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Month: June 2020

Opposition Party Decries Ethio Telecom Privatisation

Posted on by Web Master

The Ethiopian Citizens for Social Justice Party, widely known as Ezema, has put out a statement decrying the decision of the government to continue with the partial privatisation of state-owned Ethio telecom.

Released on June 25, 2020, the statement urges the government to re-evaluate the decision to sell shares of the company citing how drastically the economy has changed since the process began. Ezema denounced the ruling party‘s decision further since it considers Ethio telecom to be merely a common information exchange tool when it should be treated as an entity that has greater value and wider implications for the country.

“Telecom is a strategic sector that can also determine the growth of other sectors,” said Nathanael Feleqe, the party’s public relations head. “At a time when countries are looking toward solutions that make them self-sufficient, the country needs to pay more attention and take time to assess the comparative advantage of relinquishing shares of the company.”

The statement went on to underline the importance of telecommunication as the blood vessel of media outlets, its role in national and military information correspondence, and as a source of national security data.

“Telecommunication is the main infrastructure with which national security information is not only exchanged but stored as well,” said Nathanael. “This applies in a similar way to financial institutions. In a world where cases of cyber attacks are increasing, it will put the public interest at stake.”

The party said that the government had privatised 230 companies in the past and attested that this method does not guarantee profitability and efficiency based on their trajectory. The statement gave Ethiopian Airlines as a prime example of a government-owned corporation excelling in a very competitive market.

“The airline has shown that government ownership doesn’t exclude it from being successful if we take the mode of operation of the airlines as a model to follow,” added Nathanael.

Comparing Ethiopian Airlines with Ethio telecom is not advisable due to the different nature of their playing fields, according to Tadele Ferede (PhD), assistant professor of economics at Addis Abeba University.

“Ethiopian Airlines is in the global market with international competitors,” he said. “It has to stay on top of everything and use state-of-the-art technology to be relevant. With what is Ethio telecom competing?”

After the ruling party has decided to partially privatise the company, Ethio telecom hired KPMG to conduct an asset valuation. And the Ministry of Finance is in the final stage of hiring a transaction advisory firm for the privatisation process.

The partial privatisation of the company is part of the bigger digital transformation the country is undertaking, according to Eyob Tekalign, (PhD), state minister for Finance.

“There has been adequate work and attention given to how ethio telecom was reformed,” Eyob told Fortune.

A digital transformation strategy crafted by the Ministry of Innovation & Technology was recently approved by the Council of Ministers that is designed to lead the economy toward tech-led economic growth.

Ezema also announced that it will disclose an economic and ICT policy in the coming week and will conduct discussions through media outlets that will drive public debate and encourage information provision and transparency from the government regarding the issue.

“The growth of the sector and its role in creating jobs and supporting fintech can be achieved without selling its shares,” said Nathanael. “The answer could be found in partnering with local investors, as this will create flexibility. We should be working on proper management and creative solutions within the agency itself.”

This could lead to better services and efficiency without losing the revenue gained from the corporation, according to the communication head. Ethio telecom generated over 22 billion Br in revenues in the first half of this fiscal year.

“When we look at the privatisation of Ethio telecom, we need to pay attention to the reasons it was initiated,” said Tadele. “The fact that privatisation will bring competitiveness, efficiency and a boost to the economy is undoubted whether it happens today or tomorrow. But the question of whether there has been enough public discourse may be valid.”

However, the expert added that that question should have been raised when the process began, not two years down the road.

HOLLYWOOD’S SPIELBERGIAN RECOVERY

Posted on by Web Master

Over the past weekend, the US box office got a blast from the past. Still reeling from the COVID-19 induced lockdowns that led to the closure of theatres across the world, cinemas in the US opened with old hits from Hollywood’s wonder boy, Steven Spielberg.

The 1993 Jurassic Park and Jaws took the top spot over what was the most nostalgic weekend box office ever. The former narrowly beat out the latter, both earning around half a million dollars – a far cry from when Hollywood was churning out releases that earned billions of dollars just last summer.

Both were movies that went on to spawn terrible sequels and were highly successful at the box office when they were originally released, becoming the highest-grossing films of their time. They are also about blood-hungry monsters that go on a feeding frenzy.

But Jaws was a much more important landmark in cinema history. It launched the career of arguably the most popular film director in the world and introduced the era of the modern blockbuster. With Star Wars, which came out a couple of years later, Jaws defined what studio heads needed to look for in movies.

It was a fantastic movie, with great acting, Hitchcockian suspense-building and an unforgettable score. But it was evident that, as in Star Wars, it was not the story that drew in the crowds. It was the thrill, novel special effects and the channeling of youth subculture.

Most importantly, cinema was no longer an end to a means. Movies would continue to generate revenue at the box office, but they were also repackaged to sell toys and for advertising. It was the great commoditisation of films, and the art would never recover from it. Even the independent cinema movement that followed was but a blip in the general trajectory the studio system was taking the viewing experience.

As things stand now, this is partially the legacy of Spielberg, which is strange considering that he was a member of a generation of filmmakers that probably had the most respect for cinema. Jaws was one of the first major movies made by a new generation of filmmakers that learned more about life from movies than they did from life itself.

They were the first filmmakers to have grown up watching TV, which became a mass-market product in the 1950s. Thus, if previous filmmakers had interests and backgrounds in other fields, they instead grew up from an early age with the desire to be filmmakers. It was the first time that fandom was making movies, with at least a partial interest in TV shows that they carried over to cinema.

They were bound to radically change cinema, but it is interesting how they managed to transform it away from the form that they loved so much and into a version they themselves came to lament.

Culprit number one in this is Spielberg. He did more than anyone else to significantly bring down the average age of cinemagoers. He catered to an audience that was most at home suspending disbelief.

