In Eritrea’s case, the question of what comes after Isaias is therefore not a matter of routine political transition, but a looming national and regional concern. For years, commentators and analysts have expressed growing concern about Eritrea’s future—not because change is undesirable, but because of the way change is likely to come.

History shows that when long‑serving dictators die unexpectedly—especially those who neither groom successors nor allow institutions to develop—the aftermath is often turbulent. Sudan after Omar al‑Bashir, Libya after Muammar Gaddafi, and Iraq following Saddam Hussein offer sobering reminders of how the absence of a prepared transition can open the door to prolonged instability, internal conflict, and regional spillover. Power vacuums invite power struggles. Competing factions within the ruling elite move quickly to secure control. Security institutions fracture or overreact. At the same time, long‑suppressed opposition groups, both inside and outside the country, re‑emerge because the central figure of fear is suddenly gone. In such moments, uncertainty can escalate rapidly into instability.

Eritrea fits this pattern uncomfortably well. For more than three decades, political power has been concentrated almost entirely in the hands of one man. There is no functioning constitution, no independent judiciary, no elected legislature, and no visible succession plan. Political parties are banned, civil society is non‑existent, and even senior officials operate at the mercy of presidential discretion rather than institutional rules. This means that when the inevitable transition comes, it will not be managed by strong institutions, but by individuals and factions scrambling to fill the void.

One possible scenario is an internal power struggle within the military and security apparatus. Another is the emergence of a successor who attempts to consolidate authority through heightened brutality; believing that fear and repression are the only tools available to demonstrate control. We have seen this pattern elsewhere: a new ruler, insecure and untested, resorts to excessive force to signal strength, often plunging the country into deeper cycles of violence and isolation.

At the same time, Eritrean opposition groups—many of them fragmented, exiled, and weakened by years of repression—may see an opening to mobilize. While political awakening is not inherently negative, sudden and uncoordinated mobilization in a highly militarized society can lead to clashes, reprisals, and even civil conflict. Ordinary Eritreans, already exhausted by indefinite national service, mass migration, and economic hardship, would bear the heaviest cost.

This uncertainty does not stop at Eritrea’s borders. Any serious instability there will have direct ripple effects on Ethiopia and the wider Horn of Africa. Refugee flows could increase dramatically. Border security could deteriorate. Armed groups may exploit the chaos. Regional rivalries could intensify as external actors attempt to influence the post‑Isaias order. Periods of political vacuum often attract regional and international actors seeking to shape outcomes in line with their own strategic interests, frequently complicating already fragile transitions. For Ethiopia, which shares deep historical, social, and security linkages with Eritrea, pretending that this is an internal Eritrean matter alone would be dangerously short‑sighted.

The question is not whether Eritrea will face a transition, but how sudden, how violent, and how destabilizing it may be—and how prepared neighboring states will be when that moment arrives. For Ethiopia, preparedness must go beyond passive readiness: it should include a clear-eyed assessment of national interests related to security, border stability, trade, regional influence, and the protection of its citizens. Pursuing these interests does not require intervention or coercion, but it does demand proactive diplomacy, strategic engagement with regional and international partners, and the capacity to shape outcomes in ways that minimize risks and maximize stability.

 At the same time, Ethiopia’s approach should be guided by a genuine hope that any transition in Eritrea ultimately serves the aspirations of the Eritrean people—for peace, dignity, accountable governance, and a normal life after decades of repression and sacrifice. Preparing for this moment now, with both national interests and regional goodwill in mind, is not only prudent; it is an expression of responsible and forward-looking statecraft.

(Tessema Mebratu is a legal scholar and practitioner specializing in human rights, rule of law, and transitional justice. He holds a PhD in Law and has over 15 years of experience managing civil society, democracy, and justice sector programs in Ethiopia. He has worked extensively on accountability, institutional reform, and conflict prevention, and is committed to promoting evidence-based dialogue and justice for victims of mass atrocities in Ethiopia.)

Contributed by Tessema Mebratu (PhD)

Hosting COP32 presents Ethiopia with a defining choice: between performance and proof. The world will arrive in Addis Ababa looking past the polished venues and upgraded roads—the necessary stagecraft of a global summit—to see if the host city can deliver measurable progress on its own gravest environmental crisis. For a nation long a vocal champion of climate justice on the world stage, this is the moment to demonstrate climate justice on its own streets.

The most visceral and credible proof point is the city’s air. With PM₂.₅ concentrations sustained at six to eight times the World Health Organization’s safety guideline, Addis Ababa’s atmosphere constitutes a daily public health emergency. The toxic haze is not an abstract metric; it is the air breathed by schoolchildren, market vendors, and commuters. For a COP host, visibly and verifiably clearing this haze is the non-negotiable benchmark of leadership. It is the difference between hosting a conference and leading a transformation.

This reframes the central challenge for the city. It is no longer “can Addis build?” but “can it clean?” Infrastructure enhances image; clean air saves lives and delivers the proof this moment demands. To be credible, an intervention must achieve a minimum five percent reduction in citywide annual PM₂.₅ before November 2027—a threshold that is both measurable and meaningful. It must also generate immediate, visible co-benefits that resonate with citizens: protecting children, safeguarding workers, and reducing household burdens.

The critical question is not whether Addis Ababa must act, but where. Which sector can deliver verifiable reductions within a 30-month political window? Source studies consistently identify transport as the largest contributor to PM₂.₅ (30–50 percent), followed by biomass combustion (20–25 percent). Industry, road dust, and other minor sources make up the remainder, each individually smaller and more diffuse.

Paradoxically, this prominence makes transport a policy trap within a 30-month window. The path to rapid, verifiable cuts lies elsewhere—in the city’s institutional and commercial kitchens. A clean kitchen transition offers the most direct, feasible, and credible route for converting climate ambition into measurable progress.

The Limits of a Cosmetic Fix

The city’s congested roads and visible exhaust make transport an intuitive, almost reflexive, target for air quality action. This focus is politically convenient and symbolically potent. But for the specific and unforgiving purpose of delivering measurable proof of cleaner air before COP32, it is a strategic cul-de-sac. Pursuing transport as the flagship achievement for 2027 risks investing in a cosmetic fix—one that may modernize the city’s image but fails to substantively improve the air its citizens breathe. The constraints are not of will, but of physics, economics, and institutional tempo.

First, fleet turnover is geologically slow. Addis Ababa’s vehicle stock is aged and replaces itself incrementally. Aggressive scrappage or import policies can only affect the thin margin of new registrations, leaving the vast, high-emitting fleet largely unchanged through 2027. The city cannot legislate away the physical lifespan of a minibus.

Second, electric mobility is a 2030 solution, not a 2027 fix. Electrification is critical for Ethiopia’s long-term energy security and decarbonization. Yet, for impacting PM₂.₅ in the next three years, it is a mirage. Barriers of cost, charging infrastructure, grid stability, and supply chain scale prevent the mass penetration required to shift the city’s pollution profile. The numbers needed simply cannot materialize in time.

Third, regulatory reform operates on a bureaucratic clock. Strengthening fuel standards, enforcing emissions testing, and overhauling inspection regimes are essential, complex endeavors. They require regulatory design, legislative approval, capacitation of enforcement bodies, and market adaptation—a process measured in years, not months. Their benefits, while real, will mature well after the COP32 spotlight has faded.

 This is not an argument against transport reform; it is an argument for strategic clarity. Ambitious transport policy is a long-term imperative for urban livability and climate mitigation. But it is a profound distraction as the chosen vehicle for a near-term, verifiable victory. To pretend otherwise is to guarantee a narrative of underachievement.

 Institutional Kitchens as a Site of Demonstration

With transport unable to deliver verifiable proof by 2027, the search for credible climate action must follow a different logic. The right sector must be large enough to move the city’s pollution average, yet concentrated enough to be transformed within 30 months. It must be embedded in systems that allow for enforceable intervention, and its transformation must produce visible, human-scale benefits that build public momentum. Only the city’s commercial and institutional kitchens meet all these demands.

 Here, the scale is significant but contained. Biomass combustion contributes 20–25 percent of Addis Ababa’s total PM₂.₅, and within that, kitchens account for an estimated 40–50 percent of emissions—translating to 6–12 percent of the city’s overall PM₂.₅ burden. This is a substantial slice of the pollution pie, yet it emanates from a finite, mappable geography: school compounds, restaurant rows, and vendor clusters.

It is the structure of this sector that makes it uniquely tractable. Unlike the diffuse challenge of household energy, institutional kitchens are nodes of concentrated consumption already under formal or informal oversight. Schools answer to municipal procurement; restaurants are subject to licensing; vendors organize in associations. This existing administrative footprint turns a citywide environmental problem into a series of targetable, manageable projects. The transition becomes a logistical and regulatory exercise, not a sociological one.

Furthermore, these are not anonymous emission points. They are places of daily life—where children eat, where people work, where communities gather. Reducing pollution here delivers an immediate sensory and health benefit to defined populations. This creates a powerful feedback loop: visible action reinforces public support, which in turn sustains political will. A clean kitchen initiative thus becomes more than an emission reduction program; it becomes a tangible demonstration of the state’s capacity to deliver a public good—cleaner air—where it is most acutely felt.

Engineering a Proof Point

Identifying the kitchen sector as the strategic priority is only the first step. The decisive question is whether its emissions can be reduced quickly and verifiably enough to shift the city’s air quality before COP32. Here, the move from ambition to proof depends on a clear, defensible calculation. The task is not to promise transformation, but to engineer a measurable result.

The projection rests on a simple, transparent formula built from two conservative, empirically grounded inputs. First, the kitchen sector’s share of total PM₂.₅—a central estimate of 10 percent, within a defensible range of 6–15 percent. Second, the achievable emissions reduction from deploying modern stoves—a sector-wide average of 60–70 percent, based on the verified performance of technologies already manufactured and used in Ethiopia. Multiplying these figures yields the anticipated citywide PM₂.₅ reduction.

The technologies at the heart of this calculation are not prototypes; they are commercial products with established supply chains. In schools, institutional rocket or gasifier stoves can replace three-stone fires, cutting emissions by 60–85 percent. In restaurants and catering services, similar stoves, improved charcoal stoves and efficient “absit metaya” can achieve reductions of 40–70 percent. For street vendors, upgraded braziers yield gains of 30–50 percent. These devices do more than reduce pollution—they slash fuel costs, creating a natural economic incentive for adoption. This is not a subsidy-dependent leap of faith, but an operational upgrade that pays for itself.

Applying the model produces a clear outcome spectrum. Under a conservative scenario, the transition yields a 3.6 percent citywide PM₂.₅ reduction. The central, most likely scenario delivers approximately 6.5 percent. An ambitious, high-adoption scenario reaches 10.5 percent. Therefore, a well-executed clean kitchen transition can reliably deliver a 6–10 percent reduction in Addis Ababa’s annual average PM₂.₅—a result that comfortably exceeds the five percent credibility threshold required for COP32 and constitutes a detectable shift in urban air quality.

