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Author: Digital Editor

Desire to March to the Sea Should Spill Reason on the Way

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Yet again, the Horn of Africa is bracing for trouble. A region already frayed by wars almost every other decade in nearly 70 years, now hears a rising chorus of turmoil.

Ethiopia’s leaders have become vocal, arguing that a country with more than 100 million people and one of the continent’s largest economies cannot remain in what they call a “prisoner of geography”. They promise to secure a direct corridor to the Red Sea and warn that, if negotiations stall, “all options are on the table”.

Landlocked states are no rarity, though. The world counts 44, no less than 16 of them in Africa. Ironically, three are still fighting for recognition, while Liechtenstein in Europe and Uzbekistan in Asia are doubly landlocked, surrounded by neighbours with no coast of their own. Only Kazakhstan, Austria, and Switzerland post GDP output close to or above the 200-billion-dollar mark.

None, however, faces Ethiopia’s peculiar handicap. A population above 100 million and a GDP projected to reach 174.34 billion dollars this year and 186.37 billion dollars in 2026. No other landlocked country suffers from such double jeopardy as Ethiopia.

The economic penalty for having no shoreline is understandably steep. World Bank models put freight costs for African landlocked countries 50pc to 75pc higher than those for their coastal peers. Ethiopia is estimated to lose as much as two billion dollars a year in logistics fees, most of which are paid to Djibouti, whose ports handle nearly every inbound and outbound container.

Small wonder Ethiopia’s contemporary leaders are determined to have a fresh route to salt water.

Nonetheless, numbers do not create entitlement. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea allows landlocked states transit rights only “on terms to be agreed”. The 1965 Convention on Transit Trade of Land-Locked States hammers home the same idea. Article 2(4) of the UN Charter forbids threats or the use of force against another state’s territorial integrity. Population size, GDP, and geographic breadth appear nowhere to be found in that text.

Neighbours are unsurprisingly twitchy. Eritrea’s long-serving autocrat, Isaias Afwerki, has slipped into marathon interviews, accusing Ethiopian leaders of acting as proxies for foreign conspirators. Djibouti and Somalia rushed to denounce the memorandum that Ethiopia signed with Somaliland last year. The phrase “all options are on the table” travels fast, and not only in diplomatic cables.

The Ethiopian leaders’ messaging does not seem to provide much reassurance.

Foreign Minister Gedion Timotheos (PhD) insisted that “Ethiopia is not in a war of words with Eritrea”. However, other civilian and military officials brand Eritrea a “historical enemy” and boast of shifting policy “from defensive to offensive”. Dina Mufti, a former Foreign Ministry spokesman and a member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, blamed “Eritrean provocation”.

The result is confusion abroad and mistrust in Asmara, where many suspect polite talk masks worrisome plans.

Casting sea access as a “natural right” invites a zero-sum interpretation. It erodes the diplomatic standing Addis Abeba craves. In a region still haunted by fresh memories of brutal war, swagger is a poor negotiating tool.

Sadly, the broader geopolitical landscape is no steadier. The Horn of Africa is already trapped in overlapping conflicts, political fragmentation, and humanitarian catastrophe. Governance structures creak under militarised survival tactics and elite feuds. What once looked like sporadic turbulence is turning into a chronic disorder.

External meddling has become an industry in its own right. China courts the region with its Belt & Road railways, loans and a naval base in Djibouti. The United States wants the shipping lanes kept open but, wary of new entanglements, has subcontracted strands of security policy to the Gulf states. Israel, buoyed by new Gulf friendships after the Gaza war, is scouting for ports and pipelines.

Absent a credible regional order, the Horn risks becoming a chessboard on which others play out distant rivalries.

Regional and multilateral institutions meant to calm storms have wilted. The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the African Union (AU), and even the United Nations (UN) look marginalised after years of paralysis. Promises of inclusive governance ring hollow.

In Somalia and Sudan, violent conflicts mutated into business models. Armed groups, bloated on war economies and foreign stipends, treat civilians, bridges and grain stores as fair game. Disinformation and ethnic incitement on social media splinter communities into rival militias.

The bill for violence is ruinous. Ethiopia’s recent northern civil war killed hundreds of thousands, uprooted millions, and left reconstruction costs of roughly 20 billion dollars. Annual port charges, by contrast, look like small change. A hard-headed ledger favours negotiation over gunfires.

A sensible strategy would start by muting the word bombast. Any hint of forced acquisition of another country’s territory merely stiffens opposition. If outsiders are indeed fanning the flames, their role is best examined in neutral forums such as IGAD or the AU, which at least lend legitimacy.

The purpose should not be to crush Ethiopia’s ambitions or belittle Eritrea’s fears. It is to move the quarrel into orderly legal channels. International law already guarantees Ethiopia transit without imperilling Eritrean sovereignty. Bilateral talks could forge a package of secure corridors, joint logistics parks, and perhaps an Ethiopian stake in a port, all without redrawing a single border.

Regional leaders could appoint an independent task force to map conflict drivers, draft rules for external involvement, and review the operations of IGAD and the AU. A collective security pact, anchored in non-aggression and joint patrols, could prevent proxy wars.

A co-operative deal would unlock investment, expand regional trade, and, more importantly, could allow governments to shift scarce funds from artillery to schools, clinics, rural roads, and the irrigation pumps that farmers sorely need. The international community should reward such co-operation and penalise militarisation.

