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Month: February 2020

The Women in the Household

Posted on by Web Master

Self-help books will have us believe that time management is one of the major factors for success. If this is the case, then it is a tragedy for many Ethiopian girls and women in households. The less time one has on their hands, the harder it becomes to manage, as women are forced to do in such a highly patriarchal society.

I imagine a girl in her rural village, wishing for a better life and being denied the opportunity to progress. Outside of Addis Abeba, I have met many girls who were unable to leave their houses in fear that it would damage their reputation. Some of them never advanced to become anything other than a wife or a mother just like their mother and grandmothers without their own accord.

One such girl I met was in Debre Birhan. She had been denied the opportunity to join a technical and vocational education and training (TVET) school following her 10th-grade exams. Her parents argued that the school was too far and this bright young girl was confined to the four walls of a one room-house where four other family members lived.

She was an aspiring writer. She had multiple notebooks filled with fantasy novels. But bright as she is, she is not allowed to go to work because of her prideful father. Secretly she washes clothes for truck drivers who pass through their side of the neighbourhood as well as doing crochet work to earn pocket money to top-up her phone. She uses most of her free time trying to get through on radio shows in order to network.

But even her mother looks at her like one would stare at the sun. Her mother fears that if she looks too long into the rays of her intelligence, she would be blinded by it. I never knew if her parents were afraid she would fail, because this world is cruel or because they did not imagine what success for her could look like.

Parents often wish for a good life for their children, one full of milk and honey. In truth, many justify sending their daughters to school, because they can only hope she will provide them with the ability to care for their other children. Even in her emancipation, a girl is expected to be selfless.

A lot of the chatter around job creation fails to integrate women systematically. A good example of this is the masses of men that are aimlessly roaming the city with no focus. It is heartbreaking.

Yet it is also a matter of fact that women are not out there roaming aimlessly as well. Even when they are branded “unemployed,” they still work. The support given by women in the household is a contribution to each member who goes out and becomes successful.

Women’s empowerment is a lonely path. The empowered woman’s family life is often only celebrated by friends while tolerated by the rest of the family. Her voice is mostly seen as a threat to their ways of life.

Often, women’s experiences are found inadequate to those of men, because they are conducting their lives as if they have no other obligation. The mental load of running a family always falls on her shoulders, even in the more progressive households. While women’s strength seems to be rooted in sacrifice, as a community, we have emboldened rules and regulations that discriminate against her. Women’s predominantly supportive role has been mistaken for lack of capabilities.

We need to reassess what it means for women to be held accountable and responsible to a much higher standard than men. Their intelligence is questioned, while lack of responsibility is passed off as a tolerable male trait.

How do we convince a nation to hear a woman whose family has barely tolerated?

There is a lack of genuine representation on the ground despite what the ministerial cabinet and television stations report it as. Too many mask the scale of disproportionate representation in almost every other socioeconomic or political sphere. This is something that will never change unless representation begins in our households.

If we can teach one another to value the thoughts, arguments and choices of the female members of the household, it would be possible to adapt this change to institutions and communities.

Africa Must Choose Renewables Over Coal

Posted on by Web Master

African heads of state are convening at the annual African Union (AU) summit, and issues related to the continent’s economic growth and development are front and centre. But leaders also must ensure that their growth agenda is linked to the global challenge of urgent action on climate change. This is particularly critical for Africa, which is disproportionately vulnerable to the effects of global warming: more frequent and severe tropical storms, droughts and floods, all of which have devastated African communities and economies in recent years.

Given the climate risks Africa faces, it is perhaps not surprising to see the continent take the lead in shaping a sustainable future. Of the 108 countries that have thus far indicated that they will step up their climate commitments in 2020, as required by the Paris Agreement, 47 are in Africa. They recognise the opportunities to leapfrog to a new, cleaner, more efficient growth model – and the risks of not doing so.

Moreover, in November 2019, the African Development Bank (AfDB) announced that it would not finance new coal plants in the future. This shift reflects renewable technologies’ increased competitiveness and the emergence of new business models. Combined with investments in energy-efficient appliances, equipment, housing and commercial buildings, these developments can eliminate the need for new coal-generated power in Africa.

The AfDB is adding to the growing momentum across the development-finance community to support the transition to a low-carbon economy, and to move away from coal. More than 100 global financial institutions, increasingly concerned about climate-related risks, have now divested from thermal coal, including 16 of the top 40 international banks, and even more are restricting their investments in new coal.

