Originally published in RE Magazine in February 2017 (cover)
Ethiopia was once the face of poverty and hunger; today, its population is booming, its economy is among the fastest-growing in the world, and the skyline of its capital, Addis Ababa, is crowded with cranes and construction sites.
It’s a stark turnaround for a nation that, in the mid-1980s, lost half a million people to famine and whose progress has for decades been hampered by animosity with its neighbors and internal political instability.
A government plan to make Ethiopia a middle-income country by 2025 and massive state-funded infrastructure and development projects are credited with sparking the recent progress. One of the country’s most ambitious initiatives is a goal of achieving 100 percent access to electricity by 2030, and the government has hired NRECA International to provide its national electrification plan. Currently, only 23 percent of the country’s 100 million people are connected.
“There has been progress, and the electrification program is now focused on connecting households and businesses instead of just public facilities,” says Dan Waddle, senior vice president for NRECA International. “Like many countries in the region, the government of Ethiopia has begun to engage a more aggressive off-grid approach, one that will be needed to reach the more remote regions of the country.”
Waddle says Ethiopia’s focus on electrification and other infrastructure is part of a turning tide in Africa, where an increasing number of leaders are seeing the connection between bringing power and economic productivity beyond population centers to the countryside.
“Past electrification efforts throughout Africa would inevitably fall short or stall for lack of financing and political will,” Waddle says. “Now, we’re seeing the emergence of strong leadership in several African countries where there is increasing understanding of the widespread economic benefits of universal access.”
Waddle says the positive developments have spurred NRECA International, which has helped bring electricity to more than 120 million people in 43 developing countries, to bolster its work with partners throughout Africa.