Officials forecast that Ethiopia’s economic output, inching to 200 billion dollars by the end of the current decade, brandished as proof that the dependence on Djibouti is unsustainable. The arithmetic could be seductive, yet it masks the hollowed factories, scorched farms, and uprooted families left by the recent civil war and the ongoing violence.

Time is short. Each week, fresh affronts cross the frontier. Every word strike makes compromise harder. Geography could be a constraint; it should not be viewed as a destiny. It may be fixed, but politics is elastic. With measured words, legal instruments, and a dash of imagination, the Horn of Africa can loosen its chains without spilling more blood.

Tracks in the Sky Hopes on the Ground

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The electric-blue trains that once glided across Addis Abeba’s skyline promised a leap into the future. I remember standing on the platform as a university student when the first two-carriage Light Rail Transit (LRT) rolled in, its doors hissing open like something lifted from a glossy brochure for world capitals. For a moment, the minibus chaos felt distant, replaced by the hum of a system that looked and sounded modern.

Sadly, the optimism was brief.

The EPRDF leaders had pitched the project as a cure for the capital’s traffic and a showcase of its developmental ambition. They conceded, almost proudly, that they had to “outsource the entire project” because the city “did not know how to do” modern transit. That faith in high-tech imports defined every step thereafter. Elevated tracks, complex signalling, expansive depots; however, none of it tailored to the rhythms of a city still built around informal taxis and walk-up businesses.

The numbers tell the story of a mismatch. The budget, once a modest 14 million dollars, ballooned to 475 million dollars, buying only 34Km of track. The engineering dazzled, but ridership never met expectations. Planners forecast 120,000 daily passengers; the early count barely reached half that number. A brief surge to 150,000 in 2016 initially appeared to be vindication, but the trend soon reversed. By 2023, daily ridership had slumped to 45,000, a fraction of the city’s commuting public.

Inside the carriages, the experience changed even faster than the statistics. In the first months, I found breathing room and, occasionally, a seat. Soon, the trains arrived already jammed, their doors sliding open to a human wall. The proud two-carriage formations shrank to single units as rolling stock deteriorated. By 2018, one-third of the 41 trams were out of service for want of spare parts. Maintenance lag topped 60 million dollars, a backlog rooted in the same dependency that had defined its construction. Every critical component had to travel thousands of miles before a train could roll a single meter.

Supporters argued this was the unavoidable learning curve of big infrastructure. They said Addis Abeba was laying the groundwork for wider systems, spurring property development along the corridor and shrinking commute times for the fortunate neighbourhoods it reached. But a transit line that moves only a sliver of a city’s population is not mass transportation. Even at its peak, the LRT carried only a fraction of the demand, while bisecting local markets with concrete viaducts that cast long shadows on once-lively storefronts.

From my window, I watched streets severed mid-block by pillars and fencing, businesses retreating from the shade of a structure meant to bind the city. Those blue-and-white minibuses that the LRT was supposed to render obsolete were still idling below, horns blaring. Eventually, I rejoined them. One shove too many in a shrinking carriage and one delay too long between trains sent me back to the rough efficiency of informal taxis. Thousands of commuters made the same call.

The maintenance spiral illustrates the danger of top-down planning unmoored from local capacity. By relying on imported systems, officials saddled the city with technology that could not be fixed without foreign supply chains. Cash-strapped operators cannibalised parked cars for parts, each short-term patch further eroding reliability and paving the way for the next failure. The elevated guideways remain a costly monument to a vision that confused high gloss with progress.

Critics who had urged a humbler bus-based upgrade are quick to point out what the LRT displaced. Curbside vendors, informal routes, and the modest livelihoods that came with them are diminished, if not vanished. Buses, they argued, required no foreign expertise and could flex to the city’s organic geography. Their warnings went unheeded at the groundbreaking, and they now sound prophetic.

None of this erases the yearning that greeted those first departures. Crowds cheered as sleek cabins sailed overhead. Passengers pulled out their phones to film windows streaking past. The project offered a taste of what a dignified commute could feel like. But public works succeed only when hardware meets context. The LRT’s hardware was world-class; its context was not.

Addis Abeba’s planners are again discussing ambitious corridors, some even larger than the first. They would do well to study the Iron Curtain already in place. A hundreds of million dollars symbol of modernism has become a system limping on single-car trains, serving fewer riders by the year, its bill for spare parts growing faster than its timetable can keep. If the city presses ahead without asking who will maintain tomorrow’s platforms and signals, it risks repeating a cycle of innovation followed by disrepair.

The lesson is not that cities should fear big ideas. It is that lasting progress arrives when ambition meets the realities of local skills, budgets, and daily habits. Had officials invested in grounded solutions, improving buses, building simple shelters, coordinating schedules, the city might have moved more people for less money while building the capacity to expand. Instead, Addis Abeba carries the weight of an elevated track and a cautionary tale.

I still remember the fizz of that inaugural ride, the sense that my hometown was stepping onto a stage it had long admired from afar. That feeling has curdled into the jolt of a minibus seat. The LRT stands overhead, part marvel, part warning. Its lesson should haunt future planning rooms. Imported sheen is no substitute for systems that local hands can build, run, and mend.

