Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Leads Ethiopian Delegation to the 3rd Russia–Africa Summit
Ethiopia Commemorates 40th Anniversary of the Right to Development with UN and AU Officials
Ethiopia Takes Part in AU-EU Senior Officials’ Meeting Held in Addis Ababa
NEWS IN BRIEF
Ethiopia
A high-level Ethiopian delegation led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed successfully concluded its participation in the Third Russia–Africa Summit, held in Moscow, Russia, on October 28–29, 2026. The Summit provided an important platform for advancing Ethiopia–Russia relations, strengthening Africa–Russia cooperation, and exploring new avenues of partnership in strategic sectors. (See article)
Minister of Foreign Affairs Gedion Timothewos held discussions with China’s Special Envoy for African Affairs, Liu Xianfa, on Wednesday (November 4), exchanging views on peace and security in Africa. Minister Gedion briefed the Special Envoy on the current peace and security situation in the Horn of Africa, while Liu reaffirmed China’s commitment to playing a constructive role in promoting peace and security across the continent.
FM Gedion held talks with Chinese Ambassador to Ethiopia Chen Hai on Tuesday (November 3), discussing ways to deepen the two countries’ All-Weather Strategic Partnership, particularly in trade, investment and capacity building. Ambassador Chen Hai reaffirmed China’s support for Ethiopia’s development plans.
State Minister Ambassador Hadera Abera met with a delegation of the European Union Political and Security Committee (PSC), led by its Chair, Ambassador Lene Vensild, on Thursday (November 5). The discussion focused on current developments in Ethiopia, the Government’s reform efforts, regional peace and security, and Ethiopia-EU relations.
State Minister Ambassador Berhanu Tsegaye received His Majesty King Letsie III of the Kingdom of Lesotho to Addis Ababa on Monday (November 2) at Bole International Airport, for his working visit to Ethiopia.
Ethiopia participated in the 9th Assembly of the International Solar Alliance in New Delhi, represented by Ambassador Nebiyu Tedla, who reaffirmed the country’s commitment to renewable energy and highlighted the importance of cooperation, investment and affordable clean technologies in advancing an inclusive energy transition.
Addis Ababa was recognized with the 2026 Global Award for Sustainable Development in Cities on Saturday (October 31), highlighting the city’s progress in sustainable urban development and its ongoing transformation.
Djibouti
President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh of Djibouti received Somalia’s Speaker of the House of the People, Abdulkadir Mohamed Nur, on Monday (November 2), discussing ways to strengthen bilateral ties and strategic cooperation between the two countries.
Africa and the African Union
Africa’s Commemoration of the 40th Anniversary of the United Nations Declaration on the Right to Development at the African Union Headquarters, running from November 4-6. Convening under the urgent theme “From Resilience to Sustainable Prosperity,” the high-level opening session featured addresses from Ambassador Hadera Abera, State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Awa Dabo, United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Ambassador Bankole Adeoye, AU Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security. (See article)
Senior officials from the African Union, the European Commission and EU Member States convened at the AU Headquarters in Addis Ababa on Wednesday (November 4) for the AU-EU Senior Officials’ Meeting, advancing the outcomes of the 7th AU-EU Summit held in Luanda in November 2025. The meeting focused on strengthening cooperation in peace and security, multilateralism, trade, economic development, climate action, food security, and digital and AI governance, with a view to translating the Joint Vision for 2030 into concrete actions. (See article)
The African Union Commission and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies convened a high-level event on Tuesday (November 3) to advance durable solutions towards zero hunger in Africa, with AU Commission Chairperson Mahmoud Ali Youssouf calling for collective action and sustained commitment to resilient agrifood systems and food security across the continent.
AU Commission Chairperson Mahmoud Ali Youssouf received King Letsie III of Lesotho on Tuesday (November 3), on the sidelines of the AU-IFRC High-Level Event on Advancing Durable Solutions Towards Zero Hunger in Africa.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Leads Ethiopian Delegation to the 3rd Russia–Africa Summit
A high-level Ethiopian delegation led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed successfully concluded its participation in the Third Russia–Africa Summit, held in Moscow, Russia, on October 28–29, 2026. The Summit provided an important platform for advancing Ethiopia–Russia relations, strengthening Africa–Russia cooperation, and exploring new avenues of partnership in strategic sectors.
The Summit concluded with the adoption of the Declaration of the Third Russia–Africa Summit and a new Action Plan for the Russia–Africa Partnership Forum, setting out priorities for cooperation and continued political dialogue between the two sides.
Addressing the plenary session of the Leaders’ Summit, Prime Minister Abiy highlighted the historic foundations of Ethiopia–Russia relations, noting that the friendship between the two countries spans more than a century and is rooted in mutual respect, cooperation, and solidarity.
