The Building Boom That Rans Out of Fuel

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

Two unfinished buildings owned by Roman Tahir on Omedla Street near a roundabout in the Ferensay Legasion in the Gurara neighbourhood have become a quiet measure of stress in Addis Abeba’s construction market.

They were meant to move steadily toward completion under the supervision of Addis Kindeya, a site engineer and project manager. Instead, they have been waiting on money, materials and a market that no longer gives builders a reliable price.

For six months, work paused, not caused by a design change or a technical failure, but a financial retreat so the owners could, in Addis’s words, “regroup financially.” One structure, a four-storey building designed for commercial purposes with a basement on a 104Sqm plot, is almost complete, waiting for paint, terrazzo and stair marble. Another, a two-storey building on a larger plot, still needs its finishing phase. When work was about to resume, the cost of construction material moved again.

“The surge hit us at the worst possible time,” Addis told Fortune. “It added pressure we never planned for.”

Sixteen cubic meters of sand that once cost 60,000 Br now costs 135,000 Br. The price for gravel jumped from 70,000 Br to 150,000 Br. Cement increased from 1,200 Br a quintal to 2,000 Br. Gypsum climbed from 400 Br to 1,000 Br for 25 kilograms. Stair marble, once estimated at 250,000 Br, now requires 380,000 Br. Labour has also become costlier. Skilled and semi-skilled workers, from gypsum and ceramic specialists to electricians, sanitary workers and daily labourers, are now expected to cost about 1.6 million Br, up by 640,000 Br from six months ago.

“We had budgeted about 1.5 million Br for the first phase of finishing,” he said. “Now that estimate is no longer reliable.”

He estimated that this cost could double. For Addis, the worry is not only the speed and size of the cost escalation. It is the absence of a ceiling.

“It’s difficult to predict where it will stop,” he told Fortune. “It puts the entire project in a difficult position.”

If the projects remain stalled, the commercial building will miss rental income, while the residential structure will miss its intended purpose and timeline.

Across Addis Abeba, the uncertainty is moving through cement yards, hardware stores and construction sites. A fresh round of increases in construction material costs is weighing on retailers, contractors, labourers and manufacturers as fuel shortages disrupt transport and slow imports. Traders say one of the sharpest cost surges they can recall, with demand falling, deliveries delayed and customers hesitating in a sector closely tied to employment and urban expansion.

In Casanchis, where hardware shops serve small contractors and households, Mohammed Mejid has watched prices change faster than customers can absorb. As a retail businessman selling construction materials, he found the latest increase unlike the usual market swings.

“There is a price rise which hasn’t been seen before when we buy from wholesalers,” he told Fortune.

According to Mohammed, transport costs jumped after the fuel shortage worsened. Wholesalers who once delivered materials directly to retailers have largely stopped the service.

“Even when I visit wholesalers, some don’t want to sell,” he said. “They expect to sell later at a higher price.”

Delivery charges have followed the same path. A one-way trip by a taxi that used to cost 800 Br has now nearly doubled. Pickup transport, which once cost 1,000 Br, has surged in price. Hiring larger trucks, including Isuzu vehicles, has become more expensive. In shops like Mohammed’s, minimum increases are around 20pc, while many materials have doubled or increased by more than 100pc.

Another retailer in Casanchis, Siude Seni, estimates the average increase at roughly 70pc. He, like several retailers in the neighbourhood, is passing on costs to buyers because importing construction materials has become harder, and wholesalers are raising prices sharply. Stockpiling has added to the pressure.

“Many are also holding stock, expecting even higher prices,” Siude said.

Motorcycle deliveries to buyers, once routine, were discontinued after transport costs jumped to about 1,500 Br.

“The demand has fallen, and our business is declining,” he said.

The slowdown was evident to any visitors to these stores. Half an hour at Siude’s shop, no customer entered. During the same week, two potential customers walked into Mohammed’s outlet, asked for the price of a screwdriver and left without buying. They claimed it was too expensive.

The pressure has moved beyond retailers, reaching workers whose daily meagre income depends on active construction sites. For someone like Ermias Yimer, 42, a father of four, construction jobs were once seasonal but usually available. Having two decades of experience, he is working on a corridor development project around Winget neighbourhood, northwest of the city, almost on the opposite side to where he lives in the Kotebe area.

He pointed to materials that small builders use every day. Nails that cost 2,000 Br a kilogram have gone up to 3,000 Br. Wire that once sold for 3,000 Br now costs 8,000 Br. Prices for a truck of sand have climbed from 80,000 Br to 150,000 Br.

The rising costs now threaten continuity, as Ermias’s employer told him work on teh construction site may cease after one week.

“I may need to look for another job,” he told Fortune.

The threat of layoffs comes as workers face higher living expenses and transport costs. For labourers paid only when projects move, a delay in materials quickly becomes a delay in food, rent and school costs.

The construction industry has moved from the margins of national output to the centre of the economy’s structural change, overtaking manufacturing as a larger contributor to GDP and becoming one of the clearest markers of a public investment-led growth model. Federal officials claim construction’s share of GDP peaked at 21pc in 2024, a dramatic rise from about 11pc a decade before. The sector is projected to grow by an average annual rate of 7.7pc to 7.8pc between 2026 and 2029.

