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Month: June 2026

Banks Cannot Digitise Their Way to Trust. Humans Do.

Posted on by Digital Editor

Earlier this week, I visited a private bank’s branch on Fikremariam Aba Techan St., near Megenagna, to activate mobile banking. Hoping to cut down on future trips and handle transactions from my phone, dropped by the branch, which is under renovation.

I was told the system was unavailable. Still needing to move money, I opted to transfer funds instead. I filled out the forms, completed the digital signature, submitted my Fayda ID and signed every required document. Then I waited.

My representative went on break, a colleague took over, and the power went out. Assuming a routine outage, I sat patiently. Only one other customer was in the waiting area. She had arrived before me, trying to resolve a mobile banking problem tied to money she was about to receive, and growing more anxious by the minute. She explained her situation again and again. Each time, the answer was the same:

“It’s the system,” with no explanation. No attempt to investigate. No reassurance. Eventually, the weight of it broke her, and she began to cry, visibly, while the employee meant to help her scrolled through his phone.

It was a revealing tableau. One person was overwhelmed by anxiety and hopelessness. The other, seated just across the counter, showed no flicker of concern as the distress played out in front of him.

With the risk of sounding too judgmental, Ethiopians wear hospitality like a badge. It is one of the first things we mention about ourselves. Visitors rarely leave without a story about the generosity of strangers, the culture of sharing, and the respect that anchors daily life.

Yet for many ordinary citizens who visit public offices, private companies, hospitals and banks, the lived experience, day after day, tells a very different story. Whether the destination is a government bureau, a clinic or a corporate front desk, the expectation is similar.

Service quality is poor, hours are lost on a process that should take minutes, or both. Long waits, vague explanations, indifferent staff and an absence of accountability have grown so common that many people no longer expect anything better.

Ironically, banks are the most surprising offenders. They exist because people trust them, built on the confidence that individuals and businesses place in them to safeguard money, move it and provide reliable service.

However, customers are routinely denied the most basic part of that bargain. Respectful treatment is separate from the familiar complaints about cash shortages, network failures and the ever-ready line that “the system is down.” Strip those away, and the experience often remains poor.`w

Ethiopia is in the middle of a striking digital transformation. Mobile money, digital banking and expanding telecom infrastructure are reshaping how millions deal with institutions. Telebirr alone has registered 58.6 million users and processed more than 6.88 trillion Br in cumulative transactions, figures that point to real momentum.

But registration is not the same as use. According to the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE), 66pc of women and 60pc of men lack mobile money skills, only 15pc of digital payment accounts are active, and 25pc of financial agents remain active. Despite 85.4 million mobile connections, internet penetration was 21.3pc of the population in early 2025, while adult literacy was around 52pc.

Impressive sign-up totals tell only part of the story. The woman I saw at the Bank’s branch was living inside the other, harder part.

As I debated whether to console her myself, another customer walked in, looked around at the darkened branch and asked why there was no electricity. The representative told him, casually, that the power had been switched off on purpose to accommodate the renovation.

That one detail changed everything for me. Until then, I had assumed the outage was the same kind of fault the rest of the population endures. If the power had been cut deliberately, someone should have said so at the start.

When I asked about my transaction, the employee told me, as casually, that I could leave and he would finish processing it once the electricity returned. With little choice, I trusted him and went home, frustrated but expecting the transfer to clear.

The next day, I discovered it never had. I returned, filled out the forms again and waited through another queue, only to learn that the employee had forgotten to process it. After yet another long wait, and a fresh round of forms and signatures, the transfer finally went through.

The mobile banking I had come to activate still did not work, which meant the very tool meant to reduce my trips to the Bank had failed at exactly that. Instead of convenience, I left with another reminder that future transactions would still demand an in-person visit.

One bad afternoon is easy to dismiss. The pattern behind it is not. The Digital Ethiopia 2030 strategy aims to close these gaps with ambitious targets for digital literacy and public-sector capacity. The goals are welcome, but they uncovered a broader reality. Infrastructure alone does not guarantee adoption, much less good use.

And even if every target is met, a deeper problem survives. Technology can increase throughput. It cannot increase compassion. No app, platform or program can substitute for an employee willing to answer questions, guide a customer toward a solution and offer a kind ear.

The crying woman was not undone by technology. She was undone because no one seemed willing to help her understand what was happening. Her problem was not only a system failure. It was a customer service failure, and that distinction matters because Ethiopia’s digital future depends on trust.

People adopt new tools when they believe those tools will improve their lives. Trust is built through working systems, yes, but also through decent human interactions. When customers meet indifference or disrespect, confidence in the institution and its digital services erodes together.

The risk is that institutions come to treat digitalisation as a replacement for service rather than a tool that strengthens it, resulting in modern platforms built on outdated attitudes.

As the country invests in infrastructure and chases its modernisation goals, customer service culture deserves equal attention, because efficiency and empathy are not competing priorities but complementary ones. Staff need training not only in technology but in communication, accountability and professionalism.

Registration counts or transaction volumes will not settle the future of banking, but rather whether customers feel respected, informed and valued. Until that changes, many Ethiopians will keep living the same contradiction.

A country celebrated for its hospitality struggles to find that hospitality inside the very institutions built to serve it.

When Arbitration and Litigation Begin to Blur

Posted on by Digital Editor

The new arbitration law seeks to make arbitral awards final. A binding ruling from the Federal Supreme Court’s Cassation Division may make that promise harder to keep.