However, as Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and even Jurassic Park show, he did it with taste. His movies had emotional richness, and he was a technical whiz. Not all of his movies are great, but one would be hard-pressed to find a movie of his that was not uplifting in its inventive camera angles and movements, editing and memorable photography.

Unfortunately, he inspired more movie executives than filmmakers with the revenue his movies were able to generate. Later blockbuster movies were purely moneymaking endeavours. They wanted teenagers to go to the cinema but did not aspire to relate to their sense of optimism, which was very important for Spielberg. They believed lots of explosions would suffice, as in the style of Michael Bay, who interned in one of Spielberg’s great movies, Raiders of the Lost Ark.

It is thus the case that Spielberg is not a negative in the end. Perhaps more than anyone else, he is the reason that most of us grow up watching movies. He made them playful and wondrous. It is not his fault we are all fawning over superhero movies today. It is our fault that we have accepted the degeneration of his vision of what cinema can become.

Spielberg is not a negative what cinema has became in the end, writes Christian Tesfaye, reviewing the legacy of Steven Spielberg on the heels of the re-release of Jaws and Jurassic Park. It is not his fault we are all fawning over superhero movies today, he writes, but ours for having accepted the degeneration of his vision of what cinema can become.

The Hypocrite’s Dilemma

Posted on by Web Master

In the early hours of a misty morning, two middle-aged female residents of the poorly electrified condominium of Bole Bulbula sit on their stoop contemplating and discussing what is happening before their eyes. Through the fog in the distance, they see four men unloading an Isuzu truck.

The men seem to be unpacking unripe bananas. But that is just a cover. Just under the bananas are sacks of charcoal, which the women are waiting to buy. These sacks were particularly cheaper since they were produced and now sold illegally.

The same women could be found complaining about the deforestation of the rural area where they were raised while also belittling the government’s attempt to create a greener environment.

That acres of forest are chopped down for charcoal production is no secret. Many will be quick to blame the inefficiency of the government’s regulation of Ethiopia’s forest management but almost equally deserving of criticism is the high demand. It goes beyond the country’s limited access to electricity, to the casualness with which people perceive their own actions.

Take drug dealers, for example, who face long prison sentences but still commit their crimes. It is not only because their efforts have not been suspended, but because they have buyers.

Matters only get worse during a national emergency, as was the case during the first few weeks of the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, when people began to hoard food items only to go back home to complain about intermediaries and their inclinations to capitalise in times of crisis.

The consumer has power. If, as a society, we were to reject injustice and create a unified front against over-priced commodities, the distributors would crawl back to supplying these commodities at a fair price.

But humanity is a permanent carrier of the disease known as hypocrisy, and Ethiopians are no different. Individuals that are part and parcel to a problem sit and complain about the inability of government to deal with such problems.

Perhaps the greatest example of this is how politics is discussed. It is not uncommon to see someone complaining about the lingo-cultural divide in Ethiopia minutes before uttering a lightly veiled slur to someone of a certain ethnicity.

The power we have as individuals is mostly overlooked. The I-am-only-one-person-I-cannot-make-a-difference mentality is a cancer that has corrupted our social fabric.

“But I am only throwing a gum wrapper or tissue and the place is already messy, so my one piece of dirt really won’t make a difference,” people say.

But that is how the trash piles up in the first place. Most people would not be tempted to throw trash in a clean environment, but if they saw that the place is dirty, then they think, “what harm would one candy wrapper do?” It is psychological.

But many do not seem to realise this, and the people in my neighbourhood did not either. A cleaning event was recently held in my neighbourhood but meant little since people went back to their habit of littering. Cleaning up was more or less for nothing. It is like taking one step forward and two steps backwards.

The improvements we want to see are in our hands, and this starts with the little things. Look at maximum passenger limits on mini-buses, which have existed as long as taxi drivers have defied them. To add insult to injury, they begin to hike up fares in the evening. Loaded like cattle in mini-bus taxies, people still obediently pay higher fares than the taxi driver is allowed to make them pay.

The only reason the taxis abuse customers like this is because we let them. The government has done its part by putting in place protections and enforcing them, though with shortcomings. But we should not expect the government to be an all-seeing presence that protects every citizen every time. Citizens have a duty, a part to play in the betterment of the country.

Egypt’s Shifting Positions, Intransigence, Fear Politics Slow GERD Talks

Posted on by Web Master

The dramatic events between Ethiopia and Egypt over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) have only been unfolding faster over the past few weeks as Ethiopia prepares to begin filling the reservoir in July.

The good news was the resumption of stalled negotiations and the extension of an invitation to the European Union, the United States and South Africa to serve as observers. Then Sudan announced that progress had been made, with 95pc of the open issues resolved, but Egypt kept pushing back on the lack of progress.

On June 19, 2020, the Egyptian Foreign Minister wrote a letter to the UN Security Council pleading for its intervention in the dispute “which potentially constitute[s] a threat to international peace and security.”

Ethiopia, for its part, rejected Egypt’s allegations and expressed its plan to go ahead in filling the Dam with or without a deal.

“For us it is not mandatory to reach agreement before starting filling the Dam, hence we will commence the filling process in the coming rainy season,” Foreign Minister Gedu Andargachew told The Associated Press.

In the course of this long negotiation, Egyptian leaders have utilised cherry-picked arguments with different audiences and succeeded in creating confusion about the real issues at hand. Sometimes technical issues such as the safety of the Dam or its management principles during prolonged droughts are the core of Egypt’s argument.

In other instances, negotiations have focused on colonial treaties, acquired rights and maintenance of the status quo. And then in yet other discussions, arguments are centered on unsubstantiated and largely fear-based conjecture about the Dam’s possible impact on Egyptian agriculture.