GDP from construction reached 546.46 billion Br in 2023, up from 501.49 billion Br the year before, according to data from the National Planning Commission. A decade earlier, its contribution averaged around 336.72 billion Br, confirming the scale of the sector’s upward movement compared to agriculture, whose share of GDP has declined from 44pc to roughly 35pc. Manufacturing, by contrast, continued to underperform relative to the size of the economy. It accounted for only 4.4pc of GDP in 2024, below the world average of 12.37pc.

Construction and manufacturing each account for 11pc of formal private sector employment. In the broader industrial category, which includes construction, manufacturing and mining, 6.47pc of total employment was in industry as of 2023, according to World Bank estimates based on ILO data. In urban areas, manufacturing, mining, quarrying, and construction together accounted for 13.9pc of employment.

According to a UNFPA policy brief, the number of jobs created by construction is lower than in the service sector, while construction has the highest worker turnover and churning rates of any sector.

For Shewangizaw Kebede, a multi-skilled construction professional and contractor, the slowdown is no longer something to measure. It is something to endure. After 25 years in construction, he does not see the current situation as another market dip. He has seen cycles of decline and recovery, but says “this time is different.”

“The activity we see now isn’t just slowing down, it is dead,” he told Fortune.

According to Shewangizaw, the break came with the sharp rise in material costs. Individual home builders, once a steady source of work, began pulling back.

“People have stopped building and even renovating their homes,” he said, pointing to a collapse in new construction and small renovation jobs.

His most recent project, completed months ago, was a two-storey residential house on a 90Sqm plot. From foundation to finishing, it costs around eight million Birr. Today, he says, building the same house would be far more costly.

“With the current price increases in cement, sand, gravel, and electrical materials, the cost could easily double,” he said.

The change has frozen demand. In the past, renovation jobs helped contractors survive when new construction slowed. Homeowners would upgrade interiors, add rooms or repair existing structures.

“Before, even if people didn’t start new buildings, they would at least renovate,” he says. “Now both have dropped.”

It has been four months since Shewangizaw secured a construction contract. Rising living costs have made the gap harder to manage.

“It’s not just about covering expenses anymore,” he says. “Even managing daily survival has become a challenge.”

After more than two decades in the trade, he is considering other options.

Officials acknowledge the disruption and the slowdown, while insisting the sector has not stopped. The Ministry of Trade & Regional Integration (MoTRI) has linked the pressure to a broader fuel supply problem driven by global events. In a recent statement, the Ministry’s officials blamed conflict in the Middle East for jacking up fuel prices and disrupting key supply routes, including the Strait of Hormuz, affecting availability. The government has turned to high-cost spot-market purchases to maintain supply and has adjusted domestic fuel prices amid rising subsidy pressures. Officials say the effect has spilt into construction, where fuel is central to production and transport.

The Addis Abeba Trade Bureau monitors prices twice a week, supported by broader data from the Central Statistics Agency’s monthly reports. The Bureau expects additional reporting to help provide a clearer view of price movements over time.

Its Chief Officer, Habiba Siraj, argued that the main pressure comes from external factors, especially disruptions linked to the Middle East conflict.

“Manufacturers don’t have enough fuel to produce and distribute construction materials,” she said.

That has contributed to higher costs across the sector. Still, the Bureau’s officials insisted the market has not moved beyond reach.

“The increase isn’t exaggerated and out of control,” Habiba told Fortune. “It is being adjusted through the efforts and intervention of various government agencies.”

The recent spikes in prices for construction materials have yet to be captured in the official statistics. The latest data by the Ethiopian Statistics Service (ESS) is for March this year, which put headline inflation at 9.4pc, with non-food inflation lower by 2.4 percentage points. It has reported that prices of key construction inputs, such as cement and reinforcement steel, have “stabilised or declined” in the two years since 2024 “due to improved supply and government interventions.”

For Mulualem Debeb, construction industry development head executive at the Ministry of Urban & Infrastructure, the immediate challenge has been to move materials amid a fuel shortage, compounded by import shortfalls.

“This has increased the price of construction materials and caused delays in projects,” he said. “The supply challenge could deepen if manufacturers cannot secure fuel.”

Mulualem see the disruption as a warning about Ethiopia’s dependence on imported inputs. Authorities are accelerating import-substitution measures, supporting domestic producers and considering alternative materials such as bamboo and wood where technically appropriate. They have also prioritised the completion of major projects, the improvement of bulk transport of materials, and the better use of available resources.

“The construction sector has not stopped, but there is a decrease,” Mulualem echoed Habiba. “No major national project has fully ceased.”

A strategic research on affordable housing in Addis Abeba is underway with support from McKinsey & Company, while the Construction Management Institute and the Ethiopian Economics Association are studying import-substitution opportunities.

For Mesele Hailu, a civil engineer and lecturer at Addis Abeba University, the current moment is a stress test for the construction sector. For real estate developers and contractors, it is “highly challenging,” shaped by several pressures rather than by a single cause. Beyond material prices, fuel supply is a decisive constraint for large projects. Excavation, structural work and transport all depend on fuel-powered machinery.

“When fuel supply is unstable, the entire project timeline and cost structure are disrupted,” he told Fortune.

Mesele called the disruption temporary but serious, a “little bump” only if it remains short-lived.

“If fuel supply returns to normal and prices stabilise, the sector can recover,” he said.

His advice is cautious, arguing that building under volatile prices could expose developers to greater financial risk.

The risk is time. If the pressure continues for several months, Mesele warned, the effect will go beyond individual projects.

