FORTUNE+ VIDEO SPONSORED CONTENTS ADVERTORIALS FORTUNE AUDIO Fortune Careers New TRADE AFRICA New

Fortune Logo

Month: April 2019

Upcoming New Year Expo Grabs Record High Offer

Posted on by Web Master

A local event organiser has placed a record high offer to host the upcoming New Year Bazaar and Expo at the city’s oldest exhibition venue.

Eyoha Addis Entertainment & Event Plc offered 32 million Br to rent the venue from the Addis Abeba Exhibition & Marketing Development Centre for 23 days. The financial opening of the re-tendered bid was held on April 17, 2019.

During the financial opening, Eyoha vied with six other event organisers and promotion companies, including Habesha Weekly and Century General Trading.

Habesha Weekly, a local event organiser and promotion company responsible for this year’s Easter Expo, placed the second highest offer of 28 million Br. The veteran holiday expo organiser, Century General Trading, offered the third highest price of 25 million Br. The lowest bidder, Demere Coordinate Works, made a 21.5 million Br offer, which is even higher than last year’s highest bidding price for the New Year expo.

The initial tender for the New Year Expo was floated on March 18, 2019, and the financial offers of the five bidders were opened on April 5, 2019.

However, the bid was cancelled as the companies didn’t fulfill the criteria, according to Tamirat Ademasu, general manager of the Centre, which is owned by the Addis Abeba City Administration and administered by the Addis Abeba Chamber of Commerce & Sectoral Association.

During the financial opening of the cancelled bid, the management of the Centre added a new requirement that compels winners to pay the full value before the exhibition concludes. Previously, the winning company made full payment after the exhibition closed. If the full payment is not made in the stated time, the event organiser could not take part in another tender, according to the new requirement.

“The new requirements weren’t included in the bidding document,” said Samson Shiferaw, public relations head of Habesha Weekly. “We were informed about it during the financial opening, and when we complained about that, the bid was cancelled.”

Founded in 1983, the centre rests on a 27,000Sqm area that incorporates four pavilions of different sizes. The first hall can accommodate 90 minimum-sized booths. The second and third pavilion can hold 48 exhibitors each. The fourth one is outsourced for gymnasium services.

The open space inside the premises of the Centre can hold up to 140 booths. There are an additional four cottages and one traditional restaurant inside.

In the past fiscal year, the venue has hosted 40 exhibitions and generated 75 million Br in revenue.

Eyoha, which was founded by Ayu Alemu six years ago with 50,000 Br in capital but is now capitalised with 30 million Br, has hosted six-holiday exhibitions so far. It has also hosted last year’s New Year expo after winning the bid for 20.6 million Br. The management of the Centre is also planning to expand the facility with over 10 billion Br.

Siraji Wasihun, marketing manager of Eyoha Addis Entertainment & Event plc, didn’t respond to phone calls and text messages from Fortune.

Five years ago, Habesha won the bid with the highest offer of 9.5 million Br, which is more than three times lower than the current winning price.

The Centre has been the lone exhibition venue until Millennium Hall, built by Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Ali Al-Amoudi, entered the business a decade ago.

The third venue is on its way as the City Administration, city chamber and private investors are constructing the Addis Africa International Convention & Exhibition Center with an investment of over one billion Birr.

Such expos play vital roles in promoting the city and trade activity as several non-national companies and traders are participating in this expo, according to Bedilu Yismaw, assistant professor at the School of Business & Economics at Bahir Dar University.

“Thus, the number of expos the Centre hosts has to increase,” Bedilu suggests.

Also, the Exhibition Centre & Market Development Enterprise has to increase the number of expos, he adds.

The Centre will be floating a tender for the coming Easter and Christmas holidays within two months, according to Tamirat.

First Ever Bamboo Strategy Springs to Life

Posted on by Web Master

The Ethiopian government is introducing a 10-year strategy to develop the bamboo industry. The strategy, which has been developed over the past three years, is scheduled for implementation beginning this year.

The strategy envisions which envisages bamboo becoming a major export commodity and supporting environmental rehabilitation, is expected to be approved by the Environment, Forest & Climate Change Commission in the coming week.

