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Month: July 2026

Modern Pressures Send Gender Debates Back to Old Certainties

Posted on by Digital Editor

A recent exchange on an Addis Abeba dating show captured a debate that is resurfacing far beyond entertainment. A 22-year-old man feels cleaning the house was a woman’s responsibility. Three of the four women opposite him, aged between 20 and 21, retorted. They would date only a millionaire or billionaire.

The conversation took place during a “Blind Dating” segment on Shuf TV, in a format familiar to followers of Western dating channels such as Poppies Studios. The contestants were looking for potential matches, but their answers revealed something broader. Beneath the language and appearance of modern dating sat expectations that were remarkably old.

The young man embraced a traditional division of domestic labour. The women invoked the equally longstanding expectation that men should be providers. Both sides presented their preferences as modern choices, yet neither had entirely broken with inherited ideas about what men and women should contribute to a relationship.

It would be easy to dismiss the exchange as another viral moment involving young adults still deciding what they believe. Views formed at that age may later be revised or abandoned. Yet the public reaction made the episode harder to overlook. Some viewers appeared more troubled by the women’s financial demands than by the man’s belief that domestic work belonged to women.

That imbalance unveiled that traditional expectations imposed on women continue to attract criticism, while those imposed on men remain surprisingly resilient.

The exchange in Addis Abeba is part of a wider return to debates many assumed societies had outgrown. In the United States, discussions about household authority, family structure and women’s political participation have gained visibility online. Campaigns associated with hashtags such as #RepealThe19th, which advocate reversing the constitutional amendment that granted women the right to vote, continue to circulate in some conservative corners of the internet.

Such movements remain far from the mainstream. Their visibility nonetheless mirrors a broader change in public discourse. Questions about whether women should vote, household responsibilities should be shared equally, and the pursuit of gender equality has gone too far are again being raised with renewed seriousness, including among younger people.

For those who grew up assuming that these debates would eventually be settled, their return can be difficult to watch from a distance. The surprise is not that disagreement persists. It is that positions many considered largely resolved have re-entered everyday discussion through a generation using new platforms to revisit old arguments.

In Ethiopia, this revival carries particular weight. Four in 10 young women are married before turning 18, while more than a third of ever-married women report experiencing physical, emotional or sexual violence from a partner. Female genital mutilation also remains widespread.

Gender equality can hardly be described as a completed project under such conditions. Progress has been made, but many women and girls continue to negotiate for rights, opportunities and safety that others take for granted. Against this backdrop, the renewed appeal of traditional gender roles is especially striking.

These conversations are also no longer confined to communities typically considered conservative. They are increasingly visible among urban youth and in societies associated with progressive values. Rather than remaining in history books, academic journals or fringe forums, they appear in podcasts, dating shows, TikTok videos, YouTube comment sections and ordinary conversations.

One prominent expression is the rise of the “trad wife” phenomenon on social media. Short for “traditional wife,” the term describes women who publicly embrace conventional gender roles, presenting homemaking, child-rearing, cooking and financial dependence on a husband as desirable ideals. Their carefully curated content portrays a life organised around domesticity, femininity and family.

Unlike many housewives of earlier generations, however, today’s trad-wife influencers may earn substantial incomes from promoting this lifestyle. Their content generates advertising revenue, sponsorships, merchandise sales and brand partnerships. Some earn tens of thousands of dollars a year, while the most successful reportedly make hundreds of thousands or even millions.

The contradiction is difficult to miss. Women encouraging others to leave paid employment may themselves be running profitable businesses. They promote dependence while exercising considerable economic independence. The image being sold and the reality behind its production do not always align.

Yet the appeal of this content does not necessarily amount to a rejection of women’s rights. It may also reflect dissatisfaction with the pressures of contemporary life. Rising living costs, demanding careers, unstable relationships and economic uncertainty have left many people searching for an alternative.

Many young adults entered adulthood amid instability and growing anxiety about the future. In Addis Abeba, housing costs continue to rise while secure employment remains beyond the reach of many young people. Questions about who should provide, who should work and what a successful partnership should look like are therefore shaped as much by economic realities as by personal preference.

Social media intensifies these pressures by constantly exposing users to idealised lifestyles. Success appears more visible than ever, but also more difficult to attain. Traditional gender roles offer an apparently obvious answer. They define responsibilities, assign authority and provide a familiar script.

Certainty has its appeal when the future feels unpredictable.

A related divide appears to be widening between some young men and women across several countries. Many young women continue to embrace independence, education and equality. Some young men, meanwhile, have become more receptive to messages centred on traditional masculinity, male leadership and firmly defined gender roles.

Social media can deepen this divide by placing users in different content ecosystems. Each group encounters messages that reinforce contrasting views of work, relationships and identity. Conversations about gender consequently become more polarised, even as the platforms themselves may exaggerate the scale of the disagreement by rewarding conflict and controversy.

The result is a distorted sense of how widespread certain positions may be. Views that attract attention online can appear dominant even when they remain marginal. Still, their appeal cannot be explained by algorithms alone. Questions about work, family, marriage, identity, and economic security have become increasingly difficult to answer, encouraging some people to look to older models for stability.

What is emerging may not be a simple return to the past. It may instead be a response to the uncertainties of the present. The renewed debate over gender roles is not only about domestic labour, financial provision or political rights. It also reflects a deeper struggle over how people should organise their lives when the future no longer appears secure.

