Landlocked for more than 30 years after the secession of Eritrea, Ethiopia continues its quest for access to the sea. Amid armed conflicts and growing logistical constraints on current supply corridors, the country is seeking to accelerate its diversification plans.
In recent weeks, Ethiopia has stepped up efforts to secure access to the sea. Last week, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali was on a state visit to Somalia, following the success of Turkish mediation in January, which helped ease tensions caused by the memorandum of understanding with Somaliland to provide Ethiopia with land access to the Red Sea.
According to statements attributed to Somali Foreign Minister Ali Mohammed Omar by Ethiopian and Somali media, discussions during last week’s meeting focused on mechanisms to reach a framework agreement by June to facilitate Ethiopia’s access to the Somali coastline.
These efforts follow the signing of an agreement in the same week to establish the Djibouti-Ethiopia-South Sudan-Uganda Corridor Authority (DESSU). This corridor’s creation protocol, signed in 2019, aims to strengthen regional integration by establishing infrastructural links between these four countries.
The project of this corridor should allow Ethiopia to further diversify its supply sources by relying on the transport infrastructure of neighboring countries like Uganda and South Sudan to access other ports, such as those in Tanzania (on the Indian Ocean).
Other statements attributed by the local press last week to Kenyan President William Ruto mention talks with Ethiopia to position the port of Lamu (in northern Kenya) as a strategic hub for Ethiopian shipments. These developments are part of Ethiopia’s diversification plans to reduce logistical constraints, particularly along the Addis Ababa-Djibouti corridor.
Obstacles Related to Security Challenges
Although close to several coastal countries, Ethiopia, due to security issues in the region, relies on Djibouti for its supply and international maritime trade. In addition to Eritrea, with which it endured several years of war, the country is also caught between armed conflicts in Sudan and instability in Somalia, which also threatens security in northern Kenya.
This is considered by some analysts to be one of the obstacles hampering traffic at the Lamu port, which was inaugurated in 2021 and presented as a key infrastructure of the LAPSSET corridor (Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport Corridor). The corridor includes several infrastructure projects, such as a port, highways, pipelines, interregional rail lines, airports, hotels, and a multipurpose dam along the Tana River.
Currently, nearly 80% of the annual traffic at Djibouti port comes from Ethiopia, according to official figures.
Source: Agence Ecofin
