Ethiopia’s Broken Light Rail Is Not Proof That Chinese Investment in Africa Failed
Wendover identifies a real infrastructure failure in Addis Ababa. Its mistake is turning that failure into a verdict on Chinese investment across Africa without properly investigating who designed the railway, who controlled its operation, who was responsible for maintenance, and why the system deteriorated.
The railway is struggling. The more interesting story is how two governments, a Chinese contractor, and an Ethiopian state railway corporation created a system that Ethiopia subsequently struggled to maintain.
Addis Ababa’s Broken Railway Was a Shared Failure. Wendover Turns It Into a Chinese Parable.
Wendover Productions calls Addis Ababa’s struggling light railway a “microcosm” of Chinese investment in Africa: impressive infrastructure projects that ultimately fail through poor foresight and blind optimism.
The railway is genuinely in trouble. But the explanation is incomplete. China did not make every decision, Ethiopia was not a passive recipient, and the failures extend far beyond the availability of spare parts.
The real story is a complicated bargain involving Ethiopian political ambition, Chinese commercial interests, an inadequate financial model, poor institutional coordination, and an unfinished transfer of technical responsibility.
I have no difficulty calling the railway a failure. I have considerable difficulty accepting Wendover’s explanation of whose failure it was.
Ethiopia chose the railway. China supplied the package.
The original plan for Addis Ababa was not a Chinese light railway.
Research by Tom Goodfellow and Zhengli Huang, published in Environment and Planning A in 2020, documents that Ethiopia had developed a bus rapid transit (BRT) proposal with French assistance during the mid-2000s. By 2006, seven BRT routes had been planned.
The Ethiopian federal government subsequently changed direction and chose light rail in 2007. According to the researchers, this decision was not driven by China.
China Railway Engineering Corporation (CREC) entered the picture as a contractor offering a design-and-build arrangement. Its proposal reportedly cost approximately half as much as competing Italian bids, and Chinese Export-Import Bank financing made the project financially attractive.
But an important detail complicates the story further.
CREC's design team proposed an alternative railway alignment that could have integrated better with the city's zoning and expansion plans. The Ethiopian government rejected that proposal because it would cost more and take longer to implement. The railway consequently proceeded along a route originally planned for buses.
During construction, the Ethiopian Railway Corporation also requested design modifications, including elevated sections, emergency braking equipment, and additional electrical cable channels. CREC estimated that these changes added $60–70 million to the cost, although the Ethiopian corporation disputed that figure.
This was a negotiated project, not a railway simply imposed on Ethiopia by Beijing.
Chinese financing shaped the railway's weaknesses
None of this absolves China.
The $475 million project was financed primarily through China's Export-Import Bank, which covered approximately 85% of the cost, while the Ethiopian government provided the remaining 15%. Ethiopia also guaranteed the borrowing.
The financing was not a charitable gift. AidData records a variable interest rate of six-month LIBOR plus 2.6%, with a loan maturity of approximately 13 years.
More importantly, the financing arrangement influenced the physical design.
A January 2026 peer-reviewed study by Guibo Sun and Kristen Zhao, published in Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives, examined how financing constraints shaped the railway's construction.
The researchers identified several consequential compromises:
- The project prioritized a longer surface railway over a shorter, more expensive elevated design.
- Fenced railway tracks divided neighborhoods and restricted road crossings.
- A shared elevated section of approximately five kilometres meant that only one of the two railway lines could use the section at a time.
- Trains initially operated with just two carriages and intervals of approximately 15–20 minutes.
- Integration with existing bus services and pedestrian routes received insufficient attention.
The researchers identified the removal of 86 vehicle connectors and 64 pedestrian connectors from the road network, leaving 66 and 71 respectively.
Their network analysis associated the resulting detours with heavier traffic and reduced connectivity. They concluded that the railway may have reduced overall travel efficiency rather than improving it.
This is a much stronger criticism than simply pointing out broken trains.
The Chinese financing model helped shape a railway whose physical design created additional problems for the city it was supposed to serve. Ethiopian political decisions determined how that financing was used.
The financial model was unsustainable
The railway's financial difficulties were apparent well before its operational collapse.
Goodfellow and Huang reported that CREC had recommended a fare of approximately 40 Ethiopian birr, while actual fares were set between two and six birr.
Those low prices made the railway accessible to poorer commuters. They also created a substantial funding requirement that ticket sales could not satisfy.
The original financial concept also anticipated capturing increases in land values around railway stations to help finance the system. However, the city government lacked the resources to develop the surrounding land, while disconnected planning between railway and city authorities prevented a coherent development strategy.
The subsidy problem was not theoretical.