Recalling Russia’s humanitarian contribution following the Battle of Adwa in 1896, the Prime Minister noted that the Russian Red Cross Mission provided medical assistance to wounded Ethiopian soldiers and translated a medical guide into Amharic. He described this historical contribution as a meaningful example of knowledge exchange and solidarity between the two nations.
The Prime Minister went on to emphasize that Ethiopia’s development priorities are anchored in three strategic pillars: food security, energy, and knowledge. He underscored the importance of strengthening agricultural productivity through cooperation in farm machinery, agro-processing, and industrial development.
On energy cooperation, he highlighted Ethiopia’s engagement with Russia towards the development of the country’s first nuclear power plant, emphasizing the importance of diversifying the national energy mix, strengthening local technical expertise, and adhering to the safety standards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). He also pointed to the broader applications of nuclear science in healthcare, including cancer treatment.
Regarding knowledge and technological development, the Prime Minister highlighted Ethiopia’s ambition to advance artificial intelligence capabilities through the establishment of Medemer University of Artificial Intelligence in Addis Ababa. He invited Russian universities and research institutions to collaborate with their Ethiopian counterparts in education, research, and technological innovation.
He further called for stronger economic cooperation through joint ventures in Ethiopia’s special economic zones, particularly in pharmaceuticals and machinery, while underscoring the importance of facilitating trade and developing efficient payment channels.
On regional and international affairs, Prime Minister Abiy reiterated Ethiopia’s support for African-led mediation and negotiated solutions to conflicts on the continent. He also welcomed the adoption of the new Action Plan, stressing the need to translate summit commitments into measurable results.
The Prime Minister concluded by expressing Ethiopia’s readiness to host the next Russia–Africa Summit in Addis Ababa, the seat of the African Union, underscoring the country’s commitment to strengthening the partnership between Africa and Russia.
As part of his engagements in Moscow, PM Abiy attended the airshow and handover ceremony marking the delivery of the first twelve Su-35 4++ generation fighter jets to the Ethiopian Defense Force.
In his remarks on the occasion, the Prime Minister described the delivery as an important milestone in Ethiopia’s efforts to strengthen its defense capabilities and safeguard national sovereignty. He stated that the acquisition was made in accordance with an earlier agreement with the Russian Government and expressed appreciation to Russian President Vladimir Putin for facilitating the delivery ahead of the agreed schedule.
The Prime Minister also indicated that Ethiopia would receive four batteries of the S-400 air defense system. He underscored that strengthening the operational readiness of the Ethiopian Defense Force is an essential component of the country’s efforts to deter aggression, safeguard its security, and contribute to regional stability.
Expanding beyond strategic and military cooperation into the cultural and intellectual sphere, the visit also featured the presentation of the Russian-language edition of the Prime Minister’s foundational philosophy book, Medemer. During their bilateral discussions, Prime Minister Abiy handed over a copy of the newly translated book to President Vladimir Putin.
On the sidelines of the Summit, State Minister for Foreign Affairs Ambassador Hadera Abera held discussions with Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Georgy Borisenko. Their discussions focused on strengthening the Ethiopia–Russia strategic partnership, expanding economic and energy cooperation, and enhancing collaboration on regional peace, security, and multilateral issues.
Another significant outcome of the Summit was the signing of three bilateral agreements between Ethiopia and Russia. The agreements comprise an Intergovernmental Agreement on Dejazmach Balcha Hospital in Addis Ababa, a Memorandum of Understanding between the Ethiopian News Agency (ENA) and Russia’s ITAR-TASS, and another Memorandum of Understanding between ENA and Russia Today (RT).
The agreement concerning Dejazmach Balcha Hospital underscores the shared commitment of the two countries to strengthening healthcare cooperation, modernizing medical infrastructure, and improving the delivery of health services. The two media cooperation agreements are expected to provide a framework for enhanced information exchange, professional collaboration, and institutional partnerships between the respective media organizations.
Ethiopia Commemorates 40th Anniversary of the Right to Development with UN and AU Officials
Africa’s Commemoration of the 40th Anniversary of the United Nations Declaration on the Right to Development at the African Union Headquarters, running from November 4-6. Convening under the urgent theme “From Resilience to Sustainable Prosperity,” the high-level opening session featured addresses from Ambassador Hadera Abera, State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Awa Dabo, United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Ambassador Bankole Adeoye, AU Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security.
In his address, Ambassador Hadera Abera said the gathering was not merely a moment to mark a historical milestone, but an opportunity to reflect on four decades of achievements and to deliberate on what remains to be done to fully realize the Declaration’s objectives. He recalled the vision set out in its first article: that every human person should participate in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political development, alongside the full realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms.
