Economic and Social Costs of 2019-2020 Violent Political Unrest in Ethiopia

Abstract

In the last few decades, despite the prevalence of socio-political unrest, Ethiopia generally remained a nation of peace and security for Civilians. However, in recent years, particularly between 2019 and 2020, Ethiopia experienced repeated violent riots. In Oromia alone, two rounds of violent riots occurred in 8 months. Except for duration and scale, the unrest was spread to all regional states of the country. In light of this background, a study was conducted to identify the drivers, motives, precipitating factors, and direct and indirect costs of the violent riots. Quantitative data was collected on direct costs in 65 woreda towns that encountered substantive damage. This was done using 519 randomly selected victim and non-victim respondents from 43 sample woreda-towns. As the results indicate, the damages were largely in the Oromia region, Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR), and in Amhara Region. Damages of property through arson were the largest (53.76%), followed by looting (23.47%) and breaking / physical damage (22.77%). The victims were predominantly ethnic minorities in the respective localities. The largest victims were ethnic Amharas (35.4%), ethnic Oromos (21.4%), ethnic Gurages (14.1%), and ethnic Wolaytas (6.6%) constituting 77.5% of the sample victims, largely belonging to the Orthodox Christian (65.32%). The value of direct costs was in the range of 8.8 billion Birr (in 2020 prices). Damages per sector indicate that services constituted 85.5%, while agricultural damages were 8.9%, and industrial 6.6%. Among indirect costs, 88% was the value of foregone material inputs, 7% was foregone wages and salaries, and 5% was foregone government tax income. The magnitude of indirect costs expands with the time taken to rehabilitate the households and businesses. The longer it takes to rehabilitate the victims, the greater will be the magnitude of the indirect costs. Ethnic hatred among young people based on remote historical narratives, payment incentives made to disturb, and envy of the economic success of others were the three most prominent drivers in the views of respondents. The social media, riot organizers, and financiers with weak governance occasioned the violent riots. Restricting ethnic politics, strengthening good governance, strengthening the rule of law, and rehabilitating the victims, as fast as possible, are the suggested remedial measures.