“A prolonged disruption will directly affect housing supply and slow down urban development,” he told Fortune.

Even a recovery in fuel supply may not be enough to bring prices down.

“Restoring fuel supply alone is not enough,” he said. “Unless the work is urgent, it may be wiser to pause projects temporarily.”

National Dialogue Has Everything But the Trust It Needs

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

By the time Ethiopia’s National Dialogue Commission (ENDC) reached the end of its first three-year mandate, the country had gathered everything a dialogue needs, except for the one thing it cannot do without. Trust.

There were commissioners, facilitators, procedures, regional consultations, agenda papers and the language of reconciliation. There were also militarised conflicts in Amhara and Oromia regional states, a traumatised Tigray Regional State, a cowed media, a Parliament held by the ruling Prosperity Party (PP), and a state whose monopoly on legitimate violence is contested.

This contradiction haunts the process led by Mesfin Araya, a professor of psychiatry and chief commissioner. Mesfin and 10 other commissioners run what was meant to be a peacebuilding instrument in a political order that has not accepted peacebuilding’s terms. They seek consensus before securing legitimacy. They ask citizens to speak, but not always the armed actors whose guns shape politics. They promise healing while tied to institutions many see as partisan.

Scepticism has always been abundant since the Commission entered into existence. It was established by Parliament in 2021 and began work in February 2022 with its mandate. It designed a three-stage process, from district consultations to regional forums and a national conference. It claims to have reached around 100,000 people, though earlier ambitions pointed to 1.5 million. It is reported that 12,294 participants from 679 of 769 weredas were nominated for regional conferences. In Addis Abeba, more than 2,000 delegates attended the first regional-phase event, which ended in June 2024.

However, scale is not legitimacy. A process can be large and still exclusionary, participatory and managed. It can collect grievances without empowering those who hold them. The test is whether those able to block peace accept the forum. By that measure, the dialogue remains weak.

The Commission has been sorting what its chief called “tonnes of agenda items”. Ironically, Ethiopia does not lack grievances. It lacks institutions seen as legitimate, impartial, and credible enough to rank, negotiate, and implement power-sharing among competing groups. The issues raised in Addis Abeba, from federalism to the flag, land claims and the capital’s status, are combustible. But touching a question does not resolve it. In Ethiopia, flags, regions, boundaries and land are tied to memory, violence and resources.

The defenders of dialogue are right about one thing. Ethiopians need settlements as they cannot shoot their way out of every constitutional dispute, grievance, centre-periphery tension or elite rupture.

Millions depend on humanitarian aid. Inflation, though below earlier peaks, remains punishing. The federal government has pursued grand projects in Addis Abeba and a few towns, while insecurity has made travel outside the capital frightening. Kidnapping has become an economic activity in the shadow of disorder.

The IMF facility, World Bank budget support and debt restructuring may bring relief, after the Birr was floated and monetary policy tightened. But macroeconomic reform cannot replace a political settlement. Investors may read exchange-rate reform as a signal, but armed groups read exclusion as provocation.

National dialogue is meant for moments when ordinary institutions cannot carry national fractures. It is a recent phenomenon in human history, born of Poland’s 1989 Round Table, which helped engineer an exit from communism. Benin’s 1990 sovereign national conference became a model for Africa. South Africa’s CODESA helped dismantle apartheid. The most touted Tunisia’s 2013 National Dialogue Quartet became a modern case because civil society convened rivals, set election dates, oversaw a resignation, and helped deliver a constitution.

All these cases demonstrated that dialogue can only work when actors in violent conflict believe the alternative is worse, when conveners are trusted, mandates are clear, armed actors are not wished away, and implementation is tied to an enforceable bargain. Unfortunately, Ethiopia has borrowed the vocabulary without reproducing the conditions.

The first weakness is the mandate, although, legally, the Commission’s mandate appears clear. Politically, though, it is too ambitious and little owned. It is expected to build “national consensus” and “trust” between adversaries, citizens and the state. This is nearly impossible without an elite-level bargain. The Commission can collect views from farmers, teachers, traders, women, youth and displaced people. It cannot define the rules between the Prosperity Party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), Fano factions, opposition parties and power brokers.

The second weakness is neutrality. The Commission is described as independent, and its members have standing. But its birth through a Parliament dominated by the ruling party marked it from the beginning. The Prosperity Party holds more than 96pc of parliamentary seats and claims around 14 million members. Where party, state and administration overlap, official consultation risks managed representation. The opposition fears the dialogue may serve to launder decisions already shaped by those in power rather than facilitating true power-sharing.

The third weakness is inclusiveness. The process has social reach but narrow penetration. Opposition forces have boycotted it or questioned its legitimacy. The Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC) and Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) are not meaningfully inside. The TPLF’s role is complicated by the civil war and its aftermath. Armed actors such as the OLA and Fano remain outside the architecture. The Commission has invited armed groups directly or through proxies. But an invitation is not inclusion without political guarantees.

The fourth weakness is the political environment. Dialogue cannot flourish where fear sets limits. The media space has narrowed, while human rights groups report arbitrary arrests, extrajudicial killings and repression in Amhara and Oromia regional states as well as Addis Abeba. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights attributed 70pc of documented human rights violations in 2023 to government forces. Drone strikes and counterinsurgency activities have deepened civilian anger. Consultation under coercion records what people dare say, not what they believe.

The fifth weakness is implementation. The Commission may recommend reforms on federalism, the parliamentary system, constitutional interpretation, land, symbols, transitional justice and state-society relations.

