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NIMBLE COMMERCE


NIMBLE COMMERCE

Street vendor lays out his merchandise at a bus stop around the Mexico roundabout. He looks to instigate impulsive purchases from pedestrians through a shifting marketplace. The Addis Abeba Trade Bureau is drafting regulations that restrict the type of products sold by street vendors. High levels of urban unemployment fueled in part by elevated rural-urban migrations contribute to the thriving informal sector. Recent estimates of the informal sector are around t 69pc in the capital compared to the national average, which lies below 15pc.While the term informal often sparks a raised eyebrow a majority of the economic activity in urban areas in developing countries is conducted through such channels. The informal sector currently accounts for over half the global employment, involving an estimated 1.8 billion people as compared to the 1.2 billion of the formal sector according to data from the International Labor Organization(ILO).

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In-Picture

ROLLING RELICS

What looks like a family's careful move from one home to another has instead turned into a rolling paradox on wheels: a modest pickup truck groaning under a mountain of life bundled in a blue tarp, tightly strapped as if the future itself might slip off mid-journey. Perched on top like a crown no one asked for is a full satellite dish, because nothing says “we're relocating” quite like insisting on uninterrupted signal while your furniture is literally holding on for dear life. Behind it, tr...


In-Picture

GREEN ALLIANCE

A handshake sealed in measured confidence sets the tone at the Adwa Memorial Museum, where Solomon Tadele, CEO of AM Business and Investment Group, and  Chang Shu, marketing director of Joylong Automobile Manufacturing Co., Ltd, formalise a partnership that points firmly toward an electric mobility future. Between them, signed documents signal the entry of Minibus EV vehicles and charging infrastructure into a market preparing for transformation. The moment carries the quiet weight of intent: o...


In-Picture

FIBRE COMMAND

Around Saris, a quiet workshop turns into a kind of “thread highway,” where a young man sits at the centre of what looks less like a loom and more like a carefully tamed explosion of strings. In front of him, hundreds of taut white threads stretch out in perfect formation, behaving with suspicious discipline, like they've been told not to misbehave today. He smiles from behind the frame as if fully aware he's presiding over a slow-motion miracle, one strand at a time. Around him, bundles of...