News | Feb 25,2020
My Opinion | Feb 27,2021
Commentaries | Oct 23,2021
Editorial | Feb 13,2021
Commentaries | Mar 30,2019
November 27 , 2021
Against my will, I have witnessed the most terrible defeat of reason and the most sa...
November 13 , 2021
Plans and reality do not always gel. They rarely do in a fast-moving world. Every act...
October 16 , 2021 . By HAWI DADHI
Residing in a country with no capital market, an organised marketplace for trading se...
August 28 , 2021 . By HAWI DADHI
The streets of Addis Abeba are as varied as they are many, although too many of them have yet to be named. From the narrow alleyways of the...
May 21 , 2022
There was a great deal of handshaking and patting each other on the back at the Hyatt...
May 14 , 2022
Diana Yohannes is one of those actively engaging in social media platforms with her T...
May 7 , 2022
The Ethiopian Economic Association (EEA) recently proposed the formation of a macroec...
April 30 , 2022
There is no ambiguity in the UNDP's assessment of Ethiopia’s economic performance a...
Loading your updates...
Put your comments here