The question is whether economic insecurity and digital polarisation are narrowing what young people imagine to be possible. Old gender roles will continue to offer the comfort of a ready-made script. The future may look increasingly like the past, not because the past worked for everyone, but because the present has failed to provide enough certainty about what should replace it.

The Central Bank Bets on Signals Over Ceilings

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The National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) has set aside the tools that governed its money for decades, the credit caps, surrender rules and directed lending of an era of financial repression, in favour of market signals. This month, it scrapped its temporary credit cap, raised the policy rate by one percentage point to 16pc and introduced a targeted reserve-requirement framework.

This is no cautious tweak but a deliberate break with financial repression. However, its promise will be decided less by the Central Bank’s nerve than by two things it does not fully control, the readiness of the banks and the discipline of the treasury.

For decades, policymakers steered the economy with ceilings and directives. Those tools may have bought short-term calm, but they distorted markets, hemmed in banks and starved productive sectors of credit. The temporary credit cap of 2024 was the approach in miniature. Meant to curb runaway lending, it quickly proved unenforceable. Two years on, most banks had already breached their limits, while the cap punished the very industries, manufacturing and long-term development projects, that Ethiopia most needs to drive growth.

Scrapping it is, therefore, more than a technical fix. It is a declaration that interest rates, not quotas, will now guide lending across the economy.

The rate rise was a deliberate move by the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) to confront inflationary pressure and restore credibility. With prices stubbornly high at 13.4pc, driven by fuel and food costs, the committee signalled its intent to anchor expectations and strengthen monetary discipline. The targeted reserve requirement adds precision. Rather than blanket restrictions, banks will face differentiated reserve ratios keyed to their loan-to-deposit profiles, a design that does more than discipline liquidity, since it can also steer credit.

Banks that channel lending into speculative or short-term activity will carry heavier reserve burdens, while those financing manufacturing, agriculture and infrastructure can operate with lighter ones. In effect, reserves become a calibrated incentive rather than a blunt, one-size rationing tool, encouraging banks toward the sectors that underpin long-term growth.

Nonetheless, the Central Bank may sharpen its tools, but unless the banks sharpen theirs, transmission stays blunt. For any of this to work, the banks themselves have to modernise. Interest-rate signals and targeted reserves transmit only if lenders can manage liquidity dynamically and withstand shocks. They will need to strengthen their liquidity-management frameworks, run stress tests against different reserve scenarios and build systems that anticipate policy shifts rather than react belatedly. This is the hidden difficulty of modernisation.

Kenya shows both the promise and the pitfalls. In the early 2000s, the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) made the Central Bank Rate (CBR) its primary anchor, replacing direct lending controls, thereby sharpening transmission and improving transparency. Yet commercial banks often resisted aligning their lending rates with the CBR, citing risk premiums and structural inefficiencies. A later experiment with interest-rate caps backfired by cutting credit to small businesses.

Ethiopia should make its signals credible and ensure banks respond in practice, not only in theory.

Ghana’s reforms of the 1990s offer another lesson. The Bank of Ghana dropped credit rationing in favour of interest-rate targeting, which helped stabilise inflation and build credibility, but fiscal dominance repeatedly undermined monetary discipline. When government borrowing ballooned, rate signals lost their force.

Ethiopia faces the same danger. The Treasury bills absorb liquidity and crowd out private borrowers. Targeted reserves may ease it, but fiscal synchronisation will be essential if the country is to avoid the pitfalls Ghana fell into.

Nigeria is more cautionary still. The Central Bank of Nigeria has long leaned on its Monetary Policy Rate (MPR), adjusting it often against inflation and currency pressure. Yet structural constraints, weak transmission channels, fiscal imbalance and a reliance on oil revenue have dulled its effect. Nigeria’s record shows the limits of rate rises in economies where fiscal policy runs roughshod over monetary discipline.

Ethiopia should avoid the trap by strengthening its analytical capacity and ensuring that fiscal authorities support, rather than undermine, monetary policy.

This points to the scaffolding the reform needs. The break gains force when fiscal authorities synchronise borrowing with monetary goals, so that Treasury issuance does not swamp liquidity. When financial markets deepen, with active interbank trading, broader bond issuance and capital-market growth providing the channels through which policy rates ripple across the economy.

The banks are part of the same structure. Higher rates and targeted reserves demand sharper liquidity management, stress testing, dynamic reserve planning and risk-based pricing. As banks modernise, signals flow more clearly into credit conditions. That in turn strengthens the foreign-exchange market, because banks that price risk through rates and liquidity models engage more readily in hedging and arbitrage. As liquidity improves, spreads narrow and the Birr’s credibility rises.

Understandably, the reform has its critics, and each objection deserves an answer. Some argue that borrowing costs will cripple business, with loan rates climbing above 20pc. That ignores inflation’s corrosive effect; with headline inflation at 13.4pc, real borrowing costs are already negative. Higher nominal rates restore credibility and anchor expectations rather than choke activity. Firms may face tighter conditions, but stability outweighs the short-term discomfort.

Others warn that government borrowing will crowd out private credit. Treasury bills will indeed absorb liquidity, yet targeted reserve requirements can redirect what remains toward productive sectors, ensuring scarce liquidity reaches the industries that drive growth. A third critique holds that targeted reserves are merely another administrative control. Indeed, the IMF has cautioned against swapping one control for another. Not a rigid quota system, this is a flexible reserve-adjustment mechanism that, unlike the repression it replaces, operates through market signals while maintaining safeguards.

