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May 10 , 2025

Ethiopia's Aid Reckoning Demands a Homegrown Rescue Plan

Federal legislators recently summoned Shiferaw Teklemariam (PhD), head of the Disaster Risk Management Commission (DRMC), to explain a new bill designed to streamline the country's response to emergencies. A defining part of the bill is the introduction of a national fund, financed through 17 distin...

May 3 , 2025

When Pension Funds Nap Inflation Steals the Blanket

Pensioners have learned, rather painfully, the gulf between a figure on a passbook and a loaf of bread. A monthly allowance of 5,000Br (about 38 dollars at last week's weighted average rate) used to keep senior retirees in groceries, rent, and a little dignity. Now it covers barely a day's shopping. A recent study put it with cruel accuracy that, “pensioners are paying the government to hold their savings.” Inflation still runs amok with close to 20pc year-on-year (YoY), while Treasury bill (T-bills) rates are stuck near 15pc; anyone forced into those bills loses money on every Birr. Fo...


Apr 26 , 2025

Policymakers Trudge Down a Path of Punitive Taxation

Benjamin Franklin famously quipped that “nothing is certain but death and taxes.” Yet, when taxes themselves threaten economic life, policymakers should reconsider their methods. Ethiopia's leaders seem keen to test this grim hypothesis, relentlessly increasing taxes on a dwindling pool of formal taxpayers. Rather than broadening the tax base, their heavy-handed approach risks strangling the economy and undermining their fiscal goals. They plan to mobilise no less than 1.5 trillion Br in federal taxes during the current fiscal year. The current fiscal regime under Prime Minister Abiy...


Apr 20 , 2025

Overseas Job Push Evokes Hopes at Home, Hardship Abroad

Mufariat Kamil, the minister of Labour & Skills, recently told Parliament that her Ministry had created 3.4 million new domestic jobs in nine months of the current fiscal year. She also touted an annual target of sending 833,333 workers overseas. Official figures, however, reveal that less than half of these have been placed abroad, an uncomfortable gap between grand plans and the harsher reality she confronted. Defending her strategy before members of Parliament, the Minister cited surging youth unemployment and the country's need for foreign exchange. Remittances already contribute ab...

Editorials

Apr 13 , 2025

Officials Bank on Student Service to Patch a Fractured Country

The federal government will soon require one year of national service from university students, which education officials have dubbed "Ethiopia University Service." Four-year students will serve after...

Apr 6 , 2025

Cheap Power Lures Bitcoin Miners. But Millions Wait for a Lightbulb Moment

Last week, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), part of the World Bank Group, announced a 100-million-dollar debt financing package for Raxio Group, a major data-centre operator in sub-Saharan...

Mar 30 , 2025

Media Council's Edging to Accreditation a Deceitful Drift

When the private satellite channel, Ethiopian Broadcasting Service (EBS), aired an emotional interview last week featuring a young woman's allegations of sexual assault, it inadvertently sparked a pol...

Mar 23 , 2025

Preventing War Far Cheaper Than Paying Its Deadly Price

Getachew Redda, head of the Tigray Interim Regional Administration (TIRA), at least up until last week, is no ordinary politician. Witty, articulate, and boldly confrontational, he seldom hesitates...

Mar 16 , 2025

A Country Governed by Guesswork, While Millions Lost in the Shadows

Ask anyone about the population of Addis Abeba, and a straightforward answer proves elusive. Wikipedia claims the city's population reached 5.7 million this year. Worldpopulationreview.com, however, p...

Mar 9 , 2025

The GMO Experiment Can Be Harvest of Hope, Not Seed of Trouble

Five years ago, 11 non-governmental organisations (NGOs), together with 40 allies across Africa, demanded a five-year moratorium on Ethiopia's use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). They wanted...

Mar 2 , 2025

Mismanaged, Trade Liberalisation Could Pour Cold Water on Local Hopes

The domestic economy has endured a punishing half-decade. A global pandemic throttled trade, a civil war inflicted grave damage to livelihoods and external financing, and persistent unrest in two of i...

