Critical Minerals, Critical People: Building India-Ethiopia Mining Partnerships Through Education

As New Delhi prepares to host the India–Africa Forum Summit after a decade-long hiatus, few relationships better illustrate India’s expanding footprint in Africa than Ethiopia. With growing interest in critical minerals and industrial supply chains, Ethiopia is emerging as a natural partner for India. Yet if this relationship is to move beyond trade and diplomacy into long-term mining cooperation, education and skills must become central pillars.

The economic foundations of this relationship are already formidable. India is Ethiopia’s second-largest trading partner, with investments exceeding USD 6.5 billion across manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, agriculture and engineering, generating over 75,000 local jobs. India has also positioned itself as a long-term development stakeholder through concessional Lines of Credit worth USD 704 million. These are not mere symbolic gestures, but tangible contributions to Ethiopia’s industrialisation and human capital ambitions.

Equally significant is the growing momentum of high-level engagements between the two countries. Meetings between the leaders and ministers on the sidelines of the G20 and BRICS have reinvigorated cooperation in education, health and private-sector investments. During Prime Minister (PM) Modi’s December 2025 visit to Addis Ababa, the first by an Indian PM in 15 years, the two nations elevated their relationship to a strategic partnership and signed eight agreements. As India re-energises continental diplomacy in 2026, Ethiopia is uniquely positioned to serve as New Delhi’s political gateway to the Horn of Africa.

India’s Education Diplomacy in Ethiopia

If trade and finance provide the economic architecture of India–Ethiopia relations, education has long supplied their emotional and strategic core. Few partners have shaped Ethiopia’s human capital story as deeply as India, whose educational presence spans generations and remains one of the most enduring pillars of bilateral engagement.

Thousands of Indian teachers went on to serve across Ethiopia, teaching English, science, and mathematics. Their reputation became so embedded in Ethiopian society that Indians were widely referred to as “Estemari,” the Amharic word for teacher.

Beginning in the 1940s under Emperor Haile Selassie, Indian teachers were recruited to staff Ethiopia’s expanding secondary school system when the country faced acute shortages of educators. Thousands of Indian teachers went on to serve across Ethiopia, teaching English, science, and mathematics. Their reputation became so embedded in Ethiopian society that Indians were widely referred to as “Estemari,” the Amharic word for teacher. As Ethiopian American physician Abraham Verghese famously observed, nearly every Ethiopian over the age of forty recalls having had an Indian teacher.

In Addis Ababa, New Delhi’s most valuable export may not be capital or commerce, but capability itself. Such capability is indispensable to mining economies, which depend on people and institutions to develop mineral reserves responsibly and productively.

This educational partnership evolved with the rapid expansion of Ethiopia’s higher education in the 1990s and 2000s. By 2011, around 500 Indian instructors were teaching in Ethiopian universities, helping staff newly established institutions and train a new generation of graduates. Today, approximately 150 Indian faculty members continue to teach in Ethiopian universities, stressing the durability of this intellectual bridge. India’s capacity-building diplomacy has also become increasingly institutionalised. Over the past decade, more than 3,000 Ethiopians have received professional training under the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation Programme (ITEC), while India has proposed specialised short-term courses in artificial intelligence for Ethiopian professionals. Simultaneously, Indian Council for Cultural Relations scholarships for Ethiopian students rose from 55 slots in 2024 to 65 in 2025 and will double to 130 for 2026–27—indicative of a growing appetite for hosting more Ethiopian students.

In Addis Ababa, New Delhi’s most valuable export may not be capital or commerce, but capability itself. Such capability is indispensable to mining economies, which depend on people and institutions to develop mineral reserves responsibly and productively.

Mineral partnerships: The Next Frontier

The next frontier of India–Ethiopia cooperation need not be limited to classrooms alone; it can extend beneath the ground. As Ethiopia accelerates efforts to transform mining into a pillar of economic diversification, an opening is emerging for India to align its long-standing education diplomacy with the imperatives of critical minerals cooperation. In 2025, Ethiopia signed more than USD 1.7 billion worth of mining and energy agreements, signalling a policy shift toward more foreign investments, extractive capacities, and integrating deeply into global energy supply chains. This momentum is supported by geological promise. While gold remains Ethiopia’s leading mineral export, it is also exploring reserves of tantalum, potash, and emerging lithium deposits, creating a space for critical minerals exploration and extraction. Despite this resource endowment, the mining sector contributes only around 2% of GDP, illustrating a gap between geological wealth and economic output. Addis Ababa has therefore set ambitious targets to raise mining’s share of GDP to 14% by 2030, positioning the sector as a future engine of industrialisation, exports, and revenue generation.