The recently enacted law on arbitration and conciliation working procedure makes one of its most important reforms in the area of appeals. It adopts an arbitration-friendly rule. Unless contracting parties expressly agree otherwise, an appeal against an arbitral award is not allowed.

The design makes it clear that arbitration should be efficient, neutral and conclusive, with courts playing a limited role after an award has been issued. It reflects a legislative choice to reduce judicial interference and to let parties settle commercial disputes through a process they selected in advance.

The law does not, however, shut the courthouse door entirely. It treats reviews by courts of cassation differently from an ordinary appeal. Recourse to cassation, on the ground of a fundamental or basic error of law, remains available in principle unless the parties expressly waive it.

The result is a narrow safety valve. The law favours finality, but it also seeks to prevent grave legal mistakes from surviving merely because the dispute was sent to arbitration.

In theory, this is a calibrated settlement between two values that often pull in opposite directions. There is the autonomy and finality of arbitration, as well as the legal system’s interest in correcting manifest injustice. An older but binding decision of the Federal Supreme Court Cassation Division now clouds the balance.

A bench of seven Justices held that the parties’ agreement cannot exclude access to cassation review. The Justices grounded their decision mainly in constitutional principles rather than in subsidiary legislation.

Although the judgment was issued before the law was passed in 2018, its reasoning and binding force may remain intact. Its point turns on hierarchy.

If a Court ruling rests on constitutional interpretation, a later proclamation would not ordinarily defeat it, for constitutional provisions prevail over subordinate laws. Unless the Constitution is amended or a later judicial decision displaces the earlier ruling, the precedent may continue to shape how arbitration awards are reviewed.

The Cassation Bench reasoned that the right to petition for cassation is a constitutional guarantee under, and cannot be waived by contract. It provides that the Federal Supreme Court has “a power of cassation over any final court decision containing a basic error of law. Particulars shall be determined by law.”

That reading raises a basic interpretive problem. The constitutional text speaks of a “final court decision.” Arbitration is not a court proceeding. It is a private adjudicative process, created by agreement and conducted outside the formal judicial structure, and arbitral tribunals are not courts. Their awards, though binding, are not court decisions in the strict sense.

On a plain reading, cassation jurisdiction appears confined to final decisions rendered by courts. The English version of the Constitution, in particular, seems to limit cassation review to judicial determinations. The legislature may still design limited judicial controls over arbitration, including setting aside proceedings and rules for recognition and enforcement.

But treating arbitral awards as Court judgments for cassation purposes stretches the constitutional text and turns a narrow power of review into something closer to appellate supervision.

The Cassation Bench’s approach is controversial because it turns cassation into a non-waivable constitutional right. That weakens party autonomy, the principle on which arbitration largely rests.

Parties choose arbitration to define procedure, select applicable law and, most importantly, agree on finality. If that agreement can be reopened through cassation despite an express waiver, arbitration loses part of its distinct value.

The issue is not only doctrinal but also extends to economic policy and investors’ confidence. For businesses, that distinction is practical, as it shapes costs, timing, and trust in the dispute-resolution clause they sign before a disagreement ever reaches the tribunal.

International investors often choose arbitration because it offers neutrality, procedural flexibility and finality. A final and binding award, subject only to narrow judicial oversight, is central to the bargain. If local courts can revisit awards through cassation as a constitutional right, these investors may question whether arbitration in Ethiopia delivers what it promises.

The legal framework has long recognised the role of arbitration in investor-state disputes. The investment law affirms that disputes between foreign investors and the state may be settled through arbitration, either under contractual arrangements or applicable bilateral or multilateral investment treaties. That law signals a policy commitment to investment protection and to dispute mechanisms accepted in international practice.

Most bilateral investment treaties also make arbitration the principal dispute-resolution mechanism and state that awards are final and binding. A broad domestic cassation power could sit uneasily with these commitments. If awards can be reopened on alleged legal errors, the predictability of the investment regime may be weakened.

The effect could discourage investment, as foreign investors reconsider the legal risk attached to enforcement in Ethiopia.

The problem also calls into question the integrity of arbitration itself. Finality is closely linked to “res judicata”, the doctrine that a dispute once conclusively resolved should not be relitigated. In this sense, finality is more than a procedural preference; it supports authority, stability, and confidence in adjudicative outcomes.

Traditionally, res judicata rests on cumulative elements such as persona, the identity of the parties; petitum, the identity of the subject matter; and causa petendi, the identity of the legal and factual grounds. When these elements coincide in later proceedings, the earlier decision is treated as conclusive and binding.

The doctrine protects parties from repeated litigation, offers certainty and reinforces trust in dispute resolution.

Expansive cassation review can undercut these goals. If arbitral awards are routinely reopened on alleged errors of law, the line between arbitration and litigation begins to blur. Arbitration then becomes less of an alternative to courts and more of a first stage before Court proceedings.

The prospect weakens one of arbitration’s main attractions, a faster and more efficient route to closure. It may also encourage losing parties to treat cassation not as an exceptional safeguard, but as a routine second chance.

None of this means arbitral awards should be immune from judicial review. Comparative legal systems and international instruments such as the New York Convention recognise limited grounds for Court intervention. These include lack of jurisdiction, serious procedural irregularities and violations of public policy.

The limits are deliberate. They are meant to preserve fairness without turning courts into appellate bodies over arbitral tribunals.

A non-waivable cassation mechanism risks moving the balance toward intervention. Many arbitration-friendly jurisdictions confine Court involvement to narrow grounds and do not allow merits-based review of awards.

