Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said Ethiopia’s rural corridor development initiative, which is an extension of the broader concept of city corridor development, aims to bring similar improvements in the living standards of rural communities.
The PM said that “just as we are working to improve the livelihoods of our citizens in urban areas and make life easier, rural corridor development is about doing the same in the countryside”.
He noted that despite agricultural productivity, many rural households continue to face difficult living conditions.
“If you go to rural areas, you will see that even when farmers produce well, they often live in a single-room house where livestock and family members share the same space. The living conditions are not convenient,” PM Abiy elaborated.
He warned that such challenges are contributing to the steady migration of young people from rural areas to cities.
“Particularly, the youth are leaving rural areas. If this continues, the agricultural sector will gradually be weakened, and the countryside will be left without successors,” he cautioned, adding that an aging rural population combined with youth outmigration poses a long-term threat to national development.