A modern city is measured not by its grandest structure but by the ease with which its people move through their day, without the shove, the delay, or the permanent wait for a part to arrive from overseas.

A Tea Leaf’s Journey to Self-Reliance

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At a weekend bazaar hosted at the Zobras Olympiakos Greek Club, I stumbled upon a Frenchman with a ponytail and fluent Amharic. He ran a stall offering herbal tea, wild honey, and artisanal organic products. Among his samples was a selection of cheeses with a pleasant, authentic taste. But the real standout was a specialty tea made from lemon verbena, a plant prized for its use in herbal infusions, essential oils, and natural remedies.

The plant’s medicinal benefits are widely recognised, but for me, its most alluring feature was its rich, aromatic fragrance. I bought about 200 grams of dried leaves, which perfumed my living room and made for a deeply enjoyable tea. When I ran out, I tried to reconnect with the vendor, but he proved elusive. He was constantly on the move across the capital, catering to health-conscious urbanites.

Surprisingly, it became nearly impossible to find lemon verbena again, a supposedly common herb that vanished for two years. I eventually gave up, until a chance errand with a friend led me to a roadside greenhouse where I found lemon grass colloquially known as Tej Sar, a relative of lemon verbena.

Though similar in appearance and scent, lemon grass is a tall grass, while lemon verbena is a leafy shrub. Intrigued, I bought a bunch for just 200 Br. Within weeks, it was in full bloom. After drying it for a few days, I brewed my first homemade tea. The taste was refreshing; the health benefits real. It made me reflect on how often we overcomplicate things, chasing consumer products when simple, local solutions lie within reach.

I had once been willing to spend hundreds of birr tracking down that tea. Now, I was producing my own. It was a liberating shift, a reminder of the value of self-reliance in a consumer-driven world. The experience became a metaphor for other areas of life, where imagination and initiative can replace dependence on the market.

It was a lesson on the famous DO-IT-YOURSELF moto.

Soon after, a friend introduced me to a German expat who made kombucha infused with lemon verbena and green tea. Kombucha is a fermented drink made with tea, sugar, and a SCOBY (a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast). This version was mildly alcoholic and claimed to aid digestion, reduce inflammation, and even help fight cancer.

I bought a 500ml bottle and downed it in one sitting. I immediately felt a lift in mood and a relief from lingering gut issues. Once again, I was struck by how something simple and homemade could have such immediate impact. We are told that we need the market for everything. But we often need little more than curiosity, community, and some basic know-how.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, I even made my own hand sanitiser. Using a YouTube tutorial, I combined isopropyl alcohol, aloe vera, and essential oils. At a time when panic buying made sanitiser scarce and overpriced, this simple DIY solution kept me supplied. The ingredients were easier to find than the actual formula, another sign of how knowledge can empower us when markets fall short.

The idea of DIY took on even more resonance while watching the latest “Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning” premiere at GAST Mall. Tom Cruise, ever the maverick, once again performed his own jaw-dropping stunts, from clinging to a flying aircraft to riding a motorbike off a cliff. His actions radiated confidence and commitment, echoing the film’s mantra: “Don’t be so careful. Be confident.”

On “The Tonight Show,” Jimmy Fallon marvelled at Cruise’s stunts, including one where he was strapped to an aircraft wing facing engine winds at 145 mph.

Cruise once told Jimmy Fallon how it felt to be strapped to an aircraft wing, the wind hitting his face at 145 miles per hour. Cruise explained it all with calm precision, making the impossible seem almost routine. Fallon mentioned a previous guest: The Weeknd, Abel Tesfaye, who admired Cruise’s fearlessness. Cruise returned the admiration by lip-syncing “Can’t Feel My Face,” helping the song rise on the Billboard charts.

Even the “Mission Impossible” theme music defies convention. Composed by Lalo Schifrin, the piece is written in 5/4 time, a rarity in film scoring. This rhythm, famously used by jazz legend Dave Brubeck in his 1959 album “Time Out,” lends the theme a timeless tension that mirrors the film’s relentless energy.

Much like the stunts, the music, and the message of the franchise, the lesson circles back to DIY. In a world of fragile supply chains and volatile economies, self-reliance is more than a survival skill, it is a philosophy. From growing your own herbs to brewing kombucha or making sanitizers, the message is clear: the tools are often within reach.

Whether in the kitchen or the backyard, DIY is no longer a quaint hobby. It is a quiet rebellion against mass consumption, sparked by confidence and curiosity. As Cruise himself might say, it is not about being safe. It is about being ready to take the leap.

Aid Retreat Signals a Broader Collapse of Global Compassion

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In 2015, the United Kingdom’s (UK) then-prime minister, David Cameron, stood before the United Nations General Assembly and challenged other donor countries to follow the UK’s lead and back the newly minted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for eradicating poverty with their aid money.

“We haven’t just achieved the UN’s 0.7pc [aid-to-GNI spending] target, we’ve enshrined it in law,” he declared.

That was then. As heir to an extraordinary bipartisan consensus forged under the post-1997 Labour government, Cameron’s Conservative government had established Britain as the most generous aid donor in the G7, and one of only four countries to meet the 0.7pc aid target. Now, a Labour government has torn up the remnants of that consensus, joined a global attack on aid, and set a course that will leave the UK among the world’s least generous countries.

