A Quiet Forex Market Reveals the Limits of Monetary Reform

Posted on May 3, 2026May 7, 2026 by Digital Editor

The Birr’s (Brewed Buck) market passed last week quietly. Beneath it, the week exposed a currency board moving less by price discovery than by administrative habit.

With no foreign exchange auction from the Central Bank for several weeks, commercial banks largely kept their rates boxed in. Most boards did not move at all. Those that did shifted by amounts too small to tell a market repricing, but enough to show that banks are testing the edges of a tightly managed corridor.

On Saturday, the Central Bank posted 156.74 Br to the dollar, a 0.73 Br drop from the previous week. Inside the market, the change was far narrower, with the official rate slipping from 156.77 Br on April 27 to 156.74 Br from April 30 onward, a fall of only 0.0349 Br. This was not a macroeconomic shift but a signal that the reference rate eased slightly while selected commercial banks made small upward adjustments.

Excluding the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE), the average commercial-bank buying rate edged from 154.22 Br on April 27 to 154.25 Br on May 2. The average selling rate inched from 157.31 Br to 157.34 Br. Over the week, the commercial bank average was 154.23 Br buying and 157.32 Br selling. The gain was 0.0322 Br on both sides, about 0.02pc. In practical terms, the Brewed Buck barely moved. In market terms, the direction of individual boards mattered more than the size of the change.

The spread said more than the rates. Almost every commercial bank kept a fixed two percent gap between buying and selling prices, making the selling boards move mechanically with the buying boards. At a buying rate near 154 Br, the margin produces about 3.08 Br between the two. The Central Bank remained the exception, posting zero spread, with buying and selling rates equal. Its quotation functions less like a retail cash board and more like an official reference point.

Oromia Bank remained the highest-priced commercial bank throughout the week. By May 2, it quoted 157.08 Br buying and 160.23 Br selling, well above the commercial-bank average of 154.26 Br buying and 157.34 Br selling. Its buying rate was 2.83 Br above the market average and nearly 2.93 Br higher when Oromia Bank itself was excluded. Yet pace was not the story. Its buying rate changed only by 0.02 Br. The anomaly was the level, not the movement.

At the bottom, Nib and Dashen banks remained the cheapest quoted banks. Nib was unchanged at 153.13 Br buying and 156.2 Br selling, leaving its buying board about 3.60 Br below the Central Bank’s Saturday rate and 3.95 Br below Oromia Bank’s. Dashen Bank also stayed unchanged, at 153.17 Br buying and 156.23 Br selling. The state-owned Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) and Coop Bank remained in the low-rate group, though both adjusted.

However, Coop Bank made the largest upward move, lifting its buying rate by 0.35 Br and selling rate by 0.36 Br, a 0.2319pc rise on the buying side. Its sharpest adjustment came on May 2, when the buying rate jumped from 153.42 Br to 153.67 Br in one step. The state policy bank, the Development Bank of Ethiopia (DBE), followed with a 0.21 Br buying increase and 0.22 Br selling increase, 0.14pc. CBE raised buying by 0.15 Br and selling by 0.153 Br, a 0.0979pc increase.

The other upward revisions were smaller. Bunna Bank added 0.06 Br buying and 0.061 Br selling, a 0.0389pc buying gain. Bank of Abyssinia added 0.04 Br and 0.0408 Br, 0.0260pc. Zemen Bank increased 0.0253 Br buying and 0.0258 Br selling. Siinqee Bank added 0.0250 Br and 0.0255 Br, Awash 0.0220 Br and 0.0225 Br, and Oromia Bank 0.0203 Br and 0.0208 Br. DBE and CBE made their main changes earlier, on April 30.

Inertia remained the dominant behaviour. Sixteen of the 30 listed banks showed no visible change in buying rate. The banks that moved did so unevenly, mainly from low or middle positions. The pattern looked less like broad depreciation than controlled crawling at the margin.

The largest private banks were notably cautious. Awash, Abyssinia, Dashen, Wegagen and Zemen did not lead a general repricing. Their average buying rate on May 2 was 154.31 Br, up from 154.30 Br on April 27. Abyssinia ended at 154.44 Br buying and 157.53 Br selling after adding 0.015 Br, while Awash Bank reached 154.15 Br buying and 157.24 Br selling. Wegagen Bank was unchanged at 154.59 Br buying and 157.68 Br selling. Zemen remained the most expensive among the big private five, at 155.22 Br buying and 158.3313 Br selling.

CBE’s move was more visible but still not market-leading. It lifted its buying rate from 153.26 Br to 153.41 Br, while its selling rate jumped from 156.35 Br to 156.48 Br. Even after the adjustment, the state-owned lender remained among the lowest-rate banks. Its move looked like partial catch-up from a low base, not an attempt to set the market’s direction.

By May 2, the forex market sat in three broad tiers. Premium quote banks included Oromia, Zemen, Berhan, Wegagen, ZamZam and Gadaa. Most institutions clustered around 154 Br to 155 Br buying and 157 Br to 158 Br selling. Low-quote banks included Nib, Dashen, CBE, Coop, Siinqee, and Hijra banks. Behaviourally, the market was divided into premium outliers, high-but-static banks, low-price anchors, and marginal crawlers.

For buyers looking at posted cash boards, the message was restraint. The market’s centre of gravity remained around 154.16 Br to 154.26 Br buying and 157.24 Br to 157.34 Br selling, depending on whether Oromia’s high quotation is included. The NBE’s lower rate suggests authorities are not using the official board to validate faster depreciation. Commercial banks are not pushing aggressively higher, except for isolated outliers. The price is steady; the signals beneath it are fragmented. Posted rates show calm, while the distance between bank groups hints at pressure that formal quotations may only partly reveal.

Britain Wants Ethiopia to Stop Being an Aid Case and Become a Climate Power

Posted on May 3, 2026May 6, 2026 by Digital Editor

Fortune: Given the United Kingdom’s long history with Ethiopia, is there a change of view about its role in East Africa’s economic and climate future?

McLoughlin: We are recalibrating our approach in recognition of Ethiopia’s increased importance, particularly on climate and economic transformation. The shift is towards investment and partnership, with a stronger focus on human capital, systems strengthening, economic transformation and modernising humanitarian response, working closely with government and local institutions.

We are now at an inflexion point, reflecting Ethiopia’s growing role as an emerging power and as a key actor on climate and economic issues in Africa and beyond, demonstrated by its chairing and hosting of COP32. As a result, we are rethinking how we engage, moving from a traditional aid-and-donor-to-recipient relationship towards a more equal partnership focused on shared global priorities. This includes collaboration inside Ethiopia and internationally.

Q: What is the single biggest risk to Ethiopia’s development that your institutions are preparing to address?

McLoughlin: A major priority is climate risk. Ethiopia is one of the countries most exposed to frequent shocks, including droughts and floods, with recurring cycles that drive displacement as people move towards water sources or away from flood-affected areas. This poses a serious and growing threat to development. COP32 is an important opportunity to draw global attention to these challenges, not only in Ethiopia but also in all least-developed countries facing the acute impacts of climate change.

Another major concern is the crisis in the Middle East and the wider Gulf region, which is having a disproportionate impact on Ethiopia. This is being felt through fuel shortages, fertiliser supply constraints, and disruptions to supply chains, including key routes such as the Strait of Hormuz and Djibouti. Our focus is on supporting Ethiopia in managing these shocks and protecting the poorest and most vulnerable from their effects.

Q: Why are landslides in Ethiopia occurring outside the rainy season with limited reporting? What measures can prevent them from escalating to the scale seen recently?

McLoughlin: Building local resilience to climate-related impacts is very important, and this is not something that starts today. It has been underway for several years. We need to continue supporting local communities in managing watersheds in ways that help mitigate or prevent flooding. One example is the government-run rural safety net programme. The UK is a major partner in the programme, alongside the World Bank and Canada. We want to continue investing in it as an instrument that helps local communities, through livelihood work, to manage irrigation and watersheds in ways that protect against the adverse impacts of climate change.

Q: What role should Ethiopia’s meteorology sector and other government bodies play beyond daily weather forecasting in improving water management, irrigation planning and disaster preparedness? What gaps limit their effectiveness?