The Ambassador acknowledged the progress the world has made since 1986, citing reduced extreme poverty, improved access to education and health care, longer life expectancy, and advances in science and technology. He noted, however, that the global South continues to face structural impediments, including external debt burdens and technological and financing gaps, which weigh on the development prospects of States operating in a rapidly evolving global landscape.
Ambassador Hadera underscored that the Declaration affirmed a truth African visionaries had long understood: development is not a privilege, nor mere charity or aid, but a fundamental human right owed to every citizen. He pointed out that Africa had anchored this principle in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights well before 1986, demonstrating that economic and social progress must advance together with civil liberties. Today, he said, the right continues to drive the African Union’s Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want, as well as the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Describing the theme as fitting for Ethiopia’s ongoing development trajectory, the Ambassador said Ethiopia, as a founding member of both the OAU and the UN, has consistently championed the view that true self-determination is inseparable from economic independence, food security, and self-reliant national development. Human dignity, he stressed, cannot be fully realized without freedom from poverty and access to quality healthcare, clean energy, education, and meaningful economic opportunity.
He said Ethiopia’s home-grown economic reform agenda has taken historic steps toward economic resilience, environmental sustainability, and food sovereignty, translating the right to development from paper into tangible outcomes for its people. Through targeted investments in cluster farming, wheat self-sufficiency programs, and irrigation, he said, Ethiopia has moved from being a net importer to an exporter of wheat.
The Ambassador also pointed to the Green Legacy Initiative, under which about 56 billion tree seedlings have been planted since 2019, restoring degraded lands, fighting climate change, and building sustainable livelihoods for rural communities. By integrating fruit-bearing and livestock fodder trees into local farming systems, he said, the initiative also advances food security.
He described the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), Africa’s largest hydroelectric dam, planned and financed through Ethiopian capacity, as a project that is generating electricity to connect the region and embodies a model of self-reliance and shared, sustainable growth. GERD, he said, is an answer to Ethiopians’ centuries-old quest to use their resources for their own advancement, and a remarkable transformative project in Africa’s modern development history. It stands as a testament to Ethiopia’s commitment to the right to development and a practical embodiment of the Declaration’s core principle that citizens are the owners and primary beneficiaries of development’s fruits. “These initiatives prove that when a nation invests in its people, infrastructure, and natural resources, the Right to Development becomes a living reality,” he said.
Speaking candidly about the realities facing the continent, Ambassador Hadera pointed to severe systemic obstacles: an unfair global financial system, crushing debt burdens, geopolitical shocks, and the disproportionate impacts of a climate crisis Africa did not create. These structural inequities, he said, strain the continent’s ability to make progress.
Even so, he insisted that Africa is not a passive recipient of circumstances. Its greatest strengths lie within its own borders: a vibrant, innovative youth population, dynamic entrepreneurs, and unmatched natural wealth. He called on African countries to unlock the power of youth, empower women, and build resilient economies that leave no one behind, aligning efforts and moving forward together. At the same time, he urged continued demands for urgent reform of the global financial architecture. Africa, he said, requires equitable access to capital, fair trade systems, and robust climate adaptation financing so that its development strategies can flourish unhindered by external systemic imbalances.
Concluding his remarks, Ambassador Hadera said development rights must not remain abstract concepts; they must be felt in family homes, children’s classrooms, and young people’s everyday businesses. He called the commemoration an occasion for renewed international solidarity, stronger domestic policies, and active partnerships among governments, civil society, and the private sector, urging participants to forge bold commitments that deliver tangible, lasting progress for every African citizen.
Also addressing the session, Deputy High Commissioner Awa Dabo said the story of the right to development cannot be told without Africa. Long before development was firmly established in the global human rights discourse, she noted, African leaders, jurists, and civil society were advancing its essential foundations, including self-determination, sovereignty over natural resources, equitable participation, and international solidarity. “Africa was not simply a beneficiary of the right to development,” she said. “Africa was one of its principal architects.”
She pointed to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights as the legally binding expression of this vision, and said Africa’s voice today is not only relevant but indispensable. Forty years on, she warned, formidable barriers remain, among them unequal trading relationships, unsustainable debt, shrinking development finance, and persistent illicit financial flows, with consequences felt most sharply by people already facing poverty, exclusion, and discrimination. Growth achieved at any cost to people and the planet, she stressed, is not development.
