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Author: Digital Editor

Moonlight in Zoma

Posted on by Digital Editor

A leisurely Sunday afternoon at a coffee shop near Mekanisa Abo Mazoria turned into a spontaneous adventure. Over coffee, my friend mentioned a nearby park often described as a nature lover’s paradise, Zoma Museum. I had heard about it in passing and through media coverage but never made the trip myself. The word “museum” seemed slightly misleading for what turned out to be a mostly open-air haven bursting with indigenous vegetation.

We bought our tickets at a small kiosk that doubled as a souvenir stand. The 150 Br entrance fee felt reasonable, though I reserved judgment for after the experience. My first impression was the park’s uneven, sloping terrain, which must have posed challenges for development. A narrow cobblestone path led us in, flanked by raw, wooden handrails and winding walkways.

Immediately, the park’s lush greenery revealed itself. Indigenous plants, carefully landscaped gardens, and vibrant pathways greeted us with fragrant air infused with scents of besobela (Ethiopian basil), ariti (wormwood), coffee, mint, and more. Splashes of color from flowers blanketed the compound like a living tapestry.

What fascinated me most were the fruit trees, guava and avocado, heavy with ripening fruit. Avocados littered the ground beneath one tree, returning nutrients to the soil as natural compost. It was a quiet, self-sustaining ecosystem, beautifully maintained and deeply intentional.

Nearly everything within the compound is crafted from natural or reclaimed materials. Stools, bridges, walls, even the restrooms, are built with wooden frames and clay. The landscape, vegetable nurseries, and pristine gardens bear witness to the insight and care of its founders: Meskerem Assegued, a curator and anthropologist, and Elias Sime, an acclaimed artist.

Young couples, parents with children, and solitary visitors wandered the grounds in quiet reflection. The rustle of dry leaves underfoot, the chirping of birds, and the cracking of tree bark served as a natural soundtrack. There was a shared, unspoken reverence for the place, an oasis for those deprived of their birthright to clean air and serene surroundings.

Everyone I observed appeared calm and joyful. I was reminded how kindly nature treats us, when we treat it kindly. Yet, too often, we defy the balance, disrupting ecosystems and inviting disaster. At Zoma, I was reminded of an alternate path.

A sudden wave of nausea had me searching for a restroom. Expecting a rudimentary setup, I was surprised by the clean, well-lit, and cozy interior. The facilities were simple, yet far better maintained than those in many of Addis Abeba’s more modern establishments, where automatic sensors and “state-of-the-art” toilets often malfunction. Zoma’s restrooms, by contrast, were fully functional and abundant.

In fact, the thoughtful provision of such basic amenities should be a standard for any public facility. Yet in Addis, access to a clean toilet remains a luxury in too many places. Legislating for mandatory sanitation standards in recreational and public spaces would be a major step forward in improving public health and dignity.

Refreshed, we sought a place to rest our legs. The central garden lounge was the perfect retreat, surrounded by towering trees, climbing vines, and wooden stools tucked discreetly among the foliage. We ordered freshly made pineapple and strawberry juices, served cold and generous in portion. Sipping them in this tranquil hideaway felt like indulgence at its finest, as though we had stumbled upon a tropical sanctuary untouched by the rush of city life.

As twilight fell, the compound took on a magical tone. We wandered toward the vegetable nursery, following a cobblestone path alongside gabion stone walls. At the end was a wide garden sloping gently downward. Beside it stood a striking rectangular building with large French windows, stone pillars, and warm amber lighting—evoking the classical charm of Rome’s Pantheon.

Children played on slides while youth somersaulted across the grass. We gave in to the temptation and kicked off our shoes, lying back on the soft lawn. Above us, the moon beamed gently. I was reminded of an old jazz ballad I loved during my university days: Moonlight in Vermont by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong. I played it on my phone. As Ella’s angelic voice intertwined with Armstrong’s husky croon, the atmosphere took on an almost cinematic softness.

Nearby, a clean cattle shed housed a gentle herd chewing their cud under the moonlight, as if listening too.

Zoma is not just a park; it is a rare ecological vision brought to life. Indigenous herbs like flourish here. Clay houses, long abandoned in modern construction, have been reborn as living spaces in harmony with the land. Wooden benches tucked among the gardens offer moments of rest and reflection. Cobblestone paths weave through cascading slopes that beckon visitors to linger, to snap photos, to remember.