Feasibility is engineered into the sector’s very structure. The intervention targets a finite, manageable universe: roughly 1,000 schools, 2,500 formal eateries, and 6,000 vendor clusters. These entities are already reachable through public procurement, business licensing, and municipal oversight—no new legal frameworks are required. Progress can be tracked in real time through stove deployment records, fuel sales data, and air monitors placed in schools and markets, creating an auditable trail from action to outcome.

 This confluence of scale, existing infrastructure, and monitorability is what distinguishes the kitchen transition. It transforms an atmospheric challenge into a series of discrete, completable tasks. The result is more than a statistic; it is a deliberately constructed proof point—a verifiable signal that Addis Ababa can translate climate commitment into measured, accountable progress.

 Proof with Purpose

A clean kitchen transition transcends an air quality metric. Its true power lies in delivering a triple dividend—tangible gains in public health, equity, and climate resilience that align directly with Ethiopia’s flagship national initiatives. This is where technical intervention becomes political leadership: by creating proof that improves lives.

 The first and most immediate dividend is public health and equity. Institutional kitchens are among the city’s most hazardous environments, with PM₂.₅ concentrations frequently reaching 20 to 100 times WHO guidelines.

 Transitioning them is a direct health intervention for the city’s most exposed populations. For nearly one million schoolchildren, it means replacing hours of toxic exposure during the school day with cleaner air, reducing risks of asthma, bronchitis, and absenteeism. For the tens of thousands of women who work as cooks, vendors, and cafeteria staff across schools, restaurants, and markets, it means safer workplaces with less respiratory illness, fewer burns, and liberation from a significant portion of the fuel-cost and time burden. This is not a marginal co-benefit; it is the core of a just transition—climate action that repairs, rather than ignores, existing inequities.

 The second dividend is rapid, visible air quality gains where they matter most. While the citywide PM₂.₅ reduction is 6–10 percent, the local impact in high-exposure zones is transformative. Schoolyards, market corridors, and restaurant districts can experience 30–60 percent drops in ambient smoke. This delivers the palpable, sensory change promised by the Clean Ethiopia initiative—a city that feels cleaner, not just one that reports better numbers. It creates everyday proof points for residents and delegates alike, turning abstract policy into lived experience.

 The third dividend is climate mitigation woven with national legacy. The transition directly accelerates Ethiopia’s environmental ambitions. It cuts biomass demand by 50–70 percent, preserving an estimated 10,000–20,000 hectares of forest annually from fuelwood extraction. This provides the demand-side complement to the Green Legacy Initiative, transforming it from a planting campaign into a holistic forest protection strategy. Concurrently, it avoids 75,000–125,000 tons of CO₂e annually, creating a high-integrity carbon asset. Most significantly, it activates Ethiopia’s globally recognized potential: the nation ranks third in the world for climate mitigation through clean cooking. A successful capital-city program is the essential first step in mobilizing this national advantage, positioning Ethiopia not as a host of talks, but as a provider of scalable solutions.

 A 30-Month Demonstration Project

A compelling case must culminate in a credible plan. The logic of the kitchen transition is clear; its viability now depends on execution. Fortunately, this is not a call for new institutions or laws, but for the focused alignment of existing tools—procurement, licensing, public-private partnerships—toward a single, winnable priority. The goal is to engineer a citywide demonstration project, completed within 30 months, that stands as irrefutable proof of delivery before COP32 convenes.

The project unfolds in three overlapping phases, each designed for visibility and momentum. Phase One targets schools as the fastest, most morally unambiguous win. Launching a Clean Air for Schools initiative and procuring efficient institutional stoves for all public kitchens would, within the first year, protect almost one million children and the women who prepare their meals from toxic exposure, while eliminating the most visually stark plumes of biomass smoke. This is more than an upgrade; it is a public signal of intent and a foundation of public trust.

Phase Two engages restaurants and caterers, leveraging scale through regulation. By integrating clean stove standards into the business license renewal cycle—supported by bulk procurement and vendor financing—the city can systematically upgrade thousands of commercial kitchens over 30 months. This turns a mandate into an economic opportunity for businesses, as fuel savings quickly outweigh costs, driving citywide reductions in biomass demand.

Phase Three organizes the informal network of street vendors. By executing stove-swap programs in partnership with microfinance providers, Addis Ababa can transform the air quality in its densest market corridors. This final phase, completed by 2027, ensures no major combustion source is left behind, delivering visible change in the city’s most vibrant public spaces.

Financing this transition is an exercise in unlocking value, not allocating burdens. For the women running school kitchens and vendor businesses, the powerful economic logic of the stoves—cutting fuel costs by 40–85 percent—enables a pay-as-you-save model. Low-interest supplier credit or microloans, repayable from the efficiency gains, turn upfront costs into cashflow-positive investments. Public funding is not for subsidies, but for de-risking this credit and scaling procurement to lower unit costs. Concurrently, the verifiable emissions reductions create a high-quality carbon asset, enabling forward finance agreements that further reduce capital constraints. This is a model designed to convert private savings into public benefit, catalyzing rather than draining municipal resources.

Ultimately, credibility will be built through transparent verification. A public Clean Kitchen Dashboard tracking stove deployment, fuel sales trends, and air quality readings from schoolyards and markets will turn implementation into a narrative of accountable progress. By 2026, this dashboard will show pollution declining in targeted zones. By COP32, it will document a verifiable downward trend in the city’s annual PM₂.₅ average.

The Logic Withstands Scrutiny

A proposal of this scope invites skepticism. This is not a weakness, but a necessary test. When examined, the common objections do not point toward a better alternative; they reinforce why the clean kitchen transition is the only viable path for 2027. Scrutiny solidifies the case.

 Some will argue that households, not institutions, are the true heart of biomass use and deserve priority. The response is a matter of timeline, not principle. Household energy transitions are a generational project of behavior change, financing, and supply-chain evolution. Institutional kitchens represent a bounded, 36-month project of regulation and procurement. For a COP host needing a verifiable achievement, the choice is not between good and perfect, but between possible and impossible.

Others may question the maturity and affordability of the technology. This concern dissolves upon inspection. The stoves required are not prototypes; they are products manufactured in Ethiopia, sold in markets, and proven in commercial kitchens. Their most powerful feature is economic: they cut fuel costs by 40-85 percent, creating a natural incentive for adoption. The barrier is not technology or cost, but coordination.

A related critique centers on enforcement: can the city possibly regulate thousands of kitchens? The answer lies in existing systems, not new ones. Schools follow procurement rules. Restaurants operate under municipal licenses. Vendors cluster in kebeles. The transition requires not a new bureaucracy, but the deliberate application of these existing levers to a new priority. It is an exercise in administrative focus.

 A deeper, strategic objection may arise: does this narrow focus distract from larger, systemic climate goals? The opposite is true. By delivering integrated gains in health, forests, and air quality, the kitchen transition activates the core aims of Clean Ethiopia and the Green Legacy Initiative. It provides the operational blueprint and political confidence needed to tackle subsequent, harder challenges. It is not a detour, but an essential first step—a demonstration of capability that makes broader ambition credible.

 The scrutiny leads to a single, inescapable conclusion. Transport cannot deliver in time. Households cannot be mobilized at scale. Only kitchens occupy the narrow intersection of significant impact and rapid executability. The clean kitchen transition withstands scrutiny not because it is perfect, but because it is the only option that meets the non-negotiable terms of the moment: it must be big enough to matter, fast enough to show, and clear enough to believe.

Proof, Not Performance

As Addis Ababa prepares to host COP32, the city stands at a defining juncture. It can choose to perform, or it can choose to prove. The world will arrive to a city whose infrastructure gleams, whose venues impress, and whose hospitality is warm. But these are the expected amenities of any global host. What will resonate, what will be remembered, and what will truly define Ethiopia’s leadership, is the evidence of tangible progress on the crisis that most directly affects its people: the air they breathe.

 A clean kitchen transition offers that proof. It is a targeted, executable intervention that meets the strategic demands of the moment. It is significant enough to reduce citywide PM₂.₅ by 6–10 percent . It is fast enough to deliver verifiable results within 30 months. It is verifiable enough to be tracked transparently from stove to sensor. And it is purposeful enough to protect children, empower women, preserve forests, and activate Ethiopia’s global clean-cooking potential. This is not a theoretical proposal; it is a ready-made demonstration project, built with local tools and existing systems, waiting only for the decision to begin.

 By choosing this path, Addis Ababa would do more than meet a host city’s obligation. It would redefine it. It would shift the paradigm from presenting pledges to presenting proof, from staging discussions to showcasing delivery. The legacy would be a city that improved not only its facade, but its fundamental vitality—prioritizing the well-being of its citizens as the ultimate measure of climate leadership.

 When delegates gather in 2027, the most powerful statement of Ethiopia’s commitment will not be heard in an opening speech. It will be felt in the clearer air of its schoolyards, seen in the diminished haze over its markets, and noticed in the transformed kitchens where its people work. This tangible evidence will testify to a choice made now: to anchor climate ambition in human progress, and to let the proof of that choice rise, unmistakably, for all to see.

 This is the opportunity before Addis Ababa. It is the opportunity to move from pledges to plates, from performance to proof. The world is watching, but more importantly, the city’s own people are waiting. Let the air itself tell the story of what was achieved.

(Tsegaye Nega (PhD) is a Professor Emeritus at Carleton College in the United States and the Founder and CEO of Anega Energies Manufacturing.)

Contributed by Tsegaye Nega (PhD)

With the world barreling toward increasingly urgent climate deadlines, African policymakers must move beyond the comforting illusion that simply producing more renewable electricity will satisfy global emissions-reduction targets. In reality, a climate strategy that focuses on green energy but neglects development risks delivering climate gains without yielding development dividends.

While Africa’s greenhouse-gas emissions remain low on average, the continent faces profound economic and debt pressures that could impede its ability to decarbonize and build resilience. Any credible climate strategy must therefore combine debt relief with growth-oriented, low-carbon development.

These ideas are central to the latest report from the Africa Expert Panel, which was established under South Africa’s G20 presidency to examine how to channel investment in ways that support durable, broad-based development. The report calls for coordinated debt relief and urges G20 leaders to mobilize public and private capital to jumpstart African innovation.

Despite Africa’s vast renewable-energy potential, the pace and scale of its green transition will ultimately depend on the underlying realities of its national economies. The continent already has nearly 34 gigawatts of installed hydropower, even before major projects like the 6.5 GW Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam come online. Its solar potential, at 7,900 GW, is extraordinary, with installed capacity growing by 54% annually between 2011 and 2020. Wind resources amount to an estimated 461 GW of technical potential. And the East African Rift alone holds roughly 15 GW of untapped geothermal resources.

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

But the real challenge is not counting how many green electrons Africa could produce; it is ensuring that clean-energy investments help African countries achieve their development goals. For this, policymakers must focus on several key issues.