Ethiopia’s current trajectory may, therefore, put it at odds with prevailing international practice and weaken its position as an arbitration venue.

Protecting Fair Trials Without Putting the Media in the Dark

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In courtrooms and press briefings alike, one phrase recurs whenever a sensitive case is raised.

The line “It’s a matter before the court; I won’t discuss it” captures the sub judice rule, a principle meant to protect the judicial process by limiting public discussion of cases still being heard. It also marks one of the most contested frontiers in the country’s constitutional law, where the press’s right to report collides with a defendant’s right to a fair trial. However, the conflict is old.

Open justice, championed by the philosopher Jeremy Bentham, holds that publicity is the soul of justice, the surest guard against judicial misconduct and the firmest basis for public confidence. The sub judice rule holds that unrestrained commentary can prejudice a trial by swaying judges, intimidating witnesses, or tainting evidence.

Ethiopia manages that tension through a mix of constitutional and statutory provisions rather than a single law. The existing Constitution sets the terms, with Article 29 guaranting freedom of expression and the press, including the right to seek, receive, and impart information. Article 20(1) grants the right to a public trial, which puts journalists in the courtroom as a check against closed proceedings. Not an absolute right, courts may sit in closed session and gag the media to protect the privacy of parties, public morals, or national security.

The morals exception tends to cover sexual offences and minors, while the security exception has been applied more broadly in political and terrorism cases. Article 20(3) protects the presumption of innocence by restricting reporting that implies guilt before a verdict, while Article 26 guards privacy and Article 12 requires public institutions to be transparent.

The statutory framework has shifted with the political winds. The restrictive press law passed in 1992 gave way to the Mass Media & Freedom of Information Proclamation, issued in 2008, and then to the Media Proclamation enacted in April 2021. The latter consolidated print, broadcast, and online rules, decriminalised defamation, and barred pre-trial detention for media offences. Defamation now carries only civil liability, with moral damages capped at 300,000 Br. Article 86(1) bars the remanding of a journalist for further investigation, thereby reducing the chilling effect on court reporters.

The Ethiopian Media Authority (EMA) can still issue warnings, levy fines up to 200,000 Br, or suspend licenses, an administrative route the Authority applies mainly to registered outlets, leaving social-media users exposed to ordinary criminal statutes. Progress has since met a shift.

The media law, revised last year, changed how the Authority is run. The Prime Minister now appoints the Director General, tightening the executive’s grip on the regulator, whereas the 2021 law had Parliament designate him or her.

Without a stand-alone sub judice statute, prejudicial reporting is policed mainly through contempt of court proceedings. Article 449 of the Revised Criminal Code lets judges deal with contempt summarily when it occurs in open court. Contempt in the face of the court carries up to one year of simple imprisonment or a fine up to 3,000 Br; contempt outside it carries up to six months or 1,000 Br, the greater risk for journalists, since it covers publishing material that could prejudice a proceeding. Article 446 punishes knowingly misleading justice with up to six months, and Article 480 of the Civil Procedure Code allows summary punishment by the presiding judge.

Ironically, summary power makes the judge accuser and arbiter, testing the principles of natural justice.

Silence binds the bench, too. The code of conduct for Federal judges requires them to say nothing about the merits of pending cases, limiting them to procedural explanations or final rulings. Talking to reporters about an active case is considered improper “ex parte” communication conducted outside the parties’ presence.

Ethiopia is bound by outside standards, such as the International Covenant on Civil & Political Rights, which guarantees a fair and public hearing before an independent tribunal. The UN Human Rights Committee’s General Comment holds that trials should be public unless a specific exception applies. It allows limits on expression to protect the judiciary, but any restriction must pass a three-part test. It should be set by a precise law, serve a legitimate aim, and be the least intrusive measure necessary.

Ethiopia’s pre-trial restrictions often fail that test due to a lack of precise, balanced rules, since the complete suppression of information usually exceeds what is strictly necessary in a democratic society.

Other countries strike the balance differently. Britain’s Contempt of Court Act applies a strict-liability rule once proceedings are active, catching publications that create a “substantial risk that the course of justice in the proceedings in question will be seriously impeded or prejudiced”. Reformers have urged that the clock start at charge rather than arrest, and British courts assume professional judges are not swayed by prejudicial coverage.

In the United States, the First Amendment makes gag orders rare. The Supreme Court overturned a murder conviction after a “circus atmosphere” of publicity, and it called, in 1976, prior restraints the “most serious and the least tolerable infringement” on press freedom, permitted only where no other measure would protect a fair trial. India wrestles with “media trials,” weighing free speech against the fair-trial guarantee. Its Supreme Court permits postponement orders where coverage poses a “real and substantial risk of serious prejudice,” backed by the Contempt of Courts Act.

On the ground, media rights are strongest at the trial stage and weakest during investigation, when courts more readily bar publication to protect the presumption of innocence. The shift to an electronic filing and litigation system promises transparency but demands digital skill from reporters. Courtroom rules are strict, where cameras, recorders, and phones are barred unless a judge allows them. Formal dress is required, and recording needs permission for each hearing.

In 2025, a regional court sentenced Ahmed Awga, founder of the Jigjiga Television Network (JTN), to two years for “disseminating disinformation” over a Facebook post he did not author. In 2024, the EMA suspended nine Deutsche Welle correspondents covering conflict zones, two of them permanently, citing media and hate-speech violations without providing specific examples. In the same year, the authorities arrested seven journalists from the Ethiopian Broadcasting Service (EBS) after a program aired allegations of military misconduct.

