By Yonas Yimer
Fifteen years ago, the BBC reported that then Prime Minister Meles Zenawi was ‘pioneering the lease of some three million hectares of land over the next five years—an area the size of Belgium.’ One local man, quoted anonymously, warned: ‘You cannot speak freely about the land issue now; you can be arrested or even killed for this.’ That was then. I ask, what about today? Can we speak freely about land and displacement under the incumbent, or has the silence only deepened while dispossession continues?
Land leasing and land rentals became legal in 1997 under the Federal Rural Land Administration and Use Proclamation, which also allowed regional governments to make land laws, including rules on compensation for expropriation. Consistent with the Constitution, all land remained vested in the state, leaving communities with only usufruct rights rather than private ownership. By 2009 the federal government had assumed direct authority over land deals larger than 5,000 hectares, further shifting power from regional authorities to the federal government.
These proclamations were reinforced by the 1995 Constitution, which vests all land ownership, both rural and urban, in the state and the people, explicitly prohibiting land from being sold or exchanged. While this arrangement aims to prevent land commodification and ensure equitable access, it also centralizes control in the hands of the government. Article 40(6) permits the state to grant land-use rights to private investors, often for extended periods, under terms determined by law. This provision has facilitated large-scale land grabs at the expense of local communities’ rights and livelihoods. Article 40(8) allows for expropriation of land for public purposes, provided there is compensation. In practice, however, compensation has often been nonexistent or inadequate, failing to reflect the true value of the land or the losses incurred by displaced individuals. This legal framework, while constitutionally sanctioned, has been misused, enabling the government to prioritize the so-called ‘development projects’ over the long-term rights and well-being of local populations.
The consequences of this framework are not just theoretical. A study by Wassihun Gebreegziaber published in 2024 by Taylor & Francis shows, large-scale land grabs have not been merely economic projects. They have been deliberate tools for consolidating state authority. By leasing vast tracts of farmland to investors and reallocating land in peripheral regions, the government has reshaped local power dynamics, prioritizing elite interests over the rights and livelihoods of rural communities. The study underscores how these land deals often occur with minimal consultation, leaving farmers and pastoralists vulnerable to displacement, loss of livelihoods, and social marginalization.
The research also highlights a critical tension at the heart of Ethiopia’s ‘development by dispossession’ model: the promise of prosperity often masks profound social costs. Peripheral regions, including Gambella and Benishangul-Gumuz, have borne the brunt of these policies, with customary land rights sidelined in favor of investor-friendly leases. Land leasing has become a mechanism not only for economic extraction but also for political control, embedding dependence and limiting dissent in rural communities. These legal instruments illuminate a crucial point: the dispossession observed under the Prosperity Party is not an anomaly, but a continuation and in many cases, an intensification of policies that have systematically concentrated land control in the hands of the few.
And the pattern is not confined to rural peripheries. Even in the capital, under the full gaze of international observers, entire neighborhoods have been uprooted to make way for industrial parks, highways, and real estate projects, often justified as necessary for progress. Residents frequently report inadequate notice, insufficient compensation, and little meaningful participation in planning processes, echoing the injustices long expressed in rural areas. These urban displacements reveal a troubling and accelerated continuity: whether in the countryside or the capital, development is pursued at the expense of ordinary citizens, reinforcing a pattern in which prosperity is reserved for the few while the majority bear the social and economic costs.
These displacements feed directly into Ethiopia’s food insecurity crisis. While the government has boasted of achieving wheat surplus production and even floated plans for export, the 2024 Global Hunger Index ranked Ethiopia 102nd out of 127 countries. Hunger and chronic food insecurity persist, food prices remain high and volatile, and malnutrition is still widespread, particularly among smallholder families facing shrinking landholdings and displacement. The disconnect between government narrations of abundance and the lived experience of hunger underscores how development policies often prioritize political narratives and elite gains over genuine food sovereignty and the well-being of ordinary people.
Land grabbing and the shrinking of smallholder farms are deeply tied to Ethiopia’s broader political and economic instability. The centralization of power and persecution of opposition under the current government has weakened institutional capacity to maintain peace and address social and economic grievances. This political fragility exacerbates vulnerabilities in the food system, leaving ordinary people to shoulder avoidable burden. The result is a vicious cycle: dispossession, concentrated power, and skyrocketing food prices, all starkly contradicting the rhetoric of national prosperity.
The government’s tightening grip is most clearly visible in the Corridor Development Project (CDP). In May 2025, Amnesty International condemned the mass forced evictions carried out under the CDP in Addis Ababa and in 58 other cities and urban centers across Ethiopia. The organization described the displacements as “a gross human rights violation” and urged authorities to immediately halt the evictions and suspend the project until an independent review could assess compliance with international human rights standards.
While much of the damage has already been done, such a review remains crucial not only to secure some form of justice and compensation for those who have suffered, but also to prevent further communities from facing the same fate.