McLoughlin: Plans are often very strong in terms of how to address these issues. The diagnostics are clear, and the problems are well known. The question is how we work collectively to address them. COP is not the only answer. But COP32 is a great opportunity to bring global attention to these issues and showcase Ethiopia’s leadership, because excellent work has been done in many of these areas. COP32 offers a platform to say, “look at what has been done here,” but also look at how strong and devastating the impacts are for people in Ethiopia and across Africa. It is an opportunity, but it is not the only answer.

Q: How do you balance risk when investing in fragile or conflict-affected areas?

Maasdorp: I will start with the broader context. The UK government has outlined a new approach to development, shifting from aid to investment and from a donor-recipient model to a partnership model. This aligns directly with how we have already operated over the past seven to eight years. When we invest in what we call frontier markets, where institutions, policy frameworks and regulatory systems are still developing, we have a clear strategy. BII now allocates around 25pc of its capital to these markets. In these environments, financial systems are often nascent, and policy frameworks are uneven. Our role is to act as a catalyst for market development.

We do not only invest in companies such as Dodai. We help support the broader ecosystem around them. Dodai, for example, is contributing to the development of the e-mobility sector, including battery-swapping infrastructure, and has already created close to 100 jobs. Our model is to invest in the private sector to help companies grow and become sustainable. These businesses then pay taxes, which governments can use to fund social infrastructure such as roads, schools and clinics. We see this as central to building green industrial value chains in Ethiopia. Companies such as Dodai may be small today, but they have the potential to scale over time.

Q: Many people are still accustomed to petrol vehicles. How long could it take for Ethiopia to establish a strong foothold in the electric vehicle (EV) sector and drive a meaningful shift towards electric mobility?

Maasdorp: Policy leadership is critical, and so is policy consistency backed by a clear regulatory framework. The government has signalled a strong commitment to reform, introducing changes across monetary policy, trade, sector liberalisation and the digital space. In this area, it has taken a more radical step by banning the import of traditional internal-combustion-engine vehicles. This reflects a decisive approach to accelerating the adoption of cleaner transport in Ethiopia.

It creates an opportunity for cleaner mobility solutions. The policy direction is clear; the next step is investor participation. We seek to be among the early movers, drawing on more than seven decades of experience investing across Africa, where our participation often helps build confidence for others to follow. Timelines are difficult to predict, as these transitions move at their own pace. But new investors are entering adjacent sectors and shaping the broader ecosystem. In clean transport, we see strong potential for this investment to generate wider multiplier effects across the market.

Q: How do you compare Ethiopia’s current trajectory with other African and developing countries?

Maasdorp: Ethiopia currently has the advantage of a government committed to a broad set of structural reforms to move away from an older, state-led development model that created inefficiencies. Economic development relies heavily on entrepreneurial energy and innovation, and that potential is constrained when the state dominates most sectors. The government has already begun opening key areas. Reforms are visible in sectors such as telecoms and banking, which were previously under a strong state monopoly. These sectors are now gradually liberalising. This represents considerable progress, which is why we are here and looking to increase our exposure.

However, it is also difficult to make direct comparisons with other countries, given differences in context, culture and history. Sierra Leone, for example, with its smaller population and post-conflict trajectory, presents a very different environment. What we are seeing in Ethiopia is a clear reform path being implemented despite external headwinds, which gives us confidence in its future direction. On climate specifically, there is growing recognition in the banking sector of the need for targeted programmes supporting women-led businesses and low-emission companies such as Dodai. We have invested in Dashen Bank, and we are now seeing other banks exploring similar initiatives.

Beyond our own investments, we engage with industry bodies to help shape understanding of these policy frameworks. When there is a clear roadmap, it creates direction and typically attracts more investment.

McLoughlin: You cannot directly compare countries because each context is distinct. But several highly important developments in Ethiopia stand out. These include macroeconomic reforms, with a clear determination to see them through. In the climate space, the Green Legacy Initiative has attracted international attention and is widely recognised as a strong and visible effort.

There are also developments in e-mobility, including initiatives we are looking at today, and growing momentum in carbon markets. Over the coming months, there is potential for one of the largest carbon transactions globally to come together, if all stakeholders align. The groundwork is already in place. What is now needed is engagement from investors and global regulators to finalise and scale the deal.

Maasdorp: What encourages us is the clarity of government policy, which has announced a target of 500,000 EVs by 2030. This provides a clear and ambitious direction, which helps entrepreneurs identify commercial opportunities. Dodai is responding directly to that agenda. On the impact on ordinary people, consider clean air. In many places, emissions from transport and coal-fired power stations near cities affect air quality. A shift to electric vehicles can make a major difference, improving air quality and overall quality of life.

Q: With UK aid budgets reduced, how is the FCDO ensuring Ethiopia still receives adequate support?

McLoughlin: We are often a point of stability in the system, even as aid budgets are reducing globally, not only in the UK. Over the past few years, we have focused on where to prioritise and how best to work in those focus countries. The good news is that Ethiopia has recently been confirmed as a priority country. It remains a major development partner for us in weight and impact, and will be a top priority in the coming years.

However, the way we work will change. With smaller financial envelopes, we will rely less on funding alone and instead bring a wider set of UK government tools to Ethiopia. This includes bilateral programmes, expertise from UK universities and research institutions, and influence over multilateral organisations such as the World Bank, the Global Fund and Gavi, where we are major shareholders. This allows us to influence how resources are used more broadly, rather than focusing only on our own bilateral spending. We are working more strategically across systems, in close collaboration with partners, moving beyond traditional programme delivery models.

Maasdorp: Development finance systems are well capitalised, as decided in London. We can maintain investment levels over the next five years, as we have in previous years. But budget pressures are real; governments are facing high costs, and we are adapting our business model to address current challenges. One key shift is a stronger focus on using our capital catalytically. Rather than only deploying investment directly, we are working to mobilise more pension funds, insurance capital and asset managers. The purpose is to reduce risk in specific investments and to make them more attractive for local institutions to participate in.

Our ability to invest in countries such as Ethiopia is increasing because we now have a higher allocation to least-developed countries, where development needs are greater, and our capital can have the most impact. Over the next five years, 25pc of our capital each year will go to least-developed countries. We are taking on more risk relative to some of our peers.

Q: Turning to education, what tangible changes have been achieved through the Transforming Education in Ethiopia programme?

McLoughlin: We have been working with Ethiopia on education for a long time, around two decades of UK investment in the education system. Over this period, there have been clear successes, particularly in expanding access to education and strengthening exam systems. Work is also ongoing with the Ministry on the language of instruction.

Equity remains a key focus, ensuring that marginalised groups can access and benefit from schooling across the country. A major shared challenge is the impact of climate and conflict-related shocks on the education system. It is estimated that more than 10 million children may be out of school due to these factors. That is a serious concern. Some are engaged in home or online learning, but this is not a full substitute for formal education.

We are addressing this closely with the Ministry of Education through several channels. One is a World Bank trust fund, through which substantial financing is channelled and allocated according to government priorities. We maintain close dialogue with the Ministry on how best to use these resources. We are also planning to provide technical assistance aligned with the Ministry’s priorities, and several areas have already been identified for further support.

Further discussions will take place at the Education World Forum in London on May 17, 2026, where an Ethiopian delegation is expected to attend, likely led by Berhanu Nega (Prof.), the minister. These meetings will focus on where the UK can add value, through both technical expertise and financial support.

Q: What changes do you expect over the next five years?

McLoughlin: We have targets in place that we are working towards with the Ministry. These focus on continued progress in access for all, with particular attention to girls, children with disabilities and marginalised groups, especially in hard-to-reach areas. Even more important are improved learning outcomes, because access alone is not enough if the quality of education is poor. The focus is, therefore, on strengthening foundational literacy and numeracy for all children, particularly those from marginalised backgrounds.

As part of the shift from a traditional donor relationship to a more equal partnership, we are placing greater emphasis on long-term system strengthening. This means working with the government on policy reforms that can have a transformational impact for the next generation, informed by evidence from other countries and local experience. We are also entering into new partnerships, including global initiatives such as Gavi, the Global Partnership for Education, and Education Cannot Wait, all of which are supported by UK funding. These stakeholders are already active here, but we want to bring more global attention and partnerships to Ethiopia. We also want to play a convening role, bringing new partnerships and opportunities while continuing to work bilaterally with the Ministry.

Q Beyond limited access and conflict-affected regions, what are the key challenges you have observed within the education system?