The reform is unfolding against rapid expansion of the GDP, which is projected to grow 10.2pc in the 2025/26 fiscal year, led by industry, services and agriculture. In such a high-growth setting, a Central Bank’s willingness to tighten signals a preference for lasting stability over a short-lived credit boom, and to investors it reads as a country edging toward a transparent and rules-based regime. By dismantling financial repression and adopting modern tools, the Central Bank is building credibility and aligning itself with global best practice.

However, the reach of the change runs beyond the Central Bank. In rewriting its own playbook, the Central Bank has pressed the commercial banks to rewrite theirs, on liquidity management, stress testing and risk pricing. The effort will hold only if fiscal synchronisation and market development reinforce it. Together, these pieces let monetary signals pass clearly into credit markets and, by extension, into a deeper and more durable foreign-exchange market.

The policy change also clears a path toward inflation targeting, provided the supports are secured. Fiscal authorities need to synchronise borrowing with monetary objectives, financial markets need to deepen to carry the signals, the Central Bank needs to communicate transparently and strengthen its analysis, and its independence needs to be protected. With those pillars in place, Ethiopia can move from bold signals to a credible inflation-targeting regime that anchors expectations.

For a country balancing fast growth against inflation, this should be seen as a deliberate break with the past. It serves as a sign that Ethiopia intends to join the economies in which interest rates, not administrative fiat, guide what comes next.

Funding the Lenders Who Reach the Unreached

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The microfinance institutions active in the domestic market reach the people the banks miss. Every day they lend to smallholder farmers living on seasonal income, informal traders without collateral, women-owned enterprises kept off formal records and young entrepreneurs taking their first step into business.

By June 2025, the sector served more than 7.1 million savers and 752,000 borrowers, with 48.9 billion Br in outstanding loans. For many of these clients, it is the only real link to the formal financial system. Yet as demand for inclusive finance climbs, the model that funds it is running out of room, and the new capital market is the obvious place to look, provided it is built to serve the small as well as the large.

The pressure is visible in a single ratio apparent in the National Bank of Ethiopia’s (NBE) Financial Stability Report. The sector’s loan-to-deposit ratio was 126pc, revealing that microfinance institutions lend far more than they take in as deposits. To cover the gap, they have long borrowed wholesale from commercial banks, development partners and other outside sources, a model that the shift toward market-based monetary policy is quietly making harder.

Bank financing is already dear, with borrowing costs of 14.5pc to 20pc depending on the collateral pledged. There are lenders that sometimes demand cash collateral worth as much as 50pc of the loan, cutting the real value of the money received. As interest rates come to follow market signals, wholesale funds are likely to grow costlier and less predictable. The banks that supply them are themselves adjusting to new instruments and competing claims on capital. Overreliance on borrowed bank money leaves the sector exposed to every shift in monetary conditions.

The cost of that exposure falls on the borrowers, not the balance sheets. When a microfinance institution’s funding tightens, credit grows dearer or scarcer, expansion into underserved areas slows, small firms defer investment and farmers cannot finance inputs or equipment. If monetary policymakers are serious about financial inclusion, job creation and broad-based growth, the question should no longer be whether microfinance matters but how it can access sustainable sources of capital.

That is where the emerging capital market enters. Most of the debate about it has centred on large firms, such as banks and state enterprises. But a capital market is ultimately a way of channelling savings into productive investment, and it cannot do that job serving only the biggest players. It has to reach the institutions that finance bottom-up growth. For microfinance, it should not be treated as a single source of money but as a toolbox.

A mature institution may eventually raise capital through a public listing, strengthening its capital base and easing its dependence on debt, with fresh money funding branch expansion, investment in digital infrastructure and the development of new financial products. Access to outside investors tends to press for stronger governance, better disclosure and improved transparency. But equity is not for everyone. Many institutions are not ready for public markets, and others are unwilling to dilute ownership. A strategy fixed on listings alone would pass over much of the sector.

For most smaller lenders, even paying the transaction advisers required by the Ethiopia Capital Market Authority (ECMA) to register their shares is an uphill battle. The Association of Ethiopian Microfinance Institutions (AEMFI) could help by setting up shared market-readiness programmes, coordinating advisory support and driving down the costs that currently keep so many of them out.

Corporate bonds can offer the medium- and long-term funding that better matches the nature of microfinance lending, though their price will move with monetary policy, since investors naturally demand higher returns as policy rates rise, and the cost of issuing a bond will respond in kind. Their advantage is reach, a wider pool of investors and longer tenors than a bank loan usually allows. Among these debt instruments, thematic bonds may suit microfinances best, since their business model is built around social impact rather than pure profit maximisation, aligninig naturally with investor seeking measurable social returns alongside financial ones.

Where portfolios already carry that impact, structuring green, gender and sustainability-linked bonds is easier than building a pipeline from scratch. They also broaden the investor base to development finance institutions, ESG-focused funds, and impact investors that actively seek measurable social outcomes alongside financial returns, which can translate into more favourable pricing and lower coupon payments than a conventional bond, reducing the cost of capital.

