01/06/2025
: Roadblocked in a landlocked nation: ’s 75-year plea for connection
In this commentary, Teshome Hunduma (PhD), Senior Advisor for Biodiversity and Sustainable Food Systems at the Norwegian Forum for Development and Environment (ForUM), highlights Gindabarat’s decades-long struggle with geographic and infrastructural isolation. Located in the west-central highlands of , approximately 193 kilometers from , the district remains, in the author's words, “as physically close to the capital as it is politically and economically isolated.” Through a personal lens and development expertise, the piece draws attention to what he describes as “a 75-year plea for connection” — a reference to the persistent lack of an all-weather road linking the district to the rest of Ethiopia.
The article underlines how deep gorges, escarpments, and unreliable roads have left over 300,000 residents effectively cut off from essential services, markets, and national development agendas. The commentary recalls a string of unfulfilled promises by successive governments since the 1960s, including an asphalt road project re-tendered in 2024 but, according to residents, “abruptly closed without explanation or result.” Reflecting on these delays, the author recounts walking 103 kilometers barefoot in 1994 to take a passport-sized photo required for school exams — a story shared, he notes, by many in the area who continue to face what he calls “not merely administrative” but “profoundly personal” consequences.
The piece further details Gindabarat’s untapped economic potential — from diverse crop production and oilseed exports to natural gas indications and ecotourism sites like the Yaddii hot spring. Yet, as the commentary underscores, this potential remains unrealized due to “inadequate infrastructure and institutional support,” particularly the absence of reliable roads. Citing development economist Paul Collier, Teshome argues that “connectivity is foundational” to growth and warns that Ethiopia’s development rhetoric may ring hollow without rural infrastructure investments. In the words of local advocate Guddataa Taaddasaa Bantii, whose public plea is cited in the article, Gindabarat has become “an island” — not for lack of effort, but because “the road remains unbuilt.”
https://addisstandard.com/?p=49869