Understanding the roots of the continent’s development problems must come first. Most Sub-Saharan countries remain heavily reliant on commodities and raw-material exports, a development path that has entrenched structural imbalances and constrained the growth of other sectors.

Nigeria offers a stark example. Before the discovery of oil, the country had a vibrant agriculture sector. But as oil revenues surged, agriculture rapidly lost ground, with exports falling by 17% at the height of the 1970s oil boom. This overdependence on a single commodity – a classic case of “Dutch disease” – has made the Nigerian economy acutely vulnerable to price shocks and market volatility.

Second, scaling climate-aligned investment requires a far clearer picture of the continent’s debt landscape: its scale, makeup, and how to stabilize it. While additional financing will be essential, any new borrowing must be linked to productivity improvements and economic resilience.

In the near term, this requires strengthening sectors like agriculture and tourism while laying the groundwork for a shift toward higher-value goods and services. Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, for example, produce roughly half of the world’s cocoa, yet limited investment in R&D and processing means that most of the value is still captured elsewhere, leaving both economies exposed to market swings and limiting opportunities to diversify.

Third, economies such as South Africa will need to bolster their competitiveness as policies like the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism come into force. These measures will hit carbon-intensive sectors hard, underscoring the need to move away from Africa’s current “grow now, clean up later” model. For the energy transition to translate into durable economic growth, decarbonization must be paired with industrialization and genuine diversification.

Fourth, misallocating capital would be especially costly for highly indebted countries at a time when borrowing costs are soaring across much of Africa. This makes it critical to focus on green-growth initiatives that deliver meaningful productivity gains and economic opportunities.

At the same time, affordable and reliable electricity remains crucial to realizing Africa’s productive potential and integrating its young, rapidly urbanizing population into the global economy. Firms operating in Senegal’s Diamniadio special economic zone, for example, have pointed to high electricity costs as a major factor undermining their competitiveness.

Lastly, African policymakers need a long-term vision for how their economies should look in two or three decades. Climate solutions must not only reduce emissions; they must also create pathways for countries to move up the value chain and participate in the development of tomorrow’s technologies.

The 21st-century economy is an ideas economy, in which countries compete to develop solutions to national, regional, and global challenges. Done right, climate investment can help nurture dynamic, innovation-driven African economies. But this demands a coherent long-term vision of the economic trajectory the continent seeks.

Saliem Fakir is the Executive Director of the African Climate Foundation.

Contributed by Saliem Fakir

By the mid-1990’s, IGADD member states recognized that sustainable economic development and regional integration were unattainable without durable peace and security. Accordingly, the organization was revitalized and reconstituted in 1996 as IGAD, marking a deliberate shift from a narrowly defined environmental and developmental mandate toward a broader regional framework encompassing peace and security, political cooperation, economic integration, and development. This paradigm shift positioned IGAD as a full-fledged regional organization comparable in scope and ambition to other African RECs such as ECOWAS and SADC.

Eritrea remained a member of IGAD until 2007, when it unilaterally withdrew following the Ethiopia-Eritrea war and IGAD’s support for regional peace initiatives in Somalia, including the IGAD Peace Support Mission in Somalia (IGASOM) and the subsequent AU-led mission, AMISOM (2007-2022). During this period, IGAD also condemned Eritrea’s involvement in the internal affairs of Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, and Djibouti, and endorsed requests by Ethiopia for AU and UN sanctions in response to Eritrea’s documented support for armed and terrorist groups, including Al-Shabaab and Al-Qaeda affiliates.

After nearly two decades of absence, Eritrea rejoined IGAD in June 2023 following the Ethiopia-Eritrea Peace Agreement, facilitated largely through Ethiopia’s initiative and the political goodwill of other IGAD member states. The readmission was justified on the basis of inclusivity, regional cooperation, and solidarity. However, this return proved short-lived. On December 12, 2025, Eritrea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs transmitted a diplomatic note verbale to the IGAD Secretariat announcing its withdrawal from the organization.

In the note, Eritrea alleged that IGAD had failed to advance regional aspirations since 2007, had evolved into a platform hostile to Eritrea, and had ignored Eritrean calls for institutional reform. It further claimed that IGAD no longer functioned as a neutral regional body and no longer served Eritrea’s national interests. IGAD responded promptly, expressing regret over the decision and refuting factual inaccuracies in Eritrea’s claims. The Secretariat noted that Eritrea had not meaningfully participated in IGAD activities for nearly two decades, had submitted no reform proposals following its 2023 readmission, and had undertaken no prior consultations before announcing its withdrawal. Nevertheless, IGAD reiterated its readiness to engage Eritrea in constructive dialogue. 

Eritrea’s withdrawal is not an isolated incident but part of a recurring pattern in its engagement with regional, continental, and global institutions. It must be understood within the broader context of Eritrea’s foreign policy orientation, characterized by isolationism, a highly securitized conception of sovereignty, and resistance to regional and international accountability mechanisms. Unlike most African states, which regard regional organizations as indispensable platforms for cooperation and collective problem-solving, Eritrea has consistently adopted a selective and instrumental approach to multilateral engagement. The Asmara regime has tended to participate in regional mechanisms only to the extent that they align with narrowly defined security objectives; where institutions impose constraints or demand accountability, Eritrea has responded through non-cooperation, obstruction, or outright withdrawal.

In a region as volatile as the Horn of Africa, the withdrawal of a member state from an AU recognized RECs carries detrimental political and security implications. Eritrea’s decision therefore warrants examination through the lens of its statehood practices, foreign policy behavior, and historical engagement with regional institutions. A central driver of its withdrawal is the perception that IGAD no longer tolerates or legitimizes Eritrea’s long-standing strategy of regional destabilization through proxy engagement. Over the past two decades, multiple UN Security Council Monitoring Group reports, as well as AU Peace and Security Council briefings, documented Eritrea’s support for armed groups operating in Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan and Djibouti. In response, IGAD consistently condemned these actions and supported UN sanctions.

IGAD’s mandate to promote regional peace, security, and conflict prevention stands in direct contradiction to Eritrea’s reliance on militarized influence and proxy warfare. This structural incompatibility has rendered sustained and genuine cooperation between IGAD and the Eritrean regime untenable.

Of particular concern is the parallel effort by Eritrean political elites and affiliates to lobby and encourage other member states to disengage from IGAD, most notably Sudan, whose government unilaterally suspended its membership on January 20, 2024, amid an ongoing civil war between SAF and RSF. Such actions suggest a coordinated attempt to weaken IGAD at a critical moment, especially as its mediation role in Sudan remains indispensable.

Eritrea’s limited institutional capacity and the decay of its state apparatuses have further undermined its ability to engage constructively with IGAD. Its highly militarized political economy, domination by the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), indefinite national conscription, extensive human capital depletion, and shrinking diplomatic footprint have severely constrained meaningful participation in regional initiatives. Eritrea has remained absent from major IGAD programs, including the Drought Disaster Resilience and Sustainability Initiative (IDDRSI), climate adaptation and resilience strategies, and the Conflict Early Warning and Response Mechanism (CEWARN), which require routine data sharing, inter-agency coordination, and technical engagement.

Eritrea has similarly refused to engage in regional migration governance frameworks despite being one of the largest sources of forced migrants in the Horn of Africa. UNHCR and IOM data consistently indicate that Eritreans represent a disproportionately large share of asylum seekers across the IGAD region, the Middle East, and Europe, primarily driven by indefinite conscription and pervasive political repression. This ongoing outflow of people directly undermines regional efforts to manage displacement and migration collaboratively and imposes disproportionate humanitarian and administrative burdens on neighboring states, particularly Ethiopia.

Eritrea’s disengagement also extends to regional economic and trade facilitation mechanisms, intra-regional trade, transport infrastructure development, customs harmonization, and regional value-chain programs promoted under IGAD.  Its restrictive trade regime, limited private sector activity, and absence from these initiatives have hindered the development of economic interdependence, a critical pillar of functional regionalism. Moreover, Eritrea’s closed-door policy regarding the Port of the Red Sea and Massawa, coupled with a lack of transparency in port governance and maritime cooperation, has constrained its integration into regional maritime security, logistics, and trade frameworks. This inward-looking posture contrasts sharply with IGAD’s growing emphasis on Red Sea security, blue economy cooperation, and coordinated responses to geopolitical competition in the corridor.  

Against this backdrop, Eritrea’s assertion that it played a central role in revitalizing IGAD is untenable. IGAD’s institutional architecture is built on cooperative burden-sharing among member states, with subsidiary organs and specialized programs distributed across the region to ensure functional specialization and collective responsibility. The IGAD Secretariat is headquartered in Djibouti and serves as the executive body responsible for coordinating regional projects and programs. Several specialized institutions and programs operate in other member states; the Conflict Early Warning and Response Mechanism (CEWARN) and the Security Sector Program (ISSP) are hosted in Ethiopia; the Climate Predication and Applications Centre (ICPAC) and the Centre for Pastoral Area and Livestock Development (ICPALD) are based in Kenya; and other offices, such as the IGAD South Sudan Office, support priority processes in Juba. Additionally, IGAD maintains field presences relevant to its regional mandate, including engagement related to the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and Somalia (RESGAS) Mission, with operational activities coordinated in Somalia, and the Sheikh Technical Veterinary Schools.

Eritrea, by contrast, has not hosted any significant regional or continental organization beyond routine bilateral diplomatic missions. Its political engagement with IGAD has been minimal; it has frequently sent low-level delegations, abstained from meetings, and even after its readmission in 2023, demonstrated poor attendance. Moreover, Eritrea has repeatedly failed to meet its financial obligations under IGAD’s legal framework, reflecting a consistent pattern of non-compliance.

Eritrea’s purported justification for withdrawal on the grounds of institutional reform is equally unconvincing. Eritrea neither participated meaningfully in negotiations to replace the 1996 Agreement with the 2023 Treaty Establishing IGAD nor ratified the new treaty. It submitted no reform proposals during the negotiation process, undermining any claim of good faith engagement and exposing its reform narratives as politically expedient rather than substantive.

Procedurally speaking, Eritrea’s withdrawal is legally defective under IGAD legal framework. Article 54(1) of the Treaty Establishing IGAD requires a written notice of withdrawal at least one year in advance to the Executive Secretary. Eritrea’s unilateral announcement through a note verbale fails to meet this legal requirement. Historically, IGAD has exercised restraint and institutional goodwill toward Eritrea to preserve regional cohesion; Eritrea has now exploited that goodwill to portray IGAD as illegitimate and captured, as stated in its December 12, 2025 communique.

In sum, Eritrea’s withdrawal from IGAD depicts not institutional failure, but a deliberate state policy rejecting regional cooperation, legal accountability, and collective security. By prioritizing isolation, coercion, and unilateralism, Eritrea imposes significant risks on the stability of the Horn of Africa, undermining regional peace and cooperation. 

