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Month: May 2021

European, African Leaders Call for New Deal for Africa

Posted on by Web Master

The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us that we can no longer treat seemingly faraway crises as distant problems. What happens anywhere can affect people everywhere. That is why addressing the impact and legacy of the pandemic in Africa is so important.

Although Africa has suffered fewer COVID-19 cases and deaths than other areas of the world, the pandemic’s impact on the continent could be more sustained, deep-rooted, and destabilising for the entire planet. In one year, the pandemic has halted a quarter-century of steady economic growth, disrupted value chains, and caused an unprecedented increase in inequality and poverty.

But it is not only Africa that is at risk of losing its opportunity to emerge fully from COVID-19. The global economy could lose one of its future drivers of growth.

Africa has everything required to overcome the pandemic crisis and lead the world toward a new cycle of sustainable growth: enterprising and innovative young people, natural resources which can supply a local industrial base, and a highly ambitious continental integration project. But Africa does not have the instruments to recover from a crisis as huge as it was unexpected.

While the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that African countries will need 285 billion dollars in additional financing by 2025, there is no recovery plan or mechanism in place to secure these resources. While other regions are now seeing signs of rapid economic recovery, Africa’s inability to combat the pandemic with the same leverages could fuel an economic and social crisis that denies its young people the opportunities they need and deserve.

International solidarity began yielding results soon after the pandemic began. Debt-service payments for the poorest countries were suspended under the G20, and exceptional financial assistance from the IMF, the World Bank, and other donors, including Europe, was made available.

But the institutions that have underpinned international solidarity for decades are now reaching their limits. They have been weakened in the short term by huge inequalities in vaccine access. They are weakened, too, by major economic divergences, which no emergency measure seems capable of stopping.

That is why a new framework, an ambitious and bold New Deal, is needed. And the first test of this initiative must be access to COVID-19 vaccines. Through COVAX, the vaccine pillar of the international community’s Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, and the African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team, hundreds of millions of doses will be delivered to Africa in the months ahead. Pre-ordered doses of vaccines are being shared through multilateral channels, with the protection of healthcare workers the top priority.

But it is not sufficient. Vaccination is the world’s most important economic policy at this moment: its benefits are measured in trillions, its cost in billions. It is the highest-yielding investment in the short term. We must therefore mobilise innovative financial instruments to increase funding for the ACT Accelerator, in order to reach Africa’s vaccination coverage target, set at 60-70pc by the Africa Centres for Disease Control & Prevention. We call on the IMF to recognise the use of special drawing rights (SDRs, the Fund’s unit of account) to finance this effort.

Moreover, as the Rome Declaration of the Global Health Summit held on May 21 affirms, the key to combating future pandemics is transferring not only licenses but also expertise to developing country vaccine producers. Pending the conclusion of an agreement on intellectual property currently under negotiation at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Africa must be able to produce vaccines using messenger RNA (mRNA) technology and break a deal, within the WTO, on the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) regime. With the impetus of the Paris summit for African, European, and financial leaders, held on May 18, such production partnerships will be financed and move ahead in the coming months.

The second component of a New Deal for Africa is large-scale investment in health, education, and the fight against climate change. We must allow Africa to ring-fence this spending from outlays for security and infrastructure investment, preventing the continent from falling into a new cycle of excessive debt. In the short term, despite certain African countries’ spectacular success at tapping international capital markets, private creditors will not provide the necessary financial resources.

Africa needs a positive confidence shock. The Paris summit has enabled us to consolidate an agreement on a new 650 billion dollars allocation of SDRs, 33 billion dollars of which will go to African countries. Now we want to go even further with two voluntary commitments.

First, we need a commitment by other countries to mobilise part of their SDR allocations for Africa. As a first step, this re-channelling of resources would enable an initial threshold of 100 billion dollars to be freed up for Africa (and vulnerable countries elsewhere). Second, African institutions must be involved in the use of these SDRs to support the continent’s recovery and progress toward achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. This, in turn, may pave the way for an overhaul of our international financial architecture that gives greater weight to African institutions.

We call on all members of the international community to make this double commitment.

Finally, we must focus on Africa’s main asset: its entrepreneurial dynamism. The continent’s very small, small, and medium-size enterprises are the lifeline to the future for African women and young people, but the private sector is hostage to informality and under-financing. This is why we must focus on improving African entrepreneurs’ access to financing by targeting their projects’ most crucial phases, particularly start-up.