A performance audit by Ethiopia's Office of the Auditor General found that the railway accumulated approximately 4.6 billion birr in losses during its first four years.
It also paid $2.8 million in penalties for late repayments to China Exim Bank. The Ethiopian Railway Corporation had been borrowing from the state-owned Commercial Bank of Ethiopia to meet its debt obligations.
The Auditor General specifically criticized the feasibility study, stating:
“The feasibility study has been inadequate and it was conducted without collecting enough information.”
The audit also identified the absence of a proper maintenance centre as a contributor to the financial losses.
The city administration was expected to subsidize the service, but little support was provided.
The railway was designed to deliver affordable public transport, but its financial arrangements failed to provide the continuing public funding required to sustain that objective.
Technology transfer was incomplete, not nonexistent
Wendover attributes the railway's maintenance problems partly to Ethiopia's lack of institutional knowledge about the Chinese-manufactured equipment.
There is evidence supporting the maintenance problem. But the broader picture is more complicated.
Taslim Adebowale Alade's 2020 doctoral dissertation at Erasmus University Rotterdam documents the technology-transfer arrangements.
By 2017, the railway had 296 Ethiopian personnel and 117 Chinese personnel. All train drivers and the operations control centre were being managed by Ethiopians. The finance, human resources, and security departments were also locally managed.
Approximately 600 Ethiopian Railway Corporation employees had received training in preparation for construction and operations. Around 70% had already received training outside Ethiopia before the project began.
Some maintenance functions, however, still required additional capacity-building.
This distinction matters. Ethiopia was not starting with an entirely untrained workforce. The transfer process had made substantial progress, but specialist maintenance and procurement remained vulnerable.
The subsequent record is particularly damaging.
In May 2021, Addis Fortune reported that the Ethiopian Railway Corporation was unable to take over spare-parts imports and certain maintenance responsibilities from Chinese consultants.
The corporation extended contracts involving Shenzhen Metro Group and China Railway Corporation for a second time.
The consultants had failed to establish the promised training centre. The Auditor General had also criticized Ethiopian management for failing to monitor the consultants properly and for signing contracts without clearly defined deliverables.
The railway's general manager, Muluken Assefa, explained that another extension was necessary because:
“some tasks that were slated to be completed now remain outstanding.”
There are two failures here.
The Chinese consultants did not complete important knowledge-transfer and procurement responsibilities. The Ethiopian corporation failed to plan adequately for spare parts and supervise the contractual obligations.
Calling this simply a lack of Ethiopian institutional knowledge conceals the very management arrangements that were supposed to create that knowledge.
The railway has problems that replacement parts cannot solve
In February 2023, China and Ethiopia agreed to a grant of 155 million yuan to provide 573 types of railway spare parts.
At the time, 23 of the railway's 40 trams were inoperable.
Ethiopian officials also acknowledged that inadequate maintenance had left approximately half the rolling stock unusable. Low fares, electricity problems, and limited services further undermined the railway's ability to cover operating expenses.
The grant was necessary, but it did not resolve the underlying financial and institutional problems.
Source: AidData, Chinese spare-parts grant, February 14, 2023.
Electricity was another independent vulnerability.
A 2023 Addis Ababa University engineering study documented frequent interruptions to the railway's traction power supply. These interruptions had stranded passengers and resulted in thousands of evacuations from trains and stations.
The study recorded 154 interruptions in one year on the North–South line and substantial interruption durations.
This matters because the railway's operational difficulties cannot all be attributed to spare-parts shortages or the quality of Chinese rolling stock. The reliability of the electricity supply was another critical part of the system.
The problem persisted beyond the original video
In November 2024, Ethiopia's Finance Minister Ahmed Shide met with a Chinese technical delegation led by Ambassador Chen Hai to discuss the railway's problems.
The review identified traffic congestion, maintenance shortcomings, and the need to integrate the railway more effectively with Addis Ababa's urban development.
A joint Ethiopian-Chinese technical team was assigned to develop recommendations.
The subsequent 2026 research by Sun and Zhao adds another important dimension: the railway's physical alignment has damaged road and pedestrian connectivity.
Even if every train were repaired tomorrow, the underlying design problems would remain.
A replacement-parts programme cannot reconnect streets that have been severed by railway barriers. Nor can it automatically create an integrated bus network, a sustainable subsidy arrangement, or an effective maintenance institution.
The railway needs more than mechanical repairs. It needs a better transport and financial system.
One railway cannot explain an entire continent
The most questionable part of Wendover's argument is its leap from Addis Ababa to Chinese infrastructure investment across Africa.
Goodfellow and Huang's research is particularly useful here because it examined two different Chinese-financed infrastructure projects: Addis Ababa's railway and the Kampala–Entebbe expressway in Uganda.