But who will implement them? Parliament dominated by the Prosperity Party? The executive whose conduct sits at the centre of many grievances?

Without prior agreement among decisive actors, recommendations risk joining Ethiopia’s archive of unimplemented settlements.

This is why the expiry of the first term mattered.

After three years and extensions, has the process changed the political equation? Has it brought actors nearer to settlement, reduced violence, opened political space, increased trust, or reassured sceptics that it is not the incumbent’s project?

So far, the answer is inadequate. The process may have mapped grievances and given some communities a rare forum to speak. These cannot be dismissed as meaningless. It may ease local tensions where the stakes are less existential. But on central questions, it has not shown it can move from consultation to settlement.

The danger is not only failure, but instrumentalisation. Authoritarian systems often learn reform’s language without surrendering control. Elections are held, but competition is managed. Parliaments sit, but power lies elsewhere. Dialogues are convened, but the agenda is contained. Inclusion becomes performance, and not power-sharing. The Dialogue Commission may give the incumbent a certificate of consultation while leaving its hegemonic position intact.

The tragedy is that dialogue has never been more necessary for Ethiopia, which is too large, diverse and strategic for coercive improvisation. Its federal system cannot survive if every territorial dispute becomes militarised. Its state cannot regain legitimacy if citizens experience it more as a force to fear than an institution to trust.

Ex-CBE Noor Corruption Case Returns with Wider Claims Over Loans

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

The corruption case against Nuri Hussein returned to federal courts on Thursday with broader stakes, reviving a matter that federal prosecutors had earlier abandoned following an order from the Ministry of Justice.

Nuri, the former vice president of Commercial Bank of Ethiopia’s CBE Noor, the Bank’s interest-free division, has been in custody for more than seven weeks. Federal police brought him from the detention centre to the Fourth Anti-Corruption Bench in Lideta district. His three lawyers arrived before the hearing and spoke with him before the proceedings.

The Court moved unusually fast. The Bench opened earlier than customary and called Nuri’s case first. The Judge read the new charges, while defence lawyers followed the file. Nuri stood in the dock, composed, listening closely and taking notes. People identified as employees of the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE), who had appeared at earlier hearings in similar cases, were absent. A few relatives sat quietly.

The pace signalled the prosecution’s intent to restart quickly. The three new charges accuse Nuri of securing illicit gains while “improperly carrying out government duties, engaging in corruption, and disbursing loans in violation of the National Bank of Ethiopia’s directives, CBE’s financial policies, and the Sharia financing rules.” Prosecutors also allege he allowed loans to be used for “purposes other than their approved plans and accumulated assets beyond his lawful income.”

The new file follows a March case in which prosecutors accused Nuri of receiving 1.7 million Br in bribes to facilitate a loan for a borrower. That earlier charge alleged bribery, abuse of power and concealment of illicit funds. Prosecutors claimed he demanded 1.7 million Br in cash and other benefits, misused his authority for personal gain and tried to present the money as legitimate. His sister-in-law, Rihana Workineh, was then named a co-defendant, accused of helping to make transactions appear lawful.

That case was discontinued after the Ministry of Justice ordered it dropped. Federal police then opened a fresh investigation and brought the matter before the pre-trial bench, seeking to keep Nuri in custody while inquiries continued. After completing the investigation, police sent findings to prosecutors, who filed the latest charges. Rihana is not named in the new case, leaving Nuri as the sole defendant. He received the charges on April 28, 2026.

At the centre of the case is how CBE Noor handled large interest-free banking facilities. Prosecutors alleged that Nuri acted as both approver and guarantor for loans issued through the division. Under Sharia financing, loans are not advanced directly to borrowers. The Bank pays suppliers of goods or services; borrowers receive the goods; and the Bank settles payment with suppliers.

Prosecutors allege Nuri was responsible for ensuring those transactions complied with Sharia law and failed to do so. They claim he should have monitored the relationship between borrowers and suppliers, checked receipts and payments, and ensured goods were delivered as documented. They also accuse him of failing to conduct post-loan monitoring after approvals were granted.

The charge sheet alleges Nuri established beneficial relationships with 18 borrowers who used interest-free banking facilities. Prosecutors allege he did not verify that these borrowers received goods backed by proper documents. Investigators also claim to have found that some suppliers and borrowers were related, and that two billion Birr was transferred back to borrowers at different times. Prosecutors charged him with mismanagement of public office. They allege he released funds to 18 borrowers under supplier contracts without verifying delivery of goods, violated Sharia financing rules, failed to monitor the loans, and allowed funds to be returned to borrowers in whole or in part.

A second charge accuses Nuri of abusing his authority by allowing borrowers to obtain loans despite close relationships with suppliers, contrary to rules barring such links. Prosecutors claim this enabled loans exceeding one billion Birr to be diverted from their intended purposes. Six loan cases were cited as evidence.

The third charge concerns property and money prosecutors say are inconsistent with Nuri’s lawful earnings. They allege his total lawful income is 13 million Br, while his accumulated wealth exceeds 264 million Br. Prosecutors charged him with corruption for possessing property and money of unknown origin.

Their evidence includes three houses registered in Nuri’s name with a total area of 408.63Sqm, a Toyota Corolla Cross Hybrid valued at more than three million Birr, and a 2017 Nissan vehicle. Prosecutors also cited properties registered under his wife, Habiba Workneh, including a seven-storey house valued at more than 74 million Br and an eight-storey building valued at more than 103 million Br. Together, the two houses sit on 950Sqm and have a combined value of more than 177 million Br. Prosecutors also presented a vehicle and funds held in various accounts.