Morocco, with Attawfiq Microfinance, a subsidiary of Banque Centrale Populaire, shows what is possible. It issued Africa’s first gender bond, raising 25 million dollars to support women entrepreneurs and financing more than 17,000 loans to women borrowers. Its meaning ran beyond the sum raised. It proved that capital markets can mobilise substantial resources for financial inclusion when an issuer is able to pair a strong social mission with credible reporting and robust governance.

For lenders in Ethiopia, whose clients so often include women-owned enterprises and underserved households, a similar instrument could fit closely.

However, the toolbox does not end with equity and bonds. As the market deepens, more advanced instruments may become practical, among them securitisation. This lets an institution bundle a pool of loans and raise funding against the cash flows those loans are expected to generate, giving investors exposure to a diversified portfolio rather than a single borrower. It can help recycle capital, improve liquidity, and free resources for additional lending.

Linking securities directly to identifiable loan portfolios provides investors with greater transparency. However, it demands strong data systems, legal clarity and firm investor protection. It is no short-term solution, but as the markets deepen it deserves consideration as part of the long-term financing kit.

Partial guarantees, first-loss facilities and anchor investments by development finance institutions can reduce the risk investors perceive and pull in a broader field. The purpose here should not be to subsidise weak institutions indefinitely but to establish confidence, back credible first movers and create a track record that encourages others to take part. Even that is not enough on its own.

A working market for microfinance securities also needs the supporting infrastructure around it. These may include, but are not limited to, independent credit ratings, credible second-party opinions on thematic issues, reliable trustees and custodians, experienced transaction advisers and robust post-issuance reporting. These are the institutions that enable investors to weigh both financial risk and social impact and to narrow the information gaps between issuers and buyers.

The promise of Ethiopia’s capital market should not be measured by the count of listings or the volume of securities traded alone. It should be judged by whether capital actually reaches productive enterprises, underserved communities and emerging entrepreneurs. Microfinance institutions already perform the arduous task of financing those the traditional lenders overlook. The task now is to ensure they can reach the capital themselves to grow sustainably.

Get that right, and the market becomes more than a platform for raising money. It becomes a bridge between the country’s savings and inclusive development. In that process, microfinance can play a critical part in carrying the gains of growth to the people who have long been left at the margins.

The Floral Industry Steers On Uncharted Waters

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The federal government has at last cleared a blockage that held back the domestic flower industry for years, among them Shere Ethiopia, AQ Rose, Herberg Rose and Zeway Rose, and settled the long-pending title-deed requests of leading exporters, allocating fresh land to new investors and to farms expanding in the Wolkite and Wolaita Sodo horticulture-export clusters. It is a decisive, but high-stakes measure, and a welcome one, a genuine turning point for the country’s floral industry.

But land was never the whole problem, and unlocking it now exposes a deeper gap the sector has been living with for more than a decade. The loss of the economic knowledge that once told investors what a flower farm actually costs and earns. Much has changed since those measures were first framed.

The industry now operates in a different climate, shaped by a performance-based duty-free incentive scheme, trading rules once reserved for domestic investors and now open to foreign nationals, and a shift from a fixed to a floating exchange rate. There are new rural land and seed laws, a regional tariff on irrigation water, gradual changes to the urban master plan and land-lease rates, and a global rise in the prices of jet fuel, agrochemicals, raw materials, and planting stock, all against a rising cost of living. These pressures call for recalibrating the old frameworks if the sector is to remain viable.

Fourteen years ago, Ethiopia stood on the brink of a floriculture boom, guided by the Quantitative Unified Economic Information for the Rose Flower Sub-Sector (QUINR), a blueprint that provided foreign and local pioneers with a clear roadmap. Prepared by experts through a horticultural partnership between Ethiopia and the Netherlands, it served as a strategic compass. It set out investment costs, greenhouse hardware expenses, labour benchmarks, marketing margins across altitudes, and revenue projections for popular cultivars. By offering reliable and unified numbers, it de-risked investment during a critical period when the sector was scaling from a niche player to a national export engine.

Examining rose production across Ziway, Bishoftu and Holeta, and distinguishing standard from above-standard farms, it put new investment for a 10hct operation at about 2.25 million euros for a standard setup and 2.76 million for an advanced one, with annual fixed costs, including depreciation and interest on equity, of 6.31 to 7.86 euros a square metre. These figures carried the full weight of the infrastructure a farm needs, such as greenhouses, post-harvest facilities, irrigation, cold stores and energy systems. The backup generators were made necessary by an unreliable grid.

The labour analysis was practical, showing how employees per hectare fell as farms grew, and how higher altitudes required fewer workers, with lower yields, yet commanded premium prices for longer stems and larger heads. Variable costs, fertilisers, crop protection, packing, transport, and marketing accounted for 70pc to 75pc of the total budget. The report targeted about six kilogrammes a square metre a year, with budget balances that let an investor weigh returns across agroecological zones. It drew out Ethiopia’s advantages, including diverse altitudes for year-round production, a climate suited to roses and competitive labour.

Today, the sector earns hundreds of millions of dollars in exports, although it still falls short of its potential.

The ambitious vision of the 2012 masterplan has been worn down by frequent restructuring, weakened partnerships and gaps in public institutional memory. Many in the industry point to the plain lack of publicly available factor costs, economic data, and investor guidelines, in sharp contrast to the comprehensive frameworks that existed in 2012.

