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

FROZEN FOCUS

A man and woman, cast in bronze outside Menelik II School in Arat Kilo, inhabit separate worlds, he buried in ink-stained pages, she captivated by the glow of a screen. Side by side yet divided by decades, their silent conversation bridges time, technology, and habit. The sculpture captures humanity's attachment to what's immediate, a nod to scrolling and screens, while quietly celebrating the near-vanishing ritual of reading. It's a frozen meditation on focus, distraction, and the delicate danc...


In-Picture

RECYCLING LEGACY

Lelise Neme, Director General of the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), and Helen Debebe, State Minister at the Ministry of Urban & Infrastructure, take a closer look at recycled packaging displayed by Mador Packaging during the Circular Economy Hotspot Ethiopia 2025 at the Science Museum in Addis Abeba. The event showcased innovations in recycling and sustainable products, linking the green legacy ambitions with the practical realities of circular economy solutions...


In-Picture

CHAINED MEMORY

The marble gentleman of Addis Abeba, Piazza area  stands eternally pensive, hand to chest as if swearing loyalty to an invisible audience. In reality, he is the statue of Abune Petros, the Ethiopian bishop executed by Italian forces in 1936 for resisting the Fascist occupation. Today, he gazes over a city jammed with traffic, bureaucracy, and high-rise ambitions, holding a broken chain that once symbolised defiance but now competes with satellite dishes and billboards. History wanted him rememb...