Scientific research on dry port development often focuses on advanced economies and is mostly lacking for developing countries such as Ethiopia. This paper developed a new integrated framework with three pillars (social, environmental, economics) for dry port development and its applicability is tested for Modjo Dry Port (MDP) in Ethiopia. The results indicate that most stakeholders prefer more efficient operations either on the current terminal or on an increased size terminal. Furthermore, the labour component is regarded as very important (high employment levels at the MDP terminal; approximately 1000) while in the scientific literature this is regarded as much less important. In Africa, employing people is important and reflects the desire to increase the labour force of MDP even further when expanding. This is remarkable as usually productivity growth results in a reduction in employees, especially given the already very high employment numbers for MDP. Finally, the relative equal importance of most sub-criteria results in a status quo where no decision is taken or the most optimal decision is not advocated.