Zoma is proof that coexistence between people, animals, and nature is not only possible, but also deeply nourishing. It is a model worth emulating if we are to heal our fractured relationship with the earth.

Demographic Dividend Drains Away When Youth Policy Drifts

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In contemporary sub-Saharan Africa, young people drive the economy. Nearly two-thirds of the population in many countries is under age 35. The share is even higher in Ethiopia, at roughly 70pc. Twenty years ago, enrolling in university almost guaranteed a job in the public or private sectors. Today, that promise has evaporated. Young graduates find themselves adrift, with no clear policies or programs to chart their futures.

The existing Ethiopian Youth Policy, drafted in 2004, pledged to empower individuals aged 15 to 29 by equipping them with skills, knowledge and ethical integrity to participate fully in a democratic system and thrive in economic and social activities. The policy even declared a youth fund, championed by Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn. Yet the fund, hailed as a lifeline for entrepreneurial young people, collapsed due to mismanagement and a lack of transparency.

On the ground, technical and vocational education and training programs have made a difference, helping some young Ethiopians acquire market-ready skills. But, higher education remains stuck in limbo: Universities and government leaders show no urgency to reform curricula to match labour market demands. New graduates, even those from the regional states’ top schools, often struggle to secure paid internships or entry-level jobs. Medical doctors, engineers and lawyers can wait months, even years, before landing their first professional roles.

The mismatch between a swelling young workforce and a sluggish economy presents a depressing dilemma. The World Bank estimates that Ethiopia sends nearly two million new job seekers into the labour market each year. The public sector, once the principal employer, cannot absorb new graduates in meaningful roles. The private sector, still dwarfed and undercapitalised, lacks incentives to expand hiring.

Public investment focuses heavily on supply-side measures, such as expanding school enrollment, building campuses, and launching skills training. Demand-side initiatives, such as stimulating enterprises to create jobs, remain underdeveloped.

The result is a dynamic yet disillusioned youth cohort. When policymakers discuss the problem, many default to lamenting the quality of education and the absence of an entrepreneurial mindset among graduates. Yet, anecdotal evidence tells a different story.

At a recent workshop, a State Minister urged young people to master technologies invented in Europe during the early 1900s. Outside the hall, their peers worldwide were busy solving today’s and tomorrow’s challenges, developing fintech apps, experimenting with renewable energy and pioneering sustainable agriculture. The State Minister’s advice uncovered a troubling disconnect. Ethiopia’s leadership struggles to grasp the rapid pace of global change.

Civic and nonprofit groups, once viewed as vital partners in youth development, now operate in an uncertain environment. The government was unprepared when crises hit these organisations, and support systems to sustain them are scarce. As a result, many promising initiatives falter before reaching scale.

Ethiopia’s standing as a top recipient of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) support, with nearly 1.2 billion dollars allocated in 2024, showed the depth of the country’s development challenges. Despite this influx of aid, basic issues persisted, including stubborn youth unemployment, skill gaps and weak private sector growth. Added to that mix, internal conflicts continue in the Amhara and Oromia regional states, further inhibiting economic activities and scaring off potential investors.

Meaningful progress will require political courage and new strategies. It demands that the government address the root causes of unemployment rather than its symptoms. Some suggest constitutional amendments to decentralise power and give regional states more autonomy over economic planning. Others point to successful models abroad, such as several East Asian countries, for example, which combined government-led vocational programs with tax incentives for small and medium-sized enterprises to spur job creation.

Policymakers should acknowledge that leadership failure is not the only factor at play. The education system needs to evolve, as global economic conditions exert headwinds, and rapid demographic growth strains resources. Technological change offers both risks and opportunities. Getting the policy mix right, aligning supply-side investments with demand-side incentives, will be critical.

A more coherent approach could include closer collaboration with the private sector, having clear targets for government-led internships and employment schemes. It can be complemented with rigorous measures to curb nepotism and corruption. It might also involve benchmarking against countries that have successfully undertaken similar transitions. For instance, Malaysia and South Korea once faced surging youth unemployment but now boast vibrant private sectors supported by public policies that linked university outputs to industry needs.