The goal of the Paris summit was to gain agreement on four matters: universal access to COVID-19 vaccines, including via production in Africa; strengthening pan-African institutions’ positions and roles within a new international financial architecture; relaunching public and private investment; and supporting large-scale financing of the African private sector. Our task in the months ahead will be to advance these goals in international fora and as part of France’s upcoming six-month term as president of the Council of the European Union.

BY EMMANUEL MACRON, PAUL KAGAME, CYRIL RAMAPHOSA AND MACKY SALL

Good Luck, Africa!

Posted on by Web Master

There is an old Ethiopian joke that demonstrates how pathetic – mind the French – African countries are.

Here is the story, with some embellishments. An immortal deity goes around various countries, picking individuals and asking them what they would like. One says a palace, another a private jet, and yet another a yacht. All of the wishes, he is happy to fulfil until he comes to Ethiopia.

“And what would you like?” He asks an Ethiopian.

“I would like to live well into old age to witness the prosperity of Ethiopia,” says the man.

The immortal deity looks at him, and with pity in His tone, says, “My dear child, even I won’t be able to live that long.”

Technically, this is wrong. The Economistestimates that it would have taken a 170 years for today’s developing countries to halve the income gap with rich nations at current catch-up rates. This means that it would take an African country such as Ethiopia, on average, 340 years to close the gap with that of rich nations. We are staring at several subsequent generations of poverty, lack of access to potable water, basic electricity, and health services.

This situation will be limited to the Middle East, Latin America and, of course, sub-Saharan Africa. These three have been falling further behind since 2013, especially compared to the emerging Asian and East European countries.

Why?

Let us take countries such as Ethiopia and Nigeria. Both boast a promising market, especially in the information technology sphere where takeoff has been sustained and demonstrable. Both also have a modest but yet impressive record of lifting populations out of poverty. Unfortunately, they also get hit by events such as COVID-19.

In Ethiopia’s case, over the past year, it has been battered by restrictions from the pandemic, locust invasions, political instability and flooding, all in one year. Two million more people are estimated to fall into poverty while individuals under the Productive Safety Net Programme are expected to rise by six million to 15 million this year, according to the World Bank. It is not a pretty picture.

Miraculously, the economy has survived all of this and is expected to grow by about two percent this year, according to the IMF, making Ethiopia one of the few countries globally to have not sunk into recession as a result of the pandemic. It also opened up its telecom sector to much promise – in a deal that would see a million jobs created – boasts an eclectic up-and-coming garments industry and is undergoing an urban renewal in its capital, Addis Abeba.

No matter, it is a sub-Saharan African country – it can never go too long without having its prospects dashed. It is now staring down the barrel of US and EU sanctions that, if egregious enough, would pull down millions more into poverty with, sadly, very little prospects of addressing the ongoing crisis in the Tigray region.

Nigeria is another example. Flick the news on the country and one would find an orgy of alarming reports – media institutions portraying it as a typical conflict-torn, hopelessly failed nation; as a very African country.

There is news of the country’s army chief being killed in a plane crash recently. There is also an insurgency by Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province, which has displaced about two million people and killed more than 30,000 over a decade. Kidnappings for ransom is a modest market in itself, as is fighting between farmers and cattle herders.

And, of course, as any African country worth its salt, its army is also fighting a separatist movement – the old Biafrans trying to make a comeback. More importantly, its economy went into recession in 2016 and has only been growing at about two percent over the past years, a meagre rate for a developing country.

As I said, the circumstance of sub-Saharan Africa is dire and depressing. Unfortunately, this may worsen. The rich world prefers to bloat such countries with more aid money than investments and trade (which create sustainable economic development), a population boom that strains resources is in the offing and there is global warming. The last one is the price Africans pay for the industrialisation of the Global North and will mean more extreme weather events that worsen food insecurity. Indeed, all of these will translate into more violence and conflicts.

Good luck, Africa.

Artisans Were the Past. They Also Make Up Part of the Future

Posted on by Web Master

There was a wood workshop in the vicinity of my house, initially cramped in a building whose construction was stalled. Owned and run by a young man, his employees have always been handy in helping me out. Unfortunately, the building resumed construction and they had to move elsewhere, leaving me missing their skills in woodwork and decoration. More importantly, I have come to admire even more their impressive ability to work together and handle customers.

In my childhood, while I was in Qes Timhirt Bet, I remember a similar encounter with a workshop. It was close to the school I went to, thus giving me the opportunity to frequent two illustrious entrepreneurs working without a shade around our house. The couturier Gash Ketema with his old sewing machine and its spinning wheel, and Gash Waqjira, the shoemaker, with his metal foot-model on which shoes are pincered, hammered and shaped. Together, they breathed life into worn-out clothes and shoes. The whole neighbourhood looked up to them.

