Post-conflict reconstruction in Ethiopia following a deal to end its two-year civil war will cost about $20 billion and will require help from international institutions and investors, according to the country’s finance minister.

“We need about $20 billion over five years,” Ahmed Shide said in an interview with the Financial Times of the sum needed to help conflict-hit areas, mainly in northern Ethiopia, recover from the fighting that ended with a peace accord signed in November.

Federal and regional budgets would be deployed to achieve this, but support from the likes of the World Bank whose president, Ajay Banga, visited Ethiopia this month as part of his first trip to Africa would also be needed, Ahmed told the London-based newspaper at his offices in the capital Addis Ababa.

The civil war cost Ethiopia more than $28 billion in damages and “economic losses”, he said. “Given the unprecedented levels of damage and destruction . . . the recovery and reconstruction will come at a significant financial cost.”

Fighting broke out in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region in 2020 after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed accused fighters there of attacking the federal army. The conflict spread to the Amhara and Afar regions before a deal was agreed in South Africa between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front two years later.

Hundreds of thousands of people are estimated to have died in a war. The fighting also derailed one of Africa’s fastest growing economies.

The economy of Ethiopia, Africa’s second-most populous country, grew at an average of 10% annually for 15 years before the civil war broke out, according to World Bank data.

Foreign donors withdrew billions of dollars in support after the fighting started, while the US ended Ethiopia’s tariff-free access to its markets. The latter cost about 12,000 jobs in the burgeoning textile industry, according to data from Ethiopia’s industry ministry.

(Editing by Brinda Darasha; brinda.darasha@lseg.com)