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.

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AUTO MARINES

Braving Addis Abeba's flooded streets like seasoned sailors, these cars navigate murky puddles and sudden waves with ease. Each splash exposes the city's drainage problems, turning morning commutes into off-road adventures through urban waterscapes that challenge both patience and suspension systems. As the rain pours, vehicles become submarines sailing through floods caused by infrastructural failures. Prolonged exposure to these floods risks serious damage to engines, brakes, and electrical sy...


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DOMESTIC MUMMY

In the city's daily scramble, a lone porter hauls six stubborn black barrels meant to hold water but not so great at holding second chances. Like mummies wrapped in dark plastic, these containers conceal their hidden fate: hard to recycle, easy to forget, yet still pressed into service. Mercato, the country's largest market, holds these barrels and many more appliances...


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INFINITE FEATURES

Temesgen Gebrehiwot (PhD), Founder and CEO of ETTA Solutions, Asfaw Alemu, CEO of Dashen Bank, and Seid Aragaw, Chief Marketing Officer of Ethio telecom, officially launched ‘Zoorya' on July 12, 2025, at the Sheraton Addis Hotel. Zoorya is an ERCA-compliant business automation platform that generates official receipts for the Revenues Office and can be customised for different business needs. The platform is expected to modernise Ethiopian enterprises through a partnership between Ethio teleco...