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Nov 12 , 2022

Nairobi Must Double Down on Pretoria

Two weeks have passed since negotiators from Ethiopia's federal government and the TPLF reached a deal that brought the war in Tigray to a lull. So have the talks moved from Pretoria to Nairobi and fr...

Nov 5 , 2022

Pretoria Deal Represents Courage, Despair and Anxiety

Hardly were people prepared for the deals announced last week from Pretoria, South Africa. For many, it was a bolt from the blue moment. Negotiators representing the federal government and those of...

Oct 30 , 2022

Pretoria Can Pivot an Arduous Path to Peace

Africa's brutal war in the continent's largest country - in population - continues to rage unabated. This week, the civil war marks its second commemoration. The carnage it resulted, the suffering...

Oct 22 , 2022

Embargo on Imports a Respite, Not Antidote

Suppose one policy move can reveal the degree to which Ethiopia's economy is in the chasms of disquiet. In that case, hardly any matches the measure federal authorities took last week capping imports...

Oct 15 , 2022

Telco Liberalisation Offers Lessons for Financial Opening

Last week saw a milestone in Ethiopia's telecom industry. For over a century, the industry has been the sole domain of the state-owned Ethio telecom, with a captive market. Safaricom Ethiopia Plc has...

Oct 8 , 2022

Central Bank Stick Out Like a Sore Thumb

It is fitting that the financial sector and the monetary regime are riddled with reforms, the former more than the latter. The most recent could be establishing a federal regulatory agency separate fr...

Oct 1 , 2022

Rip the Band-Aid Off. Float the Birr. Liberalize Capital Account

The foreign exchange market is seeing a war of attrition, with the Dollar gradually taking out its opponents as its strength grows unmatched. Neither is the green buck taking any hostages. A blitzk...

Sep 24 , 2022

Why Ethiopia's Economy Catches Cold When Europe Sneezes

Look no further than the flower industry to appreciate the importance of the European market to underdeveloped economies such as Ethiopia. Within a decade and a half, the country has shot up the list...

Sep 17 , 2022

Long Overdue Finance Sector Opening Not Silver Bullet

The debate shortly after the Council of Ministers nodded a bill to open the financial sector to foreign capital was emblematic of how the economic discourse has deteriorated. Some thought this entails...

Sep 10 , 2022

Export Performance Seems Impressive. Details Say Otherwise

Ethiopia's policymakers and wonks began planning the economy and directing its course in the 1950s. There have been only two years since Ethiopia registered a positive balance of payment: in 1972 and...

Sep 3 , 2022

The War's Tragic Resumption. Not Too Late to Stop It.

The late American President, Ronald Reagan, went back after 50 years to a college in Chicago where he graduated to give a commencement address. A year into his consequential presidency, Reagan used th...

Aug 27 , 2022

This Time Must be the Charm for Capital Markets

Review history; a developed capital market in Ethiopia in this age and era would have seemed settled. It was not. A courtship with the money market dated as far back as over a century ago, when par...

Aug 20 , 2022

Regulating the RIDEing Industry; the Uncommon Call

Calling bureaucrats to police industries and discipline their actors could be as good as inviting trouble. The track record of regulators is often contrary to the intention. Regulations follow new ind...

Aug 14 , 2022

National Dialogue! What National Dialogue?

The call for lofty ideals such as national dialogue and consensus has been as old as Ethiopia's ingrate revolution. It may mean different things for various groups as successive regimes danced around...

Aug 6 , 2022

Finance to the Tiller! Plebiscite on the Land Question

Few initiatives by the administration of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD) have been publicised as aggressively as self-sufficiency in agriculture production. To be precise, it is about scaling up wheat...

Jul 30 , 2022

What Do New Banks Offer Their Older Cousins Don't?

Ethiopia's banking industry is not merely underdeveloped. It has historically regressed. Calls for the financial sector to open for international capital, technology, network and skill remain dwarfed...


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