Shifting away from coal is good not only for the climate but also for Africa’s economy and people. In many regions, renewable energy is now cheaper than coal, even without subsidies. The economics are even more favourable when we consider the hidden costs of coal-related health problems, the risk of stranded assets, and the high upfront investment needed for so-called clean coal. It simply makes no economic sense to invest in new coal.

Indeed, 42pc of coal-fired power plants worldwide are losing money, and Africa is not immune to this trend. Primary energy costs for South Africa’s public electricity utility Eskom have soared 300pc in real terms over the last two decades, leading to dire financial problems and higher rates for consumers. An analysis of the draft 2016 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) for South Africa’s power system found that the least-cost option was not coal, but rather a mix of solar photovoltaic, wind, and flexible power generators like hydropower, biogas, or gas. In response, the 2018 IRP confirmed a move away from coal to renewable energy. Other African countries trying to follow South Africa’s path would likely find themselves in a similar situation.

Furthermore, shifting to renewables can improve energy access quickly and affordably while avoiding air pollution. Between 1990 and 2013, annual deaths from outdoor air pollution in Africa increased by 36pc, to about 250,000. Decentralised or off-grid renewable energy can reduce harmful emissions, and help rural African communities to meet basic household and public power needs. Broader access to electricity can also boost gender equality by bolstering women-led entrepreneurial activity, implying up to an eleven-fold increase in women’s incomes.

The benefits of a transition away from coal are clear. But as Africa embarks on a low-carbon path, it also must invest more in energy efficiency and avoid becoming over-dependent on natural gas, oil, or even larger-scale hydropower, all of which are highly exposed to climate-related financial risks. Mixed policy signals could result in trillions of dollars of stranded fossil-fuel assets by 2035, or a loss of up to 15pc of GDP if valued in today’s terms. And climate change is already putting some large-scale African hydropower facilities at risk, calling into question their longer-term reliability and financial viability.

But, despite the economic and social case for renewables, new coal-fired plants are still being planned across Africa. With projects expected to come online in Zimbabwe, Senegal, Nigeria and Mozambique, the continent’s coal-fired power capacity could increase from three gigawatts today to as much as 17GW by 2040.

African countries are now at a turning point in terms of how they choose to develop. Governments should strengthen strategies and policies aimed at encouraging the transition to a new climate economy and increasing investment in clean energy.

Making this shift to a resilient, low-carbon economy is critical to achieving the AU’s ambitious Agenda 2063 for inclusive and sustainable development. And by phasing out fossil fuels, Africa can lead by example in the global effort to combat climate change.

Beware the Secret Weapon of Desensitisation: Repetition

Posted on by Web Master

It is fascinating how conditioned human beings can become to accepting their fate. This becomes possible through constant propaganda, which in the long term shapes our views in a certain way. Through repetition, the way we think and act can be carefully determined. That is the secret weapon in political and social re-engineering, as well as smart marketing.

The media has the power to implant ideas in people and sets an agenda that gets the public speaking about it non-stop. The influence of repetition on designing the mind brings multi-disciplinary subjects to an agreement. Media theorists, psychologists and philosophers understand and state that the mind as a tool can be redesigned through repetition.

What it does is that it enchants the brain to fall into a pattern by creating familiarity through a certain subject matter. This creates a situation where we no longer recognise what is odd or out of place. It normalises what has been presented and makes what is strange suspect. After a certain period of time, people come to believe that whatever has been repeated has been the case all along.

It is exactly for this reason that we have come to make light of matters that would have terrified us a while ago. It would not be out of place to find memes on social media these days that make fun of grief. To some, it seems like we are dealing with our problems by laughing at them. But what is actually happening is that we are being desensitised, failing to recognise the horror that lies within.

Step by step we lose our sincerity and all our senses fade out. We used to speak out, identify problems and empathise with our fellow citizens. Suddenly, we happen to have become used to tragedies and, with the exception of a few incidents, accepted as the natural state of things without even realising it.

Normalisation is nothing other than the side effect of repetition. This constant recurrence throws away the tendency to be scared about something unusual. We instead resign to silence and inaction. It puts us in a state of being unscarred by the danger surrounding us, unsurprised by the catastrophe of everyday life.

Such a state lays the foundation for individual destruction. What ties us together can be demolished, especially as we lose our moral compass and critical discussions are not had. In failing to be awed, we become conformists.

We are in danger of becoming desensitised in the digital age, where every particular narrative is cradled in constant occurrences. What people get to see is not what is most honest but what has already been viewed many times.