As a recommendation, to safeguard IGAD’s institutional integrity and regional stability, member states must unequivocally reaffirm their commitment to the organization’s core objectives, ensuring timely financial contributions and proactive participation in all initiatives and programs. IGAD should rigorously enforce its treaty provisions, enhance operational resilience through diversified programs hosting and advancing digital coordination, and maintain full transparency through regular reporting on institutional achievements, while sustaining impartial dialogue with all members. Coordinated diplomatic measures are imperative to counter any attempts by withdrawing or non-compliant states to weaken the organization. Simultaneously, advancing intra-regional trade, transport infrastructure, port governance, and economic integration will strengthen mutual interdependence and reduce incentives for unilateral withdrawal.

Member states must present a unified stance in continental and global forums to protect IGAD’s legitimacy and credibility as the principal platform for collective peace, security, and development in the Horn of Africa. In this parlance, Eritrea’s withdrawal and its destabilizing activities must be publicly condemned, with clear diplomatic and political messaging that such actions are incompatible with regional cooperation. Member states should also demonstrate their readiness to stand firmly with IGAD, sending an unambiguous signal that attempts to undermine the organization will not be tolerated and that collective action in defense of regional stability remains a shared and binding responsibility.

Amanuel Tadesse is an expert in International Law and Foreign Relations, with professional interests spanning international law, peace and security, international organizations, foreign policy, political affairs, transboundary and water law.

Contributed by Amanuel Tadesse

Noticeably, the international community and the African Union (AU) have largely viewed Ethiopia’s quest for sovereign access to the Red Sea through the lens of caution, fearing that altering the status quo would destabilize the region’s delicate post-colonial borders. This unviable perspective must be changed for good. The continued containment of Ethiopia is not a recipe for stability but a precursor to inevitable conflict. A paradigm shift is required, one where the world powers and African institutions recognize that supporting Ethiopia’s peaceful procurement of a sovereign maritime outlet is not a concession to ambition, but a necessary investment in global security and regional prosperity.

The Historical Wound and the Modern Anomaly

To understand the urgency of Ethiopia’s claim, one must first recognize that its current landlocked status is a historical aberration rather than a permanent destiny. For millennia, from the Aksumite Empire to the modern era, Ethiopia was a maritime power, its identity inextricably linked to the Red Sea trade routes that connected Africa to the Arabian Peninsula and beyond. The separation of Eritrea in 1993 resulted in a unique geopolitical asphyxiation. Unlike other landlocked nations such as Switzerland or Austria, which are surrounded by stable, wealthy neighbours and integrated into a seamless continental market, Ethiopia resides in one of the most volatile neighbourhoods on the planet. It was left dependent on a single transit corridor through Djibouti, creating a choke point that no nation of its size would accept indefinitely.

The international community often clings to the doctrine of uti possidetis – the preservation of colonial borders – as a sacred tenet of African stability. However, the rigid application of this principle in Ethiopia’s case ignores the functional reality of state survival. A nation with the population of Japan and roughly twice the landmass of France cannot sustainably rely on the goodwill of neighbours for 100 percent of its trade. The psychological and strategic toll of this entrapment creates a “pressure cooker” dynamic. By ignoring the historical context of Ethiopia’s maritime dispossession, the international community and the AU risk overseeing a future where a desperate administration feels forced to break out militarily. Facilitating a negotiated, legal return to the sea is the only effective pressure valve to prevent such a catastrophe.

The Economics of Strangulation

The economic case for Ethiopian access is irrefutable and deeply tied to the success of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Currently, Ethiopia pays billions of dollars annually in port fees and transit costs – a massive haemorrhage of foreign currency that stifles development. This “landlocked tax” renders Ethiopian exports less competitive and inflates the cost of living for its citizens. The reliance on the Djibouti corridor constitutes a single point of failure; a blockade, civil unrest, or diplomatic fallout in Djibouti would not just damage the Ethiopian economy, it would induce a humanitarian crisis of continental proportions.

Furthermore, the vision of an industrialized Africa requires Ethiopia to function as a manufacturing hub. Its abundant hydropower and labour force position it to be the factory of the Horn, but this potential is capped by logistics costs that are among the highest in the world. Sovereign access to the sea would allow Ethiopia to develop its own port capacity, manage its own logistics without rent-seeking premiums, and integrate its economy more deeply with global markets. Supporting this ambition is not just pro-Ethiopia; it is pro-trade. A wealthier, more connected Ethiopia becomes a stronger engine for the entire East African bloc, lifting neighbours like South Sudan and Somalia through shared infrastructure and increased demand for cross-border commerce.

A Security Anchor in Turbulent Waters

Perhaps the most compelling argument for international support lies in the realm of hard security. The Red Sea is one of the world’s most critical maritime choke points, a narrow strip of water that controls the flow of global energy and goods. Currently, this corridor is militarized by a host of foreign powers –including the United States, China, France, and Turkey – who maintain bases in Djibouti to secure shipping lanes against piracy and terrorism. Ethiopia, the region’s hegemon with a long history of contributing to peacekeeping missions in Somalia, Sudan, and South Sudan, is conspicuously absent from the maritime security equation.

This absence creates a security vacuum. A landlocked Ethiopia is a giant with one arm tied behind its back, unable to project power to secure the very waters that are vital to its survival. If Ethiopia were to possess a sovereign naval base, it could shoulder a significant portion of the security burden currently carried by foreign navies. An Ethiopian navy would be a natural partner in anti-piracy operations and the interdiction of illicit arms trafficking. Rather than viewing an Ethiopian naval presence as a threat, the international community should see it as a stabilizing force – a “local” guarantor of security that reduces the region’s over-reliance on external powers.

The “Win-Win” Integration Model

Critics of Ethiopia’s quest often frame it as a zero-sum game, implying that for Ethiopia to gain, a neighbour must lose sovereignty. This is a failure of diplomatic imagination. The model Ethiopia has proposed is not one of annexation or invasion, but of commercial and strategic reciprocity. Addis Ababa has signalled a willingness to offer joint investment in key and strategic infrastructure projects – in exchange for sovereign port rights. This proposal transforms the issue from a territorial dispute into economic integration.

The AU and global partners should champion this “swap” model. It creates a web of interdependence that makes conflict less likely. If a coastal neighbour holds equity in Ethiopia’s key and strategic infrastructures, and Ethiopia holds a lease on a port, both nations have a vested interest in the other’s stability. Historical precedents like the lease of Hong Kong or the various sovereign base areas around the world show that there are legal mechanisms to grant “sovereign-like” rights – such as administrative control and a naval presence – without formally redrawing maps or extinguishing the ultimate territorial title of the host state.

Mediation over Containment

The current international posture of warning Ethiopia against escalation while offering no viable solution to its entrapment is a strategic failure. The status quo is unsustainable. The population pressures, economic imperatives, and historical grievances ensure that this issue will not fade away. The African Union and the broader international community must pivot from a stance of containment to one of active mediation. They should establish a “Red Sea and Horn of Africa” economic forum specifically designed to negotiate port access in exchange for shared infrastructure and energy integration.

By underwriting a deal – providing security guarantees to coastal states to assuage fears of annexation, and access guarantees to Ethiopia to assuage fears of blockade – global powers can turn a potential flashpoint into a cornerstone of regional peace. Denying Ethiopia the sea is to deny the Horn of Africa its centre of gravity. It is time to anchor Ethiopia to the coast, ensuring that the region’s giant pulls its neighbours toward prosperity rather than dragging them into instability. The path to a peaceful Horn of Africa runs through the Red Sea, and it is a path Ethiopia must be allowed to travel.

Contributed by Yonas Tesfa Sisay (PhD)

Addis Ababa’s newest weapon against corruption is not a change in rules or power, but a device. The city’s Revenue and Customs Authority is fitting tax assessors with body-worn cameras, monitored centrally and presented as the dawn of a new era of transparency. The idea is clean and comforting: record the interaction, expose misconduct, deter wrongdoing.

The appeal is obvious. Cameras project neutrality. They promise an objective record, a simple way to settle disputes, a future where corruption becomes a matter of reviewing footage. In this story, corruption is a visible act waiting to be captured, and technology is a portable solution that works the same in a police station in London as in a tax office in Kirkos.

But this rests on two false assumptions. First, that corruption in Addis Ababa’s tax system is a problem of visibility—that wrongdoing persists because it is hidden, and illumination will produce accountability. Second, that technology is a neutral tool whose effects do not depend on the institution that adopts it.

Both are wrong. The city’s tax administration operates within what I have described elsewhere as institutional hollowness—a system that mimics the forms of modern bureaucracy while lacking the capacity or will to enforce its own rules. In such an environment, technology does not repair dysfunction. It is absorbed by it.

Body cameras will not reduce corruption. They are the kind of reform a hollow institution favors: visible, easy to publicize, and incapable of disturbing the networks that actually govern behavior. They do not challenge the system; they accessorize it.

The Hollow Institution

The problem is not that Addis Ababa’s tax administration lacks technology. The problem is that it lacks substance. It is not broken; it is hollow.

A hollow institution excels at the performance of governance. It builds offices, drafts procedures, and speaks fluent legalese. It holds meetings, stamps documents, and opens service windows at nine o’clock sharp. From the outside, it looks like a functioning bureaucracy. Inside, the machinery that should turn rules into results has gone still. It has the forms of a system, but none of the functions.

This hollowness is not poor management; it is a survival strategy. Every new rule, software update, or “modernization drive” becomes another layer of ceremonial bark. The institution grows thicker and more elaborate while its core stays empty. The aim is not to solve problems but to perfect the appearance of solving them. It manages perceptions, not outcomes.

Seen this way, the body-camera initiative is not a misstep. It is the system’s most rational choice. A hollow institution always selects the reform that best reinforces its façade. The camera is ideal for this: visible, purchasable, legible, and—most importantly—harmless. It does not disturb real power, dismantle protection networks, or limit discretion. It simply records what happens in front of it.

Mounted on the uniform, the camera will watch the officer and the taxpayer. And it will faithfully document a script written long before the device was ever switched on. It sees the counter. It was never designed to see the transaction.

The Camera’s Blind Spot

Let’s watch the tape.

The frame is tight: a taxpayer, an assessor, a desk. Papers change hands. The officer scans a file, frowns, and says, “This is incomplete. You’ll have to return tomorrow.” The footage shows a routine rejection. Nothing an auditor could sanction. No demand for money. No threat. Just a postponement.

This is where corruption lives in Addis Ababa’s tax system: not in explicit acts, but in the negative space of bureaucracy. The withheld stamp. The invented discrepancy. The rule suddenly remembered or quietly ignored. An assessor rarely needs to ask for anything. He pauses, hesitates, invokes a procedural ghost — and waits. Power lies not in the request but in the suspension of progress. The message is delivered in silence.

The camera is useless here. It records the what. Corruption operates in the why not.