The fact that a UK government led by the Labour Party, with its long tradition of internationalism and solidarity, has all but abandoned its leadership role on an issue encoded in its DNA illustrates the political forces shaping a new world order, notably US President Donald Trump’s view of international cooperation as a zero-sum game played by losers. But it also challenges development advocates in the UK to focus on strategies aimed at minimising harm and rebuilding the case for aid.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced the decision to cut foreign aid and channel the savings to an expanded defence budget ahead of a meeting with Trump. The aid budget is set to fall from 0.5pc to 0.3pc of GNI, the lowest level since the late 1990s. After removing roughly one-quarter of the official development assistance spent on refugees in the UK, Britain will slip from ninth to 22nd in a ranking of countries’ ODA as a share of GNI.

While there has been opposition to the aid cuts, a new consensus has taken root.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch applauded the decision to convert ODA into defence spending. The far-right Reform UK party’s election manifesto called for the aid budget to be halved. When Jenny Chapman, Britain’s development minister, delivered ODA’s death warrant, she told a parliamentary committee in May that “the days of viewing the UK government as a global charity are over.” Some two-thirds of Britons, including most Labour supporters, support increased defence spending at the expense of overseas aid.

The UK is hardly alone. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which accounted for more than 40pc of all humanitarian aid in 2024, has been dismantled. In Germany, the world’s second-largest donor, Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s new government will reduce an already-diminished aid budget. France is set to slash ODA by 40pc, while the recently collapsed right-wing government in the Netherlands, a longstanding member of the 0.7pc club, has decreased aid spending by more than two-thirds.

The human toll of the cuts is already starting to emerge.

The demolition of USAID has left acutely malnourished children without food, HIV/AIDS patients without antiretroviral drugs, and clinics unable to treat deadly diseases like childhood malaria. According to a recent study, Trump’s suspension of aid could result in 14 million additional deaths, including 4.5 million children under five, by 2030. Cuts by the UK and other donors will inevitably add to these human costs. An already chronically underfinanced humanitarian aid system now confronting famine threats and food emergencies from Sudan to Gaza and the Sahel has been pushed to the brink of collapse. Less than 10pc of the 2025 UN appeal is funded.

The political currents fueling the attack on aid vary across countries. In the US, nihilistic anti-multilateralism has been a driving force. In Europe, fiscal pressures have interacted with right-wing populist narratives that link aid to migration, pressure on public services, waste, and corruption.

What is striking in the British case is the speed with which the aid consensus crumbled. That consensus was forged above all by Gordon Brown, first as Chancellor and then as Prime Minister. It was under Brown’s leadership that the UK set the 0.7pc aid target, supported the development of global health funds   Gavi, the Vaccines Alliance and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria   and led debt-relief efforts for Africa.

After 2010, when the Conservative government’s Chancellor, George Osborne, launched a series of austerity budgets that slashed public services and welfare spending, the aid budget was off-limits. While overseeing a surge in child poverty in the UK, Cameron co-chaired the UN committee that produced the SDGs and the pledge to “leave no one behind.”

Cracks began to appear during Boris Johnson’s tenure as Prime Minister. After making the ill-judged decision to fold the Department for International Development into the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Johnson “temporarily” reduced foreign aid to 0.5pc of GNI, citing the COVID-19 crisis. Starmer now cites Russian security threats to justify deeper cuts.

But, the claim that there was no alternative strains credibility. After promising not to increase taxes, Labour entered office donning a voluntary fiscal straitjacket and has had to make avoidable public-spending cuts. But decimating the aid budget, described by Foreign Secretary David Lammy as an exercise in “progressive realism,” was also a case of political opportunism. Weak public support for aid linked to scepticism about its efficacy made ODA an easy target.

What can be done to rebuild the aid consensus?

The priority is to minimise harm. Maintaining the UK’s 2.6 billion dollars commitment to the World Bank’s International Development Association (ODA) is critical because every dollar contributed can leverage three to four dollars of financial support for the poorest countries. The UK could also make the most of a shrinking aid budget by channelling more humanitarian aid through local actors, rather than bureaucratic UN agencies.

Still, tough choices should be made. There is a strong argument to protect spending on life-saving programs, such as child nutrition, vaccinations, and HIV/AIDS, and for minimising cuts in areas where the UK is a global frontrunner, like girls’ education and social protection.

Even with a diminished aid budget, the UK could exercise greater leadership. With debt-service costs now crowding out spending on essential services in many low-income countries, Starmer’s government could demand comprehensive debt relief at this month’s UN International Conference on Financing for Development.

Ultimately, though, the case for aid should be fought and won in a public square increasingly dominated by right-wing populists. Political leaders in the UK and across the West need to communicate the hard truth that global challenges like climate change, war, and poverty require international cooperation. They need to tap into the deep reservoirs of generosity, solidarity, and moral concern that define public sentiment even in the midst of our troubled times.

Can the Conference on Financing for Development Succeed?

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It is easy to be pessimistic about multilateralism nowadays. Recent international gatherings, including the 2023 Sustainable Development Goals Summit, the 2024 Summit of the Future, and multiple United Nations Climate Change Conferences, have yielded only unfulfilled promises.