McLoughlin: Literacy and numeracy rates can be quite low in different parts of the country, and that is a concern. One particular issue is the medium of instruction. English is the language of instruction in secondary education, but familiarity and fluency in English are not yet strong enough, including among the teacher workforce. The question is how we can support English as a language of instruction among both teachers and students. That is a major focus for us.

Q How many teachers have been trained under the TREE programme so far?

McLoughlin: The TREE programme is still in its early stages of implementation, with key foundations already in place to support full-scale delivery. By 2029, the programme plans to train 35,000 teachers and school leaders, with women comprising 50pc of participants. Its predecessor, the General Education Quality Improvement Programme for Equity, has already made meaningful contributions, strengthening the capacities of more than 21,497 school leaders and teachers. TREE will build on these achievements to further enhance quality and equity in education.

Q: What independent metrics or third-party evaluations do you have to verify the impact of your investments in the country?

Maasdorp: We do not use third-party evaluators in Ethiopia as such, but each investment is reviewed and approved by an investment committee in London. For every investment we make, we assess the development impact, and these assessments are validated and verified at the portfolio level. Take our recent investment in Dodai. It is a new and growing company that will create jobs. By introducing a clean product that reduces emissions and bringing in battery-swapping innovation, it is helping to develop new business models. It also supports an emerging key economy, aligned with the government’s plan and digital transformation strategy.

Dodai is actively contributing to the industry’s growth, including through the e-mobility association and by engaging in policy discussions with the government. It is not only an investment we are supporting, but the wider ecosystem around it. These are the impact metrics we assess in every investment decision.

Q: How do BII and the FCDO complement each other in investments?

Maasdorp: BII was established by the UK government and is 100pc government-owned. The FCDO is our shareholder. We work not only hand in glove. We are one component of the UK government’s overall toolkit. There are other instruments in the development toolkit, including FSD Africa, which, for example, was one of the shareholders involved in the creation of the stock exchange here. Deepening financial markets creates opportunities for us to invest. The FCDO has a range of instruments, and we are one of them. We are not separate in how we work together. The FCDO enables our investments in this market.

McLoughlin: We work in a complementary way, as we both bring different strengths. The FCDO focuses on policy and enabling environments in the countries where we operate, helping to reduce market-access barriers and engaging governments through policy dialogue. Investors such as BII then invest in the private sector. It is a strong partnership, with each side playing a distinct role.

On measurement and progress, the FCDO has always placed strong emphasis on data and evidence, and we want to build on that over the next three years. The aim is to systematically evaluate and measure progress, strengthening the data and evidence base to continuously inform our next steps. This includes embedding annual reviews and strengthening the tools we use, such as evaluations, data monitoring and AI-supported analysis, to track progress through clear, measurable indicators each year. We can then assess whether we need to correct course, adjust how we work or scale up our efforts. This is also what we expect from the UK system more broadly.

Q: Ethiopia’s data structure is fragile. How do you work around limited information?

McLoughlin: It varies across sectors and areas of our work. We are fortunate to have strong relationships with both the ministries of Health and Education, each led by highly capable, technocratic ministers who understand the critical role of data in policymaking. We gain a great deal from these partnerships. Most recently, a household data survey conducted by the Ministry of Health provided a valuable dataset, helping us plan the next cycle of work and focus on priority areas.

Ultimately, it comes down to strong partnerships and ongoing dialogue with individual ministries and their plans. We are also investing in technical assistance and expertise for both ministries, including assessing progress, what is working and what is not. All of this contributes to strengthening how the ministries build their systems.

Q: Ethiopia has not conducted a population census in more than a decade. How does this data gap affect your investment decisions?

McLoughlin: We use different datasets from other sources that are willing to share them with us. We believe we now have a fairly strong outlook on what needs to be done in the coming years, based on the timeframes and partnerships we have in place.

Maasdorp: Many of our markets in Africa are facing powerful headwinds due to a changing macroeconomic environment. We are not short-term investors. We describe ourselves as patient and long-term capital. We recognise that Ethiopia, in particular, will face challenges as an importer from the Middle East, including jet fuel and other derivatives and products. From the meetings I have had with policymakers, I believe the government has a plan to manage this difficult structural transformation. We are confident that we will be able to increase our activities in Ethiopia, following our strategy of driving market-level impact, supporting businesses and helping to create an investable environment for others to follow.

Q: It is election season. How do you think the election outcome will affect your current investments and the policies being implemented?

Maasdorp: I have a high degree of confidence in policy certainty here. The government has a long-term programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which two months ago gave a positive assessment on almost all macroeconomic metrics. The reform process includes many structural components. There is no reluctance to continue, nor any ambivalence about the future. The government, or whichever government is elected in June, will continue to implement these programmes because it has committed the country to a path aimed at long-term economic prosperity.

In this investment, we apply the “2X Challenge,” which began around 2018 as an initiative to embed gender-lens investing into mainstream investment processes. This is also being implemented in Dodai, where job opportunities will be created. It is an important factor in how BII assesses its investments.

McLoughlin: It is encouraging to see democracy in action and elections taking place. We have not seen anything that suggests a shift away from the long-term reform agenda, including key efforts in the macroeconomy, education, and health sectors. Continuity is expected. COP32 is also a major focus of our work and will take place next year regardless of developments. This is something we are all working towards to ensure it succeeds. We are putting Ethiopia on the global map. Every single country in the world will descend here. It is an opportunity to showcase all of these successes.

Konjit Sinegiorgis, Diplomat Who Carried Ethiopia Through Africa’s Institutional Rebirth, Dies at 86

Posted on May 3, 2026May 4, 2026 by Digital Editor

In the early 1960s, a young woman returned from her studies abroad to seek a position at the Ministry of Education. She was told by a senior official that statecraft was not a job for women.

Konjit Sinegiorgis, who would go on to serve Ethiopia’s foreign service for over half a century, was hardly discouraged by a sentence meant to end an ambition. She served her country through imperial rule, military dictatorship, and federal governance, becoming a central figure in Ethiopia’s diplomatic memory. Her passing closed one of the longest chapters in the country’s modern diplomacy.

Konjit’s public life began far from the ceremonial language that later surrounded her. Born in Harar in the early 1940s and raised in Addis Abeba’s Dejach Wubie area, she grew up with schooling and an early curiosity about the world beyond Ethiopia. In 1954, still young, she travelled to London with her older sister and studied international affairs at University College London. The United Nations (UN) and the politics of a decolonising world drew her attention.

In 1963, in her early 20s, she received a Carnegie Fellowship at Columbia University in New York. In 2016, Addis Abeba University awarded her an honorary doctorate for a career that had already become part of Ethiopia’s institutional history. Her life traced Ethiopia’s diplomatic continuity through upheaval, regime change, and the remaking of continental institutions, making her not only a participant in policy but also a custodian of continuity as governments changed over more than five decades.

She joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the early 1960s, a year before the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was founded in Addis Abeba. It was an era when African countries were remaking the map of global diplomacy. Addis Abeba was positioning itself as a continental diplomatic capital.

Konjit entered as a junior officer and rose through the hierarchy, from Third Secretary to senior representative in missions abroad. Her rise was neither rapid nor sentimental. Those who know her attest to her persistence, command of files, and a reputation for preparation.

At Ethiopia’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York, she handled decolonisation affairs, a portfolio aligned with the defining struggle of the period. Later postings took her to New York, Geneva and Vienna, and to representation before the UN Economic Commission for Africa. She became Ethiopia’s second female ambassador, after Yodit Imru, a distinction that placed her among the few women able to enter and endure in a male-dominated service.

The breadth of her assignments traced the reach of Ethiopia’s diplomacy. She served as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary in Ottawa, with non-resident accreditation to Mexico, and later in Cairo and Tel Aviv. She managed bilateral relations, multilateral bargaining and the exacting rituals of protocol. From 2009, she served as Ethiopia’s Permanent Representative to the African Union and UNECA, based in the city where the continent’s diplomatic arguments were often staged.

Between June 2009 and September 2011, she also worked as a Special Advisor in the IGAD-led South Sudan peace process, bringing to mediation the same discipline she had carried as a young officer.

However, her name became closely associated with the transition from the OAU to the African Union (AU) in 2002. Colleagues called her a “walking encyclopedia” of OAU and AU affairs. The description was not flattering alone, but also reflected a grasp of how decisions, personalities, and precedents accumulated within institutions and how institutional memory could become political leverage. Around 2012, the AU Chairperson’s Office congratulated her on 50 years of service. In 2015, the African Union honoured her for 52 years and 10 months of diplomatic work. In 2020, she received the Japanese Foreign Minister’s Commendation for contributions to Japan-Africa relations. The honours followed her service rather than defined it.