The pattern points to a quieter shift from judicial to administrative control. With the regulator now closer to the executive, fines and suspensions can chill reporting as effectively as a trial. The doctrine assumes professional judges, unlike lay jurors, are immune to sensational coverage, yet trial by media can still erode public confidence and pressure a bench whose independence has long been challenged by political interference.

Courts have yet to build the tests and doctrines that guide judges elsewhere, leaving many outcomes to unpredictable judicial discretion. The phrase “I will not speak because the matter is before the court” protects the impartiality of justice. The task is to keep that silence from shielding the courts from public scrutiny, and to let the glare of publicity light the trial without blinding the eyes of justice.

Ethiopia’s Open Finance Future Closer Than It Looks

Posted on by Digital Editor

Ethiopia’s digital finance story is no longer only about access to mobile money. It is becoming a story about data, who generates and controls it, and whether it can widen financial services for the people and businesses still shut out of formal credit, savings, insurance and investment.

In four years, the country has gone from one where most people had never made a digital payment to one where nearly 50 million carry a mobile money account. By June 2025, digital payments had surpassed 18.6 trillion Br, around 137 billion dollars, almost twice what they were a year earlier. Telebirr, the mobile money arm of state-owned Ethio telecom, drove much of that growth after its 2021 launch, amassing 58.61 million subscribers and transacting 1.94 trillion Br in the first two quarters of the fiscal year alone.

That transformation is still only half the story. The more interesting question is what happens to all the data generated by those transactions. Every payment, microloan, and savings deposit leaves a trace that, in most financial systems, remains locked within the institution that recorded it. Open finance is the idea that this need not be the case.

In November 2024, Agustín Carstens, the general manager of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), made the case plainly. He stated that “open finance holds great promise for fostering innovation and competition, empowering customers and improving financial inclusion.”

At its simplest, open finance lets people share their own data, their transaction histories, savings records and loan repayments, with whichever provider they choose, securely and with explicit consent. A farmer who has saved through Telebirr for three years could share that record to unlock a loan she would otherwise be denied for want of a credit history. A small trader could pool data across accounts to clarify his cash flow or find a cheaper payment option. A mid-career professional could unlock personalised investment advice by consenting to share his data.

But it is not only about convenience. At its core, open finance is a regulatory architecture, a policy choice about who owns financial data and who may use it. When done well, it loosens the grip incumbents hold on customers, lets smaller fintechs and cooperatives compete, and pushes the system toward serving people it has long ignored.

The same month, a coalition of the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), the BIS, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the UN Secretary-General’s Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development and the World Bank published joint guidelines dubbed “Key Considerations for Open Finance,” with design principles for countries heading this way. The document is candid about the risks. More data flowing across more institutions means greater opportunities for fraud, misuse, and consumer harm if safeguards are inadequate. The promise and the peril travel together.

The most instructive examples come from Brazil and India, which are large and diverse economies that built their frameworks with inclusion in mind.

Brazil’s approach was sweeping. It mandated near-universal participation, tied the system to an inclusion objective, and built it on top of Pix, the country’s instant payments infrastructure. Pix volumes topped 63.4 billion in 2024, up more than 50pc in a single year. Venture capital investment in fintechs doubled after open banking arrived. The benefits spread beyond payments into credit, advice and compliance tools, confirming that once data sharing is standardised, the applications multiply unpredictably.

India reached equally compelling results differently. Rather than a single mandate, it built its Account Aggregator (AA) ecosystem, a consent layer between institutions and data users that lets customers share specific data for specific purposes. By March 2024, 64 million accountswas  were linked. The share of people willing to share data to get better loan offers rose from 33pc to 71pc in a single year as trust built. For small businesses that had never demonstrated creditworthiness on paper, data-backed lending opened doors that had been shut for decades.

The Bank of England found that small businesses eligible to share data were more likely to form new lending relationships with non-bank lenders and to pay lower interest rates when they did so. Competition works. When data moves, money follows it to better uses.

Undoubtedly, Ethiopia’s journey over the past five years has been remarkable and underappreciated abroad. The Telebirr launch in 2021 was not only a commercial milestone. It came alongside the first-ever licensing of non-bank payment service providers by the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE), cracking open a sector long reserved for licensed banks and their fintech partners. Today, more than 11 non-bank providers operate, including Safaricom’s M-Pesa, which entered in 2023, and home-grown fintechs such as Kacha, Arifpay and Chapa.

Mobile money account openings surged from 15 million in 2021 to over 139.50 million by June 2025, and adult account ownership rose from 35pc to 49pc between 2017 and 2025.

The infrastructure has kept pace as EthSwitch, the national interoperability switch, connects ATMs, point-of-sale terminals, as well as mobile and internet banking. A National Payment Gateway (NPG) that finished its pilot in late 2023 has moved toward commercial operation, while Et QR and the instant payment system have been operationalised. Fuel, utility and government payments are being progressively digitised, each pulling more people into the formal system.

The most consequential development for open finance is legislative. In July 2024, Ethiopia enacted its first comprehensive personal data protection law, establishing rights to access, correct and restrict the processing of personal information, and creating the Ethiopian Communications Authority (ECA) as the oversight body. The law allows individuals to receive their data in a transferable format, which will, one hopes, be followed by guidance on formats, standards, and technology. The NBE followed with a directive issued last year, requiring banks to localise data and maintain auditable IT systems. They signal that policymakers grasp that the data economy needs rules, and are writing them.

