Financing rural industrialization and employment creation:The case of Ethiopia

The objective of the study was to examine financing rural industrialization and employment creation practices and possibilities in Ethiopia. In this context, rural industrialization refers to encouraging small to large industries to be established in rural areas. As rural industrialization is a new concept at a policy level let alone to the practice on the ground in Ethiopia, a full-fledged data regarding the rural industrialization and the rural financing practice is inadequate. However, attempts were made to see at least the trends in agricultural commercialization, off farm practices, the government’s policy, the financial institutions practices, and above all how other countries approached rural industrialization and financing such industries. Hence, relevant data were collected from CSA, NBE, DHS, World Bank, and Ethiopian Investment Commission and the collected data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The major finding of the study indicates rural industrialization process is at conception stage and financing the rural strategy is still poorly developed despite the immense economic and social implications. Hence, a combination of centralized financing rural industrialization through commercial banks and a decentralized financing rural industrialization through microfinance institutions is recommended for the country to get better depth and breadth of rural industrialization.