It cannot explain why this file, out of dozens, is deemed incomplete. It cannot see the understanding that brought this taxpayer to this desk, or the network that marks certain cases as “problematic.” It is blind to the informal routing that smooths some files and buries others.

The most damaging collusion is distributed: the glance between colleagues, the quiet referral to a helper outside, the shared knowledge of which rules are flexible and for whom. These interactions happen in hallways, on phones, in tacit agreements that never touch the recorded script. The camera isolates a moment of contact; the transaction flows around it.

So the device diligently records a pantomime. It sees the frown, not the calculation. It hears “come back tomorrow,” not the unspoken tariff for coming back today. It is engineered to detect acts, but the system has engineered the acts to disappear.

The Global Evidence

Body cameras have been tested under the most favorable conditions imaginable—wealthy democracies, strong oversight, institutions capable of enforcing their own rules. They have failed.

Not occasionally. Not ambiguously. Consistently. A 2021 meta-analysis of dozens of trials across multiple countries reached a clear conclusion: there is no robust evidence that body-worn cameras reduce misconduct.

The gold-standard test came from Washington, D.C., where researchers conducted a massive randomized controlled trial across the police force—about as close as social science gets to laboratory proof. Oversight was strong, scrutiny constant, conditions ideal. The result? No reduction in use of force. No drop in civilian complaints. No detectable change in behavior. The researchers’ summary: “There is no detectable difference.”

In the United Kingdom and Australia, the story was the same. Cameras improved evidence collection after incidents but did nothing to prevent them. Officers adapted—activating cameras late, shifting sensitive exchanges off-frame, and preserving the incentives that mattered. The tool recorded the play; the players rewrote the script.

The global lesson is institutional, not technological. Cameras increase legibility, not accountability. They produce footage, not consequences. They make actions visible but cannot make power responsive.

This is the verdict Addis Ababa’s reformers have chosen to ignore. If cameras cannot change behavior in Washington or London—systems with courts, a press, and functioning internal affairs—what do we imagine they will do inside a hollow municipal bureaucracy?

The failure here will not be milder. It will be more absolute. The institution is designed to neutralize the very accountability the camera promises.

The Life Cycle of Useless Evidence

So the camera records. Petabytes of footage pour into municipal servers—a vast, expensive archive of bureaucratic theater. Now what?

In a functioning institution, evidence would trigger review, judgment, and consequence. In a hollow one, it enters a ceremonial workflow. There is no chain of accountability for it to travel because that chain does not exist. The footage completes a ritual whose purpose is not justice but the performance of its possibility.

For evidence to matter, three conditions must hold: leaders must be willing to discipline their own, reviewers must be independent, and sanctions must be consistent. None of these exist in Addis Ababa’s tax administration. Leadership lacks the will, reviewers answer to the hierarchy they are supposed to scrutinize, and discipline is political—strict for the unprotected, nonexistent for the connected.

Footage therefore does not become evidence; it becomes sediment. It is stored because contracts require storage and donor reports require proof of “monitoring.” Its purpose shifts from accountability to symbolism. The metric becomes “terabytes secured,” not misconduct addressed.

And when footage is reviewed, its supposed objectivity often serves the opposite of its advertised function. It becomes a tool for selective enforcement: a pretext to discipline someone without protection, an alibi for someone with it. The camera catches an officer’s impatience—a perfect excuse to make an example of a junior staffer. The same camera sees nothing in a more delicate exchange—useful cover for someone whose relationships matter more than the rules.

Everyone learns the lesson fast. The taxpayer files a complaint, waits, hears nothing. The system teaches resignation. The officer sees that footage leads not to discipline but to a new task: performing compliance on camera while conducting real business elsewhere.

The footage completes its journey. It began as a promise of oversight; it ends as a monument to institutional impotence—an archive of dysfunction the system is neither willing nor able to confront.

How the Bureaucracy Metabolizes Surveillance

A hollow institution’s most formidable trait is not rigidity but plasticity. It does not break under pressure; it flows around it. When surveillance enters its ecosystem, the institution does not comply or resist — it adapts. The camera becomes a new variable in its survival logic. Corruption, faced with a lens, does not disappear; it retreats, mutates, and perfects its camouflage.

The first adjustment is spatial. The recorded counter becomes a decoy, a stage for a sterile ritual of document exchange. The real negotiation moves to the hallway, the parking lot, the encrypted call. The camera is left filming an empty script.

The second adjustment is linguistic. Explicit demands vanish, replaced by strategic inaction. The officer no longer says, “This will cost you.” He speaks the language of bureaucracy: “This is complex… it will take time… I must consult.” Delay becomes a weapon, framed as diligence. The camera captures a conscientious civil servant; it cannot capture the calculated pause that turns procedure into leverage.

Then the tool inverts. The camera becomes an alibi. “How could there be wrongdoing?” the officer asks. “It’s all on film.” The footage proves narrow compliance while the substantive violation occurs in the unrecorded margins — the minute before the device powers on, the glance that directs a taxpayer to a broker. The instrument meant to ensure transparency becomes a credential for impunity.

Finally, management shifts its gaze from outcomes to metrics. Success is counted in hours recorded, devices operational, terabytes archived. The institution becomes a factory of compliance data, busy proving it is recording rather than reforming.

Through these adaptations — spatial, linguistic, tactical, and bureaucratic — the institution performs a kind of administrative jiu-jitsu. It uses the energy of the reform to reinforce its own logic. Transparency creates better actors. Evidence demands produce better concealment.

The camera does not purify the system. It trains it. Corruption becomes quieter, smoother, more diplomatically immune. The institution emerges not improved but evolutionarily refined — better equipped to perform integrity while continuing to profit from its absence.

The Myth of Technological Neutrality

The body-camera reform rests on a deeper mistake: the belief that technology is neutral. The assumption is simple and wrong — that a camera or software system produces the same effect everywhere, regardless of the institution that receives it.

Technology never arrives alone. It amplifies the logic of its environment. In a strong institution, a camera is almost incidental. It sits at the end of a chain held together by independent oversight, credible discipline, and political will. The institution gives the tool its meaning.

In a hollow institution, the camera is asked to be the entire chain. It is expected to create accountability where none exists, to substitute for missing enforcement and compromised networks. It cannot. It is absorbed into the institution’s rituals, reinforcing its preference for legibility over consequence.

Here the rule is blunt: tools do not create political will; they consume it. A camera relies on courage and independence upstream. When those elements are absent, the device records their absence. No lens can supply the will to confront protected networks. No software can generate institutional autonomy.

Body cameras in Addis Ababa fail for this reason. They are neutral tools dropped into a political vacuum. The device records; the institution does not respond.

The faith in neutrality persists because it promises reform without conflict — modernization without disruption, progress without the work of dismantling and rebuilding. It is a fantasy hollow institutions find especially attractive.

The Real Cost

The damage of the body-camera reform is not that it fails; it is that it succeeds in the only way a hollow institution needs it to. It fills the space where real reform should occur.

The cost comes in three forms.

First, the financial cost. Cameras require procurement, training, storage, and maintenance. Addis Ababa has already committed roughly 100 million birr—money that could have funded real digitization, stronger audit units, or simpler tax rules. The camera is easier to buy than any of those things, which is why it was chosen.

Second, the administrative cost. A hollow institution has limited capacity, and the camera consumes it. Staff must manage devices, catalog footage, troubleshoot failures, and compile compliance reports. Energy that should go into redesigning processes is spent maintaining the performance of reform. The bureaucracy becomes busier without becoming better.

Third, the political cost. Cameras give leaders a visible reform to display. They become proof of “action,” a shield against criticism, a convenient offering to donors. The spectacle absorbs the political pressure that might otherwise force structural change. The glow of technology replaces the grind of accountability.

This is how hollow institutions survive: not by blocking reform, but by substituting for it. A high-tech gesture stands in for hard work. The ritual satisfies the demand for movement while the foundations stay untouched.

As the performance expands, substance recedes. Rules stay complex. Discretion stays wide. Intermediaries stay essential. Review bodies stay ceremonial. Corruption simply relocates to spaces the camera cannot see. The reform was never built to fix the system. It was built to be seen.

What Real Reform Would Look Like

Real reform does not hang on a lapel. It begins in the structure of the institution, far from the camera’s frame, and works by shrinking the discretionary spaces where corruption thrives. It offers no spectacle. Its successes appear in what quietly disappears: fewer delays, fewer brokers, fewer rules that bend with the day.

The principle is simple: reduce the discretion that makes corruption profitable.

The first step is genuine digitization—not filming an analog process, but replacing it. A real digital workflow applies rules through code, not personal judgment. It makes decisions traceable, criteria visible, and outcomes consistent. Proper digitization does what a camera cannot: it removes the opportunity to negotiate.

Next is rotating frontline officers. Static assignments create predictable relationships and durable informal economies. Regular rotation disrupts these networks and slows the formation of influence.

Reform also requires firewalled oversight units—internal affairs, audit teams, and complaint bodies with legal, financial, and leadership insulation from the hierarchy they police. They must be able to investigate without permission and act without calculating political risk.

The tax code must be simplified. Complexity is the soil of discretion. A streamlined, machine-readable, citizen-legible code closes interpretive gaps and eliminates much of the “flexibility” corruption exploits.

And critically, the taxpayer must hold power. Citizens need real-time access to their case files, deadlines, decisions, and the rules applied. Transparency must face outward, creating a public audit trail. Performance metrics—processing times, complaint rates, decision consistency—should be visible to the public. Without citizen-facing accountability, internal reform becomes an internal performance.

Each measure shifts power: from officers to systems, from opaque networks to insulated units, from the bureaucracy to the public. They do not add a new layer to a hollow shell; they build a core where none exists.

This is why hollow institutions avoid them. Real reform threatens arrangements, closes revenue streams, and demands political courage. It changes how the institution works, not how it looks.

A camera does the opposite. It changes nothing fundamental. Its adoption is the diagnosis: the institution prefers visibility to transformation, performance to repair.

Tsegaye Nega (PhD) is a Professor Emeritus at Carleton College in the United States and the Founder and CEO of Anega Energies Manufacturing.

Contributed by Tsegaye Nega

Climate change is a serious problem affecting everyone everywhere. Tackling it is an urgent job we all must do together, not something we can ignore. Ethiopia has a big part to play in this shared effort. While countries have their political disagreements, these are small compared to the huge danger climate change poses to our planet’s future. Ethiopia, working alongside other nations, is key to making sure we have a world where people can live safely. To do this, we must focus on making things fair not just for people alive now, but especially for our children and grandchildren.

The Conference of the Parties (COP), established under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), has been the cornerstone of global climate diplomacy since its inaugural meeting in Berlin in 1995. These annual summits convene world leaders, scientists, and civil society to negotiate binding agreements—like the Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement—aimed at curbing planetary warming. COP represents humanity’s collective response to climate change, evolving into a critical forum for accountability, innovation, and justice.

