Spending time in Addis Ababa

I spent the last few days in Addis Ababa.

My last visit had been in the late years of the 90´s decade. Many things have changed since then. There is impressive economic growth and the city keeps transforming itself all the time. It has also been growing very fast. The country´s population growth rate is very high. Around two million people are added to Ethiopia´s population every year. When I visited Addis for the first time, in 1978, the total population figure was around 37 million, Eritrea included. Today, the Ethiopians are over 86 million, Eritrea not counted, as it has become another country.

These numbers carry major challenges. No country can move fast enough to respond to such a population pressure. Even if the economic growth rate is very high, as it is the case in today´s Ethiopia. And you have to add to it major social inequalities and the tensions that come from ethnic diversity and different strong religious identities.

The government has been able so far to manage these threats. It has kept a very heavy lid on this boiling pressure cooker. The state control is still very ubiquitous. However, the key question is now: how long can this control last as the young people become more and more numerous and urbanised?