Sadly, time is not on Ethiopia’s side. As the labour force grows, the cost of inaction will rise, risking social unrest and an erosion of hard-won development gains. Frustration will mount if university graduates cannot translate their skills into jobs. That could destabilise communities, fuel migration pressures, and reverse progress in poverty reduction.

The next generation of leaders should embrace a pragmatic vision, treating youth unemployment as a macroeconomic priority, not a social footnote. They should reinvigorate the private sector, making hiring easier for startups and established firms. They should reform universities so that curricula reflect real-world needs and expand government-supported internships to give graduates a foot in the door. They also have to attack corruption head-on, for resources to flow to the most capable and deserving.

Ethiopia possesses much of what it needs for a breakthrough. A dynamic and educated youth population, substantial international goodwill, and a public administration capable of large-scale interventions are all here for use. What is lacking is the political will to transform a strategically coherent plan into tangible outcomes.

Protectionism Will Not Protect Against Pandemics

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As many Global North countries turn inward, foreign assistance has become an easy target. The decimation of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has dominated headlines, but the United Kingdom and many European countries have also cut their foreign-aid budgets. Policymakers in these countries view this spending as a form of charity and think that bolstering their economic and military might will deliver more benefits for more people.

This instinct is short-sighted. It recalls the great-power ambitions of the 19th and early 20th centuries that culminated in two devastating world wars. The global governance architecture that emerged from this unprecedented tragedy, including the Bretton Woods institutions, the United Nations, bilateral foreign-aid programs, and NGOs like CARE and Oxfam, initially focused on responding to reconstruction needs and humanitarian crises, before turning to development.

Despite its flaws, this approach helped lift more than one billion people out of extreme poverty and build stable and thriving economies worldwide.

The global health system is a case in point. Built with funding from the United States (US), the UK, and other wealthy countries, it has substantially reduced infectious disease rates and health inequalities, creating a safer and more secure world. Five years ago, this system was instrumental in detecting COVID-19, tracking its spread, and mobilising a global response.

But, COVID-19 also illustrated how poorer countries and households are caught in an inequality-pandemic cycle. Contrary to claims that the Global North gives too much aid and receives too little in return, it is the Global South that is getting the bad deal. After compiling and analysing hundreds of peer-reviewed studies, the Global Council on Inequality, AIDS & Pandemics (of which we are members) found that poor and marginalised people struggle to access health services during disease outbreaks, leaving them more susceptible to infection, illness, and death.

Viruses and other contagions prey on these vulnerabilities, turning outbreaks into epidemics, and epidemics into pandemics, which deepen inequalities and reinforce the cycle.

In the early days of COVID-19, this inequality-pandemic cycle was on display in Global North countries. White-collar professionals worked safely from home, thanks to high-speed internet and teleconferencing platforms, whereas small businesses and factories closed, throwing blue-collar workers into financial crisis. In these countries, the pandemic hit low-income and Black and minority communities the hardest.

The unequal impact of the pandemic was also felt between countries. Vaccines were developed in record time – the result of a remarkable multilateral investment in strategic industries – but high-income countries purchased most of them, and then refused to share excess doses with the developing world. This vaccine hoarding caused more than one million deaths and cost the global economy an estimated 2.3 trillion dollars.

The same pattern played out in the early response to the AIDS pandemic. Effective antiretroviral drugs became available in the Global North at the end of the 20th Century. But AIDS continued to kill hundreds of thousands of people in the Global South, and especially in sub-Saharan Africa. The unconscionable denial of access to lifesaving treatment sparked global outrage, leading to the establishment of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, & Malaria, and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in the US.

In 2002, fewer than one million people living with HIV had access to antiretrovirals, whereas more than 30 million do today. Expanding access to treatment has so far saved an estimated 26 million lives. And, before the recent foreign-aid cuts, the world could have achieved its goal of ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.

The decades-long journey to end AIDS has underscored the importance of investing in health systems, medical research, and vaccine and drug production in both the Global North and the South. It has also highlighted that people’s living conditions, often called the social determinants of health, including job security, income level, access to education and affordable housing, and respect for rights, determine their well-being.

