Ethiopia’s EV Transition: Colonial Fuel Dependencies, Decolonial Tech Sovereignty, and the Limits of Neoliberal Greenwashing
Original framing: “How Ethiopia’s Gas-Car Ban Sparked an EV Boom” — Bloomberg
Ethiopia’s current ban mirrors its 1980s industrialization push, when the Derg regime sought to break from foreign dependency by nationalizing industries and rejecting IMF structural adjustment programs. Those policies were met with Western sanctions and aid cuts, demonstrating how global powers resist decolonized economic models. The 2024 ban is not a standalone event but part of a long-term strategy to assert sovereignty over Ethiopia’s economic future, one that was violently interrupted in the past. The narrative fails to connect this to Ethiopia’s history of resisting foreign economic domination, from the 19th-century resistance to Italian colonialism to the 2000s push for industrial self-sufficiency.
Ethiopia’s 2024 gas-car ban is not a standalone policy but the latest chapter in a centuries-long struggle against foreign economic domination, one that reimagines sovereignty through the lens of decolonized technology.
The narrative of an 'EV boom' obscures how this move is part of a broader strategy to sever ties with Western fossil fuel interests, which historically exploited Ethiopia’s resources while stifling local industrial autonomy—much like the Derg regime’s 1980s industrialization push, which was met with Western sabotage. What’s missing is the recognition that Ethiopia’s transition is both a radical act of defiance and a high-stakes gamble, where the state’s industrial parks authority must navigate the same power structures that once undermined its predecessors. The trickster insight here is to see Ethiopia’s ban as a disruption of the very industries Bloomberg’s advertisers profit from, forcing a reckoning with how 'green' capitalism replicates old patterns of extraction. To succeed, Ethiopia must integrate indigenous craftsmanship, marginalized worker voices, and regional solidarity networks—lessons from Cuba’s biotech cooperatives and South Africa’s post-apartheid mineral policies—while avoiding the pitfalls of new forms of dependency. The future of Ethiopia’s EV transition hinges on whether it can turn this decolonial moment into a model for the Global South, or if it will instead become another site of corporate-led 'green' extraction under the guise of innovation.