Ethiopian Economic Growth - tale of developmental state

Author: Michael Mosisa

Ethiopia, one of developing countries in Africa has been praised for recording double digit economic growth for the past 10 years. But this figure has been hardly believed by international organizations like IMF, World Bank, etc. For example, on the issue of 2^nd of March 2012 the Economist magazine says that the credibility of Ethiopian fancy economic growth is not clear.

Source: World Bank

Ethiopian government also claim that this success is achieved a result of following developmental state paradigm. But the reality is not something that one can be proud of. 

According to World Bank report (report No: AUS6744), the level of poverty is now decreasing. The progress in health, education and living standard is shown in the following graph

This report also shows measure of poverty by taking national poverty line as 3781 birr per adult. Which equals to 1.24 USD PPP using the 2005 International Comparison Project. It also shows the minimum money required to afford the food covering the minimum required caloric intake and additional non-food items. 

Even though the overall percentage of people on national poverty line is increasing, but still the remaining percentage which is the largest percentage is under poverty line.

Looking at access to internet, only 4.4% of the population can have access to internet. In addition to this, the government can also censor the access to internet whenever there is a protest.

When it comes to trade, many study also shows that Ethiopia is one of the country that has very wide gap of trade balance. In addition to this, high government debt become very serious issues in the realm of political debate.

Galloping inflation is also another problem that government still struggling with. According to different reports inflation in Ethiopia become very serious now days. This can hurt poor people (which is the largest part of the population). 

Source: World Bank

Therefore, having all this problems going on in the country, how this very ambitious economic growth could be justified? In my opinion, economic growth should be inclusive, there should be a progress in standard of living, productive labor force, and etc. then we can say that there should be economic growth.

Only ambitious figure cannot show the reality in that country.  Did the tale of developmental state still work in Ethiopia? this is a question that need to be answered.