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Jul 12 , 2025

Legal, Policy Volatility Turns Promises into Headwinds

Political leaders and their policy advisors often promise great leaps forward, yet they frequently fall short, landing with a thud. In July 2024, Mamo Mehiretu, governor of the Central Bank, declared that the five-decade-old straitjacket on the foreign-exchange market had been cut away in favour...

Jul 5 , 2025

Civil Society Feels the Squeeze as Reform Era Unravels

Six years ago, Ethiopia was the darling of international liberal commentators. A year earlier, crowds filled Mesqel Square, chanting slogans celebrating the dawning of an era away from what was an authoritarian state and towards political openness and market-friendly reforms. That widespread optimism has been on a retreat as civic space contracts as quickly as it once expanded. A new set of draft laws governing democratic institutions, from electoral and political parties to civil society, threatens to stifle the same civic freedoms that politicians once praised, revealing how easily a bold...


Jun 21 , 2025

Expanding Federal Budget Tests Limits of Fiscal Discipline

A well-worn adage says, “Budget is not destiny, but it is direction.” Examining the budget bill for 2025/26 now before Parliament, the federal government's compass appears to be drifting. The budget bill reads more like a political document than an account book. It sets spending at 1.93 trillion Br, more than triple the 561.7 billion splashed out in 2022/23. At face value, the figures may inspire awe. However, without matching gains in revenue, productivity, or administrative capacity, they could risk turning from promise into burden. The burden may prove heavy indeed. The spectac...


Jun 14 , 2025

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

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 Af...

Editorials

Jun 28 , 2025

Soaring Taxes Fail to Plug Holes as Audit Reveals Enduring Waste

Meseret Damtie, the assertive auditor general, has never been shy about naming names, and with a reputation for her clear voice and sharper pencil. Last week, she published her latest verdict on the f...

Jun 7 , 2025

Where the Roof Overhead Comes with a Ceiling on Hope

Few promises shine brighter in Addis Abeba than the pledge of a roof for every family. Gleaming office blocks now punctuate horizons once defined by tin-roof shacks, yet the capital's housing gap keep...

May 31 , 2025

Courting Foreign Buyers of Properties While Land Remains State-Owned

It is seldom flattering to be bracketed with North Korea and Myanmar. Ironically, Ethiopia has long shared their company on one narrow but emotive list. They are countries that forbid foreign national...

May 24 , 2025

A Country on Life Support Must Not Neglect Its Healers

Public hospitals have fallen eerily quiet lately. Corridors once crowded with patients' relatives now echo, wards lie half-empty, and family members milled outside in anxious knots. The silence was no...

May 17 , 2025

Researchers Churn Out Studies by the Ton. Quality Checks are Causality

Ethiopia pours more than three billion Birr a year into academic research, yet too much of that money is vanishing into a sinkhole of low-quality work. Since 2001, when the country contributed a me...

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 emergen...

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 k...

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 lea...

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...

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...


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Legal, Policy Volatility Turns Promises into Headwinds


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Legal, Policy Volatility Turns Promises into Headwinds

Political leaders and their policy advisors often promise great leaps forward, yet they fr...

Editorial | Jul 12 , 2025

Apparel Market Struggles Beneath a Second-Hand Deluge

Each June, Addis Abeba's high-altitude chill arrives with afternoon downpours, soaking sch...

Featured | Jul 6 , 2025 . By RUTH BERHANU

Brewing Trouble as Tella Bars Go Dry

The sweet-sour scent of "tella" still lingered in the cramped compound off Tunisia Street...

Agenda | Jul 13 , 2025 . By BEZAWIT HULUAGER

Revenues Bureau Targets Landlords in Revenue Push

The Addis Abeba City Revenue Bureau has introduced a new directive set to reshape how half...

Fortune News | Jul 13 , 2025 . By YITBAREK GETACHEW