According to Abdeta Beyene (PhD), director of the Centre for Dialogue Research & Cooperation (CDRC), Konjit could be formidable. He remembered the force of her presence even in passing encounters.

“Nobody messes with her,” he said. “No one spoke ill of Ethiopia in her presence.”

She defended Ethiopia’s positions without softness and expected others to arrive prepared. The same reputation for sternness made her a demanding mentor.

Tadelech Hailemikael, a former ambassador and deputy director of the African Woman Peace & Security Institute, first met her after Konjit was honoured for 43 years of service in 2002. To Tadelech, herself a storied person since the student movement of the 1960s, Konjit represented a generation of women who had to challenge both institutional exclusion and cultural prejudice before they could serve.

“She was married to her job,” she said.

The phrase captured not only dedication but also the personal cost of a life consumed by public duty. At her farewell from the AU in November 2015, Konjit made the sacrifice explicit.

“My career has been my life, and I sacrificed everything for it,” she said.

She also stated the creed that animated her public service:

“There is no greater honour than serving one’s country to the fullest,” said Konjit.

The words defined the austerity of her reputation. She measured herself against an idea of national service that left little room for indulgence.

Diplomacy, Tadelech believes, required discipline, and Konjit embodied it while demanding it from others.

Says Tadelech: “She was a perfectionist as well. She never liked to work with people who aren’t well put together.”

Konjit’s faith supplied another discipline. She observed all the fasts of the calendar followed by the Orthodox Church, and those who knew her saw the same seriousness in her spiritual practice as in her work. Restraint, order, and obligation shaped how she moved through diplomatic circles and trained younger officers. Yet, her influence reached beyond government office. She co-founded the African Woman Peace & Security Institute, which works to strengthen women’s participation in peacebuilding, conflict resolution, and security policy across Africa through training, research, and advocacy.

For a diplomat who once was told that diplomacy was not for women, the Institute was a fitting extension of public life.

In her mid-80s, Konjit passed away on April 7, 2026, receiving medical treatment in Addis Abeba. Eleven days later, she was laid to rest at Entoto Kidanemihret Church, in the presence of senior officials, diplomats and former colleagues. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the African Union and UNECA paid tribute to a woman they described as a pillar of Ethiopian diplomacy and a pioneer for women across Africa.

The tributes after her passing showed the range of her standing. President Taye Atske-Selassie called her a “doyenne of Ethiopia’s modern diplomacy” and praised her role in the founding of the OAU and the transition to the AU.

Ali Yusuf called her a “steadfast Pan-Africanist,” while Tedros Adhanom (PhD), the WHO director-general and a former minister of Foreign Affairs, mourned a “titan of diplomacy” and a “dear friend.”

Konjit is survived by nephews, nieces and an adopted son who lives in Canada. Yet her larger inheritance is institutional. Through stubborn persistence, exacting discipline and unsentimental service, she proved that a woman could enter a foreign service, master it, help steer continental diplomacy and leave diplomacy larger than she found it.

Audit Regulator Tightens Rules on International Network Partnerships

Posted on May 3, 2026May 4, 2026 by Digital Editor

The Accounting & Auditing Board of Ethiopia (AABE) has issued a warning to audit firms, stating that failure to comply with disclosure requirements in international partnerships could trigger legal action, underscoring rising scrutiny in the country’s audit sector.

The Board signalled both encouragement and enforcement, urging domestic firms to integrate with global audit networks but under strict regulatory oversight. The intervention comes as the country’s audit industry remains fragmented, with around 234 firms operating across the country, though only a small number are formally registered under international audit networks and associations.

Fekadu Agonafer, deputy director of the Board, framed the policy as a necessary push toward global standards. “We encourage local audit firms to partner with international networks and associations, because their technological advancement and systems significantly elevate audit quality and financial reporting,” he said.

Tilahun Girma, a financial consultant at PKF Ethiopia, said the lack of a clear directive in the past had contributed to weak reporting of international affiliations. He noted that the new requirement now obliges firms to clearly disclose the extent of their partnerships with global networks.

Tilahun added that the measure is expected to reduce misleading market perceptions, where some firms previously presented limited or informal relationships as broader partnerships without formal agreements.

The Board stressed that compliance with reporting requirements is mandatory. It stated that firms failing to provide complete and timely information on international partnerships would face legal measures, and that international networks engaging with non-compliant Ethiopian firms could also face restrictions and enforcement action.

The directive also sets out key requirements, including formal agreements, clarity on brand usage, strengthened quality assurance systems, and data protection procedures aligned with international standards.

A New Economics for the 21st Century

Posted on May 3, 2026May 8, 2026 by Digital Editor

In the run-up to this year’s International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank Spring Meetings, the one story that cut through the noise was that the World Bank had embraced industrial policy after decades of advising against it. But while much of the ensuing debate focused on whether this “U-turn” is good or bad, overdue or dangerous, few pondered the fundamental question.

What has actually changed?

The Bank has merely affirmed what many of us have long argued. The framework it has promoted since 1993, when its East Asian Miracle report cautioned against industrial-policy tools, has not served developing countries well. Such advice, World Bank Chief Economist Indermit Gill recently observed, “has the practical value of a floppy disk today.” Yet in his defence of the report, he also made clear how limited the shift remains.

Industrial policy, he argued, should be “targeted and temporary,” an exception to a market-led model, rather than a tool for driving broader economic transformations.

The Bank’s latest work confirms that industrial policy is more replicable across income levels and institutional contexts than the old consensus admitted, and that its toolkit extends beyond tariffs and subsidies. Public support for private actors, the Bank now argues, should come with carrots and sticks, including the withdrawal of finance from underperforming firms. This new position aligns with arguments we made in “The Enterprise State” and through more recent work on the role of missions and conditionalities.

But new conclusions do not automatically produce new economics. The Bank still treats the state as a mere fixer of market failures, rather than as a market creator and shaper. The question is not whether governments should intervene after markets have failed. It is what kind of economy we want to build in the first place.

Which public purposes should guide investment, and how can institutions govern the public-private bargain so that value is created collectively and shared fairly?

Viewed in these terms, the Bank still falls short, because it treats fiscal-policy space as a fixed constraint within which to optimise, rather than as a set of institutional capacities that can be developed. As a result, the Bank would still organise industrial policy only around specific sectors and considerations of comparative advantage. But the energy transition, water and food security, public health, and economic resilience are not sectoral issues. They call for economy-wide missions.

This matters now that the Bank itself is adopting “mission” language. Mission 300, with a focus on African electricity access, and Water Forward, launched at the Spring Meetings to address water security and take on major systemic, cross-sectoral challenges. But our assessment of 30 African national energy compacts finds a gap. The ambition is systemic, but the architecture remains sectoral.

Nor is the World Bank an isolated case. The IMF’s own economists have similarly documented how austerity and liberalisation fail to deliver. Yet these findings have yet to translate consistently into new operational practices.

That needs to change. The IMF and the World Bank sit at the centre of an international order whose default advice still reflects an economics not supported by real-world evidence. What they model, measure, and recommend shapes how development and macroeconomic policy are done around the world. They help determine who has access to liquidity, and on what terms; whose debt is treated as sustainable; whose public investment is seen as credible; and whose policy autonomy is constrained.

The wealthy countries that fund and control these institutions are not exempt from the consequences of the same economics. For decades, the same flawed assumptions shaped policy in Europe and the United States, suppressing public investment, weakening public services, treating wages as costs rather than as fuel for aggregate demand, and leaving households exposed to shocks that markets failed to manage.

The resulting affordability crisis has now become a political one. The economics that constrained development policy abroad, hollowing out public capacity and narrowing what governments can do, helped fuel the far right at home.

Europe’s response to the 2022 energy shock shows what is at stake. From 2022 to 2025, EU member states and the United Kingdom (UK) incurred 1.8 trillion dollars in additional costs, much of which was absorbed by households and public budgets, while the shareholders of firms that charged higher prices benefited. Spain points to an alternative. Having invested in energy security as a mission, rather than as a subsidy category, it now generates more than half of its electricity from renewables, leaving it more insulated than its neighbours from the latest energy shock.