Addis Ababa, a beacon of African unity, will now anchor the global fight against climate change. Ethiopia’s success sends an unambiguous call: the world must unite beyond self-interest to solve this planetary crisis, centering support for communities devastated by climate impacts despite bearing the least responsibility.

Ethiopia’s Blueprint: Leadership Through Shared Solutions

Knowing that hosting such a big event is hard, Ethiopia has already started preparing in a big way. The country is good at hosting international meetings because it did a perfect job with every major event in 2025. For example, the country successfully hosted the Second Africa Climate Summit (ACS2), the Conference on Land Policy in Africa (CLPA), the UN Food Systems Summit Stocktake, the ID4Africa Conference, and the High-level Conference on Economic Diplomacy. Besides these big events, Ethiopia also organized many other special conferences in areas like science, technology, health, and business during the year.

Using this experience, Ethiopia has set up a top-level national steering committee to lead the planning and bring together all government departments and groups involved. Importantly, the government has started serious talks with the head of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), which is based in Addis Ababa to secure its important knowledge, help with organizing, and its ability to bring together people from all over Africa. Starting these talks early shows that Ethiopia is taking charge and is determined to use the strength of African institutions to make the summit a success.

Ethiopia shows how a country’s own big goals can match with helping the whole world. Its real successes—like the Climate Resilient Green Economy plan (which aims to have no net carbon emissions by 2050), a power system that uses more than 90% clean energy, and the huge Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam—are not just wins for Ethiopia alone. They are examples that other countries can follow for sustainable progress. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s Green Legacy Initiative, which has planted billions of trees, shows that restoring nature helps everyone. By hosting COP32, Ethiopia is changing the way we think about climate action: it is sharing its proven ideas as tools for all, showing that building resilience is a chance for everyone to work together, not a competition where one wins and another loses

Africa’s Justice Imperative: A Cornerstone of Global Equity

COP32 amplifies Africa’s moral claim: even though Africa makes less than four percent of the world’s pollution, it suffers the most from climate disasters. Led by Ethiopia, African countries are asking for real action from the world: to make the Loss and Damage Fund (which helps countries hurt by climate change) fully work by 2027, to give the promised USD 100 billion in climate money as grants (not loans that trap countries in debt), and to build more partnerships for clean energy to help Africa grow in a green way.

This fair plan pushes world leaders to put people’s safety before politics. Supporting African solutions—like fixing up farms and helping communities deal with climate change—isn’t just giving aid. It’s a smart investment that will help everyone have enough food and a healthier planet.

The Path Forward: Responsibility and Opportunity

Hosting COP32 will require enormous effort, involving upgrades to infrastructure such as buildings and transportation, while ensuring equitable participation for developing nations in the Global South. Ethiopia must balance its ambitious climate objectives with its developmental needs, maintaining transparency throughout.

However, the potential benefits are significant: COP32 could establish Africa as a leader in green investment, foster international unity by holding countries accountable, elevate African contributions in both scientific and traditional knowledge, and restore faith in the United Nations framework. Crucially, hosting COP32 aligns with Ethiopia’s strategic vision to become a premier destination for conference tourism.

The convergence of policy dialogue, eco-tourism initiatives, and ongoing sustainable corridor development projects in Addis Ababa and other cities is expected to attract major future events, securing long-term economic and diplomatic advantages.

Conclusion: The Ultimate Test of Shared Destiny

Ethiopia hosting the next big global climate meeting (COP32) is a major test for the entire world. Holding the summit right in a region heavily affected by climate change forces everyone to face the real impacts and demands genuine responsibility. Wealthy countries must finally move past just talking and actually deliver the funding, technology, and support they’ve long promised to vulnerable nations. Major polluting countries also need to present actual, solid plans that truly aim to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius – these plans shouldn’t be up for debate.

For Ethiopia itself, this is a critical moment to lead, a real opportunity to push this summit towards turning the idea of fair climate solutions into concrete action. If leaders step up to meet this challenge, COP32 could become the crucial turning point where humanity finally unites to secure our survival. The pressure is intense; our shared future depends entirely on getting this summit right.

 Contributed by Dagim Mersha

I am not, by disposition or conviction, an ageist observer. Yet I cannot ignore the profound paradox that defines much of contemporary Africa. A continent celebrated as the world’s youngest in demographic terms, while its political leadership remains overwhelmingly dominated by senior figures. This disjuncture between a youthful population and an elder-led governance architecture raises important philosophical questions about representation, legitimacy, and the intergenerational transfer of responsibility.

It prompts one to ask. How can Africa be hailed as a young continent when its youth remain largely absent from the driver’s seat of political decision-making? And what does this absence reveal about the deeper dynamics of power, participation, and democratic renewal on the continent? Such reflections are essential for understanding both the promise and the limitations of Africa’s political evolution.

“The most serious failure of leadership is the failure to foresee,” Robert K. Greenleaf. This suggests that a deficiency in strategic foresight or policy temporal depth, often correlated with entrenched governance structures or gerontocratic leadership models. Means that constitutes a significant structural impediment to effective national planning and sustainable developmental outcomes. The failure to anticipate long-term systemic pressures is thus positioned as a fundamental constraint leading to policy misalignment and eventual institutional fragility.

Gerontocracy is defined as a rule of elders. Gerontocracy was a form of social organization in which a group of old men or a “Council of Elders” dominate decisions by exercising some form of control. The etymology of the term gerontocracy originates from the Greek language gerousia meaning elder. Elder not necessarily mean old. Elder has the connotation of leadership, social status, merit, and wisdom, other than old age in the ancient civilizations.

Gerontocracy is the rule by elders or a type of government that associates leadership with elders. Political stasis is a condition of paralysis or lack of movement in a political system. It is characterized by blocked political transitions, the absence of new ideas, resistance to reform, and the perpetuation of the status quo, often leading to policy inertia. In summary, this is characterized by an unwillingness to raise the strategic ante.

Equally important is the complex and often perplexing manner in which “youth” is conceptualized and defined across Africa, especially when contrasted with global and institutional standards. While it is common to critique governance structures dominated by the elderly, a parallel irony emerges within youth leadership spaces themselves. In many national and continental platforms, individuals who have reached or are approaching grandfatherhood continue to occupy positions designated for “youth leaders.” This paradox exposes a deeper conceptual ambiguity.

There is, indeed, no universally accepted definition of “youth.” The category is inherently fluid, capturing a liminal phase between the dependency of childhood and the autonomy of adulthood. Nonetheless, age remains the most widely used proxy for defining this transitional demographic.

The United Nations, for example, designates youth as individuals between 15 and 24 years old. While UNICEF’s Convention on the Rights of the Child recognizes anyone under 18 as a child. In contrast, the African Youth Charter extends the definition significantly, identifying youth as persons aged 15 to 35.

This expansive framing produces what may be described as a form of conceptual strabismus not only among political elites who manipulate age categories for political convenience. But also, among segments of the younger generation who may prefer to remain perpetually categorized as “youth,” thereby delaying societal expectations of adulthood and responsibility.

When viewed against Africa’s demographic realities where the average life expectancy has historically stood at around 59 years, according to the study by Guisan Maria-Carmen. Recent studies have only risen modestly to approximately 60–62 years the implications become striking. If “youth” in Africa is defined as extending up to age 35, this means that an individual experiences only about 15 years of full adulthood before reaching the statistical threshold of old age or expire.

Such a grave interpretation introduces profound philosophical and policy implications. It challenges us to reconsider the ethics of representation, the sociology of adulthood, and the extent to which current classifications reflect lived African realities. Moreover, it raises critical questions about intergenerational dynamics, potentially compromising the balance of power, governance structures, and pathways of societal transformation across the continent.Top of Form

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Factual Context and Empirical Data

Gerontocracy in Africa reflects a profound structural imbalance between rulers and the ruled. Underscored by empirical data showing that the average age of political leaders vastly exceeds that of the continent’s median population estimated at merely 19–20 years. This disparity is intensified by the long tenure of many heads of state, whose extended rule, often surpassing two decades, signals not democratic renewal but entrenched institutional capture.

The result is a governance asymmetry in which policies shaping the lives of a predominantly youthful, digitally oriented population are determined by an aging elite formed in an analog era. Weak or absent succession mechanisms further compound this imbalance, contributing to cycles of instability, coups, and violent transitions.

Yet gerontocracy is neither new nor purely a postcolonial anomaly. Historically, many African societies vested authority in elders, grounded in the belief that age confers wisdom, experience, and moral clarity. Historically, captured in the African proverb that “what the old see sitting, the young cannot see standing.” Precolonial political systems often embodied this logic, featuring sophisticated governance structures centralized kingdoms, councils of elders, and consultative institutions that balanced authority with accountability.

However, in contemporary contexts, the persistence of gerontocratic norms has constrained youth empowerment and restricted generational renewal. What was once a culturally anchored system of wise stewardship has transformed into a political bottleneck, inhibiting inclusive governance and marginalizing the continent’s youth majority. The philosophical challenge, therefore, lies in reconciling the ancestral respect for age with the democratic imperative for generational circulation of leadership an equilibrium essential for Africa’s political and developmental transformation.Top of FormBottom of Form

Mechanisms for Perpetuating Gerontocracy

Gerontocracy in contemporary Africa is not a passive historical residue but an actively reproduced political formation sustained through deliberate institutional engineering. Its endurance is anchored in constitutional manipulation particularly the removal or extension of term limits. Which, enables leaders to perpetually renew their mandate, and in the systematic co-optation of younger elites into patronage structures that neutralize potential challengers. Through the suppression of opposition, control of political space, and monopolization of economic resources, aging ruling classes consolidate a political economy in which generational renewal becomes structurally improbable.

This engineered gerontocracy carries profound developmental consequences. The dominance of long-serving leaders often produces policy inertia, stifling innovation and delaying necessary reforms. The resulting stagnation contributes to talent flight, as ambitious youth seek opportunities abroad, hollowing out domestic human capital. The exclusion of young people from meaningful political participation generates inter-generational frustration, manifesting in social unrest or support for destabilizing populist movements. Corruption becomes entrenched as power circulates within closed networks, diverting resources from essential public goods.

These dynamics are further legitimized by liberation-era narratives and the enduring charisma of “founding fathers,” whose historical sacrifice is invoked as justification for indefinite rule. Coupled with the entrenched “Big Man” political culture where the leader is conflated with the state gerontocracy becomes self-reinforcing.

Philosophically, this reveals a deeper paradox. Political   authority rooted in past struggles is wielded to foreclose the future, transforming age from a reservoir of wisdom into a structural barrier against democratic renewal and inclusive development.

How Can African Move forward from Gerontocracy to Geniocracy?

Africa’s transition from “Gerontocracy to Geniocracy” demands a deep reconfiguration of its governance and educational architectures. Shifting the basis of political legitimacy from age seniority to demonstrable intellectual competence. This transformation requires constitutional reforms that dismantle rigid age thresholds for political participation and cultivate a meritocratic pathway through which capable young leaders can ascend.

