Dream big, suffer daily: Ethiopia’s nuclear plan meets a broken middle class

Ethiopia has unveiled yet another grand vision: a $30 billion infrastructure package that includes nuclear power plants, oil refineries, natural gas facilities, and Africa’s largest airport. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced the plan during the inauguration of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), presenting it as the next leap forward for Ethiopia’s energy security and global standing. Two nuclear reactors, each with 1200 megawatts capacity, are promised by 2034. The Prime Minister even compared the scale of the nuclear project to the GERD itself, Ethiopia’s flagship hydroelectric dam on the Nile.

The vision is dazzling. But in Addis Ababa’s congested streets, the reality of daily life is much less so. Behind the rhetoric of mega-projects lies a city where the middle class is collapsing, where teachers cannot afford rent, and where survival consumes every paycheck. Ethiopia may aspire to nuclear power, but millions of its citizens cannot keep the lights on at home.

Wages that don’t match rent

A public school teacher in Ethiopia earns between 7,000 and 12,000 birr per month. University lecturers, considered better paid, hover around 9,000 birr. That translates to $125–$215 at official exchange rates, often less on the street. For many, that is the full salary of a month. Meanwhile, rent in Addis Ababa tells a harsher truth. A single modest one-bedroom flat in Bole Michael can demand 15,000 birr. In Kazanchis or Megenagna, prices climb to 50,000 or even 60,000 birr for an apartment. The numbers simply don’t reconcile. Even with two incomes, most families cannot manage housing without outside help.

This mismatch between wages and cost of living has obliterated the middle class. Civil servants, once comfortable, now sink under debt. Young graduates remain dependent on their families into their thirties. Many educated Ethiopians choose emigration, hoping that a job abroad can cover the costs their own capital city makes impossible.

Disappearing middle class

A generation ago, Addis Ababa was building its middle class. Teachers, shop owners, civil servants, and small traders could aspire to housing, education for their children, and modest savings. That class has been squeezed almost out of existence. Inflation, especially in housing and food, has eroded the security that once existed. The city today is polarized: the wealthy with access to dollars and hard assets, and the struggling majority who earn in birr but spend in a market shaped by scarcity and speculation. Ethiopia may boast of mega projects, but on the ground, what is vanishing is stability for ordinary working families.

Nuclear dreams, Russian partnership

Ethiopia’s nuclear push is not entirely new. In 2017, Addis Ababa signed a cooperation agreement with Russia on nuclear development. Earlier this year, Ethiopia’s ambassador to Moscow revisited the issue, signaling that Russia remains central to Ethiopia’s nuclear path. The current announcement ties nuclear power directly into the $30 billion infrastructure drive, suggesting the financing and technology may largely come from abroad. Nuclear would offer a base load power supply that hydropower cannot guarantee, particularly in the face of drought. Yet Russia’s role could complicate Ethiopia’s relations with Western donors and creditors, who already view Abiy Ahmed’s government with suspicion after years of war and repression.

Energy needs are real

Despite the grand political theater, Ethiopia’s energy crisis is undeniable. The country has 5,200 megawatts of installed generation capacity, 90 percent of it hydro. Demand is rising by 20 percent annually. Yet even today, only 60 percent of the population has access to electricity. The GERD, once fully operational, will more than double current capacity, but the population is also growing fast. Urbanization adds pressure on the grid. Ethiopia does have vast renewable potential, over 60,000 megawatts across hydro, wind, solar, and geothermal, but investment is patchy, and many projects remain on paper. Nuclear is presented as the long-term solution, a way to leapfrog into a new energy era. The risk is that it becomes another dream that outpaces the immediate reality of electrifying villages and households.

The paradox of prestige

Ethiopia’s government is driven by prestige as much as by necessity. The GERD was sold as a symbol of sovereignty, a defiant assertion against Egypt and Sudan. Now nuclear energy and a giant airport at Bishoftu are positioned as the next symbols of modernity. The new airport, backed partly by a $500 million pledge from the African Development Bank, aims to handle 60 million passengers annually, rivaling Dubai and Addis’s own Bole International. Ethiopian Airlines, already Africa’s most profitable carrier, is the jewel in the crown. Yet for an Addis Ababa resident unable to afford rent, these projects can feel like distractions, symbols of a country that builds for status while citizens grind in hardship.

The vanished balance between dreams and survival

The story of Ethiopia today is one of imbalance. On one hand, a state that dreams on the scale of great powers, promising nuclear reactors, airports, and oil refineries. On the other, a society where a teacher must borrow just to cover rent, and where middle-class families have been squeezed down to survival. The contradiction is sharp, and it fuels both pride and frustration among Ethiopians. Many celebrate the ambition. Many also ask quietly: who benefits, and when will life become livable?

Regional implications

If Ethiopia manages to realize even part of this plan, it will shift the regional balance. A nuclear-capable Ethiopia, with an airline hub rivaling Dubai, would dominate the Horn of Africa’s infrastructure and energy. Neighboring countries would depend on its grid, its airport, its oil and gas facilities. That is the dream of Abiy Ahmed: Ethiopia as the unchallenged hub of East Africa. But if the plan falters, Ethiopia risks overextension, with billions in debt and little to show for it. The fragile economy may not survive the weight of too many mega-projects launched at once.

Ordinary voices

In the streets of Addis, the voices are less grand. A young teacher earning 9,000 birr per month explains that she cannot rent even a small room alone. She shares with three others, spending nearly her full salary on rent and transport. A shopkeeper in Merkato says he once hoped to expand, but rising rents pushed him out of his stall. A university lecturer laments that his students dream of migration, not of building their country, because they see no path to stability. These voices, quiet but widespread, reveal a society under immense strain.

The road ahead

Ethiopia’s $30 billion plan is a gamble. If executed, it could transform the nation into a true continental power, with energy, transport, and industry to match. If it collapses under the weight of its ambition, it will deepen inequality and resentment, leaving the population poorer and angrier. The government’s challenge is to balance prestige with practicality, mega-projects with bread-and-butter policies that ease rent, wages, and food. Without that, nuclear dreams will remain just that: dreams, while the middle class that should sustain Ethiopia continues to vanish.