The ministries of Trade & Industry and Revenues, the Ethiopian Investment Commission, the Ethiopian Standard Agency, private investors and NGOs have participated in the drafting of the strategy. The Ethiopian Forest Policy & Strategy, Ethiopian Forest Development, Conservation & Utilisation proclamation and the Forest Sector Development Programme provided as inputs for the current strategy.

The strategic action plan document foresees increasing the national bamboo forest coverage by 14pc from the existing 1.4 million hectares. It also plans to sustainably manage 200,000ha of existing bamboo cover, create employment opportunities for half a million people and grow income from the sector by 10pc annualy.

Increasing public awareness of the resource and improving the capacity of the growers involved in the entire value chain is also one of the objectives of the strategy.

Bamboo, which reaches full growth maturity in three to five years and is fast reproduction, has been used for subsistence by smallholder farmers for building fences, traditional houses, basic furniture and household tools, according to Fiker Assefa, a Bamboo expert at International Network for Bamboo & Rattan (INBAR).

Tsinghua, a research university in Beijing, and INBAR conducted an inventory of bamboo in Ethiopia in 2018, which found that there are three million hectares of potential land for bamboo development. While there are 1,642 known species of the plant around the world, it is generally classified as two types in Ethiopia, lowland and highland bamboo.

There is a market for value-added bamboo, including for flooring, toothpicks, table mats and incense sticks.

“It is the only plant that fulfils all the three necessities, shelter, food and clothing,” said Fiker.

Even though Ethiopia has the largest bamboo forest cover in Africa, insiders point out that it is unutilised. While earning less than a quarter of a million dollars from the export of bamboo poles, the nation imports on average 5.7 million dollars of bamboo plywood, pulp and paper, furniture and flooring.

Messay Mulugeta (Prof.), lecturer and researcher for more than a decade and a half in Addis Abeba University’s College of Development Studies, appreciates the focus the industry is being given.

“Preparing a specific strategy for the industry is the best way of ensuring utilisation of the resource to the maximum,” he said.

Busy Lifestyle Gives Rise to Kids Salons

Posted on by Web Master

Mekdes Solomon, a 29-year-old mother, runs a lighting supply business in Piassa, Arada, commuting from her home in Bole District.

She owns a shop that sells lighting materials and accessories where she spends much of her time.

A mother of a seven-year-old girl, Milena, Mekdes cannot find the time to braid her daughter’s hair regularly as she is kept busy at her shop during the week, and her weekends are occupied by social engagements that are a big part of community life in Ethiopia.

She tried to braid her daughter’s hair every morning, a task that took at least half an hour of her busy morning schedule, but she soon abandoned the habit.

Now she takes Milena to children’s hair salons, businesses that specialise in children’s hair and cosmetic needs. The décor of these businesses is geared toward children with colourful art, toys and furnishings for their clientele  .

Milena enjoys going to these salons, since she can play with the toys provided, while the hairdresser braids her hair.

“I don’t want to take her to adult salons,” said Mekdes. “The atmosphere and conversations are not suited for children and may negatively influence my daughter.”

Though the customary thing is for Ethiopian mothers to braid their daughters’ hair, Mekdes and other busy families have to contend with juggling their time and seem to have found a modern solution to the problem of properly caring for their children’s hair.

Ever since Milena started school three years ago, her mother has been taking her to different children’s hair salons, including Kiddy Universal Hair Salon located on the third floor of Edna Mall.

Kiddy Universal Hair Salon, which opened its doors four months ago, works on both boys and girls and offers braiding, manicure and barber services.

The salon charges up to 130 Br for braiding, 100 Br for different hairstyles and 30 Br for a manicure. The price can go up depending on additional services like hair washing, coloring and applying decorations on girls’ hair.

Aside from their regular visits to the salons, Milena and her mother get their hair done for holidays and festivities.

Once Milena’s hair is braided, it is good for a week or two, which comes as a relief to her mother.

These salons are busy during the weekends, especially on Sundays, while business is slow during the week. Few families, it seems, take their children to the salons after work or after school hours.

Another salon that provides services for children is Martha Kids Salon, which opened six years ago and is located near Bole Bridge close to Brass Hospital. The business, dedicated to children’s cosmetic needs, charges 60 Br to 70 Br to dress a child’s hair.

“We also apply different accessories to the hair for special occasions, such as birthdays and holidays,” said Mihret Alemu, a hairdresser at Marta Kids Salon.

The salon is also kept busy during the weekends, birthday parties, graduations and during various school events.

