On Thursday the foreign ministry of Ethiopia announced that it had formally asked to join the BRICS group of countries.
The group which contains major emerging markets and South Africa has been hailed by some analysts as a new power bloc on the world stage.
‘We expect BRICS will give us a positive response to the request we have made’, foreign ministry spokesman Meles Alem said.
Ethiopia had in the last decade managed to achieve some of the highest economic growth in the world and was seen as a hopeful African success story with political and economic liberalisation.
This progress was drastically halted by the civil war with the northern Tigray regions, ultimately won by the central government but which saw major human rights abuses carried out by the central government.
[Photo: Addis Standard]