GEOGRAPHY

Ethiopia is twice the size of France. It shares borders with Djibouti, Eritrea, Kenya, Somalia and Sudan. It is landlocked. It is divided into nine ethnic-based regions plus the capital, Addis Ababa and the city administration of Dire Dawa.

HISTORY

Ethiopia is the oldest independent country in Africa. It resisted colonisation by Italy and achieved international recognition in 1896 as a traditional monarchy, led by Emperor Menelik. For much of the 20th century Ethiopia was ruled by Haile Selassie. He became Regent in the 1920s and was crowned as Emperor in 1930. In 1936 Italy attacked Ethiopia from its colonies in neighbouring Somalia and Eritrea and went on to occupy the country until 1941. Haile Selassie spent his exile at Bath, in the UK, and was restored to power with British military assistance. His long rule ended with the Ethiopian Revolution of 1974.
Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam emerged as the leader of the Provisional Military Administrative Council (known as the Derg) in 1977. He established a brutal Marxist dictatorship that evolved into an authoritarian communist system dominated by the Worker's Party of Ethiopia. Ethiopia was wracked by civil war for most of the Derg period, including a secessionist war in the northern province of Eritrea and regional rebellions in Tigray and Oromia. The population experienced massive human rights abuse and intense economic hardship, including acute famine.

The Derg was overthrown in May 1991 when rebels of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) captured Addis Ababa. Meles Zenawi took the leadership. After elections for a Transitional Government in 1992, he presided over the establishment of Ethiopia's current political structures. In a decisive break with Ethiopia's tradition of centralised rule, the new institutions are based on the principle of ethnic federalism, designed to provide self-determination and autonomy to Ethiopia's different ethnic groups.

ECONOMY

Agriculture accounts for half the country's GDP, 60% of its exports and 80% of total employment. Coffee accounts for 55% of Ethiopia's exports and the economy has been hard hit by the collapse in the world coffee prices.

Reports by the World Bank, OECD and African Development Bank on Structural bottlenecks of the Ethiopian Economy in general and the export oriented sectors in particular, have been well taken by the Government of Ethiopia. Privatization of state enterprise, promotion of commercial production and exports have become part of the Government's policy towards economic growth and poverty reduction (as formulated in the plan for Accelerated and sustained development to End Poverty-PASDP; September 2006). Policies have been shaped to create a more favorable investment climate and a more enabling environment for private sector development.

Floriculture has become a flourishing business in Ethiopia in the past five years, with the industry's exports earnings set to grow to $100-million by 2007, a five-fold increase on the $20-million earned in 2005.