Feb 23 , 2025

Africa Wants to Mark Own Homework with Homegrown Credit Agency

Africa is a place where the frustrations of its elites run high due to what they feel are external yardsticks distorting the continental potential. Ironically, successive generations of leaders have l...

Feb 16 , 2025

IMF Tells Ethiopia to Stay the Course, with Leap of Faith on the Market

Madame Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), recently became the third IMF chief to set foot in Addis Abeba in over 30 years. Her arrival showed Ethiopia's...

Feb 9 , 2025

The Race to the AUC Follows Mahamat's Grand Entrances, Quiet Exits Legacy

This week, the African Union's (AU) annual summit in Addis Abeba is set to be more than a routine exercise of convention by heads of states. The continent is beset by increasingly intricate conflicts...

Feb 1 , 2025

Addis Abeba's Costly Pursuit of Prosperity Bulldozes Dreams on Bargain Prices

Urban renewal is seldom gentle to those on the receiving end of redevelopment. Take several neighbourhoods of Addis Abeba where bustling life once thrived. Silence now reigns on them, bar the bulldoze...

Jan 25 , 2025

Birr in Tumble, Reform Rhetoric Meets Bitter Economic Realities

Grand ambitions have long driven Ethiopia's successive leaders, but they remain weighed down by deep structural vulnerabilities. But, nowhere is this more evident than in the monetary policy front, wh...

Jan 18 , 2025

Breaking the Chains to Protect the Vulnerable During Painful Reforms

Adanech Abebie, the mayor of Addis Abeba, addressed last week a warm-up session for her party's upcoming convention, urging cadres of the Prosperity Party - Prosperitians - to embrace what she describ...

Banks Struggle to Lend as Branches Bloom, Coffers Wither

A severe cash shortage squeezes the economy, and the deposit-to-loan ratio has slumped below 80pc, hitting its lowest point in decades. The scarcity of credit, often termed a credit crunch, has a stra...

Jan 4 , 2025

The Year That Falls Short in Lofty Ambitions, Brittle Realities

Time seldom passes without prompting reflection, and the dawn of 2025 should nudge Ethiopians into contemplating their trajectory as the first quarter of the 21st Century closes. This vast country...

Dec 28 , 2024

The Bureaucrats Turn to Masters of Misrule, Architects of Uncertainty

On a flight between Juba and Addis Abeba, Stefan Dercon, a professor of economic policy and former chief economist at Britain's Department for International Development (DfID), penned a forward to a b...


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Columns

Commentaries | May 10,2025

Sharia-Compliant Banks Lose Ground as Interest-Free Windows Sweep the Market

Life Matters | May 10,2025

When a Comment Cuts Deep, Thank the Shadow

My Opinion | May 10,2025

Soaring Rents, Speculative Land Deals Chokes Addis Abeba

Sunday with Eden | May 10,2025

Raising Builders, Not Spenders

Agenda | May 11,2025

Debt Deadlines Test the Promise of Addis Abeba's Makeover

Editorial | May 10,2025

Ethiopia's Aid Reckoning Demands a Homegrown Rescue Plan


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Ethiopia's Aid Reckoning Demands a Homegrown Rescue Plan

Federal legislators recently summoned Shiferaw Teklemariam (PhD), head of the Disaster Ris...

Editorial | May 10 , 2025

Curtain Falls on a Capital Stage as Theatre Fights for Its Life

The balcony at the National Theatre, on Churchill Avenue, used to fill up days in advance...

Featured | May 4 , 2025 . By NAHOM AYELE

Debt Deadlines Test the Promise of Addis Abeba's Makeover

Tsiriha Biru, 45, had never imagined that her rhythm of life in Adissu Gebeya, a northern...

Agenda | May 11 , 2025 . By NAHOM AYELE

PROMISED HOMES COME WITH DEBT

In northern Addis Abeba, a neighbourhood known for its vibrant community has become a symb...

Fortune News | May 11 , 2025