At a time when US President Donald Trump is abandoning America’s international commitments, rejecting multilateral initiatives, and sowing chaos and confusion in global trade, can the Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) at the end of this month go any better?

To be sure, the United States may well act as a spoiler in Seville, Spain, or disregard any agreements that are made. But that does not mean that the summit will be a bust. After all, America’s withdrawal from the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement during Trump’s first term, mere months after the deal entered into force, did not lead to its demise. While action has been limited, almost everyone recognises that without the agreement, climate change would likely occur even faster.

In April, the US withdrew from negotiations on decarbonising shipping at the UN’s International Maritime Organisation (IMO), warning that it would consider “reciprocal measures” if any new fees were charged to US ships for their fuel use. Yet, the IMO succeeded in getting 108 countries, accounting for 97pc of the world’s merchant shipping fleet by tonnage, to approve a new mandatory fuel standard for vessels and a global emissions pricing mechanism, with the revenues supporting, among other things, infrastructure development in developing economies.

It is possible for the world to make progress on shared challenges without the US. The lack of US involvement in the FfD4 might even prove advantageous, given its record of extracting compromises that favour its own multinational companies, and then refusing to sign or enforce deals anyway. The negotiations for the OECD Global Tax Deal, finalised in 2021, are a case in point.

But success will require other countries to fill the global leadership gap and demonstrate a credible commitment to the multilateral cooperation that is essential to our survival. Fortunately, the first draft of the FfD4’s outcome document recognises this imperative. It advances many valuable and practical policy proposals, including several from the final report of the International Commission of Experts on Financing for Development (of which I was a member).

A key focus of the document is enabling greater domestic resource mobilisation. An outdated international tax system and inadequate checks on illicit financial flows are a severe constraint on low- and middle-income countries’ budgets. Reforms in these areas would go a long way toward reducing income and asset inequalities, and increasing tax revenues, vital for financing investments in healthcare, education, and climate change mitigation and adaptation.

More broadly, participants at the Seville summit should seek to address the lack of a global financial safety net. A first step could be to initiate regular allocations of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) reserve asset, the Special Drawing Rights (SDRs). To enhance the intervention’s impact, the SDRs could be distributed according to need, a departure from the current approach, which allocates SDRs in proportion to IMF quotas, meaning that the largest shares go to the countries least in need.

The IMF could also introduce SDR swaps to meet the immediate liquidity needs of economies that do not benefit from the US Federal Reserve’s central-bank liquidity swaps.

But this is only the beginning. The world’s approach to tackling shared challenges, from climate change to public health and sustainable development, has plainly failed. International pledges and agreements have fallen far short, in terms of scale and quality. The “billions to trillions” vision, which sought to leverage public subsidies to unlock private finance for climate action, has not been realised. The suggestion that donors will close the development-financing gap through sheer goodwill is as unrealistic as it is patronising.

It is time to embrace an entirely new model of “global public investment,” with all countries contributing to the provision of shared public goods according to their means. This will require, for starters, fundamental reform of the IMF and the World Bank. Both institutions need to adopt a more countercyclical approach to lending. They should stop linking loans to oppressive conditionalities that favour the interests of global capital over the well-being of people and the planet.

In general, multilateral banks should substantially increase their lending to meet social, developmental, and climate needs, which in turn requires robust and reliable funding.

But there is a major barrier to such changes. Important decisions at the IMF and the World Bank require an 85pc voting majority, and with a 16pc share of those votes, the US effectively wields a veto. Without major governance reforms, these institutions will remain hamstrung, countries will increasingly find ways to bypass them, and they will fade into irrelevance.

International financial regulations should be strengthened, including by pursuing greater coordination of national laws, possibly on a regional basis at first. Private finance, which has enjoyed decades of lax regulation and positive incentives, should be required to align its behaviour with social and planetary goals, or face punishment.

These proposals are hardly radical; such measures have been implemented in past phases of global capitalism, and they are manifestly in the interest of all countries. Nonetheless, in the current geopolitical landscape, they may appear unrealistic. That is why “coalitions of the willing” should take the lead in setting ambitious goals, and doing what it takes to achieve them. The upcoming Conference on Financing for Development is a good place to start.

As Donor Dollars Dry Up Africa Confronts the Cost of Outsourced Development

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In 2021, I was working on a DFID-funded program in Ethiopia when the cuts came. Overnight, a 21 million pound sterling program was slashed to a mere three million. Staff were laid off, projects cancelled, and promises to communities broken.

What stuck with me was beyond the chaos. It was how easily systems collapsed when external financing dried up. I came to realise that development is not charity. It is about politics and power, and it is a long-term issue.

For decades, governments and agencies across the development community have poured billions into aid across Africa. But after all that time and money, the results still fall short. Perhaps the real question now should be why it has not worked.

The focus here is on development aid, rather than emergency or humanitarian interventions, which play a vital role in crisis response.

Across the continent, aid-funded programs are closing. Clinics are out of service. Ministries that ran on donor budgets are now frozen. Many in the global development sector appear to be caught off guard.

But for some of us who have worked inside the system, the signs were always there. The structure was already fragile. Germany, once among the world’s most generous donors, has cut 5.3 billion dollars in aid since 2022. The United Kingdom (UK), following its 2020 merger of the Department for International Development (DfID) with the Foreign Office, reduced aid to 0.5pc of national income, triggering a 33pc cut to Africa programs by 2021.

