After two years of vicious civil war, Ethiopians can dare to dream of a return to something approaching normal life in 2023. The November 2022 truce between Abiy Ahmed’s federal government and the leadership of the northern state of Tigray remained intact as The Banker went to press in late January. Phone and internet services in Tigray have been partially restored, with food and medicine being delivered to the state’s beleaguered population.
Beyond an end to the fighting that has claimed thousands of lives, the truce reawakens hopes for the resumption of the country’s bold market-led economic reform programme, announced in 2018, which followed decades of successful state-led development.