Ethiopian Foreign Ministry spokesperson on Thursday shared details of the Ethiopian diaspora’s contribution to the Ethiopian economy. Nebyu Tedla, the newly appointed FM spokesperson, said that in the last five years, Ethiopians living abroad had sent $20 billion to the country, around $4 billion each year.
The diaspora also supported various development projects as they sent more than $100 million for this. He added that since the beginning of the Great Renaissance Dam, the diaspora contributed $55 million in the form of bonds and gifts.
The remittances went up a little this year. The diaspora community sent $4.2 billion in the just concluded fiscal year, which is a significant increase from the previous year’s $3.6 billion. The Ethiopian diaspora is spread across various countries worldwide, with the United States being the most common destination for Ethiopian emigrants and the top source for remittances to Ethiopia.
When the incumbent Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power in 2018, he announced to work on economic and political reforms. Ethiopian dissidents in exile returned home. Armed groups like ONLF, and OLF signed peace deals with the government. The government called it “Era of Change”. Diaspora community was overwhelmingly supportive of the new Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.
However, things changed when war broke out in northern Ethiopia in November 2020. The Tigrayan diaspora launched several unsuccessful campaigns to block remittances and foreign economic assistance for the Ethiopian government.
Pretoria deal signed between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and the Ethiopian government in November 2022 ended the deadly war which cost around half a million lives. Tigrayan diaspora stopped their anti-Ethiopian government campaigns.
But a part of the Amhara diaspora has been protesting against the Ethiopian government since last year after the federal government launched a military operation to disarm and disband Amhara Fano militias.
It seems that despite campaigns launched by some sections of the Ethiopian diaspora community against Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government, the flow of remittances could not be disrupted significantly.
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