As we are constantly liking and sharing posts, do we care about what we are spreading? Does the situation bother us? Do we mean it, or do we do it as a routine? How diverse are the groups of people that we follow, and how much of an effort do we put into expanding our horizons and challenging long-held views?

In a nation whose citizens are afflicted by doubt and insecurity, and a government that can barely address the security situation, citizens can feel underwhelmed. And in engaging, through memes or criticisms, on social media, we may feel that we are resisting. But we are merely venting our anger and hopelessness.

The constant lawlessness makes us believe somehow that this is an inevitable phenomenon. We are drowning in cynicism. Yet, we are trying to breathe normally, as if what is happening around us is the normal state of nature. With every horrible thing we hear these days, we forget how bad they are and move on with our weary life. Until we wake up from this reverie, we will never escape. We will never resist.

To Silence the Guns, Walk the Talk

Posted on by Web Master

African leaders have failed Africa. From staggering mismanagement of welfare, fiscal and monetary policies to weak institutions, conflicts and power grabs, there is much Africans have learned to endure from their leaders. They have scarred the African continent, and it will take decades if we manage to get out of the mud.

Leadership, despite recent efforts to the contrary, is seen as an opportunity to enrich oneself instead of serving the public. Prime ministers and presidents are civil servants, yet they consider their position one where they have the privilege to intimidate and violate human, political, legal and economic rights.

Lack of justice, redress and accountability is still the biggest problem the continent continues to tolerate. Leaders often use violence against civilians despite making promises that they would not.

Leaders’ intolerance for criticism as well as their entrenched disregard for political rights has allowed them to rule their countries with seeming impunity until they are driven out of office by yet another movement that wants to shape the state in its image. Sitting in their lavish publicly-funded offices, they act as if they own the country. In their drive for absolute power, they often see the public and organised groups as a threat to their ambitions.

Those who demand rights are detained without charge and access to lawyers. When they are charged, it is often on flimsy grounds that any informed person knows were politically motivated. Citizens are robbed of their human, constitutional and economic rights. National and international laws are violated and left unaccounted for. Conflicts are allowed to linger, along with recurring humanitarian crises and persistent forms of violations, forcing millions to flee their countries in disillusionment.

Ironically, African heads of state and government meet every year to promise peace and prosperity for the African continent as if they are not a major part of the problem. This year’s African Union summit has an even bolder theme, “Silencing the Guns: Creating conducive conditions for Africa’s development.” This is while civil war rages in countries such as South Sudan and Libya, mostly as a consequence of the agendas of their political leaders that would otherwise have attended this summit had circumstances been conducive.

It would be a great achievement to “silence the guns”. It will be a game-changer to have a conflict-free Africa. It  is an inspiring promise to prevent conflict and make peace a reality.

To give credit where it is due, the campaign rightfully targets governments of member states as they are the ones who need to implement it primarily. It is a call that reminded governments that peace, security and the overall protection of citizens lie within their hands. As long as leaders tackle the root causes of poverty effectively by solving the political, economic, social and environmental crises, they will have the mandate to rule.

Effective implementation of these visions requires leaders who are ready to change. They are required to be full of integrity and courage, creating independent institutions and systems that benefit current and future generations. This is the only way that history will kindly look back on them.

Africa deserves selfless governments that live up to their promise and are accountable instead of pointing fingers at everyone else except themselves. They should stand up for the public interest and have the courage to acknowledge defeat and peacefully transfer power. Leaders ought to focus their energy and time on representing the people rather than spending all the time to craft strategies to lengthen their hold on power.

Africans are tired of empty promises, as “silencing the guns” would be in the face of leaders that are, by and large, unready to relinquish their hold on power. Without walking the talk, there will not be prosperity or democracy.

The public should also play its role in having zero tolerance for corruption. The public should have a strong interest in the country’s political and economic affairs and push governments to focus on the quality of education, job creation, justice, good governance and the effective use of resources.

The public should have the unshakeable commitment to being an active participant in the endeavour to build a prosperous country. When we all do our parts consistently, we will have on our hands an Africa everyone will be excited to live in.

BIRDS OF PREY: THE ANTI-JOKER

Posted on by Web Master

There is no shortage of terrible superhero movies, but the genre reached a new low with DC’s Suicide Squad. It was an insult to the great actors involved – Will Smith, Viola Davis and Margot Robbie – as well as the audience that had to pay to see the movie. Unfortunately, it was a relative box office success, inspiring a sequel that is currently shooting for a 2021 release by Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn.

But the film also contributed to the mainstream success of Robbie, whom many believed did a fantastic job portraying the popular Batman villain Harley Quinn.

