๐๐‘๐ˆ๐‚๐’ ๐›๐ฒ ๐๐‘๐ˆ๐‚๐’, ๐’๐ญ๐ž๐ฉ ๐›๐ฒ ๐’๐ญ๐ž๐ฉ, ๐„๐ญ๐ก๐ข๐จ๐ฉ๐ข๐š ๐ข๐ฌ ๐๐ฎ๐ข๐ฅ๐๐ข๐ง๐  ๐ˆ๐ญ๐ฌ ๐๐ซ๐จ๐ฌ๐ฉ๐ž๐ซ๐ข๐ญ๐ฒ

Posted on X on July 6, 2026
https://x.com/AlMariam1/status/2074118620691456430

Ethiopia is building her prosperity brick by brick, or should I say BRICS by BRICS.

Ethiopiaโ€™s Council of Ministers has unanimously endorsed a draft legislation paving the way for Ethiopia’s accession (formal legal document through which a state declares its consent to be bound by an existing international treaty or convention that it did not originally sign) to the BRICS New Development Bank (NDB). The aim of the law is to expand Ethiopiaโ€™s access to fair, equitable and sovereignty-respecting diversified development financing for infrastructure and priority projects.

The draft law allows Ethiopia to purchase 2,945 shares in the NDB at a par value (stated or face value) of USD 100,000 per share, totaling a buy-in of nearly USD 300 million. Ethiopia will pay 20% of the share purchase value (USD 58.9 million) upfront, with the remainder to be paid in 14 installments over 13.5 years.

Following passage by the Ethiopian House of Peoples’ Representatives, Ethiopia will file an Instrument of Accession with Brazil to formalize its membership. Ethiopia will also have a seat on the NDB board.

By joining the NDB, Ethiopia will be able to access infrastructure financing without the oppressive and suffocating conditionalities of Western institutions like the IMF. This will make a huge difference for Ethiopia which faces chronic and severe foreign exchange reserves.

The NDB will be an alternative source of financing for Ethiopia with its $40 billion portfolio across 122 projects. The NDB provides soft loans and technical assistance for key sectors like renewable energy and industrial parks, helping Ethiopia bypass the stringent austerity measures associated with IMF loans for such projects.

Participation in BRICS payment systems facilitates local currency trade (de-dollarization), which surged from 28% to 65% intra-BRICS by 2024. This reduces transaction costs by 25-40% and mitigates Ethiopiaโ€™s vulnerability to US dollar fluctuations and Western payment restrictions.

By being a member of the NDA, Ethiopia could attractย ย  Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and engage in South-South (developing countries) technology transfer in agriculture and manufacturing, leveraging the development experiences of members like China to boost productivity and export capacity.

There was a time when USAID was considered a development lifeline for developing countries. RIP USAIDead.

Ethiopia needs an alternative financing source for short-term and long-term economic development and poverty reduction financing sources.

If finding alternative sources meansย  throwing BRICS at the glasshouses of the IMF and The World Bank, so be it!

About

Professor Alemayehu G. Mariam teaches political science at California State University, San Bernardino. His teaching areas include American constitutional law, civil rights law, judicial process, American and California state governments, and African politics. He has published two volumes on American constitutional law, including American Constitutional Law: Structures and Process (1994) and American Constitutional Law: Civil Liberties and Civil Rights (1998). He is the Senior Editor of the International Journal of Ethiopian Studies, a leading scholarly journal on Ethiopia. For the last several years, Prof. Mariam has written weekly web commentaries on Ethiopian human rights and African issues that are widely read online. He played a central advocacy role in the passage of H.R. 2003 (Ethiopia Democracy and Accountability Act of 2007) in the House of Representatives in 2007. Prof. Mariam practices in the areas of criminal defense and civil litigation. In 1998, he argued a major case in the California Supreme Court involving the right against self-incrimination in People v. Peevy, 17 Cal. 4th 1184, which helped clarify longstanding Miranda rights issues in criminal procedure in California. For several years, Prof. Mariam had a weekly public channel public affairs television show in Southern California called โ€œIn the Public Interestโ€. Prof. Mariam received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1984, and his J.D. from the University of Maryland in 1988.