Despite all this, Ethiopia is not ready for open finance, at least not the full version.

I used a tool, the CGAP Open Finance Self-Assessment, which evaluates markets across three dimensions, to gauge readiness. These dimensions are the regulatory ecosystem, the provider ecosystem, and the data footprints of individuals and micro, small and medium enterprises. The result places Ethiopia in the ‘Expand Footprints’ quadrant. The logic is clear. Before open finance can work, enough people should generate sufficient digital data to make sharing worthwhile.

On the first two, Ethiopia sits above the intermediate mark. The 2024 data protection law, the NBE’s evolving directives, the interoperable environment and the growing fintech market all count in its favour. The gaps are real but bridgeable. There is no dedicated open finance legal framework yet, no standardised specifications for financial data exchange, and the commercial banks, while increasingly digital internally, have not moved toward proactive data sharing.

The weakest dimension is data footprints, and that is the crux. Much of the population still transacts mainly in cash or through informal savings groups. The existing digital data is fragmented, siloed across institutions, not structured for consent-based sharing, and concentrated in urban areas and among men. Telebirr has generated impressive volumes, but volume alone does not create the rich and longitudinal trail across multiple services and life events that make open finance useful for credit scoring, insurance or tailored savings.

The CGAP assessment is clear on sequencing. Enhance data footprints first, and check the penetration, both access and usage, of digital accounts and payments among underserved segments.

The priority, then, should not be designing open finance architecture now. It should be getting more people, especially women, rural households and micro-enterprises, onto digital rails and using them regularly. When those populations have 12 or 24 months of transaction history, the case becomes far more compelling.

None of this means sitting on one’s hands. Getting ready for open finance and expanding digital access are largely the same work.

The clearest opportunity lies in government payment programmes. The Productive Safety Net Programme, which supports between eight and nine million food-insecure households, should explore other interoperable channels to expand its footprint. That is exactly the high-volume and recurring payment that anchors people in the formal system and generates the data trails that open finance needs. Accelerating it across social transfers, salary payments, and utility collections is open finance groundwork, not merely a payments-efficiency exercise.

Agent networks matter too. A collaboration between the UN Capital Development Fund and Highlight Trading showed what is possible. By investing in digital tools and recruiting women and youth as mobile money agents, a single partner onboarded over 300,000 customers in less than two years, most of them in rural and peri-urban areas where the footprint is marginal. Replicating that at scale could lift inclusion faster than almost any regulatory intervention.

The NBE need not build a complete framework overnight, but it should start designing one, setting the scope of data sharing, defining consent in the local context, clarifying liability when shared data is misused, and working out how it and the Communications Authority would coordinate oversight. The 2024 law provides a foundation for the process, and the CGAP, BIS, IMF, and World Bank guidelines provide a template. The missing ingredient is a decision to begin.

Standardised application programming interfaces will eventually be the system’s plumbing, and EthSwitch’s infrastructure is the obvious place to start. Rather than letting each institution build its own interface, policymakers should move toward a common standard aligned with regional and international norms that lowers participation costs and makes it harder for dominant players to block entry.

Finally, none of it works without trust. CGAP’s research in Brazil found women and lower-income groups consistently less aware of, and less confident in, open finance, the people most likely to benefit and to be left behind. Ethiopia’s financial literacy programmes, consumer protection directorate and the media all have a role in ensuring that when open finance arrives, it arrives for everyone.

‘Expand Footprints’ is not a polite way of saying the country is unprepared. It recognises that the regulatory and market infrastructure is developing, and that the remaining gap, data depth among underserved populations, is one that Ethiopia is already working to close.

The countries that did open finance well did not leap ahead of their markets. Brazil spent years building Pix before the data-sharing layer could deliver. India spent years on the Account Aggregator framework before volumes made it compelling. Ethiopia has the advantage of learning from both. It also has something neither had at the equivalent stage. It has a single dominant mobile money platform connecting tens of millions of people, and a government with a real appetite for using digital infrastructure to reach the excluded.

Open finance in Ethiopia is not imminent. But it is a realistic medium-term ambition that the country can approach deliberately rather than scramble to catch up. The data that will make it work is already accumulating. The question is whether the institutions that hold it, and the regulators that oversee them, will be ready when it is time to let it flow.

Consumers Mistake a Superfood for Gypsum Nearly Missed a Fortune

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In the dynamic agricultural landscape across the country, I came across a story that links a public perception problem to a large economic opportunity.

In Addis Abeba, a persistent rumour that “injera” was being adulterated with “jesso,” the colloquial term for the gypsum used in construction, caught my attention. It spread real anxiety. Friends and acquaintances told me they had stopped eating at the small and budget-friendly places that anchor so much of city life. Social media sharpened the fear with dark jokes that diners might “stick to the walls” after a meal, as if the gypsum’s binding power carried past the plate.

The damage was serious and avoidable. Many small restaurant owners and poor bakers, working with little to spare, lost income as confidence drained away. In some cases, the city Code Enforcement Authority ordered closures and detentions without the benefit of thorough physical and laboratory analysis or due process.

Later investigation settled the matter. The white substance was not gypsum but cassava, a nutritious root crop, a dense, gluten-free source of complex carbohydrates. It is a source of steady energy, carrying immune-boosting vitamin C, copper and dietary fibre that aid digestion and long-lasting fullness. This episode is rather a lesson in agricultural illiteracy. Cassava, unfamiliar to consumers raised on cereals such as “teff,” became a symbol of fear rather than what it is, a potential superfood rich in carbohydrates, fibre and micronutrients.