The studio executives thus calculated it would be a prudent move to greenlight a spinoff featuring Harley. It would sit well with both the fans as well as the critics who had liked Robbie in the role. Throw in a female director and feature a Suicide Squad-style all-female team, then it would also be popular with the liberal media. Under all of this political and financial computation, someone forgot to mention that there would also need to be character development, a unique story and a bold theme as well.

The film follows the adventures of Harley after the events of Suicide Squad, where she was broken out of prison by the Joker after saving the world. Apparently, their relationship hit the rocks (perhaps the Joker went overboard with one of his bouts of rampaging and killing) and she breaks up with him.

Ending the relationship may bring her emotional emancipation but also draws attention from the criminal underworld of Gotham. Now that she is no longer under the protection of the Joker, everyone she wronged in the past feels that it is open season as far as Harley is concerned.

The most dangerous of the baddies that want to kill Harley is Roman Sionis, aka Black Mask (Ewan McGregor), a bad imitation of the Joker. He wants to kill Harley, because “I can,” and almost does so, until he is persuaded by her that she will fetch him a diamond with account numbers to a valuable fortune encrusted in it (the MacGuffin).

That diamond is in the hands of Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco), a pickpocket that is at the time in jail. She also has a half-million-dollar bounty on her head, curtesy of Sionis in case Harley does not succeed on her mission. Harley succeeds in helping her escape prison but then has to deal with the dilemma of whether or not having to turn in the girl (since she has swallowed the diamond and Sionis is unlikely to patiently wait until potty time) or protecting her from the wrath of the criminal mastermind.

Birds of Prey, despite the kooky plot, is actually not that bad a movie two-thirds of the way in. It is colourful and boisterous. It is ironically the anti-Joker. It wants to say that society is not the enemy and all shall turn out to be fine if the cartoonish bad guy is killed in the end. It is a feel-good movie about being female, single and a little insane.

But the third-act was ruined in its inability to be hard-hitting. It leaves us a happily-ever-after ending when it seemed to be promising all along something bittersweet.

Worse, it introduces a plot element it never established throughout the movie when it tries to get some of its characters out of a conundrum. The Prestige-inspired third act is the lowest point of the movie, which neither Robbie’s energetic acting, the cool soundtrack nor the non-chronological style of the storytelling was able to rescue

The squabbling within the negotiating team comes primarily from lack of clarity on who is in charge in providing leadership, claims gossip…

Posted on by Web Master

There has hardly been any issue that has galvanized Ethiopians – despite their many differences and sources of polarisation – as much as the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) does. For many, the Dam is not a mere public project. It is a symbol of pride; and, a monument under construction invoking hope in a country that has gone through collective despair in the centuries.

It is an icon for many that shows to the world that Ethiopians can muster unity in the face of historical and formidable adversity. It is a living statue to demonstrate their resolve to lift themselves off of the image of their country as a poster child of poverty and misery, a collective shame and shared pain that is too much to bear.

It is upon the shoulders of Ethiopia’s current leaders to ensure that the epic political and diplomatic battles to see through the Dam’s completion and operation are not to be lost. Close to 11 of them were in Washington, D.C. last week, inching closer to sign a series of agreements with their Egyptian and Sudanese counterparts. Despite the pressure from the Americans and senior officials of the World Bank, the agreements were not signed as had been hoped.

A widely held public mistrust on the part of Ethiopia could be attributed to why its negotiators did not dare to ink the documents with their signature, says gossip. Nonetheless, sharp differences have emerged among members of the negotiating team that is also a major factor that held back the ministers from going ahead with finishing the deal, gossip disclosed.

The squabbling within the negotiating team comes primarily from lack of clarity on who is in charge in providing leadership, claims gossip. Dealing with Egypt and Sudan over the GERD or the broader issue of sharing the Nile waters involves political, economic and security affairs. However, there is a growing feeling that it is essentially a diplomatic battle waged against the interests of other countries, thus it falls within the domain of the foreign service, under the stewardship of Gedu Andargachew, minister of Foreign Affairs, claims gossip.

The soft-spoken Gedu is known to be a keen listener, says gossip. His limitation though is that he is not articulate in languages other than his native Amharic and is new to the job that requires communication with and outspokenness to foreign powers, gossip claims. He is not the lead man on the GERD talks, gossip claims.