For example, in 1996, Botswana, which was hit particularly hard by the AIDS pandemic, effectively added a year of secondary school to its public education system. This policy created a natural, population-level experiment on the effect of schooling on the risk of HIV infection. An analysis of huge cohorts of young people who went to school under the old system and the new system found that each additional year of schooling reduced a young person’s risk of HIV infection by 8.1 percentage points. This protective effect was strongest among women, whose risk of contracting HIV decreased by 11.6 percentage points for each additional year of school.

Building fairer societies leads to healthier populations that are better prepared to react to disease outbreaks and prevent pandemics. By contrast, defunding public education, slashing social safety nets, imposing tariffs, closing borders, cutting foreign aid, and disengaging from multilateral cooperation will widen inequalities, fuel political instability, accelerate economic migration, and create the conditions for viruses to thrive.

This is evident in Ukraine, where an overburdened healthcare system has accelerated the spread of drug-resistant infections through war-torn communities. Meanwhile, outbreaks of Ebola, mpox, measles, and Marburg are on the rise, partly owing to globalisation and climate change. Weakening the global health system will enable these outbreaks to fester and spread, taking lives, deepening inequalities, and potentially destabilising societies.

Experts are already warning that cuts to US programs (including those delivered by USAID) could lead to a 400pc increase in AIDS deaths by 2029.

The abiding lesson of pandemics is that no one is safe until everyone is safe. Building walls and shutting out the world will not protect people. The only way to do that is by reducing inequalities and investing in the global health system. In this context, cooperation is the ultimate act of self-interest.

The World Doesn’t Need Another Climate Fund

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Brazil has announced plans to launch a 125 billion dollar fund for the protection of tropical forests. It is a key element of the country’s plan to ensure the success of the next United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP-30), which Brazil will host.

But, at a time when some of the world’s wealthiest economies are slashing their foreign-aid budgets, and the United States is turning its back on climate action altogether, does the world need another climate fund?

Over the past three decades, more than 60 multilateral funds have emerged to raise financing for climate action in developing countries. Most are small and obscure, leaving around 19 sizable entities, including the Green Climate Fund (GCF), the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the Adaptation Fund (AF), and Climate Investment Funds (CIFs), that publicly report on their activities.

In theory, each entity serves a worthy purpose, and a few have gained some traction. In particular, the GCF has emerged as the second-largest multilateral provider of grant-based climate finance to the most vulnerable countries (after the World Bank). But, overall, their contributions are underwhelming. In 2021-22, the 19 funds tracked by the UN’s Standing Committee on Finance delivered a mere 3.7 billion dollars, roughly 195 million dollars per fund. That is far less than the 55.7 billion dollars that multilateral development banks collectively provided for climate action, and nowhere near the trillions of dollars that developing economies need annually to close the climate-finance gap.

A key problem is that donors have not been stepping up to fund these entities. The US, the world’s biggest economy and largest historical greenhouse-gas emitter, committed to providing a measly 17.5 million dollars to the much-touted Fund for Responding to Loss & Damage (FRLD), agreed at COP-28 in Dubai. At COP-29 in Baku, the AF fell well short of its 300 million dollars funding target, leaving it struggling to bankroll even the projects already in its pipeline.

Now, even these modest contributions are set to dry up.

President Donald Trump’s Administration has withdrawn the US from the Paris climate agreement, abandoned the FRLD and other funds, and dismantled the country’s foreign-aid apparatus. While not all wealthy economies are following in America’s footsteps, many, including Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, as well as the European Union (EU), are also tightening their purse strings.

Together with the US, these donors accounted for 69pc of bilateral climate commitments to developing countries in 2021-22 and supplied 74pc of contributions to climate funds since 2003. Raising climate finance, which is always a difficult task, is becoming a Herculean one, meaning countries will have to figure out how to do more with less. The last thing the world needs is for this limited capital to be funnelled into a fragmented, inefficient system composed of dozens of narrow climate funds.

Climate funds were created to address shortcomings of existing multilateral institutions like the World Bank. For example, they offer “direct access” funding to national and regional entities, thereby promoting country ownership and helping to build institutional capacity. Their smaller scale and larger numbers were supposed to promote healthy competition and give recipient countries more options.