That absence has consequences. Without quantified economic data like those from 2012, new companies hesitate to invest even where land is available. Without industry standards, auditors at the revenue authority fall back on subjective estimates of wastage, process damage, end-market expenses, and public contributions, judging by intuition rather than figures. Though such disputes have been eased on a case-by-case basis with help from relevant institutions, nothing prevents them from recurring in the absence of a standard.

Whether a flower project is financially sound today, therefore, remains fluid. At the root lies the lack of an authoritative technical framework to guide new entrants. Into that vacuum they go, decoding the industry’s economics, capital outlays, preoperative spending, working capital, returns and payback, through informal networks of established operators. Leaning on veterans looks pragmatic but builds a fragile system.

Competitors rarely disclose their actual cost structures, since trade secrets and intense competition filter what is shared. Peer-to-peer exchange is a weak foundation for a multi-million-dollar investment.

The costs of the information void spread wide. New entrants struggle to size their infrastructure, and so underinvest in cold stores or precision fertigation. Labour planning becomes guesswork without updated zonal tables, throwing off the balance between yields and seasonal demand. With no standard models for variable costs, margins are harder to maintain against rising logistics and input prices, and return-on-investment calculations become speculative rather than empirical, deterring the very capital the sector needs to grow.

What it lacks is institutional support that truly grasps flower farming, its sensitivity to climate, its exposure to disease, the volatility of power and water, and the wide variation in productivity across varieties and zones.

Proponents argue that a robust industrial standard is the way forward, giving auditors the insight to avoid unfairly taxing the sector and moving audits from subjective judgement to a transparent, data-driven basis. Good work was done in the past to build unified information, but its value has been overlooked, with little interest in updating it or raising it to a true standard. Beyond that, we should examine the economic and financial viability of flower projects, conduct value chain analyses across agroecological settings, build market linkages that attract both foreign and local investors, and settle disputes between operators and the tax authorities.

With low labour costs, policy incentives, and growing global demand for sustainably grown flowers, a well-planned farm can earn attractive returns. Scale brings economies of size alongside water recirculation, renewable energy, and integrated pest management. The 2012 report captured the blueprint for that acceleration, and its partial loss shows how continuity of knowledge underpins success. By reclaiming and updating that vision, and professionalising audit and regulation, Ethiopia can move from bare survival to a genuine renaissance.

The roses are ready to bloom at scale. Whether they do depends on whether policymakers, investors and industry leaders provide the structured support needed to make it happen, which means institutionalising this knowledge once more through a collaborative effort among the public, the private sector and technical experts.

Three steps would anchor it. First, re-establish a central and dynamic repository in the spirit of QUINR, updating capital and operating costs and altitude-specific yield models to today’s inflation and currency. Second, work with industry, the Ministry of Trade & Regional Integration, and the tax authorities to set definitive standards for biological asset valuation, wastage, pest damage, and safety buffers, in place of guesswork. Lastly, drive collaboration among ministries, development partners, and private investors to deliver guidelines that clarify investment, margins, logistics, and climate-smart operations for newcomers and veterans alike.

Without such a framework, the sector stays hostage to the inefficiencies of the past and the uncertainties of the future.

The Rent Law’s Missing Renewal Right

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When legislators enacted a law to control and administer rent, it was welcomed as a milestone reform. The law promised stable leases, tenant protection, and predictability in a volatile rental market. The Addis Abeba City Government’s recent 11.5pc rent adjustment seemed to signal that the system was maturing.

However, two years after its introduction, the regime finds itself at a precarious crossroads. Regulatory inaction, delayed announcements and misapplications threaten to erode public confidence and expose the fragility of a system designed to be a cornerstone of tenant protection.

The law entered into force in April 2024, following parliamentary approval. Implementation began in Addis Abeba after the City Government Housing Development & Administration Bureau issued a directive in the same year. District housing offices registered rental agreements over the summer that followed.

The law was expected to relieve the housing pressures of the capital, where sudden rent increases and displacement have long undermined the tenure security of countless families. I am not aware of comparable steps having been taken outside Addis Abeba, thereby confining assessment of implementation to the capital.

If properly enforced, the law could shield tenants from sudden displacement and secure better tenure. But enforcement requires diligence from the regulatory body. Confusion has arisen over the law’s application after July 7, 2026, with public debate wrongly suggesting that the regime expires on that date, and even calling for a new one to prevent rent increases and evictions. In truth, the regime is indefinite, introduced by a proclamation with no fixed term. Rather, the first rental term for many units registered in 2024 did.

At the heart of the debate sit two features of the law, rental terms and rent increments.

The law sets a mandatory minimum rental term of two years. Longer terms are allowed shorter ones are prohibited. During the lease, property owners cannot terminate agreements or evict tenants except in cases of lawful property transfer, such as sale, inheritance or other means excluding donation. Even then, six months’ prior notice is required.

Once a lease expires, however, lessors are not obliged to renew. Renewal is optional, and a property owner may evict a tenant and let to someone new. This stands in sharp contrast to the laws of Germany and New York, where tenants enjoy statutory renewal rights that secure their tenure. Ethiopia’s framework is markedly deficient. Tenants have no guaranteed right to extend their occupancy beyond the agreed term, leaving them exposed at lease expiry.