Hairdressing kids requires special care and attention, according to Mihret.

“We have to have special persuasive skills and patience when braiding children’s hair, unlike adults,” she said.

Another popular kids salon in the capital is Shalod Kids Salon located around Bisrate Gebriel area. Founded by Yonas Yemane, the salon has been in business for the past three years.

Yonas had invested 200,000 Br to open the salon, including procuring the equipment and decorations with themes that appeal to kids.

Listening to the regular quarrel between his wife and daughter during hair braiding sessions motivated him to open a kids salon, he said.

As his wife has a busy schedule, she braids her daughter’s hair at night. The daughter finds this disagreeable, which leads to nightly arguments between daughter and mother.

“To avoid these squabbles, I started to take my daughter to hair salons,” he said.

But the challenge he faced was where to take his kid. There are only a few kids hair salons, and even those operating were located far from his residence, according to Yonas.

“I realized that there is a demand for these salons,” he told Fortune.

Shalod has a dedicated room equipped with toys, board games and television screens that play children’s movies. The girls play while they wait their turn at the hairdresser, and the room serves as a waiting area until their families return to pick them up.

Families can leave their children, some of them as young as one year old, at the salon, where they are attended by the workers, according to Yonas.

It takes one to two hours to braid a child’s hair, depending on the style, size of their hair and the behaviour of the kid.

Yonas says that handling and treating children properly is an essential part of the job that requires special skills from the hairdressers. Yonas claims that he is careful recruiting employees, looking for workers who are good at handling children.

Emebet Hailu, a hairdresser at Kiddy Universal Hair Salon, shares Yonas’s view.

The children could refuse the service in the middle of the braiding, saying they want to play, according to Emebet.

“We don’t say no when they want to play,” Emebet said. “We wait for them with patience until they are willing to continue with the braiding.”

Faces, Voices of Addis Abeba

Posted on by Web Master

The residents of Addis Abeba are pragmatic. They do not expect the city to become a shining city on the hill, although that would not displease them. They do not cry foul when the glittery, animated design-concept renderings of a project created for public consumption fail to materialise in their brick and mortar edifices. What they really want their city administration to do is to clean the filth off the streets, provide a decent public transportation system, control rising rental costs and keep the peace. Uppermost on the minds of 50 city residents interviewed by Fortune were the problems of public transportation and failed infrastructure. The interviewees came from six different locations in the city – Qera, Piassa, Bole, Mesqel Flower, the Stadium area and Haya Hulet – and various occupations and lifestyles.

Collectively, they are exasperated by the unceasing power and water shortages, drainage problems, transportation challenges and the unclean conditions of the city. They are exasperated by the rising cost of living that is spiraling out of control and persistent unemployment that is gnawing at their aspirations. They registered their discontent about the business environment in the city and insecurities about the rule of law. Unless these issues are addressed by the municipal authorities, they cannot envision a thriving city on the hill.

Residents want their city to live up to its name – New Flower – vibrant, clean, and approachable. Diversity is crucial they said, as is the preservation of the city’s cultural and historical heritage. They want to see the city administration and mayor have an entrepreneurial spirit and govern with pragmatism and loyalty toward the residents.

They are repelled at rampant homelessness, numerous street children and the income inequality that exists in the city. They are longing for good governance that takes their concerns into account during the decision process.

New Road Connects Two Villages in Hararghe

Posted on by Web Master

Oromia Regional State will be inaugurating a 72Km gravel road built for 198 million Br in Western Hararghe Zone within a month.

Located 406Km from the capital, the road extends from Boke wereda to Burka Antu wereda, both in Western Hararghe Zone. The two areas are known for having ample resources of cattle, almonds and coffee.

The road was constructed by a local grade two construction firm and Oromia Roads Authority which covered the cost. The inauguration, which is expected to take place next month, will be attended by officials of the regional state. The road cost the regional state 2.6 million Br a kilometre. The two-way road has a width of six metres, along with 72 kilometres of open and closed drain ditches along with pedestrian walkways in urban approaches.

Ethio General Contractor, which previously constructed the road project around Gelan Condominium and is currently building a separate 94Km road in western Wollega, constructed the road in Hararghe. Nomy Engineering Plc, which had previously supervised the Asosa City road project and the universal rural road access programme of Oromia Regional State, supervised Ethio General during the construction.