Defence lawyers objected to all the charges and asked for 10 days to prepare their response. The Court granted the request and scheduled the next hearing for May 11. The defence also asked that Nuri be moved from police custody to a federal prison facility.

The case now returns under broader allegations than in the March file, shifting from a single alleged bribe to the management of large interest-free loans, borrower-supplier relationships, and wealth that prosecutors claim cannot be explained by lawful income.

Fed to Create Watchdog for Insurance Industry

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

The domestic insurance industry is approaching its largest regulatory overhaul in decades, with a bill set for this year that would transfer supervision from the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) to an autonomous watchdog.

For an industry long sheltered from foreign capital and overshadowed by banking, the draft proclamation promises change. Foreign capital would be allowed to hold up to 49pc of the stake in insurance firms, while the Ethiopian Insurance Regulatory Authority (EIRA) would oversee licensing, supervision and market conduct. The shift answers a demand insurers have pressed for years. The Ministry of Industry once oversaw the industry before being moved to the NBE, where executives argued that insurance rarely received the attention given to banks.

The bill would have the Authority operate under the Ministry of Finance, with a seven-member board that will include commissioners appointed by the Prime Minister and representatives from the NBE, the Ministry of Trade & Regional Integration (MoTRI), and the Ethiopian Capital Market Authority (ECMA). The NBE would retain control over statutory deposits, but the Agency would gain broader powers over insurers, reinsurers, brokers, and emerging digital products.

This would recast regulation around a market that remains small despite the rapid growth of the wider financial system. As of June 2025, financial sector assets had reached 5.6 trillion Br, accounting for 37.2pc of GDP. Yet, despite an annual growth of 40pc, insurance accounted for only 1.5pc of total financial assets. Insurance penetration was 0.3pc, far below the African average of 3.6pc and the global average of 6.5pc.

However, the liberalisation would not be open-ended. Strategic foreign investors may hold as much as 40pc equity, while non-strategic foreign nationals would be limited to seven percent. The draft proclamation also introduces a Takaful framework, allowing dedicated Sharia-compliant operators and permitting conventional insurers to offer Takaful products if they keep funds strictly segregated.

The bill outlines a resolution regime for troubled firms, allowing the Ministry of Finance to establish “bridge insurers” to preserve essential services while a failing firm is moved toward acquisition or liquidation. A regulatory sandbox will allow insurers and technology firms to test digital insurance products before seeking full licensing, a response to insurtech expansion and low automation in the sector.

The bill will also raise the bar for governance, requiring insurers to have independent directors and specialised risk management, compliance, and internal audit functions. Administrative penalties will back new capital adequacy standards. Firms will be compelled to maintain a written reinsurance strategy in proportion to their size and risk appetite, and to have it approved annually by their boards. The Agency would issue directives governing reinsurance, including standards meant to limit exposure to unregulated foreign entities.

The most delicate test may come in life insurance. Fourteen of the 18 firms serve the segment, but life insurance accounts for only five percent of total business. The bill requires life and general insurance operations to be separated into independent entities, a provision that has become one of its most contentious elements. Industry operators question whether standalone life insurers can survive in a shallow market, particularly when scale, expertise and technology are already in short supply.

Fikru Tsegaye of Ethio Re-Insurance Company called the bill a “monumental breakthrough” for an industry that has long sought independent oversight. According to him, appointments to the new authority should be merit-based and transparent, warning that the credibility of the transition would depend on the quality of professionals selected.

Fikru believes the formal definition of reinsurance and the introduction of brokers could transform the market. Until now, only Africa Re and Zep Re operated locally, but the draft proclamation will allow foreign reinsurers to establish a direct presence. He called for reciprocity, arguing that domestic firms should be allowed to open branches abroad.

“The reform may support long-term innovation, but could strain weak life insurers,” Fikru told Fortune.

Asseged Geberemedhin, another insurance expert, described the impending legislation as “a turning point” for the industry. According to Asseged, aligning local practices with global standards would protect policyholders and improve Ethiopia’s credibility as it seeks deeper integration with the global financial system. He pointed out that 70pc of the population remains uninsured, saying agricultural and health coverage offer noteworthy opportunities, particularly through Takaful and foreign investment.

Low automation and shortages of technical expertise continue to make compliance with international standards such as IFRS 17 difficult. Market concentration remains high, with state-owned firm, the Ethiopian Insurance Corporation (EIC), holding a 33.9pc share of the general insurance segment.

Africa’s Airlines Boom, But its Stay Grounded

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

African aviation is entering a contradiction. The continent has the world’s fastest passenger growth, yet its airlines remain among the least profitable, squeezed by high charges, expensive fuel, blocked revenues and political hesitation over integration.

In March 2026, African carriers recorded a 20.6pc year-on-year increase in passenger traffic, the highest growth rate globally. But the average airline on the continent earns only $ 1.3 in net profit a seat flown. The industry is fragmented by regulation, weakened by costs and burdened by governments that often treat aviation less as economic infrastructure than as an easy revenue source.

