A lack of resources, coupled with military and political instability, has retarded the growth of a transportation infrastructure in Ethiopia, even though development of such a system traditionally has been a government objective. The Haile Selassie regime allocated an average of 700 million birr of the planned budget for the development of transportation during the three five-year development plans (l957-74). In l975, when the PMAC articulated its socialist economic policy, the government assumed control of all transportation and communication facilities. The military government continued to expand and improve the transportation infrastructure by using its own funds and by securing loans from international organizations such as the World Bank. In l991 the transportation system included l3,000 kilometers of all-weather roads, a 78l-kilometer railroad connecting Addis Ababa and Djibouti, twenty-five airports, and another twenty airfields.

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Source: U.S. Library of Congress