Global Profile: Abiy Ahmed - Prime Minister of Ethiopia

A Nobel Peace Prize winner and leader on the edge of history, caught between old dependencies and new alliances.

Sep 17, 2025

Ethiopia has long been trapped in the periphery of the global economy, supplying resources and labor. It has not always been this way. Ethiopia has a history as a core nation, setting the rules for other countries.

Ethiopia was once a regional power, the Aksumite Empire (1st–7th centuries CE), controlling Red Sea trade routes and rivaling Rome and Persia in influence. In the modern era, Ethiopia was one of the few African nations to resist colonialism, defeating Italy at the Battle of Adwa in 1896. This legacy gives Ethiopia a unique historical identity, a nation with memories of power, now seeking to reclaim a greater role on the world stage.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is working to restore Ethiopia’s power. He sees BRICS membership as Ethiopia’s chance to climb to the semi-periphery, gaining the tools to industrialize, diversify, and chart its own course. But sitting alongside powerful core nations like China and India brings new risks: Ethiopia may rise as a regional force, or it may find that BRICS just replaces the old hierarchy with new players at the top.

This week’s Global Profile examines Ahmed’s leadership as a real-world test of the core–periphery theory discussed in the Future Brief.

Ethiopia in the Global System

Ethiopia’s economy has centered on agriculture, livestock, and gold. Even though it avoided full colonial rule, Ethiopia’s role in the global economy was that of many African nations: exporting raw goods and importing manufactured products from core nations.

Its strategic location near the Red Sea made it a gateway to some of the world’s most vital shipping lanes, giving Ethiopia regional influence in the Horn of Africa.

Yet this position of potential strength has been undercut by deep ethnic divisions and internal conflicts, most recently the Tigray War. Drought and famine continue to threaten stability, while heavy infrastructure debt, much of it owed to China, limits Ethiopia’s financial independence. These pressures leave Ethiopia caught between its historical vulnerabilities and its ambitions for a greater role on the global stage.

Abiy Ahmed: The Leader of a Rising State

Abiy Ahmed began his career as a military officer before rising to political prominence through Ethiopia’s ruling coalition. In 2019, he captured global attention when he brokered a historic peace agreement with neighboring Eritrea, an achievement that earned him the Nobel Peace Prize and sparked hope that Ethiopia could become a force for stability in the region.

Prime Minister Ahmed envisions transforming Ethiopia into a manufacturing and logistics hub for East Africa, using infrastructure and trade to drive economic growth. At the same time, he seeks to strengthen national unity in a country divided by deep ethnic tensions and modernized government institutions. Central to his strategy is reducing Ethiopia’s dependence on Western aid by forging new partnerships, a balancing act between traditional allies and emerging powers like BRICS.

Ethiopia’s Entry Into BRICS

In 2024, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed negotiated Ethiopia’s entry into BRICS. This was the largest step for Abiy to make Ethiopia a semi-peripheral nation.

Ethiopia became the first low-income African nation to sit at the same table as global heavyweights like China, India, and Brazil, giving BRICS a foothold in Africa beyond South Africa’s long-standing membership. For Abiy, it was a personal victory and a statement of intent: Ethiopia would no longer be confined to the periphery of the global system.

Yet the move brings both opportunity and danger. Abiy now has access to alternative financing through the New Development Bank and a path to bypass the rigid restrictions of institutions like the IMF and World Bank. But he must tread carefully. If he miscalculates, Ethiopia could replace Western influence with Chinese or Indian influence.

The late economist Samir Amin argued that nations stuck in the periphery of the global economy could only achieve true independence by “delinking” from Western-controlled systems. Abiy Ahmed’s strategy for Ethiopia reflects this vision by joining BRICS and moving away from Western control.

Cultural Perspective

Ethiopia is a high-context culture, where relationships and loyalty matter more than rules. This relational style reflects Hornby’s Instinctive Family Builder (Red) archetype, which prioritizes loyalty and community ties, and the Intuitive Caregiver (Green), focused on maintaining harmony and survival through cooperation.

This stands in sharp contrast to the low-context, universalist systems of the global financial core. Institutions like the IMF and World Bank, guided by the Dedicated Rule-Imposer (Blue) archetype, enforce standardized, rules-based policies designed to apply equally across nations. These approaches often clash with Ethiopia’s cultural perspective.

BRICS offers a cultural bridge between these two worlds. China and India are closer to Ethiopia’s culture. Brazil and Russia mix structured trade systems with informal alliances, creating a hybrid environment that is neither fully universalist nor entirely relational. Abiy Ahmed, embodying aspects of Hornby’s Visionary (North) archetype, has to work within these cultural complexities. His challenge is to move Ethiopia into the semi-periphery by bringing together local traditions with global partnerships, without losing the nation’s autonomy in the process.

Learn more about Hornby’s Archetypes here

Why It Matters Globally

Abiy Ahmed's leadership will determine whether BRICS becomes a platform that genuinely empowers smaller nations, or whether it simply swaps one core power for another. Abiy’s decisions, how he negotiates with giants like China and India, how he manages Ethiopia’s internal divisions, and how he positions his country within the BRICS bloc, will shape Ethiopia’s future and the credibility of BRICS.

Abiy also operates under intense global scrutiny. Ethiopia’s location near vital Red Sea shipping lanes places it at the crossroads of US-China rivalry. His every move, from infrastructure deals to military partnerships, is watched closely by competing core powers. In this way, Abiy is more than a national leader; he has become a key player in the struggle over who will shape the 21st-century world order.

Abiy Ahmed is moving Ethiopia forward from the periphery to the semi-periphery and maybe back to its days as a regional core power.

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