Addis Ababa at night: economic miracle or mirage?

Addis Ababa at night: the mirage of an economic miracle

A video circulating on social media shows Addis Ababa at night: lit-up avenues, flowing traffic, skyscrapers. For anyone who still associates Ethiopia with the famines of the 1980s, the image is striking. But the real debate is not in the pixels, it is in what they hide.

The figure that breaks the stereotype

While the national fertility rate has fallen from 6 to 3.7 children per woman over 25 years, in Addis Ababa it is now close to 1.5. A European level. The capital accounts for 20% of GDP with only 4% of the population, according to World Bank estimates. The problem is that 70% of the country's workforce remains in subsistence farming, and GDP per capita barely exceeds $979. The civil war four years ago left 100,000 dead and millions displaced.

China: the awkward partner

The infrastructure seen in the video — the new airport, the rebuilt railway, the highways — bears a Chinese stamp. Ethiopia has become Beijing's industrial springboard in East Africa, but in exchange for privileged access to its resources: gold, tantalum, potash and gas. The trade-off is growing debt and a strategic dependence that some describe as neocolonialism. Meanwhile, Europe limits itself to buying Ethiopian coffee and labeling it.

Two sides of the same coin

The paradox is that Addis's growth coexists with brutal inequality. The areas filmed are Bole Road and its surroundings, where diplomats, businesspeople and the local elite are concentrated. A few kilometers away, the shantytowns on the outskirts do not appear in the frame. The question that remains is whether Ethiopia is repeating the model of other emerging economies: a gleaming center surrounded by a periphery that barely takes off. Or whether, as some argue, the fall in urban birth rates will eventually drag down the rest of the country.

Can a country with 136 million inhabitants and a recent war become the world's next workshop? The nighttime video of Addis Ababa does not answer that. But it forces us to look beyond the lights.