In artisanal mining segments, inadequate training, weak geological assessment capacity, and vocational ecosystems limit productivity. Ethiopia may possess mineral reserves, but converting reserves into commercially viable production requires upskilling the local Ethiopian workforce.

However, Ethiopia’s mining challenge is not solely one of capital mobilisation or regulatory reform. It is equally a human capacity challenge. Sector assessments identify shortages of geologists, surveyors, mining engineers, and other specialised professionals as key constraints on investment and project execution. Meanwhile, local employment in mining remains concentrated in low-skill roles, reflecting the limited availability of technical competencies required by mining firms. In artisanal mining segments, inadequate training, weak geological assessment capacity, and vocational ecosystems limit productivity. Ethiopia may possess mineral reserves, but converting reserves into commercially viable production requires upskilling the local Ethiopian workforce.

Bridging the Skill Gap in Ethiopia’s Mining Sector

Ethiopia may possess commercially relevant reserves of minerals, yet the translation of geological potential into productive output depends on technical expertise, institutional capability, and a skilled domestic workforce. This is where India holds a comparative advantage. Few countries combine mining-sector experience, technically capable geological institutions with growing international relevance (like the Geological Survey of India and KABIL), expansive training ecosystems, and a historically trusted educational presence in Ethiopia as effectively as India.

However, the challenge is not Ethiopia’s skills gap alone, but India’s own policy fragmentation. At present, India’s critical minerals diplomacy and education diplomacy largely operate on parallel tracks, with only a few instances of overlap. Mineral engagement is principally driven by institutions such as KABIL and the Ministry of Mines, focused on overseas asset acquisition, supply security, and strategic sourcing. By contrast, India’s educational outreach is led by the Ministry of External Affairs through platforms such as ITEC  and the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, which prioritise scholarships and training engagement. Both tracks are valuable, but when pursued in silos, they fail to create workforce ecosystems that resource partnerships require.

This disconnect is visible even where foundations already exist. India’s ITEC schedule for 2026–27 reportedly includes only a small number of mining-relevant courses. These offerings are useful, but they remain peripheral rather than central to India’s outward minerals strategy. Yet, India’s National Critical Minerals Mission (NCMM) already recognises that skills are strategic infrastructure. The mission earmarks ₹100 crore for skill development, aims to launch capacity-building programmes for resource-rich partner countries, and has trained more than 1,000 individuals in critical mineral-related fields during 2024–25.

Ethiopia as a Pilot Partnership

The policy opportunity, therefore, is to connect these two diplomatic streams, and Ethiopia could be an ideal pilot case. India already possesses an overseas delivery mechanism through ITEC’s onsite programmes, under which Indian experts conduct capacity-building courses in partner countries. Building on that model, India could establish mining-focused skill development centres in Ethiopia, create co-funded scholarships between the Ministry of Mines and the Ministry of External Affairs, embed more mining-specific modules within ITEC programmes, and support joint degrees between Indian and Ethiopian universities.

If India once built goodwill in Ethiopia through classrooms, it could now convert that trust into strategic capability by training the workforce that will power Ethiopia’s mining future, while strengthening India’s minerals partnerships.

Indian firms operating in Ethiopia could be incentivised to partner with local universities through internships and curriculum design. Digital certificate programmes and online courses could further expand reach at a low cost. India could also encourage leading technical institutions to establish branch campuses or specialised centres in Ethiopia, building on the precedent of IIT Madras’s Zanzibar campus, to create long-term hubs for mining engineering, geosciences, and digital mapping.

If India once built goodwill in Ethiopia through classrooms, it could now convert that trust into strategic capability by training the workforce that will power Ethiopia’s mining future, while strengthening India’s minerals partnerships.

PM Modi stated at the 2025 G20 Summit that Africa’s future depends on a skills revolution, including the goal of training one million certified trainers over the next decade. That vision highlights India’s strongest asset: its ability to deliver large-scale, low-cost skills training, technical education, and capacity-building partnerships across the developing world. By aligning this strength with the NCMM, India can emerge in Ethiopia not merely as a resource seeker but as a long-term builder of capacity, trust, and shared prosperity.