Making such resilience the default, rather than the exception, requires an economic framework that governments can apply consistently. The Global Progressive Mobilisation, convened by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, recently brought together progressive governments from around the world to start shaping a new economic consensus. Its foundations are clear. We need public institutions with the capacity to invest, coordinate, and govern markets in the public interest. We need finance designed around missions, not leverage ratios, and policy frameworks that treat fiscal space not as a market-determined ceiling, but as something built by productive investment. And we need measures of value oriented around the common good.

A Global Council on New Economics for the 21st Century, co-chaired by one of us (Mazzucato) and First Vice-President of the Government of Spain, Carlos Cuerpo, will bring these elements together. Our goal is to translate the new economics into operational principles organised around justice, equality, sustainability, and global solidarity. The argument for a new economics is being won. Now we must show what comes next.

Art Restores Migrants Who Become Numbers

Posted on May 3, 2026May 7, 2026 by Digital Editor

Ashenafi Mestika is an artist whose training, observations, and lived experience shape work that is technically assured and emotionally restrained.

Presenting his fifth solo exhibition consisting of 19 paintings, he is showing his work at the Addis Cinema Complex, a newly inaugurated cultural space off Ras Abebe Aregay St., behind Nib Bank’s headquarters in Sengatera neighbourhood. The modern, multi-story facility provides a fitting setting for an exhibition that joins private memory to collective experience. Running from early April to early May, the exhibition marks another stage in his practice.

Titled “Entangled Stories,” the Exhibition depicts migration that appears not as movement alone, but as a human story of dreams, sacrifice, risk, and, too often, silence.

Take the incident last month, off the coast of eastern Libya, where a boat described as “unsafe and dilapidated” went down, taking with it the lives of dozens of migrants, among them Ethiopians. Only weeks before, near Obock in Djibouti, another vessel carrying hundreds, mostly Ethiopian citizens, capsized. Several were confirmed dead, and many others were reported missing.

The sea became less a passage than a register, recording lives already driven across deserts, borders, and fate.

The Mediterranean route, one of the world’s most perilous migration corridors, had already registered a devastating number of deaths and disappearances early in the year. Different sources have consistently reported that thousands of migrants have died or vanished in recent years. The figures do not merely mark isolated accidents. They expose a crisis that has become steady, familiar, and, for many families, unbearably intimate.

Migration is not new to Africa, and Ethiopia has long known its sorrowful version. For years, young people have left in search of dignity, work, safety, and a life large enough to support those waiting behind. Their departures often carry a mixture of hope and dread. Families bless them, advise them, and imagine the remittances, the return, the house to be built, and the siblings to be educated. Yet the roads they take are rarely generous. They are marked by uncertainty, exploitation, hunger, heat, fear, and, too often, death.

Recent years show the danger. Ethiopia consistently ranks among the top 10 countries of origin for migrants who die on migration routes globally.

The Eastern Route, stretching from the Horn of Africa to the Arabian Peninsula, has become one of the deadliest paths in the world. A combination of various reports compiled that deaths and disappearances along it have sharply increased, over 3,000 since 2020, with Ethiopians forming the overwhelming majority of those affected. Deadly boat capsizes off Yemen, adding to the toll. According to data from UNHCR and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), over time, the cumulative number of Ethiopian migrants who have died or gone missing during migration exceeded 8,000 over the past six years.

The southern route toward South Africa is no kinder. Migrants there have faced suffocation in containers, abandonment in remote areas, and violence from traffickers and criminal networks. According to IOM figures, no fewer than 100 Ethiopian nationals have died on this route since the turn of the current decade.

Migrants vanish without a trace, their bodies unrecovered, their names eventually absorbed into numbers. Their absence becomes a wound that families keep carrying because there is no grave, no final word, and no proof of an ending.

Against this background of loss, endurance, and unanswered questions, Ashenafi’s Exhibition, “Entangled Stories,” takes shape. The Exhibition examines the space between the hope that sends people away and the silence that follows. It is part of a broader storytelling effort developed over the past three years that traces different layers of life, struggle, and human longing.

Ashenafi’s work treats migration as personal and collective. The decision to leave is rarely casual, made under pressure, with obligations pressing from home and a possibility glimmering somewhere beyond reach. People leave to provide and protect those they love. But many journeys end not in arrival, but in disappearance.

In “Entangled Stories,” Ashenafi uses entanglement as a visual and emotional language. Hope is tied to loss, while memory shares space with emptiness. The physical strain of crossing borders is joined to the psychological burden of never knowing where the journey will end. His layered images resist easy explanation. The destination, imagined as a place of promise, remains uncertain, while the journey itself becomes the decisive, and sometimes final, chapter.

Distorted human figures move through the paintings as stand-ins for the disappeared. Their fragmented bodies tell a story of people whose identities have been reduced by distance, bureaucracy, and death. Yet the work restores something to them. It gives them form, however broken, and insists that every statistic once belonged to a person with a family, a name, and a story interrupted. Everyday objects carry much of their force.

A paper boat, like those children make during the rainy season, becomes a fragile emblem of journeys across unforgiving water. A worn sandal, common among people travelling through desert landscapes, speaks of survival and vulnerability. The artist later learned that such footwear is often used to protect feet from the burning desert ground, adding realism to the image. These objects pull the paintings back toward lived experience and toward a homesickness that is difficult to name.

I remember hearing such stories as a child, on the radio and in scattered conversations, place names sounding far away and yet strangely near. I did not understand them then. They moved past me as distant tragedies, numbers without faces. But standing before these paintings, I was returned not only to those early memories, but also to the recent incident in Libya, to the images, the loss, and the silence that followed. The figures on the canvas stopped being abstract. They carried the weight of stories I had once half-heard and could no longer ignore.

One painting stands apart for its cultural and emotional charge. It shows a traditional dish, dice, and a “ketab,” a cross containing a small piece of scripture. The image draws on an Ethiopian tradition in which children, after baptism, are blessed through symbolic rituals involving bread or injera placed upon them, a gesture meant to wish them prosperity and protection. Ashenafi’s dice alter the meaning. They mean that, for many migrants, survival becomes a matter of chance. Blessings may accompany departure, but the journey’s outcome often lies beyond anyone’s control.

This tension between intention and reality runs through the exhibition. Migration begins with purpose, with dreams of change and renewal. Families send loved ones away with prayers and expectations. The road then strips away certainty, leaving probability, risk, and sometimes tragedy. The dice become a plain but powerful metaphor for how thin the line can be between survival and loss.

“Entangled Stories” works as a memorial and a mirror. It asks viewers to face the open space left by the missing, to sit with absence, and to recognise the lives hidden behind migration statistics. By turning absence into presence, the exhibition gives emotional weight to unfinished journeys. It asks what it means to seek a better life and never arrive, and how a society remembers people whose stories end without closure.

A graduate of the Alle School of Fine Art & Design at Addis Abeba University, and painting from Entoto Polytechnic College, Ashenafi’s own path into art began unexpectedly. As a child, he loved football, but an injury in his early school years kept him at home. During that period, he spent time with a neighbour who was a painter. What began as imitation became a vocation. He never returned to football, instead finding a lasting attachment to canvas and visual storytelling.

A Supreme Court Ruling Turns Representation to Self-Enrichment

Posted on May 3, 2026May 8, 2026 by Digital Editor

A recent case before the House of Federation (acting like a constitutional court in many other countries) demonstrated how easily the trust a principal could bestow upon an agent can be crossed.

A principal granted a power of attorney to an agent, including the authority to sell a property to a third party. The mandate had an evident purpose. The agent was to dispose of the property in a way that served the principal. Instead, the agent mortgaged the property to a bank to secure a loan for a sole proprietorship business the agent owned and operated.

That decision changed the character of the authority granted. The agent did not use the property to complete a sale for the principal. He used it as collateral for personal financial gain. The principal’s property was placed at risk of foreclosure for obligations that had nothing to do with her.

An agent’s authority under the Ethiopian law may come from a contract or directly from the law. But its source does not change the basic rule. An agent must act only for the principal and in the principal’s best interests. Such a duty is not a formality but the foundation of agency law, and once it is weakened, the relationship loses its legal meaning.

The same principle requires an agent to avoid conflicts of interest. The agent must put the principal’s interests ahead of personal gain and any third party’s interests. The law does not wait for actual harm before it becomes concerned. The possibility of divided loyalty is enough to threaten the relationship’s integrity. An agency works because the principal trusts another person to act within delegated authority for a defined purpose. When the agent acts outside that purpose, the authority itself loses its legal foundation.