Officials of the Addis Abeba Housing Bureau have tried to close that gap by declaring that lessors may not refuse renewals under the pretext of personal or close family use. The Bureau’s motivation is understandable, but it misapplies a law that imposes no obligation to renew, and it creates confusion. The limitation stems from the design of the statute and should be addressed through proper legislative reform. Whether the regulatory body can enforce mandatory renewal without statutory authority remains to be seen.

While property owners keep discretion over renewals, the rent charged to a new tenant should match the rent applied on renewal. This restriction ensures a lessor gains no financial advantage from eviction, and indirectly discourages displacement. Renewals are governed by the same rules as initial agreements, with rents adjusted annually.

Ethiopia’s uniform rent adjustment, applied both on renewal and to new tenancies, stands in sharp contrast to the systems of Germany, the United Kingdom (UK), Belgium, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria and Botswana, where rents reset to prevailing market rates between tenancies. The dominant model combines indefinite tenure security, subject to limited exceptions for owner or close-family occupancy, with regulated rents during the tenancy, while allowing property owners to realign rents with the market once a tenancy ends.

By extending rent regulation across successive tenancies despite two-year terms, Ethiopia’s approach strengthens tenant protection but risks suppressing rental values, discouraging investment and weakening the incentive to maintain property. A lessor’s right to terminate at the end of the two-year term may also give rise to side agreements with existing tenants who are desperate to say or, incoming tenants exposing them to a rent higher than the permitted one.

The legal framework tries to balance lessor discretion against tenant protection. Property owners may decline renewals, yet they can charge new tenants only the rent applicable to existing ones, which discourages needless displacement at the end of a lease. Time will ultimately reveal whether the right balance has been struck. It does not appear so for now.

During the lease, rent may be increased only once a year and solely in line with the regulatory body’s determination. The law requires that body to announce adjustments on June 8 each year, effective for the next fiscal year. No such determination or announcement for the 2025/26 fiscal year could be found. Officials claimed rent levels were unchanged. Even so, the law required a formal pronouncement to that effect. The omission compromised property owners’ right to adjust rents in a volatile market and created uncertainty about baseline rents.

The latest adjustment was issued on July 6, 2026, missing the mandated timeline by nearly a month. The rate was set at 11.5pc, calculated against the 2025 baseline, thereby disadvantaging property owners. The announcement is nonetheless a notable development. The delay, together with last year’s missed determination, fuelled the mistaken belief that the regime itself would expire on July 7, 2026. It also undermined confidence in the regulatory body’s ability to administer adjustments predictably and credibly.

The law’s deficiencies are plain. Tenants lack renewal rights and are exposed at lease expiry. Lessors face suppressed rental values that could discourage investment and maintenance. Over time, these dynamics could distort the housing market, breeding inefficiency and eroding quality. Timely legislative intervention may be imperative to preserve the regime’s integrity. Beyond that, the failure to announce schedule adjustments, the misapplication of renewal provisions, and the silence amid public uncertainty have all worked against the law’s objectives. To restore confidence, the regulatory body has to act with clarity, on time and in the open.

Rent control was introduced to stabilise leases and protect families from displacement. Should the law fail to ensure this and enforcement falter, the promise of tenant protection will unravel, leaving the legal regime irrelevant. The housing market, already under pressure, cannot afford such uncertainty. At this juncture, the choice is clear between disciplined enforcement and the necessary reform, or systemic collapse.

The future of rent control and the stability of countless households across the capital depend on which path the country takes.

A Celebration of Love Where Tradition Met Presence

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In an age when weddings are often planned as much for the camera as for the couple, I attended a ceremony over the weekend that felt like a quiet departure from the norm.

There were no photographers weaving between tables, no guests holding phones above their heads, no livestreams for relatives abroad, and no carefully choreographed moments designed for social media. Instead, there was something increasingly uncommon: people were fully present.

At the entrance to the wedding hall, guests were handed small pouches and asked to place their phones inside. The devices remained locked away throughout the celebration. There would be no audience photos, no videos circulating online before the festivities had ended, and no flood of social media posts by the close of the day.

It was an unusual request in a time when almost every significant occasion is expected to be documented.

The surprises did not end there.

As my husband, Mike, our daughter Gabriella, and I arrived at the venue, we learned that we would not be celebrating together. Men and women would gather separately. Mike joined the groom and the men’s ceremony, while Gabriella and I entered the bride’s hall, where women had assembled to celebrate her special day.

My first reaction was to view it as a custom from another era, one that contrasted with the mixed gatherings common at many weddings today.

Yet once inside, the arrangement revealed its own logic. The women’s hall quickly filled with conversation, laughter, dancing, and celebration. Across the venue, the men were creating their own memories with the groom.

Rather than dividing the occasion, the separate gatherings gave each group the freedom to celebrate in its own way while remaining connected by a shared purpose. It was a reminder that traditions often endure because they continue to serve a meaningful role for those who keep them alive.

That may have been the first irony of the day. What initially appeared to be the most old-fashioned aspect of the wedding created one of its warmest and most engaging experiences. The separation was not about exclusion. It encouraged participation, conversation, and a stronger sense of community within each gathering.

What followed felt less like a public spectacle and more like being welcomed into a private celebration.

On the women’s side, the atmosphere carried a different rhythm. Without phones constantly raised in the air, guests were free to talk, laugh, eat, and dance without considering how the moment might appear later. There was no pressure to produce the perfect image. No one was adjusting angles, checking lighting, or rehearsing reactions. People were simply enjoying one another’s company.