That same crop, handled well, could reshape the export story. The country’s flowers, fruits and vegetables have reached an annual value of about half a billion dollars over the past 25 years, a solid base built on sustained investment and market development. Yet study after study revealed that the cassava sector is ripe for far faster growth.

I had the opportunity to assess the scalability of cassava cultivation on some farms. In discussions with a senior manager at Aleta Land Coffee Plc, one of the country’s prominent cassava farms, I gained a close view of the Company’s strategic plan and its pilot operation. The initiative could generate up to half a billion dollars in value-added revenue from cassava-derived products over a five-year implementation period. The plan is to begin with about 170,000tn of cassava chips in the first year and expand to one million tonnes of chips, flour, and starch five years later.

For the Company, this path uses Ethiopia’s late-mover advantage to skip the fragmented subsistence farming common across much of West Africa. It signals a shift that could double the value of the country’s horticultural export portfolio and make it a serious player in global agro-processing.

The continental context supports the case. Nigeria leads the world in cassava output, with over 60 million tonnes a year, while Ghana reaches between 18tn and 20tn a hectare under good conditions. Both have leaned toward domestic consumption.

Ethiopia, by contrast, is positioned to pursue high-productivity and export-oriented industrialisation. Aleta Land Coffee Plc is using mechanised farming and high-starch improved varieties such as Kello and Qulle, which it projects will yield up to 60tn of fresh roots a hectare, well above the regional smallholder average of eight tonnes to 10tn and ahead of many Asian benchmarks of 20tns and 25tn. The model is engineered to direct about 85pc of output toward international markets, with a primary focus on high-demand industrial buyers in East Asia.

The Company hopes that careful land preparation and modern agronomy underpin the plan, raising both productivity and sustainability and securing a steady supply to its processing facilities.

Logistics is the pressure point. Freight costs run 103 to 105 dollars a tonne, which squeezes margins against established rivals such as Thailand and Vietnam. To ease that, the project plans to use the Lamu Port corridor in Kenya to speed transit, cut costs and shore up competitiveness. The infrastructure is essential to turn Ethiopia’s geography into real market access. Given the country’s need for foreign currency, the Ministry of Transport & Logistics should prioritise finishing the road to Lamu Port.

Pricing strengthens the case as the Company’s Operations Manager argued that dried cassava chips currently fetch cost, insurance and freight (CIF) prices of about 243 dollars a tonne in East Asian markets. To shield farmers and industrial partners from commodity price swings, the strategy includes a guaranteed price mechanism to promote contractual stability, reward quality, and support steady rural incomes. This risk management sets the Aleta Land model apart and makes it more attractive to domestic and foreign buyers alike.

The Company met the health worries around raw cassava with science. Its protocols require thorough washing, peeling and controlled drying to a target moisture of 10pc to 11pc, steps that defuse cyanide risk. The project follows Hazard Analysis & Critical Control Points (HACCP) standards, maintains particle size and dryness, and applies digital traceability through a “Golden Triangle” system that tracks every batch from the field to the export container. Properly processed cassava, research affirms, poses no major health hazard and meets strict global thresholds.

However, the ground-level obstacles are real. In the Daasanach pastoralist areas of South Omo, where Aleta Land Coffee Plc operates, poor roads, labour shortages, no grid power and unreliable fuel pile costs onto export-oriented producers of cassava and banana alike. The plantation draws its irrigation from the Omo River in South Omo before the river flows into Lake Turkana on the Kenyan border. Preferential operating terms and targeted incentives would be needed to keep export farming viable in such remote places.

Today, cassava exports are negligible, worth about 22,000 dollars, demonstrating how much room there is to grow. An initiative like Aleta Land’s could unlock real foreign-exchange earnings and serve national development.

The social return matters too. The project expects to create over 10,000 rural jobs across cultivation, processing, logistics and support services. By drawing smallholders into contract farming and its varied value chains through input provision, technical extension and guaranteed markets, it points toward inclusive growth, resilience to climate variability and poverty reduction. Cassava’s inherent drought tolerance and adaptability to varied soils further amplify its value in the lowlands.

Pairing mechanised practices with conservation-oriented techniques can improve soil health and water efficiency, and the revenue generated could fund research into bio-fortified varieties and circular applications, such as converting processing residues into bioenergy or livestock feed.

Cassava’s place from a source of misplaced fear to a candidate for industrial ambition represents a maturing development strategy. Agricultural transformation and rural empowerment move together. With high-value processing, dedicated land, an optimised port corridor, stable pricing and rigorous quality control, Ethiopia can claim a strong and prominent place in the global cassava chain.

As the country looks to 2031, cassava can emerge not as a Cinderella crop of the lowlands but as a dynamic engine of economic transformation. Realising that will take government, private investors, research institutions, and development partners working together, with coherent policy, sustained infrastructure, and human capital investment. The shift from rumour-driven fear to evidence-based opportunity is instructive.

The Fine Print Behind the Before-and-After

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Not long ago, a friend proudly showed me before-and-after photos from a nutrition program. The transformation was remarkable. She had shed a significant amount of weight, looked healthier and spoke enthusiastically about how the program had changed her life.

Her story is no longer unusual. Over the past few years, Ethiopia has witnessed the rapid rise of nutrition and weight-management companies. Their advertisements flood social media, promising healthier lifestyles, personalised meal plans and dramatic weight loss. For the first time, large numbers of Ethiopians are paying close attention to nutrition, portion control, exercise and healthier habits.