Now that aid budgets are shrinking, the weaknesses are more visible.

From the beginning, I have always believed the model has been a contradiction. Countries are expected to take ownership of systems that someone else designs and pays for. Ministries are asked to be accountable to citizens while foreign grants fund their programs. Governments are measured on the “sustainability” of projects that cannot survive a single funding cut.

The result is systems that look functional on paper but collapse as soon as external financing stops. Projects that deliver services but do not establish the necessary institutions to sustain them. This is not only about poor implementation. The problem is with how the system was built. It is time the development community faces that truth.

Donors’ flags are visible on vehicles, schools, hospitals, buildings, and even water tanks. Some donors even request a portion of the budget to be allocated toward visibility, such as billboards, banners, and branded notebooks. The whole package may not be only for show. But it reflects who is shaping priorities.

In Malawi, even core government institutions reflect the dominance of donors, as “The Economist” put it, many health ministry offices are “labelled by donor, not department.”

Development agencies have not only financed programs; they have also implemented them. They have run them. They have written the strategies and the projects, hired the consultants, and led implementation. Then, when results fall short, they are also the ones writing the evaluation.

That has been the real problem. The development community has not simply supported development. It has tried to direct it. Local governments are left in the shadow of donor mandates.

Inside the system, what gets lost is a genuine reflection of what is working on the ground. And, in a system like this, honesty can feel risky, and disclosing the truth might cost you the next round of funding.

If the development community truly wants to support progress, maybe it is time to stop trying to do it directly. Instead, there is space to enable trade. To unlock investment. To help African innovation with access to markets, capital, and technology.

Trade barriers keep African products out of global markets, and value addition is often penalised through tariff escalation.

The European Union (EU), for example, allows countries like Ghana or Côte d’Ivoire to export raw cocoa beans duty-free, but imposes tariffs of up to seven to 15pc ad valorem duty on cocoa powder and chocolate crumbs containing cocoa butter. This discourages local manufacturing and keeps African economies stuck at the low end of global value chains.

Massive subsidies in Europe allow European farmers to sell food at artificially low prices, undercutting African farmers even in their own domestic markets. Investment in African startups remains limited, although models like the Timbuktoo Initiative, although still in its early stages, offer a glimpse of what is possible when global institutions act more like venture partners than traditional donors.

Regional infrastructure is still underfunded. The African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), the continent’s most ambitious trade project to date, requires technical, financial, and political support to succeed.

Addressing these issues would go a long way in opening new markets, building supply chains, and creating long-term opportunities for donor countries themselves. Such partnerships can still be win-win, sharing both risk and reward. Not the kind buried under fancy logframes and layers of donor conditions that hardly anyone reads or even understands.

Donor agencies can still play a role, but it is not the one they have been playing. Their job is not to implement. It should be to facilitate, connect, and get out of the way when governments do their job.

The G20 Compact with Africa presents a more effective model. It does not deliver aid directly or run programs. Instead, it supports African governments in strengthening investment frameworks, de-risking private capital, and attracting long-term financing. Yes, it still promotes reforms, but they are shaped through mutual agreement and in line with national priorities.

In Ghana, for example, the Compact backed legal reforms and infrastructure development without donors in the driver’s seat. Ethiopia’s prospectus, presented under the same platform, speaks in the language of opportunity, infrastructure, energy, and skills, rather than poverty or despair.

Development partners should focus on enabling regional coordination, bridging the gap between governments, and backing high-potential sectors. They should not be managing ministries through parallel “implementation units” that do not see themselves as working for the government but are accountable primarily to donors or tracking success by the number of technical assistance missions they have flown in.

Much of the development model has created an “outsourced state,” where core government functions are delivered through donor-funded projects. Progress is judged by compliance with externally set targets rather than outcomes that matter to citizens.

Let us be honest. The system is outdated and needs a new framework. One that creates a win-win for both donors and recipient countries. Development aid should not be seen as simply “helping” and both parties should recognise it as such.

This is where economists, researchers, and practitioners should step in, and now is the ideal time. They are not only there to critique what is broken, but to help design something better.

How to Build a Network Effortlessly

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I once picked up a book that promised the secret to “getting things effortlessly.” I laughed, closed it, and went back to the grind. In those days, I believed the only honest path ran through sweat and late nights.

Years have sanded that certainty. Some of life’s best prizes arrive unforced, not because we labour hardest but because of who we become. That insight does not dismiss hard work; it sharpens it. And nowhere is the lesson clearer than in the anxious business of networking.

“Your network is your net worth,” echoes through conferences and panel discussions.

The line is catchy and mostly true. A strong circle can tilt careers and companies. Yet, the real work of connection is often misunderstood, and, more importantly, mispracticed.

Many treat networking like a scavenger hunt, hustling from event to event, collecting business cards and begging for introductions. They may land a freelance gig or a short-term deal, but enduring ties seldom sprout from one-way requests. To build lasting relationships, we have to bring something of value to the table.

Why should busy people invest their scarce time in us?

The question may sound transactional, but that is the point. People back perceived value, never pity. Pity demeans both sides. The first rule is blunt. Build value before building a contact list. Do not fire off vague invitations to “hang out” or “collaborate.” Be precise.

