Ethiopia is a strange country: the home of a large Christian Orthodox population, but also the birthplace of one of the largest religions in the Caribbean, Rastafari; a nation associated with famine, a famine that was largely man-made; a country where the large Christian population, monarchical social structure, and convenient location made it loom large in the European imagination, to the point where “Ethiopian” became a polite word used to describe people of African descent in the United States.
“The God Who Begat a Jackal” is a mythical story about the daughter of a nobleman, a slave who falls in love with her, and a civil war that combines religious and caste animosities. It’s set in the nineteenth century, a time of upheaval in the region as the different noble families, religions, and social classes fought for power and freedom. The book itself is fiction (among other things, our heroine can walk through walls), but it gives some perspective on the wealth and structure that once existed in a nation that became best known in recent years for “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” The author was born in Ethiopia but now lives in Canada, and he’s written a few books set in the region as well as a memoir.
Ethiopia has a GDP per capita of $1,300, and it is affected by the lingering effects of famine and the presence of HIV/AIDs. The country’s economy has been growing, and it has attracted both aid and investment dollars.
The government is still pretty much of a human rights nightmare, though. This gets into a really tough issue of economic development: it is not a synonym for democratic development. The fact that the best-developed capitalist nation on earth is also a democracy is not necessarily evidence of cause and effect, although we Americans often forget that.
Ethiopia’s economy is primarily agricultural, and such crops as coffee have high export value. It is a land-locked nation, which is one reason for its ongoing fights with Eritrea. After all, Eritrea is a small nation with a lovely location on the Red Sea – wouldn’t that be nice for Ethiopia? And it would be, but the ongoing fighting isn’t helping either nation.
For investors, the foreign aid dollars are creating opportunities for infrastructure projects, and the government’s central planning is leading to expanded commercial agriculture. There are opportunities here, and high risks, but there isn’t a stock market. This is a market best approached through investment in multinational corporations.
