Ethiopia has a multifaceted network of relationships with major international actors such as Türkiye, China and Russia, as well as Western partners, and could also leverage the recent surge in geopolitical interest in the Horn of Africa among Gulf states in support of peace negotiations.
The UAE and other Gulf states
Prime Minister Abiy has developed close relations with UAE president Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Bin Zayed paid a two-day visit to Addis Ababa in mid-August 2023 and the two leaders have signed more than a dozen bilateral agreements. The UAE has promised to support Ethiopia’s ailing economy and has supported its military extensively, training the Republican Guard (a specialist military unit tasked with protecting Ethiopia’s highest-ranking public officials and major installations) and providing crucial military support to the GFDRE throughout the Tigray war. The provision of military supplies to Ethiopia by the UAE was scaled up at the peak of the war in the second half of 2021. This materiel included drones which destroyed Tigrayan artillery and weapons depots and played an instrumental role in halting the TPLF’s advance towards Addis Ababa, which threatened to overthrow the federal government. Despite the UAE’s partisan military engagement, there is also optimism that its government might encourage peace negotiations. For example, it is among the very few international actors to have the capacity to influence President Isaias of Eritrea. As noted above, the UAE jointly brokered the 2018 peace deal between Ethiopia and Eritrea, and it continues to mediate in tripartite negotiations on the Nile waters between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan.
Geopolitical interest in the Horn of Africa on the part of the Gulf states has expanded and formalized since the start of the Yemeni civil war in 2014. The UAE established a military base at Assab in Eritrea – provoking considerable concern in Addis Ababa – and has invested heavily in ports around the region, most often through its Dubai Ports World logistics company, including in the Somali arena. Gulf actors, particularly the UAE, have deep pockets and are interested in strategic control of the Red Sea, and access to land for the purposes of food security. The UAE has sought to mediate in the Al Fashaga dispute, proposing a deal in 2021 that would involve commercial agricultural production and the leasing of large areas in Al Fashaga and adjoining the Blue Nile. In addition, the UAE government injected $3 billion into Ethiopia’s economy in 2018 to help the latter to resolve foreign-currency shortages, partly in exchange for real-estate holdings in Addis Ababa. Moreover, in January 2023 the UAE renewable energy company Masdar signed an agreement with Ethiopia for the joint development of a solar project with a capacity of 500 megawatts. The Emirates’ substantial economic holdings in Ethiopia give it a direct incentive to support sustainable peace and stability in the country.
Türkiye, China and Russia
At the peak of the Tigrayan advance to Addis Ababa in August 2021, Prime Minister Abiy signed a military pact with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Türkiye, which was followed by significant Turkish defence and aviation exports to Ethiopia. In January 2022 evidence emerged that Ethiopia had used a Turkish drone in an attack that killed 58 civilians sheltering in a school at Dedebit in Tigray. The drones significantly shifted the power balance in the GFDRE’s favour. Türkiye aspires to protect its geopolitical influence in the region as well as its sizeable business interests inside Ethiopia. Turkish investments in Ethiopia were its largest in Africa in 2020, rising to $2.5 billion, and bilateral trade between the two countries is thought to amount to some $650 million annually. While Türkiye has remained disengaged from the Tigray peace process, its constructive engagement should be sought by international partners, especially given the importance of its economic and security relations with the GFDRE.
It is difficult to determine the total amount of Ethiopia’s debt to China, but estimates suggest that the government has borrowed $13.7 billion from China since 2000 and has been seeking to restructure its debt since 2021.
China has long been involved in trade and investment throughout the Horn of Africa and has substantial strategic interests in the region which align with its Belt and Road Initiative. These interests range from massive investments in infrastructure, to sizeable loans, notably from the Export–Import Bank of China, to regional security in the Red Sea trade corridor between China and Europe, which is underpinned by China’s first overseas military base in Djibouti, opened in 2017. Relations between Beijing and the TPLF-led Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) government were especially close between 1991 and 2018. It is difficult to determine the total amount of Ethiopia’s debt to China, but estimates suggest that the government has borrowed $13.7 billion from China since 2000 and has been seeking to restructure its debt since 2021. China’s leverage over Ethiopia is therefore substantial, particularly with respect to the latter’s economic decisions, and it has in the past sought to invest further or to write off part of the debt to protect its existing assets. For example, the cancellation by China of $4.5 million in debt owed by Ethiopia was announced in January 2023 during the first tour of the African continent by Qin Gang, the incoming Chinese foreign minister. The West and international financial institutions have demanded clarity on the exact amount Ethiopia has borrowed from China, in order to assess Ethiopia’s request to restructure its debt, but reports suggest that Ethiopia is not yet able to provide sufficient documentation in this regard.