Their research included more than 50 interviews with relevant stakeholders and 110 detailed questionnaires.
Their conclusion was that these projects reflected complicated negotiations between Chinese contractors and African governments, rather than a single Chinese development blueprint imposed uniformly across the continent.
Local political priorities, institutional weaknesses, land arrangements, and government decisions all influenced the outcomes.
That is a considerably more defensible framework for understanding Chinese infrastructure investment.
It does not excuse poor Chinese contracting, unsuitable financing, or inadequate technology transfer. It recognizes that African governments also exercise agency and responsibility.
Wendover could have compared projects across countries, examined their financing structures, investigated maintenance arrangements, and measured their long-term economic and social outcomes.
Instead, it takes one railway and promotes it as a representative story of an entire continent.
A microcosm is not established simply because an example makes a convenient illustration.
The verdict: A bad bargain, made by several parties
Addis Ababa's light railway is a serious infrastructure failure, but its causes are shared.
Ethiopian political leaders chose light rail over an existing bus-based plan, rejected a potentially better-integrated route, and pursued an expensive project without establishing adequate long-term financial support.
Chinese lenders and contractors provided the financing, engineering, construction, and operating arrangements. Their responsibilities included delivering a system that could be maintained locally, and important training and procurement commitments remained incomplete.
The Ethiopian Railway Corporation failed to plan for spare parts, monitor contractual obligations, and develop a sustainable maintenance operation. City authorities failed to provide the necessary financial support and coordinate the railway with wider urban development.
China cannot escape responsibility. Ethiopia cannot escape it either.
Wendover was right to question the optimism surrounding large infrastructure investments. But its explanation is too convenient: a Chinese-built railway struggles, therefore Chinese investment in Africa suffers from the same fundamental failure.
That is not an adequately investigated conclusion.
The more uncomfortable lesson is that foreign contractors and domestic political leaders can build an expensive project together, make decisions that compromise its future, and leave ordinary citizens dependent on a service neither side has successfully made sustainable.
The railway deserves an investigation. So does the decision-making system that produced it.
References
- Everything That's Changed With Nine of Our Most Popular Videos — Wendover Productions, 2023. Original video. Establishes the creator's actual argument and the figures presented in the original retrospective.
- Contingent Infrastructure and the Dilution of ‘Chineseness’: Reframing Roads and Rail in Kampala and Addis Ababa — Tom Goodfellow and Zhengli Huang, Environment and Planning A, November 2020. Research paper. Documents Ethiopian decision-making, Chinese contractor negotiations, rejected route alternatives, and the importance of local institutional arrangements.
- China Eximbank Provides $439.17 Million Buyer's Credit Loan for Addis Ababa Light Rail Project — AidData. Financing record. Records the loan agreement, sovereign guarantee, interest terms, and project participants.
- Innovation Adaptation in Urban Light-Rail Transport — Taslim Adebowale Alade, Erasmus University Rotterdam, May 2020. Doctoral dissertation. Documents Ethiopian staffing, training, technology transfer, fare affordability, and operational shortcomings.
- Light Railway Incurs 4.6 Billion Birr in Losses — Samson Berhane, The Reporter Ethiopia, March 6, 2021. Audit findings. Reports the Auditor General's findings on losses, loan penalties, feasibility studies, and the absence of adequate maintenance facilities.
- Light Railway Spare Parts Management Remains under Chinese Consultants — Hawi Dadhi, Addis Fortune, May 15, 2021. Investigation. Documents incomplete consultant obligations, contract extensions, maintenance shortages, and the Ethiopian corporation's oversight failures.
- MOFCOM Provides RMB 155 Million Grant for Addis Ababa Light Rail Rolling Stock Spare Parts Project — AidData, February 14, 2023. Grant record. Records the 573 spare-parts commitment and the condition of the railway when the agreement was signed.
- Study on Improvement of the Existing Power Reliability of Addis Ababa Light Railway Transit — Eleni Sisay, Addis Ababa University, August 2023. University research. Provides engineering evidence of electricity interruptions affecting railway operations.
- Finance Minister Confers with Chinese Delegation to Discuss Addis Ababa Light Rail Transit — Ethiopian News Agency, November 5, 2024. Official report. Documents the joint Ethiopian-Chinese technical review and continuing maintenance and urban-integration problems.
- The Road Divides: When Funding Shapes Form – Assessing the Connectivity Impacts of China-Financed Light Rail in Addis Ababa — Guibo Sun and Kristen Zhao, Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives, January 23, 2026. Peer-reviewed research. Provides network-analysis evidence of reduced road connectivity, longer detours, and the consequences of budget-constrained railway design.
Make the verdict arrive earlierClarify the central accounting of responsibility