But, the fund landscape has become so crowded, with each entity possessing its own accreditation rules, approval processes, and compliance requirements, that recipients should navigate a bureaucratic maze to access any financing at all. All this red tape, which slows disbursements considerably, is especially burdensome for the most climate-vulnerable countries, such as small island developing states, whose institutional capacity is already stretched thin.

It does not help that keeping all these funds running costs money. The overhead of the Special Climate Change Fund, for example, represented more than half of its project commitments in 2019-21. This is hardly the best use of limited climate finance. It is also worth noting that, while climate funds are generally supposed to raise “new and additional” financing, this has seldom happened. Instead, they tend to draw from a fixed pool of public funds for sustainable development, which includes different climate-related projects and other critical priorities, such as health, education, and poverty reduction.

Far from creating yet another climate fund, delegates at COP-30 should focus on streamlining climate finance. A handful of funds with harmonised standards and processes would be far better equipped to deliver efficient and accessible funding and ensure that as few dollars as possible are wasted.

Experience suggests that such an effort might run up against considerable resistance. The CIFs were supposed to be a storage, to be wound down following the rise of the GCF. But in 2019, their governing committee scrapped the sunset clause, insisting, over the objections of experts and civil society organisations, on their continued relevance.

Ensuring that future efforts to build a more efficient climate-finance architecture are not similarly thwarted will require powerful actors to bring their influence to bear. This is the kind of climate leadership the world needs from Brazil.

Mutually Assured Development Destruction

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Toward the end of the ancient Indian epic, the Mahabharata, Krishna’s Yadava clan self-destructs. Many dark omens presage their downfall: nature behaves erratically, and pests multiply. Sin, deception, and violence proliferate, eroding trust and solidarity. Clan members humiliate and insult wise elders. When Krishna’s extended family goes on a picnic, the men get drunk, argue, and attack each other, until eventually all of them are dead.

This cautionary tale has gained new resonance as geopolitical tensions, including in South Asia, escalate, and many countries embrace protectionist policies. US President Donald Trump’s second administration has contributed significantly to the current fragmentation and disorder. But other wealthy countries have exacerbated the situation by failing to show any real solidarity in response to Trump’s hostile policies.

The lack of development cooperation is a prime example of this growing appetite for mutually assured destruction.

To be sure, aid from donor countries was already declining, and recent events have exposed the system’s injustices. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed Western governments’ greed, undermining others’ trust in their global leadership. The fact that these governments have directed most of their dwindling foreign-aid budgets to Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion, diverting funds away from other war-torn and desperately poor countries, has underscored the largely self-serving approach to such “charity” flows.

Still, it is surprising – and dispiriting – that other donor countries have not stepped up after Trump terminated almost all US foreign-aid funding and programming. This would have been the obvious thing to do, not necessarily out of solidarity, but simply because of geopolitical self-interest.

For starters, Trump’s indiscriminate attacks on allies and rivals alike have demonstrated the necessity of coordinated action, which requires building alliances, supporting multilateralism, and cultivating soft power. One easy and relatively cheap way to do that is by continuing to support multilateral institutions. Such funding may also defuse some of the anger that many people in the Global South feel about the Western world’s complicity in the ongoing decimation and mass killings in Gaza.

The massive reduction in US direct aid and financing for international organisations will hinder the provision of global public goods, including health and climate stability. The concept of global public investment suggests that all countries have a stake in solving these challenges, and should thus contribute resources to addressing them, according to their means, and distribute the collected funds based on need and impact.

But the response of most rich countries has so far been appalling. Instead of scaling up foreign assistance, several European governments have slashed it, citing the need to channel funds to defence investment. As a result, some of the most immediate needs that fall under a global public investment framework are going unmet.

This is especially baffling because the amounts required to plug the development-financing hole left by the United States are so small as to be trivial. For example, Trump’s withdrawal of the US from the World Health Organisation (WHO), which remains absolutely critical for managing global health threats, means that the WHO faces a 1.9 billion dollars budget shortfall in 2026-27, a gap that rich countries and even most large middle-income countries could easily afford to fill.

It is similar to other international organisations. The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) faces an estimated 40pc reduction in funding, equal to roughly four billion dollars. The WFP, which served more than 100 million people in 2024 and won the Nobel Peace Prize five years ago, should now downsize its staff by nearly one-third (around 6,000 positions worldwide) and reduce the amount of life-saving food that it provides, because no other countries have offered to offset the shortfall.