What, exactly, do we want to do? Why should they care?

Clarity slices through noise. Everyone owns some asset worth sharing. It could be a fresh perspective, a skill, a link to another market, raw energy, or a sharp insight. Pair that with a decent personality and already stand out in a crowded room.

Good networks, like good reputations, grow organically. We meet someone as a customer, vendor, regulator or seatmate at an industry forum. We solve problems together, perform reliably, and return calls. Over time, the association strengthens until the label “network” feels too mechanical for what is really trust. That is why ventures launched solely to “build a network” often fizzle. The smarter play is to become so competent and consistent that people reach out to us. Integrity, deep knowledge and high standards travel fast.

Luck does appear. Some stumble upon a mentor or backer who changes everything. Such stories sparkle at cocktail hours, but they are statistical outliers and rarely the biggest winners over the long run.

Everybody already owns a network; the real question is its quality. If ours feels thin, concentrate on adding value within the existing ecosystem and remain patient. Credibility compounds.

At every mixer, someone will assure us that networking is “everything.” The claim is oversold, but the impulse behind it is sound. Indeed, relationships matter. The mistake is confusing motion with progress. Collecting names is easy; earning respect is hard and slow, the product of repeated proof that we understand their priorities and honour their time.

In the end, the finest networks are rarely built for networking’s sake. They emerge as a natural dividend of excellent work.

Before Help Can Be Summoned

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Over the weekend, a parent shared the story of a friend’s teenage son who died after unknowingly taking pills laced with fentanyl. “He wasn’t a problem child,” she recalled. “He had dreams. He had a future.” A single moment of curiosity, likely shaped by peer pressure, led to a tragic and irreversible mistake. Several of his friends who took the same pills survived, thanks only to swift intervention and access to naloxone, the overdose reversal medication.

In school corridors once defined by youthful energy and ambition, a quieter danger now lurks. Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid many times stronger than heroin, is slipping into the hands of young people with worrying ease. While its origins lie in clinical pain management, on the streets and in the shadows of everyday life, it has become something far more sinister.

Medical professionals emphasize fentanyl’s potency. It is estimated to be up to 50 times more powerful than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine. Just two milligrams, an amount smaller than a sesame seed, can prove fatal. Still, fentanyl continues to appear in substances passed off as harmless: fake prescription pills, crushed powders, even sweets. Many young people may not know they are taking fentanyl at all.

Educators and healthcare workers have begun to notice the subtle signs: teenagers who appear unusually fatigued, whose energy has dimmed, whose grades falter with no obvious cause. Some teachers have encountered students carrying pills or powders tucked into gum wrappers or cosmetic containers. What’s most disquieting is not the visibility of these drugs, but their very invisibility. Fentanyl has no smell, leaves little trace, and does its damage quickly, sometimes before help can even be summoned.

Some parents are alert, but their vigilance often focuses on the wrong signals. Traditional signs, unusual smells, rolling papers, erratic behavior, don’t apply to fentanyl. The drug can appear innocuous, resembling candy or mere dust. A physician at an international hospital in Addis Abeba noted that many families mistake early symptoms for the effects of puberty, academic stress, or general fatigue, never imagining a lethal substance could be involved.

Compounding the danger, many young people may not realize what they are taking. A pill thought to be for anxiety or pain might, in fact, be laced with fentanyl, or consist of it entirely. Medical professionals continue to stress the risk with a simple, chilling phrase: one pill can kill.

Mental health professionals say today’s youth are navigating rising pressures: academic demands, social media anxieties, financial stresses at home, and the emotional fallout of uncertain futures. In such circumstances, pills that promise escape or relief can be dangerously appealing.

The digital age has made access easy. Encrypted apps facilitate transactions with the push of a button. Delivery happens in parks, at school gates, and sometimes directly between students. Some teachers report that drugs have made their way into classrooms via local pharmacies and corrupt networks. Investigative reports, including by the BBC, suggest some of these substances may originate far from Africa, slipping past weak enforcement mechanisms and into local circulation.

The crisis extends beyond individual choices. Structural failures in regulation, health education, and emotional support contribute to the drug’s reach. In schools, the burden increasingly falls on teachers, who now straddle the line between educators and informal caregivers. One instructor at a private school described watching students withdraw in real time: once engaged pupils turning distant, distracted, and numb.

Responses remain scattered and insufficient. Arrests alone will not stemmed supply. In many communities, awareness of fentanyl’s lethality is still limited, not only among adolescents but also among parents, teachers, and frontline healthcare workers.

Solutions will require more than punitive action. Mental health support must be embedded in schools, religious institutions, and community centers, places where trust and familiarity already exist. Early, honest education about synthetic drugs, delivered through peer-led programs and survivor testimonies, can offer a more realistic form of prevention than outdated “Just Say No” slogans or abstract warnings.

At the policy level, stronger oversight is urgently needed over pharmaceutical imports and local supply chains. Legal accountability for distributors complicit in trafficking must be enforced. But at the core of any effective response is compassion. Behind many addictions lies unresolved emotional pain, isolation, or trauma. Addressing these wounds can offer a path forward not only for individuals but for families and communities.