However, the aviation sector supports 8.1 million jobs across Africa and contributes 75 billion dollars to the continent’s GDP, including 42 billion dollars linked to tourism. Each year, it carries 110 million passengers, equal to 2.9pc of global passenger traffic, and moves 1.2 million tonnes of air freight. Experts following the continent’s aviation business insist that aviation can create prosperity more durably than taxation when governments see it as a strategic enabler.

Ethiopian Airlines Group (EAG) offers both the promise and the pressure that the sector experiences. Already supporting two billion dollars in economic activities and more than half a million jobs across the aviation community, passenger demand is expected to triple over the next two decades. Ethiopian Airlines, the continent’s strongest carrier, performs above the African average, according to Mesfin Tassew, CEO of the Group, although he declined to disclose figures.

“The Ethiopian Airline’s profit margin is higher than the average,” he told Fortune.

He attributed the performance to the Group’s strength and wider network of destinations. But he shifted focus to the wider market. Nearly half of the continent’s 50 airlines are operating at a loss. Japan Airlines performs better because it is more established and has a wider network. The comparison could be unforgiving.

African airlines collectively earn about 200 million dollars a year. Latin America, the next-least-profitable region, earns 10 times as much. Other regions record profits from 6.6 billion dollars to 14 billion dollars. Asia-Pacific airlines earn 3.2 dollars a passenger, nearly three times Africa’s level. In the Middle East, the figure reaches 28.6 dollars, more than 20 times Africa’s profit a seat. Other regions make between 5.70 dollars and 10.90 dollars.

For the past 10 years, African airlines’ global market share has remained at two percent.

Yet African tickets are among the world’s most expensive. Government taxes and infrastructure charges on the continent are about 15pc above the global average. Tanzania’s Advanced Passenger Information-Passenger Name Record (API-PNR) charge of 45 dollars to 48 dollars for a one-way ticket is cited as the highest globally.

“I can’t understand the reason behind these numbers,” said Kamil Alawadhi, regional vice president for Africa & the Middle East of the International Aviation Transport Authority (IATA). “Travel restrictions are pushed even through the continent’s countries.”

Many in the industry see the cost base deeply punishing, for African carriers have the highest unit costs in the world, nearly double the industry average. Fuel prices are 17pc higher than global benchmarks. Air navigation charges are more than 10pc higher. Maintenance, insurance and capital costs are six percent to 10pc higher than in other continents. A 106.6pc year-on-year spike in jet fuel prices, driven by disruptions in the Middle East, has deepened the pressure.

Alawadhi rejected the idea that airline protectionism is uniquely African. There is “no proof that there is protectionism in African country airlines, since similar practices occur worldwide.”

“The issue is what protection should achieve,” he said. “Governments should protect national interests and ensure aviation contributes to economic output and citizens’ welfare, regardless of airline ownership.”

He would rather blame African governments for showing neglect. His team spent three years trying to engage the Cameroon Central Bank on the Zazo issue. Even a four percent drop failed to trigger a response. He believes such silence tells the sector that authorities “don’t care what damage is done,” whether an airline is protected or not.

Blocked funds are the clearest dysfunction. As of March 2026, airlines had 774 million dollars stuck in African countries, the largest share of the global total of 900 million dollars. Algeria held 258 million dollars, followed by the Central Africa Zone, Mozambique, Eritrea and Angola. For airlines operating on narrow margins and rising costs, those knowledgeable of the industry fear that the inability to repatriate revenue weakens liquidity and confidence.

Policy borders still restrain the demand that aircraft can cross. Nearly half of intra-African travel still requires a visa before departure, keeping flying an elitist service rather than a tool for regional integration.

Safety also drags as Africa’s aviation accident rate, which stands at 7.86 per million sectors, the highest among all regions and far above the global average of 1.32. IATA insists governments should raise the implementation of ICAO standards and recommended practices, now at about 60pc in sub-Saharan Africa, and improve the publication of accident investigation reports.

“My one wish is to collect all the leaders of the countries on one table and make them agree to work together,” he said.

Yonatan Menkir, an aviation expert and pilot with more than a decade of experience, has an idea to pitch to achieve that. He urged the industry leaders to use the next African Union (AU) summit in Addis Abeba.

“That will be the best time to table SAATM to the leaders,” he said. “There will not be any better chance than having this with a team organised.”

SAATIM stands for the Single African Air Transport Market, an AU initiative to create one liberalised air transport market across Africa. The idea is to make it easier for African airlines to fly between African countries without relying on as many separate bilateral agreements. It is tied to the 1999 Yamoussoukro Decision and was launched by the AU in 2018 as one of the Agenda 2063 flagship projects.

However, Alawadhi had tried to table the idea four years earlier but found little attention at high-level AU meetings.

“Such discussions were often pushed to late sessions after many ministers had left,” he recalled.

Alawadhi argued that initiatives such as SAATM address connectivity issues but not the deeper problem of unjustified charges and levies that restrict financial flows and development.

In a panel held last week at the Skylight Hotel, on Africa Avenue, Alawadhi raised the matter with Mesfin and Obinna Ejimofo, head of commercialisation at the Pan African Payment & Settlement System, which is exploring ways to address blocked funds. Despite Alawadhi’s urging, Ejimofo avoided directly addressing the issue of resolving blocked-fund issues. Mesfin, too, avoided taking responsibility for bringing the leaders of all 54 countries to the next AU meeting.

For aviation experts on the continent, the question is not whether African aviation can grow, but whether governments can remove constraints that make growth fragile.