There are Egyptians who believe their leaders use the GERD negotiations as a pretext to suppress domestic dissent. The government has banned press coverage on the GERD, which indicates a desire to deny the Egyptian people balanced information from independent sources.

Egypt has employed extensive resources to reinforce its game plan for the GERD and Nile waters. They have carried out diplomatic and propaganda campaigns against Ethiopia. They knocked on every door in the corridors of world leaders in order to bring third-party pressure against Ethiopia. They hired famous lobbying and PR firms to influence foreign leaders and public opinion in the West.

The objective of all of these was primarily image building for Egypt after its international standing suffered immensely. This was due to a violent military coup against the first democratically elected president of the country and the subsequent bloody crackdown of human rights and civil society activists in Egypt.

The other responsibility of these powerful firms is to help distance Ethiopia from its traditional allies during this long and sensitive dispute.

On the propaganda front, Egypt has two seemingly contradictory approaches. On the one hand, Egypt portrays itself as an aggrieved party fighting for its survival and as a victim of Ethiopian cruelty; cruelty that will deprive Egyptian people of water from the Nile. On the other hand, Egypt threatens Ethiopia and indicates that it will use its military might if the East African country does not budge, portraying itself as the policeman of the Middle East and Africa.

The people of Egypt and Ethiopia developed two great civilisations that have lived side by side for millennia. They are connected by the mighty Nile, and they aspire to live in peace together. However, there are also instances where Egyptian leaders have exhibited imperial ambitions to weaken and dominate Ethiopia, an attitude which has sometimes been manifest in their modern bilateral relations.

The modern Egyptian state is linked to Mohamed Ali Pasha, the Albanian-Ottoman governor who became powerful and established his own dynasty in Egypt. Starting in the 1820s he began his adventure by conquering Sudan and attempted to move further south.

Ethiopia, as the source of the Blue Nile, was the main target. Ali Pasha’s grandson, Khedive Ismael Pasha, was the leader who tried to implement Egypt’s ambition to control the source of the Blue Nile. He unleashed two devastating battles against Ethiopia – Gundet and Gura – in the mid-1870s. Egypt lost both.

Khedive Ismael sent his son, Prince Hassan, to lead the expedition at Gura, whose account has shaped Egypt’s behavior in their relationship with Ethiopia. It would be quite hopeless for the Khedive to try the conquest of Ethiopia, according to what the Prince told his father after he was captured and pardoned by Emperor Yohannes IV.

Gura was consequential for Egypt. Egypt lost 4,000 men and 8,000 rifles at the Battle of Gura. Apart from the shame that the Khedive suffered at the hands of Ethiopians, that military adventure resulted in a financial and political crisis for the Khedive. The Khedive was deposed in 1879. Egypt could not pay back its British creditors, opening the door for the United Kingdom to colonise Egypt in 1882. Egyptian adventurism in Ethiopia badly weakened the Turco-Egyptian administration in Sudan and caused the rise of the Mahdi Movement in 1881.

The British occupation of Egypt remained in place from 1882 to 1956. While Britain was still in Egypt, a military coup took place in 1952 that toppled the monarchy and helped establish a military state in Egypt. Successive Egyptian leaders continued advancing their ambitions over Ethiopia.

In 1956, Gamal Abdel Nasser became the president of Egypt. He financed liberation movements to weaken Ethiopia. President Sadat continued a policy of intimidation and declared in 1978 that he would go to war with Ethiopia if the country built a dam on the Blue Nile.

More recently, the former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi threatened to attack Ethiopia in order to stop the construction of the GERD.

Morsi and his cabinet suggested three actions, namely “sending special forces to destroy the dam, sending jet fighters to scare the Ethiopians,” and “called for Egypt to support rebel groups fighting the government in Addis Abeba,” according to the BBC in 2013.

The current president of Egypt, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, initially spoke about cooperation among Nile riparian countries, which seemed like a change in the traditional Egyptian policy that focused on depriving the rights of the other riparian states to use their water resources. That was welcomed by many, but soon enough el-Sisi broke his promise and rejoined his predecessors in pursuing old uncompromising rhetoric on the Nile.

On June 20, 2020, el-Sisi visited an air force base in western Egypt and told his pilots to be ready for any mission, potentially outside the borders of Egypt. It was just a day before that he accused Ethiopia for the lack of progress on the GERD discussions and disrupted the latest negotiations.

Egypt has continued to frustrate any meaningful cooperation on the Nile. In February 1999, the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) was launched, which was supported by external actors such as the World Bank. The Nile Basin covers 11 countries with a combined population of about 300 million people comprised of Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania and South Sudan. The objective of NBI was “to achieve sustainable socio-economic development through the equitable utilization of Nile Basin water resources” among all riparian countries.

A decade ago, after nearly 11 years of negotiations on the framework of the NBI, most countries signed the Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA), but Egypt refused to. The desire to establish a permanent Nile River Basin Commission, which would serve as a permanent legal and institutional framework for governing the Nile River Basin, thus did not materialise.

Since 2012, Ethiopia has begun construction of the GERD and at the same time also commenced dialogue with Egypt and Sudan. Sudan signed on and joined Ethiopia from the beginning, appreciating the many benefits the project would bring to the downstream countries. Egypt was less forthcoming, and its position changed from time to time, often proposing unreasonable demands that delayed progress. Egypt’s consistent delay tactics through nearly a decade of negotiations can only be understood as an attempt to frustrate and weaken the progress of the Dam with the eventual expectation of influencing the outcome.

After many ups and downs, Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan finally signed a “Declaration of Principles (DoP)” in Khartoum on March 23, 2015, and have begun negotiations to implement that agreement. Negotiations were going on when Egypt, on August 1, 2019, suddenly submitted a new proposal that, in effect, sidelined the agreement on the Declaration.