The Minister of Water, Irrigation & Energy, Seleshi Bekele (PhD), has a mastery of the subject matter; after all, he is a doctoral graduate of hydraulic engineering from Germany and did his postgraduate studies in the same field in the United States. Prime Minister Abiy has made him the de facto leader of the negotiating team, claims gossip.

Despite his competence with the technicalities of the Dam and its engineering marvels, some of the members in the negotiating team see him as a self-willed technocrat with little desire to listen to the views of others on the team, claims gossip. Some of them privately concede that Ethiopia has already given in – under duress – to the demands of Egypt, which Seleshi was prepared to admit during his recent public address in Addis Abeba, gossip disclosed.

One is the distance Ethiopia traveled to accept the threshold of water release from the Dam to be 39 billion cubic metres (bcm), a position that changed from the original plan of 31 bcm, as opposed to Egypt’s 40 billion bcm demand at the beginning, gossip disclosed.

Unhappy with the way Seleshi has been accommodating Egyptian demands, or his perceived reluctance to remain steadfast in the defense of Ethiopia’s interests, no less than three members of the negotiating team have submitted letters of complaint to the Prime Minister, gossip disclosed. They warn of talks that are not following the best interests of Ethiopia and tendered their resignations, disclosed gossip.

Sign of the Times

Posted on by Web Master

This traffic light pole at Mesqel Square is leaning on the tree right next to it and is no longer functional. Meant to manage traffic north of Africa Avenue Street, the light pole was a victim of car accidents that cost the city hundreds of millions of Birr every year.

Fallen Fence

Posted on by Web Master

In Kazanchis, this steel sheet fence built around one of the construction sites has fallen down. Equipment used in the construction of buildings in Addis Abeba have garnered criticism as a result of their poor quality and not meeting set guidelines.

Ghanian Cornerstone

Posted on by Web Master

Nana Akufo-Addo, president of Ghana, took time off his attendance of the annual African Union Summit of Heads of State and Government to attend the cornerstone placing ceremony for the construction of a new embassy building around Bisrate Gebriel on February 1, 2020. Expected to take two years, the current embassy of the West African nation is located in Kolfe Qeraniyo. The president was joined by Sahle-Work Zewde, president of Ethiopia, during the ceremony.

Ministry Loses Case to Solar Panel Supplier

Posted on by Web Master

The Federal High Court ordered the Ministry of Trade & Industry to pay half a million Birr to Vera International Business Plc, a local solar equipment importer.

The two parties were in a battle for over two years after Vera took the case to the Court, claiming 1.6 million Br in compensation from the Ministry.

Vera claimed that it was subjected to 110 days of warehouse rent after the Ministry refused to give it a clearance for the 12,710Kg of solar panels it imported with a duty-free privilege.

The Ministry refused the clearance stating that the product did not have a pre-shipment inspection certificate, stating that the items should be inspected before being distributed in the community.

After reviewing the case, the High Court passed its ruling on January 1, 2020, against the Ministry. The Court ordered the Ministry to pay compensation to Vera for rent it paid for 32 days along with nine percent interest and judgment and lawyer service fees.

Donors Avail $165m for Displaced Kids Schooling

Posted on by Web Master

UNICEF’s Education Cannot Wait (ECW) has announced a 165-million-dollar grant for three years to provide education to 746,000 children affected by crises in Ethiopia.

ECW has earmarked 27 million dollars as seed funding to address the educational needs of 60,487 of the most vulnerable children IDPs, returnees and children from host communities in Amhara, Oromia and Somali regional states.

Part of the funding will be used to support efforts to mobilise the funding gap of 138 million dollars needed for the whole programme.

The funding will be used for children left behind because of violence, drought, displacement and other crises.

The Ministry of Education will lead the programme in partnership with Save the Children International, UNICEF’s Education Cannot Wait and the education cluster of the organisation.

Court Orders Ayka to Pay 6m Br to Amibara

Posted on by Web Master

The Federal High Court ordered Ayka Addis Textile Investment Plc to pay six million Birr of debt it owes to Amibara Agricultural Development Plc.

The Court ordered the company to pay the value for cotton transactions the duo made between 2009 and 2016.

Though the Court has summoned Ayka to present its defence, representatives of the company did not show up.

Amibara Business Development Plc, a company that is engaged in the agricultural development business, had been supplying cotton to Ayka Addis for around eight years.

Ayka, which has been declaring losses since 2013, is also unable to service 2.9 billion Br of debt from the Development Bank of Ethiopia (DBE), which repossessed it last year. DBE’s Ethio Capital Investment S.C. is currently running the company.

The company, which used to have 7,000 employees, ceased operations over the past couple of months.