The road will give market access to residents of the two weredas, according to Zelalem Boja, a contract engineer at Oromia Roads Authority, which is currently constructing 30 road projects that have a combined length of 1,114Km in the regional state.

“The old road used to take up to five hours and the people were spending 300 Br to 500 Br for transportation, as the road was very difficult for the transporters,” said  Zelalem, “but the new road will cut the time to just an hour.”

Started in 2013, the construction of the road, which opened 400 to 500 jobs, was delayed for almost 14 months. The project agreement was signed on August 1, 2013, with an initial delivery date of January 2018.

Issues related to demarcation was the major cause for the delay of the project, according to Amar Merkebu, project manager of the road for the contractor.

Abebe Dinku (Prof), a civil engineer and a university lecturer with over three decades of experience, says that a lack of proper planning is causing the delay of projects and cost overruns.

“To solve the issues,” said Abebe, “the project owners have to award projects to the contractors once clearing all outstanding issues that can potentially cause delays.”

Road coverage of the Oromia Regional State reached 53,007Km, including both asphalt and gravel roads, which is over a third of the national road coverage of the country that stood at 120,171Km at the end of the past fiscal year.

Construction Safety Law Emerges

Posted on by Web Master

A new law addressing the occupational health and safety (OHS) of construction workers will soon arrive in the capital.

Drafted by the Addis Abeba City Construction Bureau, the new regulation, Occupational Health & Safety for Construction Workers, will be sent to the Addis Abeba Attorney General’s Office this week for review. The bill, which is expected to be ratified by the City Council, will likely be enacted in two months.

It includes the professional safety responsibilities to be considered by consultants, contractors, sub-contractors, designers and workers during construction projects. It also considers how occupational health and safety guidelines can be included in the design, the tender documents and during contract administration.

The bill was up for discussion by professionals from the city’s labour and social affairs bureau, as well as professional associations and industry players including contractors, architects and consultants.

Though no specific full-fledged law is dedicated to construction safety, the Addis Abeba City Integrated Infrastructure Development, Construction Permit & Control Authority obliges private construction projects to incorporate expenses for Occupational Health & Safety in their application to get a construction permit. The city’s Construction Bureau does the same for public projects.

The Authority, which has issued 40,000 construction permits so far, also conducts inspections on safety guidelines, according to Solomon Kassa, deputy director general of the Authority, though he added that the inspections have some gaps.

“We have limited staff,” Solomon said.

The Authority conducts random and formal inspections on construction sites to see how the health and safety guidelines are implemented. It has the authority to ban construction work for any violations of OHS laws.

In labour law, occupational health and safety issues are only briefly discussed in some articles, according to Zerihun Gezahegn, an adviser to the state minister of Labour & Social Affairs.

“The Ministry is understaffed to conduct inspections and enforcement,” said Zerihun, adding that his Ministry has only 500 inspectors for occupational health and safety guideline inspection.

Due to this and other factors, accidents during construction are growing in the capital, according to data from the Fire, Emergency Prevention & Rescue Authority.

In just the past seven months of the current fiscal year, the number of deaths during construction reached seven in Addis Abeba, an increase from the entire previous fiscal year’s tally of three.

Most of these accidents were encountered during construction of buildings, roads and soil excavation, according to Nigatu Mamo, communications director at the Authority.

“Scaffoldings and formworks are the most common causes of accidents, followed by lack of personal protective equipment,” he said.

Though the International Labour Organisation recommends workers be protected from sickness, disease and injury arising from their employment, more than two million people die globally each year from work-related accidents or diseases, accounting for four percent of the world’s annual GDP.

Some private construction companies have already added occupational health and safety departments, which deals with these safety problems. Tekleberhan Ambaye Construction is one of them.

“We invest in the procurement of protective equipment and clothing,” said Goitom WoldeGabriel, deputy CEO of TACON.

However, the main challenge is from the employees, according to Goitom.

“When we go out for site visit, we observed that not all of the workers use them,” he told Fortune.

Global Safety Requirement Specification obliges that a safety officer should be assigned at any construction site that has over 20 employees. If the number of employees exceeds 100, a full-time OHS staff should be hired, according to the specification.

Most of the construction operators are not complying with safety guidelines from the perspective of cost minimisation, according to  Abebe Dinku (Prof.), a civil engineer and a university lecturer with over three decades of experience.