Similarly, the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), which relied on the US for more than 40pc of its financing, will need to cut more than half of its workforce and reduce or eliminate some of its essential programs. (Switzerland and the United Kingdom, two other major UNAIDS funders, have likewise reduced their contributions). That could lead to six times more HIV infections and a 400pc increase in AIDS deaths by 2029, as well as the emergence of new strains, which would have negative repercussions for all countries.

However, the organisation’s budget gap is a modest 58 million dollars, the same shortfall facing the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA), which has to lay off 20pc of its staff.

Given these minuscule sums, filling the gap left by the US would have a negligible fiscal impact on traditional donors and large middle-income countries. But, only a handful of countries, like South Korea, have responded to the funding crisis, preventing essential organisations’ collapse and enabling them to function properly, for now. If wealthier countries refuse to provide for the global common good, the multilateral system as we know it will not survive.

Drowning in Someone’s Storm

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Friendship is supposed to be a two-way street; a bond built on mutual respect, trust, and support. But when that dynamic shift, and the friendship begins to resemble unpaid emotional labor, it leaves you drained and quietly resentful.

A few years ago, I found myself caught in such relationships; friendships that masqueraded as closeness but were, in truth, one-sided dependencies. Three years later, I’m still somehow the villain in someone else’s narrative.

Just last week, someone I met casually mentioned that my former friend still feels sad about how things ended. Apparently, she also continues to blame me. That revelation stirred a familiar cocktail of surprise, frustration, and a quiet kind of sorrow.

On one hand, I struggled to comprehend how someone who so thoroughly exhausted me could feel wronged. On the other, it reminded me just how easily people rewrite stories in their minds when accountability is too painful to face.

My former friend, older and confident on the surface, remains committed to seeing herself as the abandoned one. It is easier than acknowledging how she drove me to the edge. She was beautiful, well-off, impeccably dressed, always driving the newest car. People gravitated toward her. But up close, I saw someone else entirely.

She was deeply insecure. It was not occasional self-doubt, it was the backdrop of our friendship. At first, I thought she just needed support. She had been through a breakup; I assumed she was navigating a rough patch. But the pity party never ended. I came to realize it was not a phase, it was her identity.

Every conversation revolved around her sadness, her heartbreaks, her failures. I tried to uplift her. I poured time and energy into being her emotional scaffolding. Eventually, she burned every other bridge, and I became her only friend. Then came the favors.

She started leaning on me for help with her work. What I didn’t see at the time was how easily pity can be weaponized. I kept telling myself this is what friends do. But months turned into years. I was writing her reports, meeting her deadlines, and living on her responsibilities.

Even my family began to notice. “You’re being used,” they warned. I did not want to hear it. I made excuses for her. But deep down, I knew they were right.

When I finally began pushing back, gently, respectfully, asking her to take more responsibility, she cried. She accused me of lacking empathy. Suddenly, I was the adversary simply for encouraging her to take responsibility.

So, I stopped calling. I stopped checking in. I began protecting my peace.

Eventually, she reached out again. Not to mend things. Not to ask how I was. She needed help with another work project. When I said I was unavailable, she was offended. She stopped talking to me.

Weeks later, she messaged to say she had lost her job. Before I could even express sympathy, she hit me with blame: “If you had helped me like before, I wouldn’t have been fired.”

No reflection. No ownership. Just blame. And to my surprise, I absorbed it. I carried the guilt. I mourned her job loss, even though she did not depend on it financially. It took me weeks to realize the only thing I had done was draw a boundary. And that should not be a crime.

That should have been the end of it. But life has a strange way of circling back. Just when I thought I had finally closed that chapter, she reappeared, reaching out as if nothing had changed. She insisted I was still her only real friend.

And there it was again, the pressure, the guilt, the sense that I was being emotionally blackmailed into re-entering a space I had outgrown.

Difficult friendships rarely announce themselves as toxic. They are not loud. They are not violent. They are fragile. Constantly breaking. Always in crisis. And slowly, without realizing it, we become their life raft. We stop swimming for ourselves just to keep them afloat.