As I did some errands, assisting them with some simple routines, I grasped some skills that endure to this day. My toys turned out to be, if not all, some of the tools used by the two of them.

As I went up the ladder in elementary school, during our break, one place I frequented was the male’s handicraft room. In those days, girls started at grade three in their own handicrafts room, while male students had to wait until the 5th grade. At most, I was there two or three times a week, where we took handicraft lessons in a room surrounded by grilled windows.

It was my most favourite place in the compound. Inside, one could find replicas of churches, mosques and houses, put together by students ages ago. Our grades were determined by what we made in our houses and brought for display. I once came with a handgun made with good proportions and beautifully carved from clay. To be delivered on the morrow, I felt it was appropriate to open the trigger guard. It broke into three pieces. With a hollow heart and a pained face, I took it to school. Our teacher gave the highest mark to me as what mattered to him was the effort.

In contrast to my neighbourhood days, while I worked and lived among foreign nationals many years back, irrespective of their professions, their handiwork had always been visible in and outside of the houses with clean and amazing green vibes. Hence, no matter how anecdotal and research-based it looked, the more we use our hands, the more our environment is changed for good. This is bested and endures more if it is started from school.

It is unfortunate that today’s schooling pays very little attention to vocational work. It is usually the case that vocational learning is limited to students of university level and they are educated in it to be ready for professional purposes. This should not be the case. Skilled crafts or technician work should not be looked down upon. They should be encouraged in children at an early age and should become part of elementary school curricula.

Scandinavian countries are a good example in this regard. Students have classes where they have to take lessons in skills not usually considered necessary to get a paying job in Ethiopia. This is an example that should be taken to encourage more crafts persons onto the scene, such as the ones that embellished our neighbourhood – and the cranky skeletal building they resided in – creating job opportunities and sustaining a modest but promising artisans industry.

Competition’s Healthy, But Keep It Scrupulous

Posted on by Web Master

A healthy dose of competition has always been the engine that kept businesses moving. In their pursuit to provide better products and service experiences to their customers, businesses continuously develop new features that enable them to excel in the market. Fair competition in the market and its multiple benefits to businesses also come with a package of additional benefits to customers. For instance, customers may have access to more improved products and services with a better quality that makes life easier. They may also acquire more improved, efficient offerings at a relatively lower price.

This is precisely how the telecom industry could be impacted following the entry of a new player – with another one on the way – once it starts selling its services. It automatically imbues consumers with sovereignty, allowing them to determine what products come into the market and which ones do not.

However, competition may not always be healthy. In some instances, businesses might fully commit themselves to an all-out war to crush one another. Such competition is entirely based on “weak point analysis” where market players engage in the arduous and sometimes callous activity of seeking out the weakest link of their opponent, with the intention of taking down a potential threat.

Weak point analysis is known by a very famous Greek mythology that involves the character Achilles. He is considered a heroic warrior that always destroyed his enemies. The secret to his bravery and heroism comes from the fact that his mother, from her desire to make him immortal in his early childhood, dipped him in the waters of the “River Styx”. Except for the heel by which she held him, his entire body became an impervious human-made armour. An opponent who came to know his weak spot finally took him down by shooting an arrow at heel. This mythology is the source of the proverbial “Achilles Heels.”

The moral of the Achilles Heel story is that despite the myriad of strengths that one possesses, if competition is based on weakest link analysis, there is always a week spot that can lead to the annihilation of an opponent.

A very practical example of competition based on the concept of “Achilles Heels” was the infamous “Cola–War” between Coca Cola and Pepsi in the 1980s. These two beverage giants were engaged in a competition of blind taste tests and huge advertising expenditures. The climax of the war came when Coca-cola changed “Merchandise 7x,” its secretive formula in 1985 to abandon it in favour of a “New Coke.” The formula has been behind the success of the coca-cola brand for almost 100 years. The result could have been destructive had it not been for loyal customers who vigorously protested for the return of the old taste. Finally, the company retracted its new formula and kept the lucrative old coke.

A competition based on weak point analysis has the main purpose of focusing on the weaknesses of competitors and capitalising on that to take them down. The downside of such completion is that it may lead to the emergence of a monopoly that vigorously tries to control the market all by itself, robbing customers of new benefits from alternative products and services.

Technological advancement and change in consumer taste are also marking competition in the Ethiopian business environment. This is evident from competitions after opening up in industries such as banking and brewery. These businesses should make sure that they compete based on the potential new product and service features they bring to the market and not by capitalising on the weak links of market players.

