Ethiopia’s Planning Ministry Gets a New Name Again, at Least Its Tenth Identity Since 1955

Betegbar Yaregal

#EBR_News Oct 7, 2026

Ethiopia’s Ministry of Planning and Development has been renamed the Ministry of National Strategy, the latest change of identity for an institution that has been reshaped repeatedly since the 1950s.

The renaming forms part of a draft proclamation on the nomenclature, organization, powers and duties of federal executive organs, which the 7th House of Peoples’ Representatives was deliberating at its first special session in Addis Ababa today.

Presenting the case for the draft, Fikadu Tessema, a Member of Parliament and government representative, said the number of federal executive organs would stay at 22, with no numerical change.

He said only two ministries had been renamed and two had been newly established, adding that the amendments were meant to make the institutions more effective and better aligned with their missions.

Fitsum Assefa (PhD), the Minister of Planning and Development, was delivering a detailed explanation to the House as this report was filed.

The other changes include the Ministry of Transport and Logistics, which has been renamed the Ministry of Logistics. According to Fikadu’s explanation, the former Ministry of Culture and Sports and the former Ministry of Tourism are now covered by a new Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

A fuller breakdown of the new and renamed ministries is expected as parliamentary deliberations continue.

The planning ministry’s history shows how often the country’s development machinery has been rebuilt. According to a paper by Tesfaye Asfaw, “An Overview of Ethiopia’s Planning Experience”, planning began with the National Economic Council in 1955, which produced the First and Second Five Year Plans.

Order No. 46 of 1966 then created the Ministry of Planning and Development, which oversaw the Third Five Year Plan (1968-1973) before being reorganized as the Planning Commission in 1970.

Tesfaye’s paper records that the body became the Central Planning Commission under Proclamation No. 128 of 1977 and was reorganized in late 1978 as the National Revolutionary Development Campaign and Central Planning Supreme Council.

It became the Office of the National Committee for Central Planning in 1984, which launched a Ten Year Perspective Plan, and was renamed the Ministry of Planning in early 1991.

According to the Federal Negarit Gazette, a National Planning Council and a National Planning Commission were established under Council of Ministers Regulation No. 281/2013, issued on 11 February 2013.

The institution later returned as the Ministry of Planning and Development, which, according to the ministry’s own description, drives the 10-Year Development Plan (2021-2030).

Counting the designations set out in these documents, the institution has carried at least nine different names or forms before today’s change, which makes the Ministry of National Strategy at least its tenth.