The tragedy of a young life cut short underscores the human cost of inaction. It is a loss that ripples outward: through classrooms, households, and entire generations. Caution alone cannot stem an impending crisis; but empathy, awareness, and collective responsibility just might.

The Curious Case of Barking Dogs

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On multiple occasions, I have found myself watching the garbage collectors on their morning route, a subtle unease settling in. There is a somber reality to their work, a reminder that in a world of vast opportunity, some find their roles confined to clearing away what others discard. It is the kind of observation that opens a corridor of reflection on the infrastructures that quietly shape daily life: the destinations of waste, the hidden labour behind sanitation, and the silent burdens borne by those who manage society’s refuse.

Amid such contemplation, an odd yet telling detail stands out. The neighborhood dogs, vocal and insistent, seem to have formed strong opinions about these workers.

Modern life runs on the rails of convenience. Items are consumed, discarded, and forgotten with the ease of a flicked switch. Yet behind that ease lies a chain of human effort, rarely seen and less frequently acknowledged. The question of where waste goes after being cast aside leads inevitably to those who shoulder its burden.

Sanitation workers, often noticed only in passing and announced by the hum of machinery at dawn, endure conditions that many would find intolerable. There is the stench that clings to their uniforms, the strain of lifting overflowing bins, and the dispiriting task of sorting through others’ carelessness. The toll, physical and psychological, is significant. Research consistently points to elevated health risks in this line of work, worsened by social stigma that renders their labor invisible even as it undergirds everyday life.

This aversion to engaging with waste continues in subtler ways. The journey of what disappears down the toilet, for instance, remains largely unexplored in public consciousness. Even beneficial innovations like wastewater treatment or biogas energy generation evoke discomfort. Such reactions stem not from science, but from a deep-seated reluctance to confront the less polished parts of human existence. Waste. literal and symbolic, is meant to be removed, not reflected upon.

And yet, in the midst of this reflection, another small phenomenon arises; the barking of dogs. It may seem trivial, even amusing, but it hints at something more. Certain individuals, often those in uniforms or covered in the markers of manual labor, receive disproportionate attention from neighborhood pets. Mechanics, delivery personnel, sanitation workers, these figures often elicit a full-throated canine response, while a sharply dressed passerby might be ignored altogether.

This is not a simple case of canine discrimination, but rather a complex interplay of a dog’s highly attuned senses and their deep-seated instincts.

Dogs observe the world with an intensity unfamiliar to human perception. Their world is a rich tapestry of scents, sounds, and subtle visual cues that often go unnoticed by our comparatively dull senses. Their reactions stem from an intricate web of visual cues, scents, and daily routines. A garbage collector who appears regularly but never enters the home disrupts the ordinary, triggering territorial instincts. Uniforms, too, become signifiers of the unfamiliar, a coded alert for the hyper-vigilant senses of a dog.

Smell plays an even greater role. Sanitation workers carry with them traces from dozens, even hundreds, of locations. To a dog, this invisible trail transforms the worker into an intrusion, a walking collection of foreign signals. It is not judgment, only instinct.

And beneath it all lies the emotional radar of dogs, finely tuned to the states of those around them. A person anxious around dogs may move stiffly or emit stress through body language and scent. That, in turn, heightens a dog’s alertness, sparking a loop of mutual suspicion. Calm, grounded presence often disarms this cycle, met not with barks but with curiosity or even friendliness.

In the orchestration of these morning moments, the arrival of the waste truck, the ripple of canine reaction, the retreat into routine, there’s a window into the systems that order the world and the instincts that respond to them. Beneath the noise, a deeper story unfolds: one of invisible labor, unspoken hierarchies, and the strange wisdom of animals. It is in such ordinary scenes that a society reveals itself, offering, to those willing to observe, a quiet education in empathy and attention.

Fresh Push to Help Farmers Get Covered & Cash In

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The Ministry of Agriculture has established the Rural Finance Service Unit (RFSU) to coordinate and expand agricultural insurance nationwide. Announced on Tuesday at the 2025 UNDP Financial Resilience in Agriculture Community of Practice forum (held at the UN Economic Commission for Africa headquarters), the RFSU is supported by UNDP, JICA, and other partners with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Agriculture Minister Girma Amente (PhD) and State Minister Sofia Kassa attended the launch.

The RFSU is hoped to adress critical gaps in Ethiopia’s agricultural finance and insurance sector. Despite agriculture contributing 32pc of GDP it receives minimal financial support. Agricultural credit accounts for less than 10pc of total lending, with banks reluctant to engage and microfinance institutions shifting focus to urban areas, Getachew Mekone, unit head stated.

Current credit provision falls drastically short of demand. In 2023/24, only 8pc of total bank loans (over one trillion Birr) went to agriculture, Microfinance institutions supplied 18pc of the sector’s credit. Overall, disbursed credit met just 2pc of the estimated annual demand of 2.58 trillion Birr. The government aims to increase annual agricultural lending to 881 billion Br by 2030.

According to Getachew limited credit access forces farmers to rely on low-input farming, reducing output. Similarly, agricultural insurance, vital for managing climate risks like floods, remains underdeveloped. Past insurance pilots by donors and private actors over two decades have failed to scale up, leaving farmers vulnerable to harvest losses and poverty.

The RFSU will consolidate these disparate insurance initiatives and strengthen government involvement in market access, risk management tools, and institutional support.