Policymaking Should Widen Its Scope

Posted on by Web Master

Public policy initiation, formulation, implementation, and evaluation is a complex, dynamic and constantly evolving interactive and adaptive system in which a multitude of stakeholders, actors, and institutions, both formal and informal, coexist. Leaders exert vigilant efforts, and checks and balances to bridge the gap of values and to ensure the effective operation of public policies to meet the engine of social well-being.

Ethiopia has been undergoing such a balancing act over the past three years as several legal and economic policies are re-drafted. Policymakers and drafters have undergone many reforms and trade-offs aiming to increase accountability, efficiency, effectiveness and value for money. The complexity of society requires complex legislations demanding complex applications and business processes to implement it.

At the same time, the societal expectations of public service have by no means diminished. The presence of constant pressure in public administration to modernise executions and meet societal demands calls for an integrated view of policymaking and implementation.

The engagement of actors with different levels of interaction processes depends mainly on the resources they possess and the importance of these resources in the policy process. Consideration of a multitude of approaches to have a major outcome, either harmonious or conflicting of decision making, might be available where policy networks are crucial. A policy network is a cluster of arrangements connected to each other with the aim of influencing and promoting the best progressive thinking on the major social, political, and economic challenges of the country.

Policy networks are described as stable patterns of social relationships between interdependent actors, which take shape around policy problems or policy programs, and that are being formed, reproduced, and changed by an ecology of games through strategic behaviour. Thus, the network is an interaction system, visualised as the cumulative effect of all the connected agendas to formulate a normative basis in the policy arena. Magnifying the collaboration to organise, communicate and coordinate the operation is useful to pave the way towards the institutionalisation of the process within networks.

Commonly, the policy networks were used to indicate that policymaking occurred in a close relationship between interest groups and governmental agencies. As the policy network consists of a pattern of relations, institutionalisation is quite essential to achieve the desired collective goals and sustain the resources that constitute the network.

In Ethiopia, exploring the advantage of the policy network indeed matters and contributes to understanding policy processes and their implementation in contemporary society, where it enhances the effectiveness of implementation, what government can properly and successfully do and how it can do these with the utmost possible resources. Though the concept of policy network is a useful tool for dynamic analysis of policymaking, it should have regulations formulated and bound with organisational structures accustomed to changing social relationships.

Ethiopia has a long history of policy inconsistency, where laws are sometimes changed after the fact or sometimes in response to political calculations. This has harmed the doing business environment and contributed to a lack of predictability for entrepreneurs and investors. This is why it is crucial to invest in institutions where policymaking becomes non-arbitrary, proactive and rule-based.

Come without Bearing Gifts at Own Peril

Posted on by Web Master

Sometimes, we find ourselves in a position where we want to visit one of our friends or relatives but do not want to go empty-handed. We think of the things we could buy.

Fruits? Like a kilo of banana or oranges? Cookies from a bakery or a cake from a pastry shop?

Some people may go to the distance of postponing their visit to folks because they find it too mortifying to go without bearing gifts. Count me in as one of these people. I do not like dropping by a friend’s house empty-handed. Even taking something as little as a kilo of bananas does not suffice for me. It has to be at least two kilos. I also insist on not giving the same type of gift twice.

This is probably a behaviour I got from my family. Paying someone a visit without gifts is considered inconsiderate, but this does not mean that we expect the same courtesy from visitors. Whenever someone brings something to our house, the host says, “why did you bother?”

Many hosts expect guests to show up bearing gifts, especially for holidays, graduations and birthdays. They might not say it out loud, but they wonder why a guest has broken the unspoken rule whenever someone shows up empty-handed.

I also wondered aloud when a guest came to visit my friend’s father, who at the time was sick, empty-handed. Not only did they come weeks late to see him even though they lived next door, but they also did not bring anything. Their excuse for not coming was that they had the flu, but when they finally got the chance to visit, they only brought excuses with them.

My friend tried to conceal her disappointment, but it was clear that she was not pleased.

“I understand why they didn’t come, but when they finally decide to show up, they brought nothing,” she told me after they left, exasperated. “When their mother was sick, I went there to visit her several times and each time, I brought something with me.”

She has a point. A gift is a language of affection. What makes them special is not how expensive they are but the time and attention given to them, especially as one has to know a person well to know what they like. Indeed, this very same social phenomenon may also cause some to reject the gifts.

We may come across hosts that consider it rude to accept the gifts guests bring. I know a family who gets annoyed every time I bring them something when I go to visit.

“Why do you always come carrying gifts?” they say to me. “You’re like family; next time, don’t bring anything. And if you do anyway, we won’t let you in the house.”