I have also seen the benefits firsthand. Women have used nutritional counselling during pregnancy and after childbirth with remarkable results, gaining healthy pregnancy weight within medically recommended ranges before returning to healthier weights through disciplined eating and exercise. There is no question that proper nutrition can transform lives.

The concern begins when education turns into medical promises.

Many advertisements no longer stop at showcasing weight loss. They feature clients who claim to have lost 30, 40 or even 50kg and declare themselves free from hypertension, diabetes or liver disease. Such messages now reach millions of Ethiopians with little oversight and even fewer questions.

Modern medicine leaves little doubt that obesity is a major risk factor for non-communicable diseases. Excess body weight increases the likelihood of high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, fatty liver disease, kidney disease and several forms of cancer. Weight loss through healthier eating and regular physical activity often improves blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol and liver function while lowering the risk of heart attack and stroke.

Improvement, though, should never be mistaken for a cure.

When dramatic testimonials suggest medication is no longer necessary, they create a dangerous illusion.

My own family understands that reality well. My mother developed hypertension during pregnancy more than two decades ago. Through discipline, healthy eating and exercise, she eventually lost nearly 60 kilograms. Her blood pressure now falls within normal ranges, yet her physician continues prescribing a low dose of medication and monitors her condition regularly.

The reason is straightforward. Hypertension is known as the silent killer because people often feel perfectly healthy while the disease quietly damages blood vessels, the heart, kidneys, brain and eyes. Years of harm can accumulate before symptoms appear. By the time patients realise something is wrong, the consequences may be irreversible.

I witnessed those consequences through one of my mother’s friends. After losing substantial weight, she believed her hypertension had disappeared. Her blood pressure readings improved, so she stopped taking her medication. She never regained the weight and thought she had defeated the disease.

Less than a year later, she lost her eyesight, became partially paralysed and died from complications linked to uncontrolled hypertension. The disease had never disappeared. It simply remained hidden until the damage could no longer be reversed.

Stories like hers explain why health claims deserve careful scrutiny.

Medical experts acknowledge that substantial weight loss can place some people with Type 2 diabetes into remission, allowing blood sugar levels to remain normal without medication for a period. Yet remission is not necessarily permanent and requires continuous medical monitoring. Likewise, some patients with hypertension may reduce medication after losing weight, but such decisions belong to physicians, not commercial nutrition programs.

Type 1 diabetes makes the distinction even clearer. People with the condition do not produce enough insulin and require lifelong insulin therapy. No nutrition company can change that biological reality.

The problem is not that nutrition companies encourage healthier lifestyles. The problem is that some blur the line between nutritional support and medical treatment. When advertisements imply that weight loss alone can replace prescribed medicine, they risk encouraging people to abandon treatment, skip medical appointments or assume temporary improvement means permanent recovery.

Many countries have recognised this danger. The United States permits regulators to act against companies making unproven disease-treatment claims. The United Kingdom, the European Union, Australia and Canada all require health-related claims to be backed by robust scientific evidence and impose penalties for misleading advertising. The principle is simple: extraordinary health claims require evidence.

Ethiopia has strengthened health regulation through the Ethiopian Food and Drug Authority, while national policies increasingly recognise the growing burden of non-communicable diseases. Yet the rapid expansion of online nutrition coaching, wellness programs and social media marketing presents new regulatory challenges. Claims can spread to millions before anyone questions them.

Stronger safeguards are needed. Companies should clearly distinguish nutritional guidance from medical treatment. Testimonials involving disease outcomes should be supported by evidence, while claims about stopping medication should require medical verification. Regulators also need to monitor online advertising more actively and hold companies accountable for misleading health claims.

Healthy eating and exercise deserve celebration. They reduce disease risk, improve quality of life, lower medication requirements and, in some cases, help certain conditions enter remission. None of that should be used to suggest chronic diseases have disappeared or prescribed medicines are no longer necessary.

Nutrition companies have an important role to play in improving public health. They can help combat obesity and encourage healthier lifestyles. But once marketing crosses the line from education into medical promises, the cost may be measured not only in misleading advertisements but also in human lives. The goal should never be to sell the dream of abandoning medicine. It should be to help people live healthier, longer lives alongside qualified healthcare professionals.

The Hidden Cost of Cheap Snacks Lies Beyond the Price Tag

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I bought a bag of chips the other day, tore it open, and found what felt like more air than food. The bag looked the same, but the weight had clearly shrunk. I understand that production costs have risen. Raw materials, transport and packaging all cost more than they once did. If manufacturers need to charge more, I can accept that. What frustrates me is paying the same price for what appears to be the same product, only to discover I am getting less.

I did not need a kitchen scale to notice. The bag simply felt lighter than before. Once I started paying attention, I realised this was not limited to one brand. The same trend has spread across many packaged snacks on local shelves.

Having children makes you notice these things. Parents inevitably sample snacks before handing them over. I know packaged snacks are not the healthiest option, but some days call for convenience. Half-days at school, long afternoons and unexpected cravings often leave snacks as the easiest solution. Because of that, I pay closer attention to what is actually being sold.

Recently, a colourful poster outside a neighbourhood shop caught my eye. The product looked polished enough to rival the household brands many of us grew up with. The marketing worked, and I bought a pack. The disappointment came the moment I opened it. The snack looked nothing like the picture on the package and certainly did not taste as advertised. It was not the first time attractive packaging had persuaded me to buy something that failed to deliver.