Psychologists say people pleasers and high-empathy individuals are especially vulnerable to these kinds of dynamics. They mistake guilt for love, exhaustion for loyalty. Over time, the toll is real; burnout, compassion fatigue, and deep emotional resentment.

Walking away does not feel good. It feels selfish. Harsh. Even cruel. But it’s necessary. Studies from the University of California, Berkeley have shown that people who remain in toxic friendships report higher anxiety, lower self-worth, and even poorer cardiovascular health.

Leaving that friendship was one of the hardest things I have done, but also one of the most liberating. It taught me that someone else’s crisis should not rob me of my peace or dictate the course of my life.

We can still love people, from afar. We can wish them healing without sacrificing ourselves. Because friendship should uplift, not exhaust. It should challenge, not crush. And sometimes, the most compassionate thing we can do, for them and for ourselves, is to walk away from someone who only sees our worth in what we can give.

Some people are always looking for a lifeboat. Freedom is the quiet decision to stop sinking with them.

Gambling on Survival

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Sometimes it feels like the world has turned into a high-stakes lottery. The kind where everyone is expected to become a millionaire overnight, and if that magic does not happen by tomorrow, a quiet disappointment settles in. It is heavy, and it lingers.

Well-meaning voices from an older generation still offer advice: “Just save up for a down payment,” or “Take out a car loan and build credit.” It is guidance that once made sense, in a different time, under different conditions. Houses were more affordable then, and even those luxuries were earned after years, sometimes decades, of work. But today, the cost of nearly everything has skyrocketed. And yet, the expectation to catch up, to succeed, to accumulate, persists.

That kind of pressure does not just weigh down, it corrodes. It breeds a constant sense of failure for not reaching milestones that were never realistically within reach. And in that tension between expectation and reality, something darker takes root: desperation.

That is when the headlines begin to mirror nightmares. Stories of young people vanishing, of journeys across borders that end in silence. People risk everything on the hope of better work, a better life. But more often than not, those stories do not have happy endings.

Only a few make it through with something to show for it, some comfort, maybe even prosperity. But many more are broken along the way. Some never arrive. Others never return.

A domestic worker once made that choice. She went through the official channels, papers in hand, and still, the cost was steep. On countless days she called in tears, worn down by the sheer weight of the work and the loneliness. She toughed it out, determined to pay her debts, but the misery never lifted. She counted the days, not with hope, but with exhaustion.

More recently, her family faced another blow. One of her relatives disappeared without warning. No goodbyes, no final message. She left behind unpaid wages and personal belongings. The silence was alarming. Days later, the truth emerged: she and a friend had set out to cross a border. No visa. No protection. Just a desperate plan.

The journey itself defies imagination. Robbery, violence, and exploitation lie in wait at every step. Women, in particular, face unimaginable risks. Some are lost to the desert. Others, to human traffickers. The families they leave behind are left grasping at questions that will never find answers.

And still, they leave.

Consider the young woman, kin to the domestic worker mentioned earlier. Her story is not an outlier, but part of a wider pattern rooted in economic strain. The expectations placed on her by relatives in rural areas, expectations to send money, to be the one who makes it, clashed with wages that could barely sustain her own life. The arithmetic never added up, and in the face of that, the promise of work abroad glimmered like a shortcut out of despair.

The stories that fuel these decisions are seductive. Some are based on fragments of truth, others are manipulations crafted by smugglers with much to gain. But for those standing on the edge of desperation, even a distorted success story can ignite hope. That flicker is often all it takes.

And for those who survive the journey, many find themselves trapped in a different kind of nightmare. Undocumented domestic workers in many countries, particularly under systems like kafala, where residency is tied to the employer, exist in a state of virtual bondage. Their passports are seised. Their mobility, their choices, their freedom, all disappear behind closed doors.

There, abuse festers. Long hours without rest, wages withheld without reason, verbal and physical violence. And all of it in silence, because there is nowhere to go. No support system, no way home. The isolation is absolute. The number of women who take their own lives in such conditions stands as a harrowing indictment of this hidden world.

That young woman who walked away without a word, she did not vanish into the night out of recklessness, but out of resignation. The silence of her departure, the unanswered calls, the belongings left behind, each detail speaks to a deeper reality: the immense pressure she must have felt, the belief that no other route remained open.