In the case before the House of Federation, the principal sued both the agent and the bank, seeking to invalidate the mortgage. The Federal First Instance Court ruled in favour of the defendants, finding that the agent had sufficient authority and that the mortgage contract was valid. The Court appeared to give decisive weight to the formal scope of the power of attorney, rather than to the purpose for which the power had been granted or the manner in which it was used.

Judges at the Federal High Court reversed the decision on appeal. Their reasoning reflected a more careful understanding of agency, arguing that an authority cannot be assessed only by asking whether a power exists on paper. Courts should ask whether the power was exercised for the principal’s benefit.

However, this ruling did not last. Justices at the Federal Supreme Court reinstated the First Instance Court’s ruling, and the Cassation Bench dismissed the principal’s petition, finding no basic and fundamental error of law.

The legal basis for upholding the mortgage rested mainly on Article 3049(2) of the Civil Code. The provision states that a person may mortgage property only if that person is entitled to dispose of it for consideration. The Court reasoned that because the agent had authority to sell the property, he also had authority to mortgage it. In this view, the power to dispose of property was broad enough to include both sale and mortgage.

At first glance, the argument appears to have a certain logic. A sale is a final and permanent transfer. A mortgage may be seen as a lesser form of disposition. From a narrow and strictly formal point of view, the power to sell could be read to include the power to mortgage. But that reasoning misses the central question.

For whose benefit was the mortgage created?

Addressing this question is indispensable. Agency authority is not a free-standing power. It is a tool given to achieve the principal’s objective. An agent may use granted powers to advance the principal’s interests. The same powers cannot be used to advance the agent’s private interests. Mortgaging the principal’s property to secure a loan for the agent’s own business is a direct conflict of interest. It is a breach of the agent’s duty of loyalty.

The conduct cannot be saved by invoking implied authority. Implied powers exist to make the principal’s mandate effective. They do not allow an agent to expand the mandate beyond its purpose. Treating the authority to sell as the power to mortgage the property for the agent’s personal business stretches implied authority beyond recognition. It converts representation into self-enrichment.

The Federal Supreme Court’s ruling, later reinforced by the House of Federation, therefore appears to dilute core principles of agency law. Agency is built on trust, loyalty and exclusive representation. The agent must not act against the principal’s interests or derive undisclosed and unauthorised benefits from the relationship. By validating the mortgage, the ruling risks normalising the conduct that agency law is designed to prevent.

The bank’s role was also problematic. Financial institutions dealing with agents under a power of attorney are expected to exercise due diligence. A transaction that appears to benefit the agent personally, rather than the principal, should raise immediate concerns. If those concerns are ignored, the problem is not only private misconduct. It may point to weak institutional safeguards or a preference for transactional convenience over legal integrity.

Comparative legal practice often takes a stricter view of self-dealing by agents. Transactions in which an agent benefits personally are commonly treated as presumptively void or voidable unless the principal has given fully informed consent. The reason is practical. Conflicts of interest create risks too serious to be left to assumption or after-the-fact rationalisation. Against this standard, the approach in this case looks unusually permissive.

Yet, the implications extend beyond a single dispute over a mortgage. Agency relationships perform an important economic function. They allow people who cannot act in person due to time, distance, or capacity to transact through someone else. In Ethiopia, this is especially important for members of the diaspora, who often rely on agents to manage, lease or sell property in the country.

If agents can use delegated authority for personal financial gain, principals will become more hesitant to delegate. Trust will decline. Transactions that could have taken place efficiently may be delayed or avoided. Over time, this could create a transactional “lock-in,” where property owners avoid agents even when representation would serve their interests.

That would defeat the purpose of the agency. The institution exists to bridge practical gaps between principals and the transactions they seek to complete. If the law weakens the safeguards protecting principals, the agency becomes less useful and potentially harmful.

The case also warns against reading statutory provisions in isolation from broader legal principles. Agency law is not only a set of technical rules. It rests on equity, good faith and fiduciary responsibility. A court that asks only whether an agent had abstract authority, while ignoring the purpose and limits of that authority, risks weakening the coherence of the legal system and public confidence in judicial reasoning.

The issue was not simply whether the agent could mortgage property in some technical sense. It was whether the agent could mortgage the principal’s property to secure the agent’s own loan. On that point, the ruling is difficult to reconcile with loyalty, good faith, and fidelity to purpose.

Legal authority should carry responsibility. Without that link, an agency cannot function as intended. When loyalty is compromised, the consequences do not stop with one principal, one agent or one bank. They spread across the legal and economic system, making delegation less trusted and commercial dealings less secure for principals.

Digital Wallet Boom Still Waits for a Marketplace

Posted on May 3, 2026May 7, 2026 by Digital Editor

When Ethio telecom launched Zemen Gebeya nearly a year ago, Ethiopia’s digital business sector expected a breakthrough. The platform was presented as a step into modern e-commerce, where earlier ventures had struggled to build trust and scale.

Ten months later, its progress has been far quieter than Telebirr, the company’s mobile money service, which moved quickly into use. The contrast points to a broader lesson for the domestic digital economy. Payments may matter, but they do not, by themselves, create commerce.

For years, the weak link in the local e-commerce sector was digital payment. Startups and early online platforms, from niche delivery firms to broader marketplaces, operated in an economy where cash dominated and financial inclusion was limited. Telebirr, banking apps and fintech services have changed that part of the equation. A workable digital payment ecosystem now exists. In theory, this should have opened the way for online commerce to expand. In practice, platforms such as Tinamart and government-backed initiatives from the Ministry of Trade & Regional Integration (MoTRI) have yet to win mass adoption.

The reasons are less technological than structural. E-commerce depends on more than an app, a wallet and a catalogue. It needs sufficient goods, a reliable supply and standard products that consumers can trust. Ethiopia’s macroeconomic setting makes that difficult. Persistent shortages, import constraints and fragmented production systems leave many sellers unable to offer steady stock.

Digital payments can scale once the infrastructure is in place, whereas physical commerce cannot. It needs available goods, priced clearly and backed by some assurance of quality. Without that base, even a well-designed marketplace risks becoming an empty storefront.

Logistics is another constraint. Online commerce requires dependable last-mile delivery, inventory management and return systems, factors that are lacking in the local context.

Zemen Gebeya can draw on Ethio telecom’s digital reach, but that reach does not automatically solve the physical distribution problem. Late deliveries, uneven service and limited coverage outside major urban centres can quickly undermine consumer confidence. In e-commerce, trust is built not only when a payment goes through, but also when the right product arrives on time and can be returned when something goes wrong.

A less visible obstacle is traceability, in which digital platforms maintain records that can be reviewed by tax authorities and regulators. For merchants in informal or semi-formal markets, this transparency can feel risky. Their reluctance may not reflect opposition to technology, but they may fear that joining a platform could expose them to tax obligations or regulatory scrutiny before their businesses are ready.

Telebirr had a different path. Its growth was supported by policy action, especially the requirement to use digital payments for fuel transactions. That created a “must-use” case and embedded it in daily life. No similar policy push exists for e-commerce. That matters because platforms rarely grow from technology alone. They need aligned incentives across users, suppliers, regulators and service providers. Telebirr’s success shows what happens when infrastructure, policy and daily necessity meet.

Zemen Gebeya operates in a harder market. Producers, wholesalers, logistics firms, regulators, and consumers all want to see value together. This is the classic challenge of platform economics. A marketplace works when enough buyers and sellers are present. But buyers wait for sellers, and sellers wait for buyers. Without intervention, both sides can remain stuck in a low-activity cycle.

The response begins with supply. Policymakers could encourage large producers and essential-goods suppliers to join. As fuel transactions helped anchor Telebirr, staple items, agricultural inputs or everyday consumer goods could give Zemen Gebeya a reliable base of demand and supply. It would then be less dependent on scattered merchants and irregular stock. Logistics should be treated as part of the core system, not an added service.

Public-private partnerships could help build shared delivery infrastructure, cut costs and improve reliability. Local courier networks could be supported and digitally integrated, allowing e-commerce to move beyond major cities. Regulation is another lever where formalisation could be important, but it should not scare away the merchants the platform needs. Simplified tax rules or temporary incentives for digital traders could reduce anxiety around traceability and encourage more sellers to participate.