Russia has sought to boost its relationships with African countries in response to widespread condemnation of its war in Ukraine. Many African countries, Ethiopia included, have been keen to maintain a non-aligned stance over the Ukraine war, as evidenced through their abstentions from votes at the UN on successive resolutions against Russia. Ethiopia did not vote at the UN General Assembly in March 2022 on the adoption of a resolution condemning Russia’s invasion, while Sudan abstained and Eritrea was among only five countries which voted against it.
Russian foreign minister Lavrov visited Ethiopia in July 2022 during his first tour of Africa since the invasion of Ukraine began, avowing Russia’s ‘firm support’ to the GFDRE at a time when the latter’s relations with both the US and EU had come under strain. He returned to the region in January 2023, this time visiting Asmara, where he expressed his gratitude to Eritrean leaders for their support of Russia at the UN. Lavrov also declared Moscow’s intention to utilize transit opportunities presented by the Red Sea port and airport at Massawa, in Eritrea. Russia had for some time been seeking port access on the Red Sea, to further assert its influence in the region and as part of its geopolitical competition with the US and China. Relationships between Russia and key states in the Horn of Africa region have the potential to influence competition in the Red Sea region, through which at least 10 per cent of global trade transits each year.
Russia’s key lever in Africa is its ability to act as a diplomatic counterweight to Western states, notably by wielding its UNSC veto power in support of African countries that have a difficult relationship with the West over human rights and democracy. Economic and development cooperation between Russia and Africa remains at a very low level. In his meeting with Catherine Colonna and Annalena Baerbock, the respective foreign ministers of France and Germany, in January 2023, Prime Minister Abiy reportedly stated that maintaining Ethiopia’s relationship with Russia was as important as mending ties with the West. Given the very limited economic relationship between Russia and Ethiopia, the main reason for this is Russia’s veto power at the UNSC. Russia has sought to strengthen its security relationships and connected trade in the region, often linked to the extraction of mineral resources. It is also important to note that a significant proportion of Ethiopia’s military hardware is of Russian origin. Meanwhile, bilateral cooperation between Russia and the military leadership in Sudan has centred on the latter’s lucrative gold-mining industry, with Russia’s private military corporation Wagner Group having invested in the sector.
Western donors and the UN
During the Tigray war many of Ethiopia’s Western partners – notably the US and the EU – upheld a critical line that maintained principles of international humanitarian law and the responsibility to protect, while also treading carefully in the face of Ethiopia’s sensitivities over its sovereignty. This was not well received by either party to the conflict. Western calls for de-escalation, negotiation and humanitarian access elicited an aggressive response from the GFDRE, which framed calls for peace and humanitarian access by the West as neo-colonial and as tacitly supporting the TPLF. Conversely, Tigrayan and Oromo activists accused the international community of being overly accommodating of the GFDRE, substantive evidence of war crimes notwithstanding. Much of the polarized campaign between the two camps was waged on social media platforms, with substantial criticism focused on the inaction of the UN secretary-general and the UNSC on stopping the violence.
The GFDRE’s approach in responding to international condemnation over the Tigray war was constrained by the dependence of the Ethiopian economy on Western support. Growing Ethiopian diplomatic and developmental isolation during the war had clear economic consequences, including an increase in the rate of inflation to the highest level for almost a decade, which affected much of the population. The violence in Amhara from the beginning of August 2023 could lead to further economic decline. None of the allegations of Western support for the TPLF or the OLA were borne out with concrete evidence, though the sentiment of a politically biased ‘West’ remains, and this served to shore up support for the federal government both domestically and within influential diaspora communities. Economic pressures and the desperate need to unlock external funding ultimately hastened Prime Minister Abiy’s decision to mend relations with Ethiopia’s donors – a dynamic which created the conditions for the CoHA. The Tigray war and conflict across the country have exerted a huge toll on Ethiopia’s economy and societal well-being. Major infrastructure projects, including those built with finance provided by external loans, have been destroyed or incapacitated. As stated above, the GFDRE has estimated that at least $20 billion is needed to finance relief and rehabilitation activities in Tigray and adjacent regions, and has appealed to the international community to step in with funding. Reconstruction will take years, even in the most positive scenario of a sustainable resolution of the conflict. To this end, it is important that a lasting solution be found to the displacement of nearly 2.5 million people in northern Ethiopia – of whom the majority are from the Tigray region. According to assessments by the International Organization for Migration, between December 2020 and February 2022 more than 1.8 million people out of Tigray’s total population of 5 million were internally displaced. The conflict has also affected some 462,500 people in Amhara region and more than 175,000 people in Afar.