She likely carried with her a fear of what lay ahead, of who might exploit her, of failing the very people she hoped to support. One can only hope that, wherever she landed, the outcome was not as cruel as the possibilities she risked.

Her story, like so many buried beneath statistics, is a wake-up call. It exposes an unequal world where people are driven to gamble with their lives, not because they are reckless, but because the systems meant to support them have collapsed. It speaks to the profound imbalance that marks the global order, where safety, dignity, and basic economic security remain privileges, not rights.

What these journeys reveal is not just human resilience. They are also cries for help, and indictments of failed policy. Until those left behind are given reasons to stay—opportunities that are real, wages that are fair, futures that feel possible—these silent departures will continue.

No one should ever have to trade safety for survival. No one should walk into the unknown, hoping not to disappear.

Dashen Bank Rolls Out Mobile Payment Solution

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Dashen Bank has introduced a new digital payment service that allows customers to pay for fuel with ease using the Dashen Super mobile app. The service was officially launched on May 13 and is now available at every fuel stations.

According to the bank, the Dashen Super app enables users to make payments in just three clicks, offering a fast and convenient alternative to traditional payment methods. Dashen Bank announced that it plans to expand the service across all fuel stations in the country in the near future.

Speaking at the launch event, Bereo Hassan State Minister of Transport and Logistics, confirmed the integration of the Dashen Super app with the national transaction system. He emphasised that the collaboration between the Ministry, Dashen Bank, and other financial institutions ensures the system is built on transparent and accountable operations.

Bereo also added that the centralised commercial transaction system is now fully operational. M-PESA Safaricom and Oromia Bank have also joined the platform and begun implementing the necessary protocols. The integration of the Dashen Super app is expected to boost the capacity and efficiency of digital transactions across the sector, he said.

Four Key Agreements Passed in Parliaments 29th Regular Session

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In its 29th regular session of the fourth year, Ethiopia’s 6th Parliament approved four key agreements: two loan deals, the establishment of a finance corporation, and an air transport agreement.

Assistant Minister of State for Finance, Meseret Haile, introduced the proposed loan agreements and requested they be sent directly to a second reading for discussion and approval. Parliament accepted the request and proceeded with a detailed discussion on the draft proclamations.

Members of Parliament raised various questions and comments, particularly concerning the loan agreements. These were addressed by Eyob Tekalign (PhD), State Minister of Finance.

Following the discussion, the House unanimously passed Proclamation No. 1377/2017, which approves a budget support agreement between Ethiopia and the Government of Italy planned to promote environmental sustainability and a green economy.

It also unanimously approved Proclamation No. 1378/2017, endorsing a partnership with the International Development Association to support Ethiopia’s Education Sector Transformation Program.

Parliament then approved Proclamation No. 1379/2017, which ratifies Ethiopia’s membership in the African Finance Corporation. The decision passed with a majority vote, with three members abstaining.

The session concluded with the unanimous approval of Proclamation No. 1380/2017, which formalises an air transport agreement between Ethiopia and Austria.

New Pact Targets Rural Road Links, Food Security Goals

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The Ministry of Urban Development and Infrastructure has signed an agreement with several federal institutions to launch a major project targeting rural connectivity and food security.

At the signing ceremony, State Minister Yetmegeta Asrat represented the Ministry alongside officials from the Federal Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, the Federal Public Procurement and Property Authority, the Environmental Protection Authority, and Helvetas Ethiopia. A separate agreement was also signed with the Ethiopian Roads Administration, the Ethiopian Construction Authority, and the Construction Management Institute.

Yetmegeta said the project is part of the government’s 10-year plan to improve rural living conditions by linking Kebeles to main roads. The programme will be implemented equitably across 12 regions, including Dire Dawa, with a focus on areas with strong agricultural potential and underserved lowland zones.

Plans include constructing or upgrading over 7,500 km of roads, repairing 10,071 km, and building more than 10,000 lowland bridges. Incomplete road projects from previous years will also be finalised.

The project will involve local contractors and generate employment, with a strong emphasis on quality and long-term sustainability. All stakeholders pledged to use the funds responsibly and deliver lasting results.