In was on August 30, 2006 that Barack Obama made his first trip to Ethiopia to visit displaced people in the eastern city Dire Dawa. Three weeks earlier, flooding caused by heavy rains had killed more than 600 people and displaced tens of thousands of people in the area. U.S navy, based in neighboring Djibouti, were taking part in relief operations setting up canvas tents (furnished with straw mats and basic necessities) for housing purposes. No one could have guessed, the then Senator Obama was the next President of the United States of America. Fast forward to 2013, following Obama’s first visit to Africa as President, when he launched the 7 billion Dollars “Power Africa Initiative”, Ethiopia was included among the six benefiting countries . In September 2014, during a bilateral meeting Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn in New York, President Obama made a sensational remark by hailing Ethiopia’s bright spots and enormous progress in a country that once had great difficulty feeding itself. He took Ethiopia’s fastest economic growth as a model to the African Continent. He also praised Ethiopia’s difference maker leaders and its counterterrorism, peacekeeping and conflict resolution efforts as an example to the world. In August last [...]
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