Ethio telecom could also rethink the model. Instead of treating Zemen Gebeya as a separate marketplace, Telebirr could integrate its commerce functions. A “super app” approach would place buying and selling inside a service many users already know.

Zemen Gebeya’s slow uptake is not proof of failure. It is a sequencing problem in an ecosystem with a payment layer. The harder task is building supply, logistics, trust and incentives around it. The promise remains, but digital commerce will become mainstream only when it becomes necessary, reliable and easy.

The Hidden Chokepoints Threatening the Global Economy

Posted on May 3, 2026May 3, 2026 by Digital Editor

The closure of the Strait of Hormuz is only the latest in a series of major supply shocks the global economy has experienced since 2020. Yet each time, the resulting shortages appear to catch policymakers off guard.

From personal protective equipment at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to fertiliser and sulfur today, the key chokepoints and complex supply-chain interdependencies that cause these shortages remain poorly understood, often becoming visible only once crises are already underway. The downstream consequences of the current crisis have yet to materialise and may take months to be fully felt. No sulfur means no sulfuric acid, which in turn threatens copper production in Chile.

Meanwhile, surging fertiliser prices are likely to hit food supplies and drive up consumer prices later this year, disproportionately affecting import-dependent economies. This raises a critical question.

What other bottlenecks and shortages will emerge in the years ahead?

One might have expected governments to improve their monitoring of supply-chain vulnerabilities, yet despite repeated disruptions, progress in mapping these networks and building resilience has been limited. As a result, the global economy is bound to be caught unprepared once again.

To be sure, there has been some progress since the pandemic. The OECD’s value-added trade database, for example, provides useful insights into flows of components, goods, and services, shedding light on the hidden structure of global production networks. But it remains a supplement to traditional trade statistics, offering aggregated data that extends only to 2022, and therefore, captures only a small part of a rapidly evolving landscape. Real-time visibility thus remains out of reach for most governments.

Other initiatives, such as the Observatory of Economic Complexity, offer more granular data, including on individual firms. Some vulnerabilities are now well known. Most notably, Taiwan dominates advanced semiconductor production through TSMC, which accounts for more than 90pc of the global supply.

Even so, governments should do far more to identify their economies’ weak points and confront those vulnerabilities head-on. Many essential inputs are produced in highly concentrated markets, often in a handful of countries. And given that even simple or cheap components can be indispensable further up the supply chain, a seemingly minor disruption can quickly cascade into a major supply crisis that reverberates through the global economy.

Consider, for example, the bicycle industry. Most bikes rely on components made by Japanese manufacturer Shimano, which has struggled in recent years to keep up with demand. Similarly, automotive supply chains are dominated by specialist suppliers, with one or two firms often accounting for most of the sector’s output. While such dependencies are well known within these industries, policymakers rarely follow the trade press, where problems tend to surface first.

With roughly two-thirds of global trade in manufactured goods consisting of intermediate components rather than finished products, this is far from a niche concern. Globalisation has created vast and intricate supply chains that turbocharged economic growth while deepening interdependence. As Adam Smith observed in “The Wealth of Nations” 250 years ago, specialisation drives prosperity. But it also depends on the size of the market. There is little point in producing 1,000 pins a day instead of a hundred if demand for pins does not grow.

While globalisation has expanded markets beyond national borders, many specialised components have no alternative producers. Their market is ultimately capped by global demand for the final product, leaving little room for diversification on the supply side and making sudden shocks harder to absorb or offset.

The stakes are enormous. A delay in receiving a new bicycle is inconvenient, but disruptions to food and water systems or medical supplies would have far more serious consequences.

Encouragingly, some policymakers have begun to identify strategically important sectors. Heightened geopolitical uncertainty has spurred investment in domestic manufacturing capacity, most notably in semiconductor production in the United States. But the persistence of supply-chain chokepoints proved the need to rethink industrial policy. In particular, policymakers should think more broadly, including seeking to reinforce existing strengths, rather than focusing narrowly on emerging technologies such as clean energy and artificial intelligence (AI).

In most countries, however, supply-chain vulnerabilities remain largely overlooked in policy debates. That could be a costly mistake. With further disruption all but certain, governments should be able to move fast to secure vital inputs and contain emerging risks. Economic resilience is now inseparable from national security. Countries that fail to build a flexible and robust production base will learn that the hard way.

Media Must Not Be Allowed to Sell Public Trust to the Highest Bidder

Posted on May 3, 2026May 8, 2026 by Digital Editor

The Federal Supreme Court Cassation Bench’s ruling on media liability marked a sharp turn in how Ethiopian law treats broadcasters. By holding Ethiopian Broadcasting Service (EBS) and Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC) liable for 25pc of the damages caused by Zuna Trading Plc, a third-party trader, the Justices drew a line around broadcasting.

The airwaves, they reasoned, could not be treated as a lawless frontier.

For years, the principle of “Caveat Emptor” (buyer beware) has defined many commercial interactions. The recent ruling against EBS and EBC signalled a move away from this tradition. The law is increasingly recognising the role that media houses play in amplifying falsehoods, with many consumers viewing televised claims as inherently credible. By enforcing professional responsibility, Courts seek to protect the public from those who rent public trust to facilitate deception.

The House of Federation (HoF) has reportedly moved to repeal or freeze the precedent. Its concern appears to be that media houses could face large claims for advertisers’ misconduct. That concern is not trivial. But the Cassation Bench did not turn broadcasters into insurers for every failed business deal. It asked whether they ignored a basic duty when a claim was easy to check.

Zuna Trading’s statement was simple and verifiable. It advertised that vehicles had arrived when they had not. The broadcasters carried the advertisements without checking them, and buyers who relied on that information were harmed. Advertisement law requires broadcasters to verify the “accuracy of advertisements before broadcasting.” It also treats an advertisement as “misleading” when it claims products are available, even though they are not.

This made the broadcasters’ conduct more than a clerical mistake. It was a breach of statutory duty, and a failure to perform a statutory duty. The civil law and the advertisement proclamation treat the breach of a specific legal duty as a fault, whether or not the party intended to cause harm. The issue was not whether EBS and EBC had planned the deception, but whether they failed to do what the law required before taking money to air the message.

However, the harder question remains the remedy. The dispute was whether administrative fines under the advertisement law should be the only consequence. The Cassation Bench rejected that view, with the Justices arguing that a fine paid to the state does not compensate victims. Where a breach of law causes harm, civil liability fills the gap. Otherwise, broadcasters could pay a small penalty to the government while defrauded citizens receive nothing.

The Court’s one-fourth allocation of liability was limited. Granted, the broadcasters were not liable for the entire loss, as Zuna Trading remained the primary culprit. However, their negligence was treated as the “vehicle” that carried the deception into homes and made it credible. The ruling did not say media houses should guarantee every promise made by an advertiser. It said they may be liable when a claim is clear, material and easy to check, yet goes unchecked.

The House of Federation’s reported intervention risks weakening that discipline. If broadcasters face no civil consequence for airing false commercial claims, the incentive to screen paying clients falls. Any “fly-by-night” trader with an advertising budget could lend institutional credibility to deceptive claims through radio and television, leaving consumers to bear the cost when the promise collapses.

The broader framework also matters. The constitutional and consumer-protection rules give weight to public protection, not unchecked “commercial freedom.” Many consumers treat televised claims as credible. The law, therefore, cannot ignore the role media houses play in amplifying falsehoods.

The same logic would likely apply more strongly to financial technology. If broadcasters, digital platforms, or channels promoted unlicensed digital banks or crypto schemes, the duty of care would be harder to dismiss. Losses in digital finance can spread quickly and affect many people. An advertisement may not merely persuade viewers. It may connect them directly to financial loss.

The House of Federation would face a harder balance. It may want to protect “innovation,” but a fintech scam can damage more than individual victims and weaken confidence in digital finance and the wider economy. In such cases, the reasoning used by the Justices at the Cassation Bench would probably carry more force, not less.

The ruling was more than a dispute over one trader’s false advertisement. It moved Ethiopian law away from Caveat Emptor, or Buyer Beware, and toward professional responsibility. The messenger should be protected. But not when the messenger profits from a lie and a breach of statutory duty that could have been checked. That is the narrow and practical principle at stake.