Parallel to this, the continent must embrace a comprehensive renaissance in education rooted in critical thinking, scientific inquiry, and digital literacy to build the cognitive infrastructure necessary for innovative and accountable leadership. By replacing entrenched patronage networks with systems that valorize youthful creativity and problem-solving. Africa can reposition its youth not as deferred promise but as active architects of present developmental solutions.

Within this broader framework, youth empowerment emerges not as a mere extension of youth development but as a structural mechanism for societal transformation. Whereas youth development focuses on enhancing individual capacities, youth empowerment centres on enabling youth to become agents of collective change.

This multidimensional process political, psychological, community-based, organizational, economic, social, and cultural contributes to intergenerational equity, democratic participation, and civic renewal. Political empowerment expands equitable access to governance. Means that psychological empowerment elevates consciousness, self-efficacy, and problem-solving awareness. By doing so community empowerment strengthens social networks and leadership systems capable of mobilizing collective action.

Although democratic theory often valorizes experience, the relationship between age and leadership effectiveness must be critically reassessed. Age-grading, when rigidly applied, risks constraining political inclusivity and undermining developmental progress. Persistently low youth participation in formal political processes globally highlights a structural representational deficit that ultimately disenfranchises younger populations. Addressing this gap is essential for cultivating democratic systems that are both legitimate and forward-looking.

Conclusion

The ongoing struggle between entrenchment and renewal is a defining feature of the continent’s contemporary political landscape in Africa. The outcome critical for Africa’s future stability and development. Most Africans breathe in political air, polluted by corruption and mis-management. This bad air can be traced to the domination of the political seats by some set of old and elderly people who can be called gerontocrats.

This should not be construed as a definitive judgment; however, within the African context, a leader aged fifty or above may be situated within a gerontocratic paradigm. Those surpassing seventy years transcend conventional leadership expectations, entering a distinct echelon of political emeritus. Conversely, the categorical threshold of youth requires revision, extending ideally to at least twenty-nine years. What Africa necessitates are harbinger leaders figures capable of translating ideological potential into tangible praxis.

However, generalisation the most dangerous thinking. There are elderly leaders who are doing much better than any young person or leader. The youths need to be taught what ‘real politics’ is and should be by explaining the political system and how it works. How a legislation was made, how political officials are elected, how the budget was proposed and accepted and how we can influence decision making.

Let me conclude with this remark Africa is confronted with a disquieting epistemic question. Why is a continent so ubiquitously narrated as “young” simultaneously governed by a political praxis; from which that same youth is symbolically and substantively excluded from the axiomatic leadership seat? This is not merely a question of representation, but of a deeper philosophical contradiction between a society’s living body and its governing head.

Seife Tadelle Kidane (PhD) is a Director of the Centre for Governance and Intra Africa Trade Studies (CGIATS) and The Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation (IPATC) Associate Researcher at the University of Johannesburg.

Contributed by Seife Tadelle Kidane (PhD)

The subject line hit like a blow: Public Trust Licensing Framework.  Alemayu scanned the directive once, then again. It was unmistakably real: from now on, no bank in Ethiopia could accept a single birr in deposits without a Public Trust License.

The application was two hundred pages of dense clauses, annexes, and declarations. Not a form—an interrogation.

The requirements were blunt:

Demonstrate Community Benefit: To collect deposits from a district, a bank had to prove that 80 percent of its lending flowed back to that same district. Fail to meet this “geographic alignment,” and the application was rejected.

Provide Institutional Collateral: Banks were required to pledge physical assets—headquarters, branches, vehicle fleets—into a pooled fund that could be seized and liquidated if they failed depositor obligations.

Submit Character References: Two hundred testimonies from depositors across income levels, each confirming two years of faithful service. Any missing ID documentation invalidated the statement.

Pay the Application Fee: A non-refundable 50 million birr for “verification and audit procedures.”

Incomplete applications were discarded without review.

For weeks, branch managers and compliance teams became archivists of their own existence—assembling audited statements, mapping “community benefit,” photographing buildings, collecting sworn depositor declarations.

On submission day, a silent queue stretched outside the National Bank. Alemayu stood among representatives from rival institutions, each holding a box containing their bank’s life story in triplicate.

For decades, banks had demanded collateral, proof of income, and character references from every household and small business seeking credit. Now the system had turned its own methods inward.

There was no appeal, no negotiation. There was only the application.

The Rejections

The results appeared without warning: a single PDF uploaded to the National Bank’s website at 9:47 a.m. By noon, the industry stood still.

Out of all the commercial banks in the country, only one received a provisional Public Trust License. Every other institution received the same verdict: Application Denied.

The reasons were listed in terse, bureaucratic lines:

Awash Bank— Rejected: “Over-concentration of depositor exposure.” More than half its deposits came from 0.5% of clients. The NBE deemed this “systemically unsafe” and proof of “insufficient distribution of trust.”

Dashen Bank— Rejected: “Inadequate community embeddedness.” Its loans were “operationally sophisticated but socially remote from target districts.”

Bank of Abyssinia— Rejected: “Weak enforcement capacity.” Recovery mechanisms were “too slow and too costly to safeguard depositor funds.”

Others failed for reasons so technical they felt surreal: Insufficient geographic benefit alignment, Incomplete testimonial diversity; Unverifiable pledged assets, and Benefit footprint mismatch.

Some were rejected for missing signatures. Others because testimonial letters came from the wrong kebeles. A handful because their “community-benefit maps” did not meet new formatting standards. By the end of the workday, 99.5 percent of the banking sector was legally barred from accepting new deposits.

Banks issued statements expressing “surprise” and “concern.” None of it mattered. Branches could process withdrawals, close accounts, settle transactions—but they could not accept a single birr from the public. There was no appeal mechanism. No temporary waivers. No transitional period. Only the next application window, six months away.

The Liquidity Crisis

The first week brought confusion. The second brought movement. Households with modest balances closed their accounts. Banks quietly encouraged it, directing people to “seek alternative arrangements.” Small businesses followed. Associations and cooperatives withdrew what they had and left.

But not all money disappeared. A narrow segment remained untouched—the wealthy 0.5 percent whose accounts satisfied every requirement of the new framework. Their deposits still flowed. Their privileges remained intact. Banks competed for them with preferential rates, dedicated desks, and velvet-service queues. The system now had its “qualified depositors.”

With millions of small, steady accounts gone, the rhythm of banking broke. Liquidity stopped behaving like a river fed by countless springs and began behaving like a reservoir controlled by the moods and movements of a few.

Banks adjusted quickly. Branches in rural areas and low-income neighborhoods shut down. These branches had never relied on the ultra-wealthy; without ordinary savers, they were empty rooms. Lending was narrowed to the top-tier clients whose balances could stabilize a balance sheet. Interbank lending grew erratic—large transfers cleared instantly; smaller ones stalled for lack of buffers.

Inside headquarters, departments reorganized overnight. Staff serving the mass market—tellers, loan officers, branch assistants—were laid off. Geographic coverage collapsed inward toward affluent districts and commercial centers. The system shrank to match the scale of its remaining depositors.

On paper, banks were solvent.  In practice, they had become custodians for a sliver of the public. Everyone else had quietly exited the system.

With six months until the next licensing round, branches adapted, executives recalculated, and the crisis reshaped the sector in silence—without explosions, without drama, just a slow contraction of what the formal system was able to be.

The Bankers’ Ekub

The elite 0.5 percent of depositors—their accounts intact, their privileges untouched—felt no crisis. But their narrow stream of funds could not sustain a system built to run on millions of small, steady contributions.

With public deposits sealed off, banks turned to each other. What began as discreet conversations between CEOs—quiet meetings in hotel lounges, guarded phone calls—solidified into an invitation-only consortium. They called it, without irony, the Liquidity Ekub.

Each participating bank—five at first, then seven—contributed a fixed monthly sum into a rotating pool. A billion birr apiece. The payout moved from bank to bank according to a private schedule. Whoever drew that month used the funds to plug liquidity gaps, refinance a stressed corporate client, or stabilize a balance sheet shaken by a single large withdrawal.

The mechanics were simple. They worked because the participants knew one another intimately: shared boards, overlapping auditors, years of reciprocal favors. Enforcement required no courts, no collateral registries, no regulatory process. A defaulter would face the one punishment banks truly feared—exclusion from the circle.

Reputation did the work. Relationships enforced the rules. Consequences were immediate. In a matter of weeks, the Liquidity Ekub solved the banks’ most painful problem—the lack of a reliable, low-cost enforcement mechanism.

And in solving it, the banks rebuilt exactly what they had long dismissed in the public: a trust-based, low-overhead, high-compliance financial system. What they once labeled “informal” had become their lifeline. They had recreated the architecture households use every day—just scaled up, sealed off, and reserved for themselves.

The Blame Game

By the second quarter, the crisis could no longer be contained inside boardrooms. Loan growth stalled. Branch networks shrank. The Liquidity Ekub kept a handful of large banks afloat, but it was no substitute for the millions who had once formed the system’s foundation.

The Ministry of Finance moved first. It declared a “deposit-mobilization emergency,” warning that the public’s retreat from banks threatened national development. Officials urged citizens to “fulfill their civic duty” and bring their savings back.

The message confused nearly everyone. The same state that had demanded impossible proofs from the banks now asked the public to trust them anyway.

The banks launched a parallel campaign. Billboards appeared across Addis Ababa—
“Banks Need Your Trust Too.” Executives went on television to insist that the new licensing rules had been “misunderstood.” They appealed for empathy, asking the public to consider “the risks banks face.”

Inside the sector, frustration turned to open anger. At an emergency meeting, CEOs accused the regulator of setting mathematically impossible criteria. The geographic-benefit rule was unworkable for any national institution. The 200-testimonial requirement was unheard of anywhere in global banking. They warned, bluntly, that the sector could not survive another round.

The National Bank responded with a firm public report, placing responsibility back on the banks. They were, it said, “over-dependent on a narrow elite,” “insufficiently innovative,” and “culturally detached” from the majority. Trust, the report argued, had to be earned, not demanded.

None of it changed public behavior. Most households had already shifted their savings into ekubs, edirs, cooperatives, cash boxes—systems that required no forms, no pledges, no signatures. Systems that never failed. Systems that did not ask people to prove their worth.

The formal banking sector—once central, confident, and unquestioned—found itself pushed to the margins. Not simply losing deposits. Losing relevance.

Consequences

The consequences did not begin with collapse. They began with narrowing. A financial system dependent on a tiny elite could function, but only in a reduced form—alive, but brittle.

With the savings of the majority inaccessible, banks operated on a concentrated pool of wealthy depositors. The total money supply remained large, yet the flow became erratic. Liquidity no longer arrived in steady increments; it came in uneven surges determined by a handful of clients. A single transfer could upend a month’s planning.

Expansion stopped. New products were postponed. Technology upgrades shelved. Branch openings suspended. Treasury departments monitored balances with unfamiliar urgency. Volatility became a daily constraint, not an occasional risk.