“But they spend even higher when fatal accidents occurred,” he told Fortune.

Four Tanneries Upgrade Water Treatment Systems

Posted on by Web Master

Four tanneries operating in the capital completed the construction of secondary water treatment plants in a bid to bring their discharged effluent up to an environmentally acceptable level.

Another three tanneries are also in the process of installing wastewater treatment plants.

Abyssinia, Awash, Batu and New Wing tanneries are those that have begun treating water through a secondary process. Dire Tannery also built a secondary water treatment plant but failed to meet the city’s Environmental Protection & Green Development Commission’s requirements.

Addis Abeba Tannery is in the piloting stage of such a treatment plant, while Walia Tannery is undergoing construction of its treatment facility.

The Commission warned the seven tanneries to construct secondary water treatment plants within six months last year. The time limit was later extended after the Commission considered challenges such as foreign currency shortages for importing machines and inputs.

Before this, all the tanneries had primary water treatment plants that filter and treat hazardous chemicals and heavy elements before discharge into rivers.

The secondary wastewater treatment plants operate using microorganisms, primarily bacteria, to further clean the discharge. The microorganisms convert biodegradable organic matter contained in wastewater into substances that are safe for the environment, according to Tatek Yirga, president of the Ethiopian Leather Industries Association and owner of Batu Tannery.

The Leather Industries Association has 70 tanneries, footwear, leather garments and goods producers operating in the country as members. About a third of these are tanneries.

“The new treatment plants cost every one of us between 20 million Br to 30 million Br,” said Tatek, who adds that civil work, installation of machinery and piloting took his tannery six months.

Secondary treatment plants were not only required of these seven companies. Recently, four tanneries located in Modjo were suspended by the Oromia Environment, Forest & Climate Authority until they built such plants. The suspension came following environmental compliance inspections by federal and regional environmental authorities.

Secondary wastewater treatment plants have become one of the chief requirements buyers in export markets look for, according to Haile Kiros, a department director at the Livestock Industries Development Institute, detailing why the government is expressing interest in this matter.

The industry’s insiders stress that lack of quality in the sector is heavily affecting the sector’s potential.

Ethiopia has earned 134 million dollars from leather and leather products, less than half of the target set forward by the second edition of the Growth & Transformation Plan (GTP II). In the first half of the current fiscal year, Ethiopia exported 1,766tn of finished leather products, earning 33.8 million dollars. Last fiscal year, 76 million dollars were earned from finished leather products.

Zinabu Gebremariam (Prof.), senior researcher of environment and founding president of Hawassa University, lauds the adoption of secondary treatment plants but stresses that a stringent system has to be in place to monitor the discharge to the environment consistently.

“While we are good at adopting technology, we usually fail at persistently following the procedures,” he said.

The Need to Rationalise Management of Road infrastructure

Posted on by Web Master

Rational development and management of physical infrastructure, and road infrastructure in particular, is one of the key factors that determine the wellbeing of any community or country. This is because of its direct and indirect economic, social and environmental consequences, which could be either positive or negative depending on how it is developed and managed.

Countries are estimated to lose one to three percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) due to a lack of and mismanagement of their road infrastructure in cities, according to preliminary studies carried out by different institutions in selected African cities. This includes the economic loss associated with time lost due to traffic congestion, costs associated with fuel consumption and spare parts, and health costs associated with pollution and stress.

Most of these societal losses are associated with a combination of a lack of appropriate infrastructure, inefficient routing design and inefficient management of roads including signage. While there is still a lot that needs to be done in terms of road infrastructure coverage, Ethiopia as a country and Addis Abeba as a city stand in a better position in comparison to many Sub-Saharan African countries and cities. And yet, it registers one of the highest per capita traffic accident and fatality rates. This clearly shows that there is much that needs to be done concerning the development and management of our road infrastructure.

One of the key factors to consider from the design and development stage is to significantly reduce the physical contact points between pedestrians and motorists through proper design and management of crossing points. This is not only important to reduce traffic accidents, but it also facilitates a smooth flow of the traffic, thereby reducing economic loss and health hazards from pollution.