Sometimes, the culture of gift-giving is taken to the next stage. For instance, growing up, whenever someone brought us food either on a plate or in a lunchbox, we would not return the plate or box bare after we were finished. This was taboo. Instead, we would put some food in it as a way of gratitude.

Of course, this host-guest relationship is not just a custom in Ethiopia. From the West to the East, people have to abide by gift-giving laws that govern this relationship, though the era of excess consumerism has eaten away at its value. It is a norm, a way of life that spontaneously arose and now governs how we treat one another. As long as we do not go overboard and empty our pockets in the process, it is a good culture to keep.

It’s Only Natural to be Anxious Now, but Not Mentally Unwell

Posted on by Web Master

Political, economic and public health crises coming all at once is devastating for people’s mental health. The COVID-19 outbreak, and the tragedies of violence we hear about daily in various corners of the country, are increasingly impacting our psychological wellbeing, even if we do not directly suffer from them. It is sometimes grief at the loss of loved ones, anxiety at joblessness or fear for the future – they are all triggering and deepening mental stress.

With much happening right now, it is a miracle we can all get things together in our minds to get up in the morning, hoping for something better to come. We learn to overlook our realities and yearn for better things to come in what seems like a distant future.

Individuals with pre-existing mental health conditions and those already caught up in conflict and crisis areas are at a much higher risk of developing mental disorders. One such victim is my friend, who suddenly slipped into chronic depression. He spoke openly about the disturbing information he has been exposed to due to his work. He was in great distress about politics and the pandemic, but he never reflected on how it affected him personally. Now, at a stage where he is in greater need of a medical emergency, he rejected the necessary support and severed all communications with loved ones. It made matters all the more harder for him.

Mental health suffering is often exacerbated by stigma and discrimination, making people like my friend afraid to seek support. But as things seem to spiral out of our control, we all should prepare for waves of uncertainty and anxiety. As human beings, we all share the same sorrows, hopes and needs. If the pandemic has given us a lesson, it is how interdependent we are: what happens to one person can soon affect many others, even on the far side of the nation.

It is only natural to feel worried and scared at a time when so many are suffering. But by being calm and clear-sighted, we can help others and, in so doing, help ourselves. We should be encouraged to cultivate peace of mind and think about what we can do for others.

Mental health is the core of our existence and keeping it functional must receive our utmost priority. It is also never too late. Research on the mental health impact of catastrophic events shows that most people bounce back to a healthy state of mind. Our own troubled political and economic history and how people managed to move forward over the years is a case in point.

One of the vital aspects of being resilient is taking the necessary measures, such as resting, limiting the amount of information we consume and connecting with those close to us.

Our society lacks the community support needed to stay well mentally. But it is about time we change the status quo and reshape some of our priorities to give mental wellbeing greater attention. For a poor nation like ours, it is more affordable to promote mental health rather than treat mental illness.

Communities, religious institutions, schools and families should play a more vital role than ever to support those in need. This requires making the issue less taboo and creating platforms where these matters could be more honestly discussed. We must collaborate to find innovative ideas if we want a mentally healthier society that can be productive.

It is important to reduce the magnitude of damage that political crisis and the pandemic may continue to create on our mental wellbeing. Even in our loss of a sense of security and certainty, grief should not be our daily phenomenon. It should rather be optimism that with collaboration, things will improve and that we will find a way out of our dilemma. To do this, we need to be mentally astute and well.

15,000,000

Posted on by Web Master

number of people expected to be covered by the Productive Safety Net Programme this year as a result of COVID-19, locust invasions, war and flooding, according to the World Bank. This is up from nine million people under the social safety net.

Street Art for Peace

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A colourful street painting embellishes part of an overpass in the Sarbet area. It portrays a man and a woman holding doves, which represent peace. The text in the painting reads, “Peace for All.” Street art in public spaces has been growing lately, including in the Megenagna and Stadium areas.

Huawei’s Best, Brightest

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Betelhem Dessie (left), CEO at iCOG-Anyone Can Code, and Matthew Davis (centre), CEO of Renew, were among the participants of the launch of the national round of the Sixth Global Huawei ICT Competition at the Hyatt Regency on May 26, 2021. One-thousand students are expected to participate in the competition, where they will present innovative ideas based on Huawei products and technologies. The winners of the national round will represent Ethiopia on the regional and global stages.

Repavement

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The pedestrian streets are undergoing yet more rehabilitation in several parts of Addis Abeba, creating an inconvenience for the passerby as usual. This one is in the Stadium area, on Ras Desta Damtew Street, where the dismantling of the pavement stones has also snagged a street light, which is now lying unceremoniously on the ground.