(Getahun Assefa)
Since ascending to power in 2018 amid promises of reform and reconciliation, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has transformed from a celebrated reformer—earning the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize for ending hostilities with Eritrea—to a figure entrenching authoritarian rule and fuelling atrocities through devastating civil conflicts. What began as a hopeful era of good governance, democratization peace and political stability, has devolved into a humanitarian catastrophe, marked by wars in Tigray (2020-2022), Oromia, and Amhara (ongoing since 2023), resulting in millions displaced, widespread atrocities, and an economy in freefall. Inflation has soared to 35%, the birr has depreciated by nearly 90% against the dollar since 2019, and over 20 million Ethiopians now depend on food aid amid man-made famines in conflict zones. The World Bank itself has just issued a devastating report on the speedy reversal of hard-won gains of the previous decades in reducing extreme poverty from 24 % in 2015 to 43 % currently. A joint report by the UNDP and Oxford University painted more grime realities of Ethiopia where more than 73 % of the population (estimated at 135 million in 2025), lives in multidimensional poverty.
At the heart of this crisis lies a troubling paradox: while Abiy’s regime grapples with $28 billion in economic losses from the Tigray war alone and faces reconstruction needs exceeding $20 billion, international financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank continue to pour billions into Addis Ababa. This funding not only sustains Abiy’s dictatorship but directly enables the machinery of war, while the prime minister squanders donor resources on vanity projects and political patronage, betraying a nation on the brink of collapse. The IMF and World Bank’s largesse toward Ethiopia under Abiy represents a stark example of how global finance can inadvertently—or deliberately—prop up repressive regimes. In July 2024, the IMF approved a four-year Extended Credit Facility worth $3.4 billion, including an initial $1 billion disbursement, ostensibly to support economic reforms like currency devaluation and fiscal consolidation. This deal unlocked an additional $16.6 billion from the World Bank over three years, bringing the total potential influx to over $10.5 billion in multilateral support.
The IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva during her 2024 visit to Addis Ababa, hailed these as endorsements of Abiy’s “strong progress” in transitioning from state-led development to market-oriented policies. Yet, in a nation where over 73 % of the population lives in multidimensional poverty and the Amhara region’s breadbasket is ravaged by conflict-induced famine, such praise rings hollow. Human rights organizations like Amnesty International have documented extrajudicial killings, drone strikes on civilians, and mass arrests in Amhara, where government blockades have starved thousands, including children, since April 2023. Over 3,000 schools remain shuttered, and 4.7 million children are out of education due to the violence bringing the total number of students out of school in the country to 11 million, according to UNICEF and the Ministry of Education of Ethiopia.
The funding by multilateral agencies and some bilateral donors including the EU directly finances Abiy’s authoritarian grip and war efforts, turning particularly the IMF and World Bank into “machineries” of destruction, humanitarian crisis and man-made disasters. In regions like Amhara and Oromia, where Fano militias and Oromo Liberation Army insurgents challenge federal control, Ethiopian forces—bolstered by Turkish drones and Russian fighter jets—have conducted airstrikes killing thousands of civilians in 2023 alone, displacing millions. Available evidence reveals that IMF loans are funnelled toward procuring these drones and fighter jets and armaments, enabling what some genocidal campaigns have claimed over two million lives across Ethiopia’s ethnic conflicts in just a few years.
The World Bank’s 2024 allocations, despite knowledge of Abiy’s misuse of resources for personal aggrandizement, ignore the regime’s sponsorship of terrorism, ethnic extremism and ethnic entrepreneurship, leaving citizens in unprecedented precarity and insecurity outside the capital-Addis Ababa. As one Ethiopian analyst starkly put it in a recent social media plea, international donors must “stop funding war crimes” by cutting off Abiy’s drone and airstrikes on innocent Amharas. This complicity extends to Abiy’s consolidation of power: elections boycotted by opposition parties in 2021, the dissolution of regional parties into his Prosperity Party, and the arrest of dissenters, especially thousands of Amharas underscore a slide toward one-party rule. By prioritizing “reform” metrics like sham GDP growth over governance indicators, these institutions embolden a leader who governs through fear, intimidation and extrajudicial killings with over 5.6 million internally displaced and youth—70% of the population—fleeing repression and joblessness.
Compounding this enabling role, Abiy Ahmed has systematically squandered donor resources, diverting billions from essential services to megalomaniacal pursuits and political machinations. The most egregious example is the “Chaka Project,” a sprawling imperial palace complex on 503 hectares in Addis Ababa’s Yeka hills, dwarfing global landmarks like Versailles or the Kremlin. Estimated at $10-13 billion—rivalling Ethiopia’s entire annual health and education budget (or surpassing the entire annual import of the country)—the project is shrouded in secrecy. After rumours surfaced, Abiy moaned on and groaned the Parliament in 2022 that the “parliament had no authority to audit or enquire about the source of funding because it had not authorized the construction of the project in the first place”. Officially funded by private donations and loans from entities like the Emirates, it has nonetheless drawn on public coffers indirectly: billions of local currency (the birr) previously allocated to “nonsense projects” like a Science and Technology Museum, Friendship Park and the so-called corridor projects, amid a tax and loan-funded war machine. These projects are no doubt authoritarian vanity projects, especially as they entail demolishing 316 historic buildings and forcibly evicting thousands during rainy seasons, leaving families homeless with paltry compensation.
In Sheger City- ethnically constructed to suffocate Addis Ababa- Abiy’s heartless “beautification drive” has razed neighborhoods, displacing hundreds of thousands of non-Ormo ethnic population without resettlement. Meanwhile, a $71 million deal for 200 Chinese-made buses ballooned to three times the cost through corruption, nepotism and ethnic entrepreneurship. These excesses pale beside broader fiscal irresponsibility. Abiy’s Prosperity Party stands accused of siphoning billions of state funds for cadre training sessions, such as a 2024 program in Adama involving 2,000 leaders, to entrench political loyalty—a pattern unchecked by institutions like the Federal Auditor General. Meanwhile, the Tigray war’s $28 billion toll and ongoing Amhara conflict drain resources, with fertilizer blockades exacerbating famine in opposition areas.
Public sector workers, from teachers to healthcare staff, endure blackouts and unpaid wages, fuelling strikes, while 10 million face acute hunger per World Food Programme alerts. Gold exports have plummeted 59% due to smuggling by officials, and foreign exchange shortages shackles imports of basics like food and medicine. Abiy’s “reforms”—privatizing telecoms, banks and aviation—have enriched cronies but failed to stem a 120% birr depreciation on black markets, with inflation at 37.2% rendering aid-dependent survival precarious.
In essence, the IMF and World Bank’s billions have not stabilized Ethiopia but supercharged Abiy Ahmed’s blend of dictatorship and delusion, where palaces rise as people starve. This moral abdication demands accountability: donors must condition aid on ceasefires, human rights probes, and transparent spending, lest they perpetuate a cycle of war and waste. Ethiopia’s 135 million souls deserve visionaries, not vandals of their future. As the nation teeters—youth migrating en masse, conflicts escalating—Abiy’s squandering risks total state collapse, a tragedy financed by those sworn to uplift the global poor. Redirecting these funds to clinics, classrooms, food-security, and peace could yet salvage hope; ignoring the arsonist while whispering of fires, as the IMF and World Bank did in their September 2025 joint statement, ensures only ashes remain. It is time to say no to funding dictatorship, tyranny, mass-starvation while bombing children, women and the elderly in broad daylight.
Editor’s Note : Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com
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