The traffic congestion we currently have on some of the major crossing points between the main highways and the light rail system across the main commercial and residential areas in Addis Abeba is a source of major economic, social and environmental costs. Safe and efficient mobility of both cars and pedestrians at these crossing points could be facilitated by building overpass and underpass structures for pedestrians in selected priority areas.

Developing partnerships with business entities, which can use these structures for advertising, and mobilising sponsorship could help to finance such structures. These structures could also serve as a basis for transforming street vendors, which are currently considered a nuisance or even illegal, into recognised traders that provide regulated services.

Besides the proper design and development of the physical infrastructure, a country needs to set and enforce rational speed limits that facilitate the safety of citizens while maintaining efficient socio-economic mobility. In this regard, speed limits by the Roads Authority on major city roads and crossing points within the city need to be strictly enforced by the regulators.

Experiences from other countries have shown that driving with the proper speed limit is very beneficial not only in terms of ensuring road safety. It also contributes to a reduction in costs to vehicle owners from lower fuel consumption and longer life of brake pads. The recent steps taken on replacing the roundabouts, which have become bottlenecks, with traffic lights is a step in the right direction in terms of improving the routing efficiency.

On the other hand, however, setting lower speed limits of 40Km or 50Km an hour on six-lane outer ring roads that connect the city with the expressway is the most irrational and inefficient measure that needs to be corrected. The recent trend of introducing speed bumps everywhere, including on ring roads, is also an issue that needs to be reconsidered.

All systems and procedures can properly function if they are coupled with the right set of attitudes and mindset. One of the most critical challenges the city is facing is the lack of awareness and discipline on the part of both drivers and pedestrians. Looking at how a significant number of drivers are driving and behaving within the city, one starts to wonder where the system has gone wrong.

Here, besides strictly monitoring the licensing requirement, it may be useful to introduce a topic on the specific social responsibility of being a driver in training. We need a similar level of attitudinal change on the part of pedestrians too.

Interestingly, during my trips to the countryside, I frequently notice people walking on the left side of the street having full visual control of the car driving against them. This clearly shows that we are not socially destined to be uncultured. It just requires the provision of consistent awareness and education on traffic management for all sectors of the society, including in early childhood.

It would require revisiting the driving and traffic regulations and procedures with the purpose of apportioning responsibilities on both parties supported with persistent education and enforcement measures.

Gender Equality Entails Differences, Not Sameness

Posted on by Web Master

The debate over the equality between men and women continues to rage. At this point, it is an argument quite impossible to escape from and is more likely to increase in depth and scale.

However, the central point of the argument is heavily misunderstood, a problem that can derail the purpose of the discourse. The matter is being talked about in reductionist terms. Some argue that men or women, whatever their inclination is, are superior or the perfect version of humanity. Others argue that they cannot be equal given that both have unique and defining characteristics, suggesting that it is better to accept our differences.

Usually, this debate goes far beyond biological and psychological differences or history itself. Based on such associations, a slew of discussion points are made, a methodology that can run counter to rational deliberation.

However, the ideas mainly raised from such discussions are embodied with different circumstantial evidence and facts, making it seem like an almost acceptable perspective to take about the issue.

It is important to stress that equality never refers to sameness or indifference. Those who advocate gender equality are not blind enough to never see the biological differences between the two sexes. Equality acknowledges differences between the sexes but does not support biological differentiation as a basis for subjugation.

Equality does not refer to authority in human relationships being designated solely on the basis of a person’s sex at birth. In the meantime, if men and women were equal – in this sense get equal opportunities and equal choices over their destinies – we would not be here talking about equality or women’s rights or their economic empowerment. In fact, there is no place of doubt for that, because history and current social norms and hierarchies confirm this hypothesis.

The simple definition of gender equality is proving equal opportunity for men and woman. A philosophical meaning should not be given to it, and neither should history be associated with it. The very concept of equality refers to giving equal options for educating boys and girls without arranging maleness as privilege and gender as a measurement for priority. It means giving equal responsibility and expectation for men and women employees and ceasing to equate masculinity with flawlessness and femininity with inability.

Equality does not deny the fact that there are differences between the sexes. There will continue to be differing interests, choices and strengths. In fact, the socio-political and economic systems of countries should be flexible enough for these differences to be reflected. Both sexes choose a way of getting involved in the world, distorting long-held traditions and understandings, and toward that, our systems should be ready.

