Ethiopia’s Hegemony in the Horn of Africa: Internal Tensions and External Challenges Before and After Meles Zenawi.

Since 1991, and more visibly in the last decade, Ethiopia has witnessed enormous economic growth accompanied by the development of infrastructure and growing demographic rates, as well as poverty, unemployment, inflation, and corruption. Twenty years of rule by Meles Zenawi, who died in summer 2012, have also brought several internal tensions and external challenges with which Ethiopia has to and will have to deal. Despite acclaimed double-digit economic growth in the last decade, millions of Ethiopians still live at a level of poverty more or less similar to that of the previous regime. Ethnic and religious tensions together with socioeconomic frustration are already contributing to a tense social atmosphere in Ethiopia. Relations with Eritrea, Ethiopian involvement in Somalia, and disputes over Nile waters that have impacted relations with Egypt are also in one way or another linked with these internal tensions. This article deals with all these aspects of the contemporary development of Ethiopia as a part of the legacy of the late prime minister Meles Zenawi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]