This new proposal brought back Egypt’s long-time argument about the protection of colonial and bilateral “water-sharing treaties” that exclude all water source countries. It overlooked the fact that the Nile is a transboundary river which has 11 riparian countries. Such a frustrating position is a deliberate and well-thought-out tactic on Egypt’s part.

After the submission of this proposal, Egypt began unprecedented diplomatic and public relations campaigns aimed at pressuring Ethiopia through diplomatic blackmail, threats and intimidation tactics designed to force Ethiopia to accept the latest proposal.

Egypt focused on Ethiopia’s allies to pressure Ethiopia, and that seemed to have gained a short-term PR victory for Egypt. However, those PR and lobby campaigns were ultimately ineffectual. Instead of persuading Ethiopia’s longtime allies to take punitive action against Ethiopia for refusing Egypt’s unreasonable demands, the international community largely opted to urge the two countries to engage in direct negotiations to resolve their differences.

In fact, instead of galvanising international public opinion against Ethiopia on the GERD, Egypt helped to popularise the GERD. This was demonstrated by the responses that came from the United Nations Secretary-General and the European Union to Egypt’s accusations against Ethiopia. They both emphasised the resumption of negotiations to resolve differences through dialogue and understanding. The responses from the African Union and the Nile riparian countries went even further, saying that Egypt should not invite outside forces to African problems that should be resolved by Africans.

How long will Egypt pursue such destructive tactics?

Egyptians will undoubtedly confront multiple projects on the Nile by many countries shortly, and they cannot hope to manage these developments through intimidation, blackmail and tirades.

Egypt’s policy on the Nile is a zero-sum policy. It aims to maintain the status quo. Its war-like propaganda to advance its policy objectives is dangerous for our region. They cannot scare 10 riparian countries into not using their water resources. They have to play a positive role and work with others in the spirit of cooperation and good neighbourly relations.

Perhaps current Egyptian leaders can learn from the Camp David Accords. President Anwar Sadat was a flawed leader, but his courage in bringing about peace with Israel was appreciable. The country achieved through peaceful negotiation what it could not achieve through military means. Because of the Accords, Egypt has enjoyed long periods of peaceful relations with its powerful neighbour.

More importantly, it regained the Sinai Peninsula and has become a long time recipient of generous economic and military assistance from the United States. Such is the kind of courage which is needed on the Nile River. One cannot hope to gain sustainable peace and prosperity by refusing cooperation with 10 riparian countries in the Nile Valley. Leadership that aims for short-term popularity by misleading its people through fear, intimidation and the gross exaggeration of the impact of the GERD on their lives is not good leadership for the long term.

The Global Economic Order’s Implication on the GERD Dispute

Posted on by Web Master

As the debate over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) rages, what fails to be contextualised is the normative and political implications of Ethiopia’s right to development within the global economic and political order.

This order was one that was precipitated by the Washington Consensus and the subsequent establishment of a neoliberal economic order, which was meant to serve a particular form of the global economy. The basic and fundamental premises of this political economy was based on privatisation, deregulation, cuts to social subsidies and overt emphasis on economic growth that does not consider important social and environmental factors.

The ideological drive for this political-economic thinking was based on the fact that the full potential of any economic development is inhabited by red tape, rampant corruption and big government. There is, of course, some element of truth in this argument. We should note that the Reagan-ite and Thatcher-ite political-economic thinking, which many consider an explicit political endorsement of the neoliberal economic order, was precipitated by an economic recession that required an urgent policy response.

In fact, many of the tenents of any liberal economic model are difficult to reject. Private sector development, containing rampant state corruption, and efficient state bureaucracy are considered by many economists as important factors for sustaining any viable economic development.

Nevertheless, there is also a troubling aspect to the neoliberal economic model. It is becoming unsustainable. The control of the global economy by a few corporations continues to drive endemic global inequality.

There are close to 40 million people living in poverty in the United States, according to Philip Alston, special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights to the United Nations. It is a shocking figure, particularly because the United States is one of the richest countries in the world.

Here lies the major problem of the neoliberal economic model. At its core, it has no concern for equity and social justice. The major driving force for the system is making profits without due consideration for equality, social justice and environmental concerns. Without proof, supporters of this economic model allege that an “invisible hand” will lift everyone else out of poverty.

There is also a more vicious and dangerous aspect of the global neoliberal economic order. Historically, it was a political economy that was imposed by Western states, which had the upper hand in dictating its terms. Thus, while most states in Africa were under colonialism in the 1940s, the global economic order was taking shape. Global institutions regulating international trade, finance and intellectual property rights such as the predecessor of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank were established, without the representation of African countries. Combined with a structure that treasures its largest funders, this meant that important and vital interests to developing countries and African states were not catered to in the norms of international, trade, finance and intellectual property.

The advent of the right to development in the 1970s was aimed at correcting this global economic asymmetry of the North and South and proposing a new international economic order. The moral rationale for recognising the right to development was driven by the endemic global economic inequality between developing and developed countries and the desire to redress past injustices such as slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism.

In 1979, the Secretary-General of the UN published a report which laid down the ethical and legal foundation for the right to development.

“There are a variety of ethical arguments which may be considered to support the existence in ethical terms of a right to development,” it reads. “These include the fact that development is the condition of all social life, the international duty of solidarity, the duty of reparation for colonial and neo-colonial exploitation, increasing moral interdependence, economic interdependence, and the cause of world peace, which is threatened by underemployment.”

The thrust for this new economic order culminated in the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Right to Development in 1986. The Declaration, while being a soft law, recognised the moral and political significance of the right for countries to develop. It emphasises core principles, including the rights of states to economic self-determination and their right to utilise their natural resources without any foreign interference.

