Issue No. 164

Tigray’s Un-development and the Cost of Recovery

Transportation and communication have resumed in large parts of Tigray, and the implementation of the Pretoria Agreement is slowly moving forward.  As Tigray opens, more information is beginning to emerge about the impact of the war on the region’s infrastructure, and the sheer number of resources that will be required for recovery and reconstruction. Estimating the exact cost of recovery is difficult. Nevertheless, publicly available data and costing can give a rough picture of the sizable need, and the level at which Tigray’s development was recently reversed.
 
Between November 2020 and November 2022, allied Ethiopian and Eritrean forces pillaged and destroyed a vast proportion of Tigray’s infrastructure. In addition to homes destroyed, armed forces targeted schools, universities, factories, health facilities, government buildings, agricultural centers, and water, energy, and transportation infrastructure. A recent assessment by the Ministry of Water and Energy in January 2023 found that 75% of motorized and 71% of non-motorized water infrastructure was damaged, leaving 3.5 million people still without sustainable access to clean water. This has left the region with access to water at levels comparable to the 1990s, with remaining functional boreholes suffering from over-use and close to collapsing. 
 
Also returned to its pre-2000s state is Tigray’s health system. A 2022 assessment by Mekelle University found more than 80% of health facilities, 76% of health posts, and 50% of health centers were damaged. Invading forces looted or deliberately destroyed medical equipment, including ultrasound machines and monitors. Based on reporting from UNICEF, MSF, and the ICRC, most all ambulances found in the eastern, central, and north-western zones of Tigray were taken by armed forces. The WHO has said that this destruction, in addition to damage caused by the war’s expansion into the Amhara and Afar regions, has left close to six million in need of basic health services at the end of 2022. 
 
In late 2021, the Ethiopian Ministry of Education reported that 7,000 schools had been damaged or destroyed during fighting to date. The UN said this month that 80% of Tigrayan schools were either partially or severely damaged during the conflict. Nearly 1.4 million children lost out on their education while hostilities were ongoing, and 3.6 million children are currently receiving emergency education assistance.  
 
Perhaps most striking is the deliberate damage that was inflicted on Tigray’s economic infrastructure. The bombing of a section of the Tekeze Dam between Amhara and Tigray, a major source of electric power, left its energy production at half capacity. Major business institutions, like large manufacturing plants, were either damaged, destroyed, or rendered non-functional by armed forces. The Addis Pharmaceutical Factory in Adigrat, which had met 70% of the national demand for medicines, was looted and destroyed during the early months of the war. 
 
Many of the factories damaged belonged to EFFORT, a party conglomerate that arose from early TPLF earnings but later disconnected from state control. A member of EFFORT’s senior management told the Addis Standard that during the war, factories of Almeda Textile PLC, Saba Stone, Ezana Mining Development PLC, and Sheba Leather Industry PLC were razed, their machinery removed and their buildings bombed or burned. Most other EFFORT subsidiary factories were looted or damaged. 
 
These factories provided tens of thousands of jobs, representing hundreds of thousands of family members left without a reliable source of income. The Government of Ethiopia admitted to destroying manufacturing and industrial facilities in aerial bombardments, on the grounds that they allegedly supported the TDF in the war. 
 
In early 2022, experts were already estimating the financial requirement for reconstruction in billions of US dollars. Already in March 2021, a Tigray interim official said 100 million birrs (USD 1.85 million) would be needed to repair EFFORT companies alone. 2023 estimates reported by the French development agency, Agence Française de Développement, place the cost of repairing Tigray’s energy infrastructure at five billion birrs (USD 90 million). The Ethiopian government has said the region’s water infrastructure will require another five billion birr. 
 
The UN claims meeting humanitarian needs in education, agriculture, and health services is expected to require USD 161.4 million, 276.5 million, and 303.5 million, respectively, in 2023 alone. In late 2022, Ethiopia’s Ministries of Health and Education drew up a plan costed at USD 3.6 billion (194 billion birrs) to repair health and education infrastructure in 6 conflict-affected regions. 
 
These numbers seem nearly insurmountable. Before the last phase of the war, the federal government had already estimated the cost of recovery from ongoing conflicts in Tigray, Afar, Amhara, and Oromia at USD 2.5 billion. To put this in perspective, Ethiopia received USD 4.68 billion in official development assistance in 2019 for the entire country. The UN places the cost of meeting humanitarian needs for 2023, across the country, which will require roughly USD 4 billion. 
 
The federal government recently committed 5 billion birrs (USD 90 million) to the reconstruction of schools, health facilities, and other infrastructure in the Afar, Amhara, and Tigray regions. It is now looking to international partners to provide the funding to rebuild the country. While Ethiopia signed a USD 300 million contract with the World Bank for recovery efforts in late 2022, it still needs to make genuine progress against its peace agenda if it wishes to see more meaningful contributions in the near future.

By the Ethiopian Cable team