The industry’s pillars are safety, cost competitiveness, ease of doing business and sustainability. They say the industry wants excessive taxes and charges reversed, residence-based corporate taxation preserved to avoid double taxation, airline revenues repatriated without delays, visa burdens reduced, infrastructure built cost-efficiently, training expanded, and participation in global carbon markets strengthened.

According to Yonatan, the sector requires a political rethink.

“Governments don’t believe that this is an engine for trade and a catalyst for investment,” he told Fortune. “Aviation is the backbone of investment, where governments still drive much of it.”

He believes borders in the African sky are hindering regional growth, arguing that they were drawn to facilitate colonisation. Fleet acquisition, insurance, finance, fuel volatility and logistics costs deepen the pressure. In some cases, he observed, logistics alone cost more than jet fuel.

Siket Bank’s Costly Coming of Age Leaves its Under Pressure

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

Siket Bank ended the last financial year larger, carrying the costs of becoming a commercial bank. It crossed from microfinance in June 2025, a formal shift that changed its balance sheet and income statement.

The financial institution became better capitalised, more visible and ambitious, yet it closed the year less profitable. Its books tell a story of expansion, but also of the price paid for moving from a credit outfit, Addis Credit & Saving S.C. (ACS), into a regulated commercial bank.

For an institution that had been operating as a microfinance outfit only three years earlier, the scale was striking.

Total assets reached 19.25 billion Br, rising by 21pc. Net loans and advances climbed 30.2pc to 11.76 billion Br, while deposits grew faster, expanding by 54.6pc to 7.58 billion Br.

Equity increased 19.6pc to 9.40 billion Br, and its paid-up capital reached 6.92 billion Br. The Addis Abeba City Administration remained the dominant shareholder among 26 shareholders, holding more than half of the shares.

Earnings, however, were weaker.

Gross profit fell by 19.6pc to 1.24 billion Br. Total income grew 14.7pc to 2.72 billion Br, while expenses jumped by 78.7pc to 1.48 billion Br. This has exposed the pressure of transition. Each additional Birr of income was more than absorbed by new costs, leaving management with a larger institution and narrower margins.

The Bank’s President, Damtew Alemayehu, wants to see the year judged by institutional change rather than by banking maturity.

A veteran of microfinance, he spent 10 years at Oromia Credit & Saving S.C. before moving to Addis Saving & Cooperative and later to Siket Bank.

“The 2024/25 report should not be assumed as a bank, but rather a microfinance,” Damtew, who studied business administration and management at the universities of Gondar and Jimma, earning undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, told Fortune.

According to Damtew, microfinance institutions lack the capacity and human resources to collect deposits effectively.

“After the transition,” he said, “Siket Bank can diversify into international banking, digital and other services.”

The Bank’s earlier model depended heavily on non-governmental organisations and funding from the city administration to support small and medium enterprises. The Bank also spent half a billion Birr acquiring a core banking system, a transformation cost that weighed on the year’s results.

Board Chairperson Tilahun Worku, who also heads the Mayor’s Office and Cabinet Affairs, described the period as a “historic milestone” in entering commercial banking. He linked the transition to stronger governance and digital investment, including the implementation of the Temenos T24 Core Banking System.

Digital transformation began showing scale, with more than half a billion Birr in digital transactions processed during the year. Tilahun disclosed that Siket Bank would focus on operational excellence, shareholder value and financial services for underserved groups, including women and medium, small and micro enterprises (MSMEs).

The income mix showed why management can claim progress while analysts see pressure.

Interest income remained the engine, reaching 2.21 billion Br, 81pc of total income, up from 1.77 billion Br and 74.72pc a year earlier. Interest expense grew 81.9pc to 377.88 million Br, while net interest income grew by 16.8pc to 1.83 billion Br. The core lending business expanded, but not enough to offset the surge in operating costs.

Fee and commission income increased to 233.97 million Br from 143.05 million Br, lifting its share of income to 8.60pc from 6.03pc. Investment income reached 197.79 million Br, accounting for 7.27pc of income.

Other operating income fell sharply to 84.21 million Br from 277.20 million Br, reducing its share to 3.09pc from 11.69pc. Siket Bank became increasingly dependent on lending income just as its cost base widened.

Employee benefits grew by 74.6pc to 667.60 million Br. Other operating expenses more than doubled to 372.05 million Br. Personnel costs accounted for 45.08pc of total expenses, while administrative and other operating expenses made up 25.13pc. Together, they consumed 70.21pc of expenses, 1.21 percentage points higher than the average for 11 banks of similar size.

Damtew attributed the rise in cost to branch rebranding, salary adjustments and rent for more than 100 former woreda-based outlets.

The margin compression was visible. Gross profit as a share of total income fell to 45.58pc from 65.07pc. Asset turnover slipped only slightly to 14.13pc, while the equity multiplier edged up to 2.05 times from 2.02 times.

Return on equity (ROE) fell to 13.20pc from 19.64pc, while return on average equity was 14.38pc. The decline was driven mainly by a weaker profit margin, not by lower leverage or a collapse in asset productivity. Return on assets (ROA) remained strong but weakened to 6.44pc from 9.7pc. On average assets, it was 7.06pc.

The London-based financial analyst, Mekbib T. Gebrekidan, saw positive net income and operating cash flow as strengths, but placed the Bank in a “red category” with a financial health score of 30pc. He argued that only three of the 10 major performance indicators were positive.

