PERILOUS PROFESSIONS


PERILOUS PROFESSIONS

A street vendor is offering mats with kaleidoscopic designs around the Gofa neighbourhood. The thousands of agile vendors scattered about the capital conduct their businesses, evading the watchful eye and whipping baton of the Code Enforcement Authority. As the Addis Abeba City Administration looks to either register and extract taxes from the network of informal businessmen or remove them from the streets, a daily cat-and-mouse spectacle unfolds in the capital. Estimates place the size of the urban informal employment sector at somewhere between 20 and 40pc, with the vast discrepancies partly stemming from a population census lagging for 17 years.


In-Picture

CORDIAL CONNECT

Finance Minister Ahmed Shide and IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva shared a friendly moment during her recent visit to the Ministry. Her first visit since last year's IMF-backed economic reforms, Georgieva discussed progress with officials and also explored Addis Abeba's new tourist attractions and IMF-funded social projects...


In-Picture

RUST REVIVAL

Kazanchis, one of the older districts in Addis Abeba, holds on to these derelict and stripped-down cars that once traversed its inner streets. Now surrounded by tall corrugated sheets, the cars evoke a feeling of a past time when they were functional and valued. They now sit amidst redevelopment plans including the building of 20,000 housing units and 2,000 commercial spaces, just a stone's throw away...


In-Picture

POLE POSITION

Ethiopia Electric Utility's medium-sized, burgundy Toyota pickup truck drives around Gurd Shola carrying wooden poles previously used to hold transmission lines. Such poles are constantly being replaced by their concrete versions, which offer greater stability and resilience, reducing the risk of electricity disruptions...