Development That Redraws the Rent Line

Posted on May 3, 2026May 7, 2026 by Digital Editor

Urban renewal is often sold as a promise: cleaner streets, safer neighbourhoods, better lighting, and a city finally catching up with its ambitions. In Ethiopia, the corridor development projects are beginning to deliver on that promise. Roads are smoother, sidewalks are walkable, and public spaces have turned into active, visible signs of urban momentum. Beneath this transformation, however, a quieter and more troubling shift is taking shape.

In neighbourhoods touched by these improvements, rents are rising sharply, often overnight. The increase is not driven by changes inside the homes, but by the upgraded environment outside. Landlords, responding to the perceived rise in value, adjust prices to match what they believe the market can now absorb.

For tenants, the effect is immediate and unsettling. Families are often asked to pay significantly more than they were paying just months earlier, with little warning and even less room to negotiate.

Take, for example, a family I know living in the Goro area. They were paying 28,000 Br. for a house that was far from ideal. Mould affected the kitchen, plumbing leaked, the septic system smelled persistently, and the electrical wiring was unreliable. Instead of moving, they invested in the property. Over time, they spent around half a million Br. making it safe and livable for their children. They fixed the plumbing, repaired the septic system, cleaned and restored the house, improved the electrical system, and essentially rebuilt the home using their own resources.

They were seeking stability. A place where their children would not be moved repeatedly from one house to another. What they created was more than a repaired structure; it was a functioning home.

Yet stability did not last. Over four years, the rent increased every six months, often without regard for agreements or legal protections. Each time the family objected, pointing to the contract, the response remained the same: accept the increase or leave. Following corridor development in the area, the landlord demanded an additional 50,000 Br., not based on improvements inside the house, but on upgraded roads, lighting, and nearby public spaces.

This is not an isolated case. Similar stories are emerging across Addis Ababa as neighbourhoods undergo transformation. At social gatherings, conversations increasingly revolve around rent hikes, eviction threats, and the shrinking pool of affordable housing. What should be a moment of collective pride in national development is, for many residents, becoming a source of growing uncertainty.

The core issue lies in how the benefits of public investment are distributed. Infrastructure projects are funded by taxpayers and intended to improve living conditions broadly. Yet when surrounding upgrades drive, rent increases without safeguards, the gains are captured by property owners, while tenants carry the burden. In practice, those who helped sustain these neighbourhoods are often the ones priced out of them.

This pattern is not unique to Ethiopia. Cities globally have faced similar dynamics, commonly referred to as gentrification. In countries such as Germany, tenant protections limit how much rent can increase within a set period. Long-term leases and strict eviction rules provide stability, reducing sudden displacement. Rent control mechanisms are used to slow rapid price escalation and preserve affordability.

In Singapore, a different model is used. The government plays a central role in housing supply, offering large-scale public housing at affordable rates. This reduces pressure on private rentals and ensures broad access to stable housing.

In Ethiopia, even government-built housing, once intended as relief for low- and middle-income residents, is becoming increasingly expensive for those it was meant to support. New tenants in government housing, including people I know, now pay as much as 100,000 Br. for state-owned apartments. This raises difficult questions about affordability, access, and the original intent of public housing.

The shift reflects a deeper imbalance between supply and demand, but also highlights gaps in policy design and oversight. When public housing begins to mirror private market pricing, its function as a safety net weakens. Without income-based pricing, clear allocation rules, or protections for long-term tenants, it risks becoming just another high-cost option in an already strained system.

Increasing housing supply remains central to stabilising prices. Ethiopia already has laws governing rental agreements and tenant rights, but enforcement remains weak. When landlords ignore contracts without consequence, the legal framework loses practical meaning. Stronger and more accessible dispute resolution mechanisms could help address this gap.

There are also practical steps that could ease pressure in the short term. One approach is to introduce gradual rent adjustment guidelines tied to inflation or clearly defined property improvements. This would help align landlord expectations with broader economic realities while protecting tenants from abrupt shocks.

Urban planning also needs to treat housing affordability as a core priority rather than a secondary concern. Corridor development projects could include provisions for affordable housing within upgraded areas, ensuring that existing residents are not pushed out. Mixed-income housing models or targeted subsidies for vulnerable groups could help maintain social balance in redeveloped neighbourhoods.

The broader story of development should not be one where progress benefits some while displacing others. The family in Goro did what cities often hope residents will do. They invested in their home, improved their surroundings, and built a stable life. Yet they now face displacement, not because they failed, but because the neighbourhood around them improved.

For Ethiopia to realise its urban transformation, this imbalance must be addressed. Development should strengthen communities, not fragment them. Roads, lighting, and public spaces matter, but so do the people who live alongside them. Without tenant protections and fair housing policy, infrastructure gains risk being overshadowed by rising social pressure.

The challenge is not to slow development, but to guide it with care. With stronger policy enforcement, clearer rules, and a commitment to fairness, cities can grow in ways that are modern, efficient, and inclusive. That is the kind of progress that endures.

The Final Exam No One Prepared For

Posted on May 3, 2026May 7, 2026 by Digital Editor

The first time I heard about the “Mesob” one-stop service initiative, relief came quickly. It sounded like a promise to citizens worn down by bureaucracy, a signal that the long chase for a single signature across multiple offices might finally ease. The name itself carries weight. In Ethiopian culture, a Mesob gathers people and things in one place. Applied to public service, it suggests coherence rather than chaos.

My own encounters with government offices have been few, but memorable for the wrong reasons. The culture of “come back tomorrow” lingers. Simple requests stretch into drawn-out exchanges, where information is scarce and direction unclear. The real strain is not just the wait. It is the constant uncertainty, the need to ask repeatedly where to go next.

The Mesob idea feels especially urgent at the Addis Abeba University.

Some processes have improved over time, yet the clearance procedure remains stubbornly unchanged. It is the final step before graduation, though it feels less like a conclusion and more like an obstacle course. After years of study, the last task should mark closure. Instead, it tests endurance.

Clearance requires proof that nothing is owed to the university, from books to bedding, before a degree is released. It begins with a slip of paper at the department office. At the registrar, that slip suddenly needs multiple copies. No one seems to agree on how many. What follows resembles a scavenger hunt. Offices are scattered, instructions inconsistent, and guidance largely informal.

Students move from building to building, often relying on strangers for direction. One office sends them elsewhere. Another reveals that a signature was never needed in the first place. The system feels less like a structure and more like a maze. Clarity is missing where it matters most.

The breaking point came at the final stage, when I was preparing to collect my temporary graduation certificate. The requirement was simple on paper: return the student ID to complete clearance.

My ID had been taken by a campus guard a year earlier. It had expired, and at the time I was using it while processing my degree, lacking other identification. When it was confiscated, I assumed it was gone for good.

At the registrar, the response was procedural and firm. Without the card in hand, I was told to report it as lost at a police station, secure documentation, return to the university, request a replacement, then submit that new card immediately to complete the process.

The logic was precise, yet detached from reality. The university holds student records, photographs, and academic history. Still, a missing piece of plastic halted everything. The process was not protective. It was rigid.

Standing in the hallway, the weight of it all surfaced. It was not only about the card. It was about the hours lost, the repeated trips, and the absence of flexibility. Systems built by people should allow for judgment. Here, procedure seemed to override sense.

In that moment, help came from an unexpected place. A passerby asked what was wrong and listened. His suggestion was simple: check with the gate guards. They often keep confiscated IDs.

At the gate, the answer was waiting. The card had been sitting in a drawer for a year. A small object, holding up an entire process.

Without that advice, the detour through a police station would have taken days. The experience revealed how easily time can be lost within a system that lacks coordination.

For graduate students, the strain runs deeper. Many balance work and study, using limited leave to complete administrative tasks. Time matters. Efficiency is not a luxury.

The country is moving toward a broader digital transformation. That ambition must reach institutions like Addis Abeba University. If the systems that serve students remain manual and fragmented, progress elsewhere will feel uneven.

A different approach is possible. Clearance could exist within a shared system, where departments, libraries, and registrars update records in real time. Completion would trigger confirmation, not another round of paperwork. No duplicate slips, no unnecessary detours, no uncertainty.

As I wait to collect my degree, the return to campus feels heavy. For many, university memories are defined by growth and connection. Mine carry a different edge, shaped by process rather than experience.

The idea behind Mesob remains powerful. Bringing services together, simplifying steps, and respecting time are not distant goals. They are practical choices. Within institutions that shape the country’s future, those choices matter most.

Author: Digital Editor