ROE was below the industry benchmark of 27.4pc, showing that the Bank’s capital base had not yet been used efficiently. Converted microfinance institutions that successfully became banks recently posted ROA of about 4.14pc and ROE of 35.28pc.

Mekbib also flagged efficiency, where the cost-to-income ratio deteriorated to 47.1pc from 27.1pc. Although this was still better than the wider banking industry average of about 65pc, the direction was poor.

“Unless revenue growth accelerates,” he said, “the cost path is not sustainable.”

Mekbib urged management to improve revenue per employee and branch, and expand digital fee income.

Its net interest margin of 82.9pc was about eight percentage points above industry norms, confirming strong pricing power in lending but also concentration risk. Siket Bank was capital-rich and deposit-light.

The balance sheet became more loan-driven. Net loans and advances accounted for 61.06pc of assets, up from 56.76pc. Cash and cash equivalents fell to 12.51pc from 21.18pc. Equity investments made up 5.32pc, right-of-use assets 5.34pc, property and equipment 8.95pc, and other receivables 6.12pc.

Liquidity was moving into earning assets, with funding improved but remained stretched. Deposits financed 39.38pc of assets, up from 30.83pc. Equity remained unusually high at 48.81pc of assets. Paid-up capital alone equalled 35.95pc. The loan-to-deposit ratio improved to 155pc from about 184pc because deposits grew faster than loans, but it remained high, particularly compared to Siinqee Bank’s 53.82pc and Sidama Bank’s 65.04pc.

Time deposits of 930.8 million Br accounted for around 12pc of total deposits and about a third of the year’s deposit growth. According to Damtew, deposit mobilisation was not then the main focus beyond mandatory SME loan down payments.

“At that time, half a billion Birr was deposited by a pension fund,” he told Fortune.

Damtew argued that these ratios mirrored Siket Bank’s microfinance background. He disclosed that by April 2026, the loan-to-deposit ratio had fallen to 98pc, close to the 11-bank average of 73.4pc, and that management planned to bring it down to between 80pc and 85pc.

“We’ve diversified our revenue generation this year, including international banking,” he said.

Asset quality helped protect earnings. The loan impairment charge was only 641,121 Br, down from 40.16 million Br. As a share of gross loans, the annual charge was 0.005pc, compared with 0.44pc a year earlier.

Siket Bank was more loan-intensive than its peers, with loans representing 61.06pc of assets, compared with a peer average of 41.8pc. Deposit growth of 54.63pc was strong, but slower than the peer average of 131.93pc.

Allowance for impairment was 136.53 million Br, 1.15pc of gross loans of 11.89 billion Br. The low charge cushioned profit, although rapid loan growth called for close monitoring. Non-performing loans (NPL) were 3.5pc at the end of 2024/25 and had declined by April 2026, according to management.

However, the Bank’s systemic-risk profile appeared limited. It had 19.25 billion Br in assets. Liquidity risk was moderate because loans were about 155pc of deposits, and cash fell to 2.41 billion Br from 3.37 billion Br.

Solvency was the main buffer, with equity equal to 48.8pc of assets, far exceeding the average for micro-finance-cum-bank of 17.17pc. Market risk appeared to be low to moderate, while operational risk remained elevated after core banking, international banking, and digital channels were introduced.

Productivity offered a mixed reading, with 561,211 Br profit per employee. Deposits per employee were 3.43 million Br, while per branch reached 49.56 million Br. Its customer base expanded by 14.2pc to 614,729, leaving about 4,018 customers per branch and 12,334 Br of deposits per customer.

The network is broad, but branch funding productivity remains modest.

At the branch level, the transition was more tangible.

For Tesfaye Leta, moving from the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) to Cooperative Bank of Oromia and then to Siket Bank meant watching an institution remake itself from the inside.

As a manager of the Abiy Branch on Churchill Road in front of Haron Tower, Siket’s main hub, he sits between old-style banking and emerging finance. The Branch, one of the 153, recorded more than 1,000pc growth in deposits last year, albeit from a small base.

Tesfaye and his team of 12 are targeting exporters and foreign direct investment opportunities in a highly competitive market.

“As mobile applications replace basic USSD services, the aim is to move Siket Bank beyond credit and savings and into digital banking,” he told Fortune.

The contrast with peers was sharp. Compared with Sidama and Siinqee banks, Siket Bank had a higher return on assets but far lower leverage. Its net profit-to-assets ratio was 6.44pc, against the peer average of 3.05pc. Its assets were 2.05 times equity, compared with a peer average of 6.57 times equity.

Siinqee Bank remained in a league of its own, towering over its peers in balance sheet size, deposits, lending, capital and profitability. Sidama Bank was still operating on a smaller footing, while Gadaa had built a moderate asset base with a measured lending posture. Siket Bank stood apart for different reasons. It is better capitalised and more willing to lend, but has yet to show the same strength in extracting productive value from deposits.

According to Mekbib, Siket Bank remained financially strong in absolute terms due to capitalisation, liquidity, profitability and balance sheet growth.

“It has substantial financial strength and a very strong capacity to absorb future shocks,” he told Fortune.

But he warned that earnings per share (EPS) declined sharply, and that rising costs should be matched by stronger revenue.

However, Siket Bank’s year was not weak but experienced costly growth. The next test is whether its new identity as a commercial bank, technology platform and enlarged network can generate enough deposits, fee income and higher-yielding assets to reverse the squeeze.

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.

Author: Digital Editor