When the Declaration was adopted in 1986, the difference between developing and developed countries was visible. Among those countries that participated, the eight states that abstained were all developed, while the United States objected to it.

The basic and fundamental moral rationale for the articulation of their rights was the forcefulness for creating a just and egalitarian economic order. But there are also important principles that the Declaration stipulates. Among these is the explicit provision that allows states to exercise economic self-determination over their natural resources.

In the context of the GERD debate, it could have an important role to play in fostering an understanding that the right to development is the right of states and that they can use their natural resources. Moreover, since its fundamental precepts are driven by the principle of equity, social justice, participation and sustainability, negotiations surrounding the GERD should be based on these important overarching precepts. Rather than sticking to a colonial-era treaty, it is better to use this normative and political language of development, which is also recognised under the African human rights charter.

Interestingly, the US’s unhelpful and one-sided approach in the negotiation is against this fundamental principle of the right to development. Washington’s one-sided position on the GERD is probably motivated by the desire to please Egypt, which considers it a gateway to US diplomacy in the Middle East.

The US has positioned itself more to project its own foreign policy and national interests rather than looking at amicable solutions of the dispute over the GERD. Moreover, its complete disregard for the basic rights of states to develop and use their natural resources, which is recognised in numerous international treaties and declarations, shows a neo-colonial mentality and a neoliberal arrogance that has dictated the terms of development of many countries for decades.

There are similarities here to structural adjustment programs (SAPs), which were imposed by neoliberal financial institutions in African countries with devastating consequences. The US’s position today has resonance with this neoliberal and neo-colonial mentality, which completely disregards the development policies and priorities of states and their fundamental right to economic self-determination.

Where do we go from here?

Each of the states involved has a clear interest in the GERD. Ethiopia has an ambitious economic plan to use the Dam as a significant source of energy for its economic development. In a country that has been a poster child for poverty and humanitarian disasters, there is a desperate need to drive its economic potential and eradicate poverty.

For the downstream countries, especially for Egypt, its long reliance on the Nile means that considerations should be made to not significantly harm its interests over the Nile. In principle, the position of the Ethiopian government is also consistent with this. While negotiations have been stalled for specific technical issues – the timing and span of filling the Dam, the amount of reservoir – the core aspect of the negotiation process has been deeply misguided and one that has been awash with a neoliberal and neocolonial mentality. This has exacerbated the problem, and it should change course.

While there is no doubt that the GERD issue is a highly contentious one, the perspective with which we approach this problem of the use of resources is critical to reaching an amicable agreement.

The historical legacy of the looting of resources by colonial and neocolonial forces can be harmful and damaging to a negotiated settlement on the GERD. But development is an essential component of the progress of any society and Ethiopia’s right to development is recognised by numerous treaties, declarations and resolutions including the African Charter on human rights, which is adopted by all 54 African states.

African institutions, including the AU, have a role to play in using its own norms and institutions to settle disputes involving the GERD between Ethiopia and Egypt. The US approach to the issue is highly partisan and ignores core principles of international law, including the rights of states to develop and use their natural resources to change the lives of millions of their citizens.

To ignore this and use Egypt to increase its leverage in the Middle East is unhelpful to the search for an amicable settlement.

Don’t Expect Democracy at the Courts

Posted on by Web Master

Last month, to the chagrin of many a political commentator, the Council of Constitutional Inquiry (CCI) recommended to the House of Federation that the Constitution can be interpreted to extend the years in office of the incumbents in both the legislative houses and the regional councils.

There were to be no limits to the powers of the government, and it would be up to agencies under the executive to decide when the election will take place, presumably within at least a year. The recommendation for interpretation, even for the constitutional lawyers that had advocated for it, was too liberal and a violation of trust in the judiciary.

The view was that the CCI – chaired by Chief Justice Meaza Ashenafi, president of the Supreme Court, and largely made up of legal experts – should have passed a decision that was not as beneficial and in such harmony with what the incumbents in Arat Kilo were bidding for.

Does this mean that the judiciary has become politicised once more and that the independence of the Court has been compromised?

Perhaps. But what occurred also calls attention to the fact that the judiciary could never, in theory, actually be independent. It is a political body, and the fact that judges are unelected, inculcated with professional competence and taught in law school to vote their conscience does not make them apolitical.

Despite what it seems, the courts, in any political system, cannot be judged to have been the deciding factor in realising the protection of rights. They are only as progressive and liberal as the overarching political system they find themselves in.

Do not take my word for this. Take modern political theorist Robert Dahl’s, who analysed the record of the American court system only to find that their existence did not really make a difference in the protection of individual rights. In his conception, courts are a political body that, democracy or no, are by and large “an element in the political leadership of the dominant alliance.” They are friends to the prevailing worldview, if not a tool for it.

Many would be tempted to ask at this point, what about the glorious years of the Warren Court, where landmark progressive decisions were passed by the Supreme Court to the frustration of conservatives? What about Brown v. Board of Education, which banned segregation in public schools? Roe v. Wade, which ruled that abortion is a right, or the Obergefell v. Hodgesdecision on same-sex marriage? Do these not prove that the judiciary in democratic systems actually protects individual rights?

Make no mistake; all of these are political decisions that could have only been passed in a country with a progressive society. They are rulings that could not possibly be arrived at through a conception of “what is right.” At the most, what the courts have done in these cases is move the ball slightly in favour of one dominant view against another of its equal.

Proof of this can be found with the US Supreme Court itself, which before Earl Warren was chief justice did not have a good record.