Describing Agenda 2063 as a powerful roadmap, the Deputy High Commissioner said the task now is implementation: integrating the right to development into national plans, public budgets, monitoring systems, and accountability frameworks. She said the conference’s proposed Addis Ababa Outcome Statement offers a chance to set concrete commitments on domestication, financing, monitoring, and accountability. She added that implementation also depends on international cooperation, noting Africa’s leadership in advancing discussion of a draft international covenant on the right to development. The right, she cautioned, must not be reduced to an adversarial North-South debate, because it is a universal human right relevant to every society and every person.
In his opening statement, Ambassador Bankole Adeoye recalled that the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights entered into force six weeks before the UN adopted the Declaration in 1986. Africa, he said, did not wait for the world to proclaim this right, because through Article 22, which recognizes the right of all peoples to economic, social and cultural development, it had already made it binding treaty law. He said the theme captures both Africa’s pride and its impatience, and stressed that resilience must never become the ceiling of its ambition.
Ambassador Adeoye said the African Union supports a robust, legally binding International Covenant on the Right to Development. “Declarations inspire, but obligations deliver,” he said. He underscored that Agenda 2063 and its Second Ten-Year Implementation Plan translate Article 22 into measurable outcomes, which must be domesticated in national plans, budgets, and accountability systems. He also noted that in August 2026, the Peace and Security Council requested the integration of human rights indicators into the Continental Early Warning System.
On the green transition, the Commissioner said Africa will not accept one that repeats the injustices of past extraction, and called for responsible business conduct, fair financing, debt sustainability, and action against illicit financial flows. He added that artificial intelligence must be governed by equality, participation, transparency, and accountability. Concluding, he said the right to development must be fulfilled “not in our speeches,” but in a classroom rebuilt, a tap of clean water in a village, and decent work for a young African.
The three-day conference ran through Friday (November 6), with expert panels on themes including critical minerals, trade, education and artificial intelligence, and closed with a high-level ceremony. Participants explored how the right to development can move from commitment to tangible results for African citizens.
Ethiopia Takes Part in AU-EU Senior Officials’ Meeting Held in Addis Ababa
Senior officials from the African Union, the European Commission and EU Member States convened at the AU Headquarters in Addis Ababa on Wednesday (November 4) for the AU-EU Senior Officials’ Meeting, advancing the outcomes of the 7th AU-EU Summit held in Luanda in November 2025. The meeting focused on strengthening cooperation in peace and security, multilateralism, trade, economic development, climate action, food security, and digital and AI governance, with a view to translating the Joint Vision for 2030 into concrete actions.
The meeting was co-chaired by Ambassador Willy Nyamitwe, Chairperson of the AU Permanent Representatives Committee and Burundi’s Ambassador to Ethiopia, and Patricia Llombart Cussac, Managing Director for Africa at the European External Action Service. Nyamitwe stressed that the partnership must open doors to opportunity for youth, growth for economies and a stronger voice for both continents, turning shared ambition into shared prosperity. Llombart Cussac highlighted that the meeting took place against the backdrop of a partnership that delivers, pointing to the trade access African exports enjoy in the European market and the anniversary of the Everything But Arms arrangement. Together with large-scale investment that creates jobs and adds value in local communities, she noted, the partnership goes beyond words and brings concrete results that directly benefit people.
Ethiopia presented the African Union’s common position on digital and AI governance and development, in line with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s role as AU Champion for AI and Digital Health. Presenting the statement, Ambassador Lemlem Fiseha, Permanent Representative of Ethiopia to the AU and UNECA, outlined the priorities, including integrating AI and digitalization into the policy agendas of AU member states, achieving universal digital literacy, and increasing investment in digital and cybersecurity infrastructure. She also pointed to support for digital start-ups, greater inclusivity through African languages, and stronger capacity to manage the potential adverse impacts of AI.
Representing Ethiopia, Ambassador Meles Alem, Director General for European and American Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, called for stronger AU-EU cooperation in trade, energy and manufacturing. He urged the EU to address the challenges affecting the implementation of its Everything But Arms preferential trade initiative, including by lifting the Deforestation Regulation and the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, which he said are seriously affecting African producers of cocoa, coffee and other strategic commodities.
On energy, Ambassador Meles called on the EU to turn its partnership commitments into concrete investments in projects identified under the AU’s Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA).
At the close of the meeting, senior officials adopted the AU-EU Partnership Implementation Plan, built around four priority areas: prosperity; peace, security and governance; people; and multilateralism. The plan is intended to translate the political commitments made in Luanda into tangible results for the peoples of Africa and Europe. Officials also adopted a Follow-up Mechanism to strengthen institutional coordination, monitor progress and enhance accountability, and released a Joint Monitoring Report taking stock of the partnership’s achievements from 2022 to 2025.
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