In an interview with The Ethiopian Herald, Constantinos Berhutesfa, a public policy professor at the Addis Ababa University and chairman of the Ethiopia Aid and Trustee of African Humanitarian Action, explains why numerous world leaders have visited Ethiopia over the past few years.
According to Behutesfa, Ethiopia is the political and diplomatic capital of Africa and a major player in Africa politics.
“So, there is no way for leaders to avoid coming to Ethiopia,” he said. “So, overall, the fact that Ethiopia is an important player in Africa politics, together with its economic growth… and the fact that the country is showing good progress and in a positive trajectory, we have had official visits being made here by European, America, and Asian leaders. So, there are many reasons why Ethiopia became focal point for the world leaders to come here and visit us.”
Asked about the contributions Ethiopia has made as regards policies and strategies, Behutesfa said: “I think the success story in Ethiopia emanates from government policies and strategies. For one, Ethiopia has been a depressed economy under the military government of the ‘Derg’. So, coming out of that some 10 years after the Derg, the economy continued on the same pace. But, beginning from the last decade what really happened is Ethiopia’s government came up with several economic plans”.
These plans include the Sustainable Development and Poverty Reduction Program (SDPRP), the Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty (PASDEP) and the Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP).
“In terms of policies, of course there are arenas that we can do a lot more especially in the area of finance, telecommunication, while attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to the optimal potential of the country,” Behutesfa said. “We are not being able to attract FDI as we should.”
Asked about Ethiopia’s relationship with China, which is financing and building many infrastructure projects, the professor said relations have never been better. He also said Turkish companies are now the highest in terms of FDI in Ethiopia.
“Most countries in the world today are not amenable to investment because of lack of resources and lack of cheap labour,” Behutesfa said. “But in Ethiopia, with 90 million people, we have the labour, we have the young population, we have the land and we have the water. So, all this combined makes Ethiopia good destination for investment. They want to bring investment here more and more. The US remains to be the highest donor to Ethiopia even today. It’s funding human development programs in terms of health, education, food security. So, now the US is moving into energy with the signature programme of President Obama, the ‘Power Africa’ programme.”
On July 27, Obama participated in a bilateral meeting with Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn at the National Palace in Addis Ababa. Obama promised the US would build sustainable relationships with Africa.
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