The bride entered in a sparkling white ball gown that shimmered as she moved through the hall. She danced with friends and family, laughing with an ease that suggested she was genuinely enjoying her wedding day. What stood out most was that everyone was watching her directly, not through a screen, but with their own eyes.

A bridesmaid recorded a few moments with a smartphone and a small hand light. Yet it was a modest effort rather than a full-scale production. There was no team directing guests, repeating scenes, or interrupting conversations in pursuit of perfect footage. The goal appeared to be preserving a handful of memories rather than documenting every second.

Mike later described a similar atmosphere on the men’s side. The groom sat on a stage alongside his groomsmen. After lunch, he moved among the guests, greeting friends and relatives. Music played throughout the day, with the DJ providing songs for both halls.

The separate celebrations could easily have felt disconnected. Instead, they created a surprising sense of closeness. Each group experienced the joy of the occasion differently, yet both remained united by the same purpose: celebrating the couple’s union.

What stayed with me most was not what the wedding lacked, but what it gained.

Without cameras everywhere, guests appeared more engaged. They were not viewing the ceremony through screens while standing in the room itself. They were not searching for the best angle or thinking about how a moment might appear online. They were immersed in it.

Experiences that remain private have become increasingly rare. In a world where almost anything can become content within moments, choosing not to share everything can seem almost radical. A meal can be enjoyed without being photographed. A wedding can be meaningful without producing thousands of images to prove it happened.

Of course, photographs have value. They preserve family histories and allow people to revisit important chapters of their lives. Years later, a single image can revive cherished memories. Yet there is a difference between preserving an experience and allowing the act of preservation to overshadow it.

This wedding seemed to understand that distinction.

The couple appeared less concerned with creating a flawless record of the day than with living it fully. Their attention remained on the people around them rather than on an audience that might one day view the pictures. The celebration belonged entirely to those who were present.

There was also something deeply considerate about the request to put phones away. It created a shared understanding: for a few hours, everyone would devote their attention to the couple. The bride and groom would not compete with notifications, screens, or the constant urge to capture the next moment.

In the end, the wedding was memorable not because of the absence of phones or the separation of guests, but because of what filled the space they left behind. There was conversation instead of scrolling, participation instead of documentation, and genuine connection instead of performance.

Perhaps that is the quiet lesson of this unusual celebration. Sometimes the most forward-looking ideas are rooted in longstanding customs. In a world that increasingly encourages us to perform our lives for an online audience, this wedding offered a different perspective: the most meaningful moments are not always the ones we capture, but the ones we experience fully.

Parents Dreams Meet the Reality of the Classroom

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I suppose I should not be surprised by the immense value our society places on education. It is reflected in the sayings we hear throughout our lives, phrases so deeply woven into everyday conversation that they shape how we think about success, opportunity, and even character.

Take, for instance, “yetemare yigdlegn,” which loosely translates to “better to be killed by an educated man.” It does not literally glorify death. Rather, it is a dramatic way of expressing the belief that education cultivates reason, ethics, and a higher standard of conduct. Another common saying, “ye bela ina yetemare wedko aywedkim,” suggests that a person who is fed and educated will not fall, or if they do, they will not remain down for long. These expressions, along with countless others, reveal the elevated place formal education occupies in our society. It is viewed as the most reliable safeguard against an uncertain future.

This reverence is hardly new. Most of us grew up hearing stories about the sacrifices parents make to educate their children. More importantly, we have witnessed those sacrifices ourselves. We have seen mothers and fathers forgo basic comforts, work long hours, and endure immense hardship simply to keep their families afloat. Yet despite these challenges, they continue to invest whatever resources they can spare in their children’s education.

Recently, I have been spending time around schools again, and it reminded me just how deeply parents value educational opportunities. You see it in the crowds gathered at school gates and in the tired yet determined faces of parents dropping off their children each day. Many are willing to pay significant costs, endure long commutes, and sacrifice their own comfort if it means giving their children access to a better education.

Viewed through a psychological lens, this goes far beyond a desire for good grades. In societies where daily life can be unforgiving, it often reflects a powerful form of intergenerational aspiration. Parents project hopes, ambitions, and unrealised opportunities onto their children. When circumstances limit their own ability to achieve certain goals, those aspirations are transferred to the next generation. A child’s success becomes, in many ways, a parent’s victory over challenges they could not overcome themselves.

It is a remarkable act of hope. Yet it also places a significant, often invisible burden on students. They are not merely studying for examinations. In many cases, they carry the expectations, sacrifices, and deferred dreams of their families.

This is especially evident in the emphasis many parents place on language education, particularly English. It is often viewed as a gateway to opportunities beyond national borders and as a tool that can help children overcome limitations faced by previous generations.

Standing at the front of a classroom and witnessing these expectations firsthand is both humbling and rewarding. Recently, I was reminded of how fulfilling teaching can be. Teaching is not simply about delivering information. When students are engaged, attentive, and genuinely curious, the experience becomes collaborative. There is a unique satisfaction in watching understanding take shape and seeing confidence grow as new concepts begin to make sense.

Yet classrooms rarely resemble the quiet, perfectly focused environments people often imagine.

Students, after all, are still children. As eager as they may be to learn, they are equally eager to play. They want to laugh, interact, and enjoy themselves. Their attention shifts easily, especially during the summer months. While they may be excited to acquire new skills and knowledge, their instincts are also telling them that this is a season meant for rest, exploration, and recreation.