The reductionist views of gender arguments are insufficient and threaten the necessary social change that is needed. Equality is a way to circumstantial independence, the sort that enables women to choose, as it is the ultimate goal of most kinds of feminism.

To be liberated, to have free will in one’s life, is the best accomplishment of human rights at large, and based on this right, equality works to attain freedom. The kind of freedom exclusively afforded to women or men will otherwise thwart the struggle.

“Gender equality is more than a goal in itself. It is a precondition for meeting the challenges of reducing poverty, promoting sustainable development and building good governance,” Kofi Anan, former secretary-general of the United Nations, once said.

There should be a universally acceptable definition of equality, which is the only form that can supplement and reinforce a rational debate of the matter at hand.

 

Let’s Elevate the Debate

Posted on by Web Master

One of the challenges of governing is ensuring that the poor get basic service while ascertaining that the lifestyles of the rich are protected. Indeed, many would contend that these two factors cannot be put on a scale, and that the government should not waste resources and time protecting lifestyles when lives are on the line.

Nothing is that easy though. The socialist ideal seemed so straight forward – everyone gets what they need and produces what they can. This though was unnatural to humans, for they are animals that are naturally selfish. It is hard to get anyone to do anything without a certain amount of incentive, a promise for a better standard of living.

Those that disagree with the socialist argument still are faced with the necessity of dispersing some of the amount produced by the capable to the less capable. How this can be done has been a chief source of disagreement and contention ever since the formation of nation states in modern times. It is all the more complicated by the fact that most wealth was accumulated disproportionately to begin with, so this is not just a matter of how opportunity can be distributed now but how past injustices can be addressed.

For instance, in the United States, African-Americans literally slaved away in the early 19th century to create wealth for the country, especially in the agricultural sector.

Does it mean that after the abolition of slavery, wealth that has been cheated away from African-Americans should be returned? Or, given how impractical this would be, should the government only have looked forward and ensured that no such injustices occurred again? But if this is the case, what of the matter that it would, and has been, virtually impossible for African-Americans to catch up without some sort of discriminatory allocation of resources?

This is not a debate that Ethiopia has been exempt from. There are few countries around the world where the elite gets almost no slack for all the injustices it has perpetrated. We somehow manage not to bring up the role played by those that have distorted wealth distribution in their favour, instead preferring to attach inequality to constructs – such as ethnicity – that cannot have bearing on themselves.

As a result, our discourses are skewed and uninformed. We are pontificating on matters that will not address poverty. In a nation where easily curable diseases are stealing futures, that we allow our interesting but ultimately insignificant history to distract us from our current dilemmas is absurd.

Our politics revolves around such basic, eventually irrelevant matters as far as ensuring the prosperity of a nation is concerned. Those that are driving our politics are not even saying how discourse along such fault lines even helps our current status as a poverty-stricken nation. It is a miracle the public is falling for it.

Like it has been the case before, we should never lose sight of the fact that this is a class struggle, between the economic elite and the poor. The extremely low standard of living is the source of our problems, but political entrepreneurs will make it seem that other things are the case.

The poor and the lower-middle classes, despite their lingo-cultural and religious denominations, have to politically organise. They have to concentrate their efforts on calling on the government to allocate opportunities to them, to provide them with education and health services, food security and assure a lower cost of living.

Politics and the economy go hand in hand. Unless we can fix the former, we will never address the latter. With discourse as it is today, our chances of charting a way forward for the betterment of this nation get dimmer by the day.

 

The Dangers of Stormwater in Addis Abeba

Posted on by Web Master

A few raindrops signaled that the monsoon storm that has been hovering overhead since late in the afternoon last Tuesday was about to unleash its moisture-laden load, and everyone on the street scrambled for shelter. Within minutes, a heavy downpour came in torrents, drenching everything in sight, and the hauling winds sent the rain horizontally every which way that a mere roof shelter provided no escape to a group huddled outside the railway ticket kiosk of Temenja Yajz along the old Debrezeit Road.

As the storm intensified and doused the earth incessantly, the clerk inside the ticket office opened the doors to the group, now wet from head to foot, and allowed them to shelter inside. Soon a group of police officers manning the station abandoned their posts and run into the small kiosk, and pretty soon there was a small crowd that engaged in casual conversation.

While the group watched through a small window the intense downpour and hail beat down against the trees and structures, and a flash flood slowly built between the concrete embankment of the railway tracks and the two-lane northbound lanes of Debrezeit Road.