Take the appalling Dred Scott V. Sanforddecision that ruled that black people “are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word ‘citizens’ in the Constitution,” and thus were property, as then Chief Justice Roger Taney stressed in 1857. Add to this the Plessy v. Fergusonruling, which upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation in 1896.

This is why we may be wrong to hold the CCI responsible for recommending to the House of Federation to go along with such a blatantly liberal interpretation of the Constitution. As a supposedly independent organ of government, it was always bound to view the issue from the perspective of whoever the politically dominant, or very close to dominant, groups were seeing it.

It is not a valueless body but, democracy or no, it should not be expected to do miracles. It will only be as good as the prevailing political group or alliance is.

Out with the Old, In with Telecom’s New

Posted on by Web Master

The views expressed in the opinion piece headlined, “Ethio Telecom’s Privatisation Plan Requires Reset,” [Vol. 21, No. 1050, June 07, 2020], diverges from the effort by which the government believes progress can be gained within the telecom sector. This is despite the fact that the author concedes that liberalisation may be a good idea.

In proposing a “reset” of the privatisation plan, what the author lost sight of was the economic headway that could be attained by the country and the public with the liberalisation of the telecom sector in Ethiopia.

No doubt, it is open to speculation whether the privatisation of Ethio telecom and the licensing of at least two private service providers would achieve the desired targets to bring long-term financial and monetary returns from the sector. It is also hard to say whether the positive externalities gained through telecom efficiency at the personal, corporate and government levels will be as game-changing as they have been promised to be.

But it will be incumbent upon the organisations responsible for regulating the sectors, the Ethiopian Communications Authority and the Ministry of Innovation & Technology, to safeguard the process from abuse. There is surely a debate to be made here that the regulatory record of the government over the past decades has been more adversarial than friendly to businesses.

But this is a system that can be addressed, and the ambitious aim of the government here, it should be noted, is not merely financial proceeds from licensing and the partial privatisation of the telecom monopoly but the realisation of an impressive telecom operation, with improved key performance indicators, within the country.

Anyone that has been told at the banks or the customs office that the “system is down,” has already experienced firsthand the effects of an undeveloped telecom industry on other sectors. It has never been efficient for the public since it could never get the funding required to create the connectivity and backup systems that would have enabled an acceptable level of service.

This is while the operation of wireless mobile and internet services has been marred with outages and various network problems. All of these problems are attributable to the fact that telecom is a monopoly operation, unaccountable to its users because it does not have to worry about competition. Indebted, propped up by inadequate infrastructure and lacking competent workforce, Ethio telecom should not be the standard we look forward to in our country. The road to modernisation is paved with open competition and lighted by constant innovation and efficiency. Telecoms are no different in this regard.

A broad liberalisation of the telecom sector would enhance the availability of facilities including network infrastructure, hardware and services that will be built, staged and installed. This is private spending on infrastructure, which will enhance employment opportunities.

The process of instituting a new telecom company operation and engineering would also mean office leases, building construction, towers and facilities for power and ancillary services. The billing systems and facilities, server and hardware for the electronic exchanges of media and messaging all require new skills and allow enormous employment opportunities for Ethiopia’s graduates, including from technical colleges. The dispersion of new telecom services will also aid in the growth in business, finance, sales and marketing, as they attempt to adapt together.

New pieces of equipment imported by the licensee and related hardware will bring additional revenues to the government in terms of customs, transport and labour. This will be an added impetus to the economy, which will surely grow and become more productive as a result.

The achievements of the current telecommunications service in addressing the public’s needs are recognisable but needs salient improvement in almost all aspects.

Interestingly, the piece mentions that “the major international telecommunications infrastructure for the transmission of data is fibre optic cables buried deep in the ocean around the world to which our country has no direct access.” The suggestion here is that Ethiopia, using income from its telecom monopoly, should commit to buying “shares and be part owner of neighbouring telecommunication companies in Djibouti, Kenya and Sudan, which are privately owned.”

Such massive investments though will be better utilised in the enhancement of telecom services to achieve higher performance indicators through infrastructure investments here at home. The fibre glut in international waters, on the other hand, is abundant, and the leasing of bandwidth is not a difficult option for the country to exercise at any time and on its own terms. Ethiopia’s access to international waters through neighbouring countries is also not a bad thing, especially considering that Djibouti and Eritrea are now close allies.

This goes to show the importance of taking stock of and complementing the government’s effort to privatise the ownership of the old telecommunications company and liberalise the industry. It guarantees the economic development of the country by ensuring efficiency in other sectors.

Carried out properly, as opposed to Nigeria and Tanzania in the 1990s where corruption and malfeasance were rife, liberalisation and privatisation of the industry will bring about economic advantages to the country.

Whether those who have discharged their responsibilities and social burdens in the past remain relevant in the current efforts of economic liberalisation, in the economy at large, remains to be seen. But this effort to modernise the telecom must be endorsed by the public if we are to do away with the old and bring in the future of telecom.

Abebe Gashaw is a former senior manager at Ethio telecom and general manager at XMG Business Group. He can be reached at retta.abebe@gmail.com.

Social Media Activism against Gender Inequality Won’t Cut It

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Undoubtedly, Ethiopia’s feminist movement, in its current form, raises the right points and advocates for the most liberal societal values. Unfortunately, it is not hitting the right mark.

Much of the concentration of the activist’s voices are on social media – Twitter, Facebook and Instagram – especially after the influential #MeToo movement. But it is rarely questioned how it is limited to a section of the population that is removed from the experiences of ordinary women in Ethiopia.

Ethiopia is still predominantly a rural country, with just 20pc of its population living in urban areas. It is also the second-most populous country in Africa with a population of around 100 million, according to the latest estimates. One-fifth of this population has access to the internet. This means that the majority of women in Ethiopia not only face gender-based discrimination but also cannot afford to get access to a platform through which they could be reached.

