Addis Ababa, September 15, 2026 (FMC) — Ethiopia did not arrive at the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi only with a list of expectations.
It arrived with assets, capabilities and a proposition about its place in a changing global economy.
Across Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s interventions, a broader message emerged: Ethiopia wants to participate in the emerging economic architecture of the Global South not merely as a country seeking finance, technology and markets, but as a country capable of contributing to the connections, capacities and opportunities that make such cooperation work.
That proposition begins with connectivity.
Ethiopian Airlines links Africa with destinations across the world. Ethiopian electricity is increasingly reaching neighbouring economies. Addis Ababa, meanwhile, is home to the African Union and remains one of the continent’s principal diplomatic centres.
These are more than national assets. Together, they give Ethiopia platforms through which people, goods, investment, institutions and ideas can move across borders.
At BRICS, that connectivity formed part of a wider picture of what Ethiopia can bring to an expanding partnership among economies of the Global South.
The country’s agricultural transformation is one part of that picture.
Ethiopia’s movement from dependence on imported wheat toward self-sufficiency has changed the terms from which it approaches food-security cooperation. In discussing the proposed BRICS grain exchange, Abiy presented Ethiopia not simply as a country seeking food security, but as a producer capable of contributing to wider supply arrangements.
The same logic extends into manufacturing.
Ethiopia is expanding pharmaceutical production, building industrial capacity and seeking to turn its natural resources into greater economic value. Its minerals, renewable-energy potential and growing industrial base can connect with BRICS capital, technology and markets.
This is where Ethiopia’s proposition becomes larger than any individual sector.
A changing global economy is increasingly shaped by supply chains, productive capacity, strategic resources, technology and the ability to move goods efficiently. Countries that can connect these elements have greater room to influence where value is created and where economic opportunities flow.
Ethiopia is seeking to build that capacity.
Its digital transformation adds another dimension.
Digital public infrastructure, digital identification, payment systems, data exchange and emerging artificial-intelligence capabilities are becoming part of the country’s economic transformation. Through the Maddamer University of Artificial Intelligence, Ethiopia is also seeking to develop technological capacity that can contribute to an African future rather than simply consume technologies developed elsewhere.
Climate action provides another part of the proposition.
Through the Green Legacy Initiative, Ethiopia has made environmental restoration part of its national development agenda while expanding renewable energy and electric mobility and investing in more resilient agriculture, cities and infrastructure.
With Addis Ababa set to host COP32 in 2027, that experience gives Ethiopia another platform from which to contribute to the global conversation—this time at the intersection of climate, development, technology and finance.
Taken together, these strands reveal a country seeking to connect its domestic transformation with the wider shifts taking place across the Global South.
And that may be the most important dimension of Ethiopia’s BRICS engagement.
The country is simultaneously seeking access to finance, markets and global institutions while offering production, resources, connectivity, technology, climate experience and an institutional gateway to Africa.
That two-way relationship matters.
The future of South-South cooperation cannot be built solely around countries receiving investment or accessing markets. It also depends on what each participant can contribute to a larger economic ecosystem.
For Ethiopia, the opportunity lies in turning its own transformation into part of that ecosystem.
Its agricultural production can feed markets. Its minerals can enter emerging value chains. Its renewable-energy potential can support industrialization. Its aviation network can connect economies. Its digital capabilities can open new forms of cooperation. Its capital city can provide an institutional bridge to the African Union. Its climate experience can contribute to a wider development conversation.
None of these assets alone defines Ethiopia’s place in BRICS.
Together, however, they form a proposition.
It is a proposition shaped by a country whose economy is still undergoing profound transformation, but whose ambitions increasingly extend beyond its borders.
BRICS gives Ethiopia one platform through which those ambitions can connect with the wider Global South.
The larger question is what happens when Ethiopia’s resources, production capacity, connectivity and ideas meet the capital, technology and markets represented across the grouping.
That is where the significance of the New Delhi summit extends beyond two days of speeches and meetings.
Ethiopia is not simply asking what the changing global economic order can do for it.
It is making the case for what Ethiopia can bring to that order—and, through it, what Africa can bring to the next chapter of the global economy.