It is easy to view this desire for play as an obstacle to learning, particularly when parents are making such significant sacrifices to provide educational opportunities. Yet research in cognitive and developmental psychology suggests the opposite.

Play is not separate from learning; it is one of its most effective tools. Children and young adults are naturally inclined to understand the world through interaction, experimentation, and play. Through games and social activities, they develop emotional regulation, learn to navigate social dynamics, test boundaries, and strengthen critical cognitive functions.

Research consistently shows that students absorb information more effectively when they are in positive, low-stress environments. Enjoyment and engagement support memory formation and improve retention. Students often learn new concepts more quickly and remember them longer when learning is integrated into enjoyable activities rather than presented solely through repetition and memorisation.

This is where the challenge for educators emerges.

Teaching requires balancing structure with freedom, discipline with enjoyment, and academic progress with the developmental needs of young people. The classroom becomes a meeting point between the weight of parental sacrifice and the natural energy of youth.

For educators, particularly those working in summer programmes, the task is not simply to teach. It is to honour the sacrifices parents make while preserving the curiosity and enthusiasm that allow students to learn most effectively. The goal is to create an environment where rigorous learning and meaningful enjoyment can coexist.

Perhaps that is where our understanding of those familiar sayings can evolve. Education remains one of the most powerful tools a person can possess. Yet true learning is not built on discipline alone. A person who receives an education may not fall, but a person who learns while maintaining the freedom to explore, question, and play may be even better prepared for the world ahead.

“Ethiopia has the right to development; we have the right to life.”

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Badr Abdelatty, Egypt’s foreign minister, told the Middle East Online (MEO) last week that his country opposes “any measure taken without agreement” between countries sharing the Nile River. Talks between Ethiopia and Egypt over the issue of the Nile Basin, including water flow managment through the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), have been stalled for a few years now, unable to agree on how much water Ethiopia should release from the reservoir during multi-year dry periods.

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The number of graduates from colleges of teachers’ education in 2024/25, 92.8pc lower than that of those who graduated in 2018/19. The colleges produced one diploma graduate for every 14 they had six years earlier. Some colleges have stopped registering first-year diploma students as they upgrade their programmes to degree level.

Addis Abeba Clears 59Km of Rivers, Remains Short of Halfway

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Addis Abeba has completed 59Km of river cleanup and development work, although total coverage has yet to reach 50pc. Mayor Adanech Abebe said the 59Km stretch was transformed in one and a half years as she presented a comprehensive review of the city’s strategic plan from 2022 to 2026.

Mayor Abebe described the progress as a major “breakthrough”, saying the work relied entirely on the city’s funding, engineers, architects and workers. By comparison, she said, a world-renowned foreign contractor had completed only two kilometres of riverbank work over five years.

The initiative seeks to reclaim rivers that were major sources of pollution and disease and turn them into clean, vibrant public spaces. Mayor Abebe presented the restoration programme as a cornerstone of efforts to make Addis Abeba a “Beautiful Flower”. She reported that green coverage rose from 2.8pc to 24pc during the review period, contributing to the city’s achievement of 96pc of its five-year strategic targets.

The Mayor also reported changes in urban living conditions. She said shanty or slum areas declined from 70pc of the city to 30pc, while 60pc of mud-walled houses were renovated or replaced. The city also established 30 feeding centres and 1,100 public daycare centres as part of what she described as a people-centred development programme supporting vulnerable residents.

Despite the reported gains, Mayor Abebe acknowledged that substantial work remains. She committed the city’s leadership to a 24/7 work culture to address the remaining 30pc of slum areas and 40pc of mud-walled houses.

Kisse Platform Brings Collateral-Free Microloans Through Agent Network

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Mefithe Microfinance S.C., MZ Tech, and Arifpay Financial Technologies S.C. have launched “Kisse”, an agent-powered digital microloan platform designed to expand access to finance for micro and small enterprises.

Through trained local agents, borrowers can apply for collateral-free, short-term business loans. Once approved, the funds are transferred to mobile wallets or bank accounts through Arifpay’s payment gateway. The partners said loans can be disbursed within hours.

Under the partnership, Mefithe provides loan capital as the licensed lender, while MZ Tech manages the digital lending platform and agent network. Arifpay oversees loan disbursements, repayments, and payment processing, completing the platform’s digital lending ecosystem.

Yoseph Kibret Takes Helm of Digital Finance Association

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The Ethiopian Digital Financial Service Providers Association (EDFSPA) has elected Yoseph Kibret as Chairman following its formal launch after six years of collaboration among fintech companies, banks, payment service providers, technology firms, and other industry stakeholders. He was the chief executive officer (CEO) of Premium Switch Solution (PSS) and is now the CEO of PSS Trading Plc. He draws technology expertise from his time at Dashen Bank to Bank of Abyssinia.

Created as a unified platform for the digital finance industry, the association aims to strengthen cooperation, encourage innovation and promote responsible practices. It also plans to reduce barriers to digital payments and expand access to financial services for underserved communities.

EDFSPA intends to bring together fintech firms, financial institutions, regulators and technology providers to build a secure, inclusive and competitive digital finance ecosystem. Its broader agenda is to support Ethiopia’s digital transformation, sustainable economic growth and wider participation in the digital economy.