When women’s rights activists in Ethiopia are using these platforms for advocacy, who are they trying to reach? What is their target audience?

No doubt, social media platforms have become a huge part of creating awareness and an important tool for advocacy on public interest issues. Although most Ethiopians do not have social media accounts or access to the internet, we have seen those with voices in the public spectrum utilise social media activism to shed light on or condemn actions that violate women’s rights.

Twitter has been used to put pressure on public officials or those in power to respond to public interest issues. Still, the challenge remains, in Ethiopia’s context social media activism is not enough to bring about the required change to guarantee social, political and economic equality, including protection against gender-based violence.

Even though connecting with our local or public officials and policymakers has become more accessible through social media networks, we must not forget those women with limited access to information. Otherwise, we are leaving a major portion of our fellow Ethiopian women behind.

Let us rewind back to the early years of Ethiopia’s women’s rights activism. It was carried out at the grassroots level. One of the most prominent mentions here is the Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association (EWLA), which has been promoting female empowerment and access to justice through litigation involving gender-based violence in many parts of Ethiopia.

Their notable case was adapted into a movie called “Defret,” which resulted in social mobilisation and advocacy that succeeded in changing policies and promoting the amendment of the family law. The Association is currently operating at the weredaand zonal levels in six regions and providing free legal services to women in need.

Over the years, various networks, groups and nonprofit organisations have popped up to create a large and varied platform but have failed to address issues at a grassroots level. At the events and workshops they hold, most of the attendees are from similar backgrounds – well-educated and with access to opportunities, experiences and advantages that do not represent the reality of most Ethiopian women.

The current movement, which fails to consider the framework of intersectionality, is unable to push forward the agenda enough to bring tangible and sustainable change. As it is, it is not enough to bring about the change that we all would like to see – ensuring that Ethiopian women can enjoy their full social, political and economic rights without any form of discrimination, unequivocally, and lead a life without violence and abuse.

To emphasise, let us ask ourselves “for whom are we advocating?”

Is it for the ordinary Ethiopian women who lack formal education and have little to no income?

Ethiopian women with a good economic background are in a better position than the women that do not have access to basic services. The focus should be on underprivileged Ethiopian women, considering the overlapping disadvantages that they are faced with. It is impossible to say that change has come when we are not sure.

An alternative should be a movement that prioritises challenging our institutions and systems and makes them accountable for the discriminatory and unfair policies and laws undermining the fundamental rights of women.

This will be all the more important considering the reports on the rise in domestic abuse during the COVID-19-related quarantine measures. It would be more effective if feminist groups, women’s rights activists and civil society organisations (CSOs) shifted their focus from condemnation on different online platforms to take our prosecutors at the Attorney General to task over why charges are not filed in specific cases.

Why are there not harsher sentences? What are the police doing to meet the rise in domestic abuse cases?

Asking these types of questions will challenge our justice institutions and create accountability and transparency, leading to better policies and laws in favour of ensuring the rights of women.

The least we can do is condemn these violent acts on social media, but dissecting the legal and structural factors that have enabled these perpetrators to exist among our society should make us ask more questions and push us to do more. It is why women’s rights activists should re-examine their strategy vis-a-vis their target audience to better advocate for the vulnerable and invisible women of Ethiopia.

Plastic: The Next Stage in Banknote Evolution

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The creeping depreciation of the Birr and the high amount of circulation outside the banks has led industry leaders to lobby for the introduction of 200 and 500 Br notes. It has also prompted calls for the reissuing of 50 and 100 Br notes.

It would thus be a lost opportunity to fail to call attention to not just the monetary consequences of this decision but also the material that the notes are made of. This requires recognising two major problems with banknotes: lack of durability and ease of counterfeiting.

On average, the life expectancy of a banknote is a little more than two years, and many notes are relatively easy to forge. The primary question for national banks and policymakers is how to create an almost indestructible banknote that is almost impossible to forge.

In the 1980s, researchers came very close to answering this question by coming up with a polymer banknote (plastic note). Four decades later, over 50 countries are using them, including Australia (which is a pioneer), Canada, the UK and Romania. In Africa, countries such as Mauritania, Egypt and Zambia have already issued or are in the process of issuing polymer banknotes.

Why go from paper to polymer?

Polymer is a thin piece of plastic which is more durable than paper. The wear and tear that we typically see with paper banknotes do not affect polymer notes as quickly. Many studies have shown that the latter is likely to last 2.5 times longer than the former since they are waterproof and can withstand extreme temperatures without suffering damage. Such features are essential for a country like Ethiopia, where almost all exchanges are made with cash.

Just as important is the difficulty and effort it takes to forge polymer notes. The technology required to make them is relatively expensive and extremely hard to acquire. If the printing is done well, the images and writing on the notes is made extremely detailed to provide a mechanism against counterfeiting, which unabated can lead to the reduction of the value of real money.

Counterfeiting creates inflation by creating an unauthorised artificial increase in the money supply. Indeed, nothing is counterfeit-proof; but polymer banknotes cut the counterfeit rate in half compared to paper banknotes. Canada has witnessed this, where counterfeiting was slashed by 74pc just four years after their introduction.

Another great benefit of polymer notes is that they can be recycled. There is a decreased chance of depletion of resources, with less harm to the environment and less cost for production.

There are disadvantages too. Current money counting machines would not be able to count polymer notes, so they must be either replaced or refitted. Another major downside is the cost of production, which could be 50pc higher than the cost of paper notes, but this fails to consider the longevity of polymer notes, which decreases the frequency of printing and the benefits of using recyclable worn-out polymer notes.

But such challenges are surmountable, especially if the government takes the experiences of other countries into consideration.