As liquidity grew irregular, the real economy tightened. Firms that had treated credit as a predictable tool now found it uncertain. Working-capital lines were paused “pending review.” Letters of credit moved from delayed to unpredictable. Supply chains thinned, then frayed. Businesses trimmed production, shortened cycles, and ran lean inventories.

Nothing collapsed outright, but the economy shifted from initiative to caution. Companies that once planned for growth now planned for continuity.

Households felt the tightening next. Overtime disappeared. Hiring froze. Rotating schedules replaced full weeks. Families that had maintained modest stability watched their margins evaporate. Rent negotiations stretched. School fees slid. A routine illness became a financial threat.

As options narrowed, movement began quietly. A son left for Djibouti. A cousin for Nairobi. A neighbor for Metema. Migration became less about opportunity and more about escape—an attempt to outrun instability rather than pursue prosperity.

Institutional strain followed. Municipal revenues softened. Public services became irregular—garbage collection skipped a week, then two; water outages lengthened. Not from neglect, but from fewer hands, tighter budgets, and rising uncertainty.

Public frustration rose steadily. The image of banks as engines of development no longer matched lived experience. Government interventions—emergency directives, rapid policy adjustments—added pressure without restoring confidence.

The shift was cumulative rather than explosive: firms unable to plan, workers without security, households beyond their limits, institutions stretched thin. In a fragile state, this kind of pressure does not need a spark. It only needs time.

The Reveal

This story reverses the direction of the system. It feels like fiction only because we have swapped the protagonists. In reality, none of it is imaginary. Most Ethiopian households already live inside this architecture.

They already face forms they cannot navigate.

They already face rejections they cannot contest.

They already endure the tightening that follows exclusion.

They already absorb shocks—through unstable work, migration, shrinking choices.

Banks do not complete 200-page applications to earn deposits. People do. They are asked to meet criteria designed without them in mind—collateral they do not own, references they cannot gather, evidence no institution recognizes. And when they cannot, the system calls it “risk management,” masking exclusion as neutrality.

But exclusion today is no longer just exclusion. It has become a revenue source.

Consider digital platforms. They now move trillions of birr in payments. Officials cite these numbers as proof of “inclusion.” But inclusion for whom?

For platform providers—yes: fee income.

For banks—yes: float, data, and steady revenue.

For the system—yes: a window into the daily financial lives of people it still refuses to lend to.

And for the citizen?

They are included only as payers, never as partners. Their transactions generate profit. Their data enriches institutions. Yet when they seek the core benefit of inclusion—credit, investment, upward mobility—the same gates that opened for their data close for their needs.

The architecture of exclusion is bad enough. Turning that exclusion into a profitable enterprise and calling it “inclusion” is its quiet, final logic.

So the question is no longer whether people have earned the system’s trust. It is whether the system has earned theirs—and at what cost.

That is where the conversation must begin.

Tsegaye Nega (PhD) is a Professor Emeritus at Carleton College in the United States and the Founder and CEO of Anega Energies Manufacturing.

Contributed by Tsegaye Nega (PhD)

The theory of the state is one of the cornerstones of political science. Since the European Enlightenment of the 19th century, various schools of thought have emerged, each proposing a vision of the nature and role of the modern state—later labeled “the liberal state.” As Europe navigated major political changes and crises, new conceptual frameworks proliferated, especially those attempting to characterize the turning points in the histories of European nations and, to some extent, the United States. These milestones include European colonization, the US Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the global workers’ and youth movement of 1968, the post-1968 global women’s movements, the wars in the Middle East, and the subsequent phenomenon of globalization. Scholars developed differing constructs to explain why events unfolded as they did across these moments.

In almost all these conceptualizations, the modern state—celebrated as “the liberal state”—was presented as the quintessential democratic institution, where democracy and freedom of expression prevailed and where the fundamental rights of human beings were upheld beyond question. In post–World War II Western Europe, these rights extended to social and economic protections under the welfare state, particularly for citizens facing unemployment or hardship. These constructs flourished even as colonization and the plunder of Southern nations continued unabated.

By the post-1968 era in Western Europe and North America, public perceptions of the liberal state had deepened, and expectations of it grew exceedingly high. Ordinary citizens largely believed they lived in genuine democracies where the rights of all individuals were respected, legal protections were guaranteed, and personal freedoms were absolute.

However, doubts began to surface as reports emerged detailing the extraordinary crimes that their own so-called liberal states had inflicted on colonial populations. Beyond the brutal economic exploitation through slave labor and the extraction of raw materials for European industry, Western media began revealing the naked violence and atrocities committed by colonial administrators.

King Leopold of Belgium oversaw the massacre of roughly ten million people in the Congo in the pursuit of rubber production. The Dutch committed atrocities in Indonesia; the British killed roughly one million people in India to suppress resistance; the French massacred hundreds of thousands in Algeria during the struggle for independence; and many others followed similar patterns. As recently as World War I, the British gambled with the lives and land of Palestinians, handing over Palestinian territory to Zionist political actors involved in terrorist activities—an act with consequences that continue to reverberate far beyond the Middle East.

Around the same time, from a different perspective, a political event of global consequence unfolded in Russia. The Bolsheviks seized power in 1917 and declared a socialist state aiming not only to dismantle capitalism within Russia but also to challenge it worldwide. To this end, the Bolsheviks, along with other socialist parties, established the Third Communist International, which sought to spark revolutions not only in capitalist countries but also across the colonies. This development divided the world into two major political blocs. Although the international communist movement had existed earlier, it now had a center in Moscow and a state actively sponsoring revolutions. This sharpened tensions between revolutionary and counterrevolutionary forces, particularly in Western Europe.

It was in this volatile environment that a faction of the ruling bourgeoisie in countries ripe for revolution—such as Germany and Italy—accused the liberal state of indecisiveness in the face of the communist threat. They called for violent suppression of the communist movement, paving the way for the emergence of fascism in Italy and Nazism in Germany.

In this discussion, it is crucial to examine the nature of the political crises that produced fascism and Nazism. In both cases, we see how a segment of the bourgeoisie intervened to prevent the working class from prevailing. It is through this analysis that the symbiotic relationship between liberalism and fascism becomes clear. As the German and Italian experiences demonstrate, during periods of acute crisis, a faction of the bourgeoisie—whether reigning or ruling—will likely intervene to suppress the working class, using force if deemed necessary. Winston Churchill, for example, could have adopted fascist methods had the 1926 strike in Britain escalated into a general strike. It is worth noting that the late Nicos Poulantzas provides a compelling analysis of crisis theory and fascism in his influential work Fascism and Dictatorship

Contemporary politics presents new challenges, particularly in the United States. In this context, the repressive and exclusionary policies pursued by Donald Trump in his second term constitute a phenomenon that demands careful analysis. Undoubtedly, the current crisis in the US is not of the scale required to bring about fascism or to transform the liberal state into a fascist one. The conditions simply do not allow such a mutation at this moment. What remains unclear, however, is why Trump has chosen to move in a fascistic direction during his second term.

Nevertheless, Project 2025—whose provisions Trump sought to exploit—indirectly asserts that the modern liberal state should come to an end. Among the core pillars it challenges are democracy itself, freedom of expression, state accountability, and the universality of human rights. Particularly striking is its assault on freedom of expression beyond journalistic protections, extending to academic freedom. Trump openly interfered with academic autonomy by threatening to freeze federal funding for universities that did not conform to his new, authoritarian-leaning policies.

As noted above, the political crisis in the United States does not, at this stage, warrant the introduction of full-fledged fascism. However, this does not preclude the possibility that, if the crisis deepens and deteriorates further, the state might eventually consider fascism as an option. Even so, public opinion in the US is becoming broader and more internationalist, making such a turn increasingly unlikely.

This possibility must also be examined from a different angle, while still acknowledging the potential for the crisis to worsen. State violence in the United States is neither new nor unusual. Structurally, the country was built on multiple layers of violence embedded in its political evolution, giving it the distinctive characteristic of being one of the most violent societies in the modern world. This violence played a central role in US industrialization, which would have been impossible without the systems of slave labor and the slave trade, the genocide of Indigenous peoples, and extreme violence against women. This entrenched culture of violence remains present today and continues to shape government policies—including the pervasive, brutal police violence witnessed across the country.

The political psyche of US leaders also has distinctive features, setting it apart from that of Western Europe. Despite what standard historical narratives suggest, the American state has always been—and remains—commanded by white elites, and its leaders have never been the virtuous figures portrayed in popular mythology. Despite the lofty ideal that “all men are created equal,” Indigenous peoples and African Americans have never been treated as equals to whites. The vast ideological state apparatus—media, churches, schools, and other institutions—has spent more than two centuries manufacturing consent for this unequal order.

Because of the saintly image constructed for US leaders, relatively few Americans know that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned slaves. Few know that for Abraham Lincoln, the central issue of the Civil War was not the abolition of slavery but the preservation of the Union. Few are aware that large parts of US territory were acquired by force, manipulation, or fraud from neighboring nations. Similarly, few know that past presidents were directly involved in acts of extreme cruelty, such as President Andrew Jackson, who in the mid-1850s forced hundreds of thousands of Indigenous people on the horrific march known as the Trail of Tears.

It is only in recent decades that the public has begun to learn the truth about the Gulf of Tonkin incident and the lies manufactured by President Lyndon Johnson in 1964 to justify the Vietnam War. It is only now that claims—long suppressed—that the CIA and Israeli Mossad assassinated both President Kennedy and his brother Robert Kennedy are receiving public attention. And due to the recent Gaza war—Israel’s genocide of Palestinians and the determined resistance of Palestinians and their internationalist supporters worldwide, including in the US and Israel itself—the extent to which the US political elite serves the interests of the Israeli state is no longer a secret. Sharp disagreements within NATO on how to handle the Gaza crisis further underscore this shift. The war in Gaza has shaken the very structures of the Western alliance and altered power relations within the US and across Western Europe, as more people begin to recognize that their governments function as pawns of Israel.

The claim that “the US political elite is in the service of Israel” is not a mere political slogan. A significant number of members of Congress, state and municipal officials, media moguls, prominent journalists, and major universities receive direct or indirect financial support from AIPAC, the US-based Israel lobby. Such a trend fundamentally contradicts the democratic principle that a political establishment should be accountable to its own people. When officials are effectively bought by a foreign power, the integrity of democracy itself is undermined.

This accountability crisis has historical precedents. After World War II, the US recruited many Nazi scientists to build its nuclear program—another example of the state compromising its proclaimed democratic values in pursuit of geopolitical power.

The war in Gaza has revealed that, in moments of acute political crisis, the boundary between liberalism and fascism is exceedingly thin. Every liberal state contains within it the seeds of fascism and retains the potential to turn fascist under critical conditions. For this reason, liberalism and fascism must be understood as fundamentally symbiotic.

Contributed by Ayelech Merkato il digino