The force of the rainfall decreased within a few minutes, while the flooding intensified quickly and severely, now channeled between the impervious surface of the road and the concrete wall. A raging torrent of muddy water raced downhill carrying with it sediment, rocks and whatever else humanity has cast away as trash. Buses, automobiles, taxis and trucks came quickly to a screeching halt, some struggling to wade through the deluge precariously. Their situation was dangerous, since they encountered a fast-moving water that suddenly entrapped them.

The southbound lane of Debrezeit Road, just above Lancha, fared no better and was flooded. The difference here being that the stormwater raging on that side of the concrete wall must have unearthed raw sewage, for the stench of the water was unbearable.

The flash flood occurred so quickly that residents were caught off-guard, almost all of them sheltered on high ground, where access to the train station required jumping into the torrent in the middle of the lane, which only a few adventurers attempted.

The primary culprit in this event is the failed urban development of Addis Abeba. The capital, a mountainous city, is a natural candidate for urban flash flooding risk and the municipal authorities have not appropriately taken this condition in their planning. The Addis Abeba Light Railway system has been the cause of various flooding events throughout the city, but it is not the only offender.

The plugged, deteriorated, broken and unmaintained storm drain systems that lay gaping across the city are incapable of draining the city. Properly functioning drainage systems are nonexistent in the city, as are many new roads that are constructed with ill-designed storm drain systems. A case in point is the area around Temenja Yajz where several newly constructed boulevards run perpendicular to the train tracks that channel storm water directly into it.

When the water hits the concrete barrier of the railway tracks, it creates the runoff that moves rapidly downhill, creating havoc as was the case last Tuesday evening. The railroad system and the adjacent roads, not engineered to account for the surface runoff that drains out of the area, suffers from recurrent flooding and the municipal authorities seem to be oblivious to the fact.

If a minor thunderstorm of a relatively short duration creates significant flooding in the city, what happens during an inevitable episodic storm event that happens once in a 100 years?

Addis Abeba, even without the ill-designed, haphazardly built and unkempt infrastructure faces a challenge in its management of stormwater, primarily because it is a mountain city bisected by a myriad of rivers and waterways. Its urban sprawl was not tempered by planning, and any available land was built upon, almost always without regard to how the city drains during rains.

The city has built few proper drainage channels, sewers, outfalls or detention ponds to retard the flowing water away from the developed areas, or to convey it safely out of the urban centres. Whatever drainage ditches and culverts are installed, they are constructed poorly and are hardly maintained. The rainy seasons come and go, but the stormwater infrastructure remains as is, albeit decaying continuously.

The drains across the city are filled with debris, trash, eroded soil and rocks that have undermined their carrying capacity. Thus, filled with refuse and in a state of utter deterioration by damage and long neglect, the drain systems are incapable of conveying the water that flows during storm events. As a result, the roadways become the conveyers of the runoffs turning it to concrete rivers, harbingers of more catastrophic flooding episodes that will surely come.

Infrastructure systems play a vital role in the nation’s economic wellbeing and their performance is equally important to the improvement of the quality of life of the citizens, public safety and welfare. Why else would the state incur billions of dollars of debt to build them then?

The municipal authorities, by neglect and intentional avoidance, are sidestepping the need for a competent stormwater management system or from improving the sorry state of the rivers and streams that grace the city. Instead, the city is chasing a phantom river restoration project that may end up costing the nation some 29 billion Birr which will contribute nearly nothing to improve the infrastructure that are in dire need of improvement.

All the natural drainage systems that carry the monsoon run-off of this city have been altered, paved over, converted into roads, buildings and slums. The city has forgotten that it has rivers that nourished it for millennia before its riparian corridors were built over and choked by untreated sewage and garbage.

The government’s apathy towards its natural heritage of rivers and streams needs to be reversed.

The proper workings of the drainage channels of the city are the links between the rivers and the urban centres. They are the very solutions that will save the city from recurring floods.

OPEN HOLIDAY MARKET

Posted on by Web Master

In an open holiday market in the area close to the National Stadium, a dealer displays paintings and posters. The pictures ordered on the ground offer different colours and themes. The paintings and posters depict monarchs, cultural heritages and popular portraits. Next door are slots that feature scarves and dresses.