Taste is subjective. My children happily ate it without complaint. Kids rarely reject anything crunchy and salty. As the one paying for it, I expected the product to match the promise. A company that invests in eye-catching marketing should invest just as much in what is inside the package. If maintaining quality means charging more, I would rather pay the higher price than feel misled.

I often wonder how profitable these snack businesses really are. New brands keep appearing, so they must be making money. Yet when I think about the machinery, labour, ingredients, plastic packaging and transport involved, I struggle to understand how some companies sell a bag for only 30 Br.

That low price raises another question: what exactly is inside? Are manufacturers using quality ingredients or relying on artificial colours, poor-quality oils and cheaper substitutes? When the production costs seem impossible, consumers often end up paying the hidden price through their health.

This practice even has a name: shrinkflation. The empty space inside the bag is known as slack fill. Manufacturers correctly explain that the bags contain nitrogen, which protects the chips from breaking and preserves freshness. That is scientifically true. The concern is when that empty space becomes a convenient way to disguise that consumers are quietly receiving less food.

Other countries have recognised the problem. Japan prohibits packaging that misleads consumers about quantity or quality. Brazil requires manufacturers to clearly state reductions in weight or volume on the front of the package for months after the change. France has responded by requiring supermarkets to identify products that have shrunk while becoming more expensive, giving shoppers clear information before they buy.

Closer to home, the picture is mixed. South Africa prohibits deceptive packaging and verifies that products contain the stated weight, though manufacturers can legally reduce the size as long as the new weight appears on the label. Kenya monitors product quality and removes products whose contents do not match their labels. Nigeria has become increasingly vocal about consumer rights. Across much of Africa, manufacturers argue that inflation and currency pressures leave them little choice but to shrink products instead of imposing price increases many consumers cannot afford.

I understand that businesses are under pressure just as households are. But economic hardship should not excuse deceptive marketing or poorer-quality ingredients, especially when many of these products are aimed at children.

Consumers deserve honesty. If a poster shows a premium snack, the product inside should resemble it. If a bag contains less than it once did, buyers should be told clearly instead of discovering it after opening the package. If lower-grade substitute ingredients are being used to keep prices down, parents deserve to know before handing those snacks to their children.

The snacks our children eat may seem like a small issue beside the country’s larger economic challenges. Yet they reflect something much bigger: the relationship between businesses and the people who keep them in business. Most consumers understand that costs rise. What they should not have to accept is paying for promises that disappear the moment the bag is opened.

“I would resign.”

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Girma Seifu, a leading member of the Ethiopian Citizens for Social Justice party, a.k.a Ezema, issued the high-stakes challenge in an interview with the Amharic weekly Reporter. Girma, who serves as head of the Addis Ababa Beautification & Green Development Bureau, declared he would vacate his post if a single resident evicted under the city’s sweeping corridor development project is found without replacement housing.

Court Freezes Bank Accounts and Assets in Cosmo Trading Dispute

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The Federal High Court Civil Bench has ordered the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia, Awash Bank, Hibret Bank and Bank of Abyssinia to freeze accounts held by Cosmo Trading Plc and Haileyesus Mengistu, blocking transactions of up to 400 million Br. The order follows the House of Federation’s April 27, 2026 decision to suspend enforcement of earlier commercial rulings while it reviews a constitutional dispute over inheritance and contested business assets.

The case centres on a nine-storey hotel on Africa Avenue valued at about 800 million Br. Haileyesus Mengistu and his sons, Abel and Noel, argue that the property and company shares belonged jointly to the late Rebeqa Hailu, whose estate has remained unresolved for 18 years. They claim 400 million Br as her share and allege that a 20 million Br share sale in 2017 was unauthorised.

Judge Yohanes Afewerk also ordered the freezing of five vehicles and a prior payment of 2.3 million Br.

Bule Hora, Kebri Dehar Universities Sign Austrian Partnership

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Bule Hora and Kebri Dehar universities have signed separate memoranda of understanding with Austria’s Leoben University to strengthen training in mining, petroleum and energy as Ethiopia seeks to build resource-based industrial capacity.

The partnerships aim to enhance academic and practical skills in mining engineering, petroleum studies and energy systems, disciplines viewed as critical to the country’s long-term extractive and industrial ambitions.

Under the agreement, Bule Hora University will strengthen its mining engineering programme with support from MIDROC Investment Group and Leoben University, focusing on technical expertise across the mining value chain and producing industry-ready graduates. Kebri Dehar University will expand capacity in petroleum and energy studies to support future upstream and downstream industry needs.

The agreements were signed by Bule Hora University President Temesgen Debelo (PhD), Kebri Dehar University President Abdulfetah Ahmed, and Leoben University Vice Rector Thomas Prohaska.

Zemen Bank Launches Z-Qamar Interest Free Banking Service

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Zemen Bank has launched its interest-free banking service, Z-Qamar, joining the country’s expanding Sharia-compliant finance market as it seeks to broaden its customer base and diversify revenue streams.

Speaking at the launch on June 26 at the bank’s headquarters on Ras Abebe Aregay Street, Chief Executive Officer Dereje Zebene said the service represents the culmination of a long-term strategy rather than the introduction of a standalone product.

“This service is not a new banking product; rather, it is the next chapter of a 17-year journey,” he said.

The bank has spent the past two years developing the operational, governance and compliance frameworks required to roll out the new service.