Ethiopia’s push for access to sea holds national, regional promise, Senior Fellow argues

Addis Ababa, May 24, 2025 (FMC) – Access to the sea is not only a national priority for Ethiopia but a great potential for the development of the entire region, UAE’s Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy Senior Research Fellow Bakardzhieva said.

Senior Research Fellow Damyana Bakardzhieva said turning Ethiopia from a landlocked economy into the one that gains access to the sea has a great potential for the development of the entire region.

“If you think of the capacity of Ethiopia to produce goods and services compared to the other economies in the region, and if those goods reach one of the ports or several of the ports of the region, those ports activity will multiply by 10 times just by getting the Ethiopian products to be traded through it,” she added.

This would create more economic activity, more volume of trade through the ports, creating jobs and further economic activities.

Commenting on the need for cooperation between the Gulf countries and the Horn of Africa through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, the senior research fellow said strengthening the historic collaboration is critically important.

“We rely massively on trade, on logistics, on transportation; and without security in the Red Sea we have to go all the way down through the Horn to the Cape of Good Hope. And that increases the time and the cost of the maritime traffic,” Bakardzhieva recently told ENA.

Stressing the need to ensure stability and security of the region by bolstering cooperation, she noted that it is also important to strengthen collaborations in other strategic areas with the Horn of Africa.

According to her, the Horn of Africa has great agricultural potential and “we can invest in producing food here by transferring technology, transferring machinery, transferring know-how, and training.”

The senior research fellow further stated that the Gulf region has the desire to diversify energy investment which is instrumental in enhancing cooperation with the Horn of Africa.

“We have strategic interests in diversifying our energy investments. We are diversifying away from oil and gas in the Gulf, and particularly the UAE.”

Bakardzhieva believes that the Horn has a potential for many other investments.

“Besides investments, we’ve already undertaken port infrastructure (building) and connectivity, which are very important for the development of Africa.”