Two-third  (67%) of Ethiopia’s labour force is in agriculture.  Modernizing agriculture is therefore seen as a way to improve agricultural wages (target 8.5). It will also improve food production to ensure security in food and nutrition (target 2.2).

The focus does demonstrate areas of co-investment to ensure progress, including for example fostering climate-resilience (target 13.1), local manufacturing of agriculture tools (target 9.2), encouraging private sector participation (target) and trade (target 17.11).

It also requires co-investment in availability of reality data (target 17.18), for which government has initiated a process of conducting the next agricultural census. This will in turn provide guidance for policy coherence (target 17.16) across the SDGs. It will also help improve the GDP estimates that will determine drivers for economic stability (target 17.13) for the local authorities.

Access to affordable and reliable energy is considered a critical enabler for Ethiopia. It will help reduce poverty (target 1.1), create jobs (target 8.5), supports value addition (target 9.2) and, above all, empowers women (target 5.4). However, it is important that the potential negative impacts on the environment (target 13.1) are taken into account.

Ethiopia’s investment in energy is to provide the economy with quality electric power service that is accessible, equitable and affordable (target 11.1); and to expand the required infrastructure (target 9.1). Additional policy combination is will be to invest in opening up rural areas (target 11.1) so as to receive clean energy technologies (target 7.2). Ethiopia will explore opportunities for financing from multiple sources (target 17.3) to ensure a healthy financial position of the energy sector.

One of the targets is to increase the number of electricity customers from 5.8 million to 24.3 million, which is a significant increase. Even with this significant expansion in customers, there will be room to increase the figure still further.

Over 70% of Ethiopia's 120 million population is below the age of 30 and two to three million  join the labour force every year.  With more people in rural areas, the challenge of creating jobs is real.

The combination of policy pathways to create job opportunities include investing in rural areas (target 11.1), which also means addressing pockets of conflict (target 16.1) across the country. In fact, peace is a requirement especially in rural areas​. Investment in value addition (target 9.2) will drive jobs while at the same time ensuring progress on sustainable industrialization.

While statistics show the national unemployment rate at 8%, investment in data (17.18) to better characterize the job market will help to understand which sectors have the potential for decent jobs.

One of the key pillars of the TYDP is enhancing the  productivity and competitiveness of the Ethiopian economy for ensuring quality growth and shared prosperity.  The sectoral focus of the home-grown economic reform agenda includes investments in agriculture value addition (target 2.4), manufacturing (target 9.4) and mining (target 12.2) which are the bases for inclusive and sustainable industrialization. These investments are critical to the well-being of citizens, to creating jobs (target 8.5) and  to addressing macroeconomic challenges (target 17.13), such as ensuring quality and sustained growth, fighting  inflation, and addressing both foreign exchange problems and the fiscal space.

Ethiopia does recognize the trade-offs associated with promoting industrialization, with the environment most likely to be negatively impacted. Through its Climate Resilience Green Economy strategy, Ethiopia, together with its partners, will  continue to green its investments.

The country is well aware of the impact of climate-related challenges as it is one of the drivers of conflict within Ethiopia’s borders. The nation will continue to pursue green industrialization to mitigate any trade-offs.