Nigeria, for example, decided to go back to paper currency in 2012 after previously issuing lower denomination notes in polymer. The authorities claimed that the polymer money was fading and alleged that the bills are not environmentally friendly, which is not entirely true.

But what this entails is that there needs to be extreme care taken when it comes to the quality of the printing. Countries that use these bills must invest in the machines that recycle the worn-out notes or have them shipped to the country that printed them out, instead of trying to destroy them.

Changing the banknotes to polymer is something to be considered by the Central Bank of Ethiopia and the government in general. Even though there are benefits and downsides to using polymer banknotes, the former outweighs the latter. They are more durable, secure and environmentally friendly.

It may be that there is no substitute for what is the ultimate measure against counterfeiting – electronic money. But polymer notes are the next best thing and would have enormous benefits for our cash-based society.

Justice, Security as Central Tenets in Corporate Governance

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Governance is all about justice and security. Any organisation, including entire countries, that cannot ensure these two essential features lose their right to govern whatever resources they have. Irrespective of the philosophy and the system adapted for governance, the people at large must feel secure from internal and external dangers, and they must be confident that dispute resolution will be carried out fairly.

It is no secret that the most key assets within the frame of corporate governance are people at every level of organisational hierarchy. There is an invisible but immense potential to be cultivated under sound corporate governance using these assets. The governance is to the people, from the people and by the people.

If the company ensures justice and security with the corporate framework, which entails career stability, engagement, belongingness, a sense of added value to customer satisfaction and image building, there is bound to be breakthrough. If this is not the case, the opposite will be true.

A company that does not attach value to these cornerstones of corporate governance leaves room for bribery, nepotism, chaos and periodical deterioration of norms, customs and cultures. Most critically, the result is a fall in productivity. There is no end in sight to the decay that can occur as a result.

If there is no justice and security in the company, there will be no room for fairness, initiative-taking and developmental thinking. There will be no dynamism, planned targets will not be achieved, and customers will be subjected to poor service.

A well developed corporate governance structure of a modern company should embrace sustainable incomes, learning and growth, stimulate and effect development and maintain healthy and sound customer relations. This is the covenant of all board members of a company, and it is underwritten by the dual foundations of justice and security.

When leaders of companies give promises but fail to walk the talk on their core principles, no amount of capital will be able to address the devastating cataclysm that floods the entire enterprise. The second a company loses its trustworthiness with its own employees, it is hard for a company to survive afterwards.

A transparent code of corporate governance that puts aside the well-being and professional satisfaction of employees at the top inevitably improves the service for its customers and increases the returns to its shareholders.

“Corporate governance is concerned with holding the balance between economic and social goals and between individual and communal goals,” wrote Adrian Cadbury, a long time chairman of Cadbury, one of the world’s largest confectionery companies. “The governance framework is there to encourage the efficient use of resources and equally to require accountability for the stewardship of those resources. The aim is to align as nearly as possible the interests of individuals, corporations and society.”

The board of directors or leaders should understand and embrace these central tenets of corporate governance wholeheartedly. The alternative is inevitable failure.

All the Single Male Parents

Posted on by Web Master

Men and women, one much more than the other, are biased against women. This is one of the key reasons fundamental improvement has become unattainable in Ethiopia in terms of gender equality. Education has done very little in this regard because, as is often the case, behavioral change is required more than a teacher telling students what to do.

The wrong beliefs people associate with gender are a harmful practice we all should work to eradicate. This is a problem that has not only led to the economic, political and social disenfranchisement of women but the ossification of men’s place within family dynamics. It has led to the view that women should not be allowed to go out and work and created the damaging perception that men should be peripheral to parenting.

This has undervalued the contributions of fathers, preventing them from having deeper relationships with their children. The blame may fall on the laps of men, for they have created the patriarchal structures that bog progress down to this day, but some of them have been victims of this as well.

A good example, at the expense of sounding biased, is my father, who raised my siblings and me as the only parent until my mother joined him two decades later. He was advised to leave his long-distance marriage and marry someone else to share the parenting responsibilities. People told him it is not possible for him to raise his offspring, because he is a man, and that it was an erosion to his manhood.

My father grew up in a harmful culture but managed to grow out of it.

He cooked, cleaned, drove us to school and bought groceries. He was compassionate and loving and handled tasks often attributed by society to women. Even when I was going through puberty, he was able to listen and give me advice. Not only did he take my immature concerns seriously for several months but also helped me love the natural course of life.

For men to do tasks originally assigned by society to women may not seem like a great sacrifice, but it is one of life’s great challenges for a parent to bring up children alone. It is undoubtedly harder for female single parents, but it is no walk in the park for men either.

No doubt, there are as many women that share this biased outlook as there are men. The gendered division of labour is something that has been passed from one generation to another for such a long time that a different way of parenting seems unthinkable for many. Such distorted understandings, coming from both genders, are symptoms of a society that never came to terms with its harmful norms and values.

Good parents are those who model love, care, kindness, equality, responsibility and passion in life; the ones who pass on great character to their children. Here, men and women are equally imbued with the ability to inculcate a unique way of looking at the world in their children, if they have the patience and willingness.

Men should be treated as equals in parenting, an important factor for social progress that requires their effort. The remarkable contributions they can make should not be overshadowed by society’s insistence on maintaining a system that is as outdated as it is harmful.

The common bias that men are bad parents and women are good parents is unfounded. Great parenting is not gender-based but depends upon character. It is accomplished by being an example to one’s children, who must be prepared for the challenges life will bring.

I experienced this firsthand. When we were old enough to help around the home my younger brother and I knew how to clean, cook, and look after ourselves. This allowed us to learn important life skills, which, if we are strong enough, we will pass on to our children.