Everywhere you look in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, there is something being built.
It involves many local businesses, Chinese investors and the state.
The BBC’s Roderick Macleod has been finding out who the winners and the losers are in this industrial “revolution”.
Source: BBC
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ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Ethiopia is attempting to set a world record for the number of HIV tests carried out in one day.
The country’s health officials said Tuesday they hope to break the record this coming weekend in honor of World AIDS Day on Dec. 1. The previous record for number of HIV tests carried out in one day occurred in Argentina in November 2012, when 1,380 people were tested. Ethiopian officials hope to carry out 2,000 tests.
The Ministry of Health said the tests would occur in the country’s Gambella region, where 6.5 percent of residents have HIV or AIDS.
Dr. Warren Naamara, who is with UNAIDS, said some 800,000 Ethiopian have been infected with HIV since the outbreak of the disease in the 1980s. A quarter of those infected were children.
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Opinion By Elias A. Kebede
The modern history of what is now known as the “Ethiopian hospitality industry” dates back to more than 100 years with the opening in 1895 of Taitu Hotel, the first hotel in Addis Abeba (previ¬ously Finfinee) by Empress Taitu. Located in the heart of the old city – Piassa, the hotel still bears the same name, and it is in a fairly acceptable con¬dition considering its age.
Although Addis Abeba is experiencing the opening on average of one hotel per month, according data from the Addis Abeba Hotel Owners Trade Sectorial Association (an indication that the industry has attracted the authorities’ and the developers’ due attention) the existing sector is marked by four fundamental problems that need a thorough fix: unmet demand, poor hospitality, unpractical building technicalities and an overrated price.
Unmet demand
It is a cliché to state the obvious that today Addis Abeba is home to numerous UN offices, including the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), countless international companies and NGOs. The city is also dotted by the more than 100 diplomatic missions accredited to the government in Ethiopia, the UNECA, and, of course, the African Union (AU), which is headquartered in Addis Abeba.
But for all that, and more than 100 years later, out of the more than 80 hotels in and around the city only three are international chain hotels and only six are internationally branded. This is in a city that hosts one (sometimes two) African heads of state and government summit every year, and is a gateway to hundreds of thousands of international inbound, outbound and transit tourists and passengers. (Please see cover story on p. 10).
Poor hospitality
Decent hospitality starts at every Ethiopian home. It is embedded in the very fabric of the Ethiopian culture: Ethiopians are hospitable by nature. We like visitors; we are very anxious about making visitors in our home happy; we are trained by our parents and guardians to be nice and kind to all, including strangers; we open our doors to strangers and travelers so they can spend a night and share our food; we even go as far as packing food for those traveling or passing through our village. That is the traditional and the cultural identity of many who call Ethiopia home – truly hospitable! But what that failed to translate into is when it comes to running a business, most importantly a hotel business.
A deeper look at the hospitality trend inside many of the hotels in Ethiopia reveals that em-ployees are the weakest links. Most develop¬ers are either ignorant about the difference a trained and disciplined human resource makes to run a hotel or are unwilling to invest in their employees. A popular satire has it that most of the hotels in Addis Abeba are “China” oriented, but just as far as their furniture fixtures are concerned.
When it comes to running a hotel business there are too many practical details that define being a host than mere traditional or cultural niceties. For many it starts with the lack of communication skill and goes all the way to how practical housekeeping should be. It is not uncommon to see hotel employees making hotel problems become guest problems – be it about an out-of-order bathroom, a dysfunctional electric plugs or a broken Point of Sale machine.
Much of this is attributed to two interdependent glitches: the nature of employment many hotel developers follow and lack of proper hospitality training institutions. In the case of the former, local hotel employers often follow the rules of kinship, religious and ethnic affiliations than that of merit. Lack of proper training institution hugely contributes to this.
Elementary manner in housekeeping departments of many hotels, for example, is non-existent, especially during the practical trials or “live” training sessions. Many developers assume that the housekeeping staff is like the traditional “housemaid” that should be confined to one living room, one bedroom and a bathroom. “Housekeeping” is not considered a profession. A hotel without the right manpower to run it is just a nice looking hotel with sub-standard service that will subject precious customers to one bad service to talk about to others for many years. Comfort is linked to the emotional state of any given guest and it is unfortunate that many ho¬tels in our fair city fail to live up to this expectation.
Unpractical building technicalities
The major problem towering the Ethiopian hotel industry, infant as the industry is, begins from elementary details developers prefer to avoid, such as architectural looks. It is not enough that buildings rise high, or are located within five minutes drive from the airport. Many of the new hotels in the city have issues with the simple things without which ho¬tel developers elsewhere wouldn’t even consider calling it a hotel- these include, but not limited to, having no proper fire exits, converting buildings built for entirely different purpos¬es because the market is there, having no accessibility to peo¬ple with physical disabilities, and lack of sufficient parking.
Little is understood by domestic developers that the most important element in owning a hotel is not the building itself or the number of rooms inside to satisfy the demand; nor, for that matter, how high the buildings rise, but the practical details that customers need so badly like a functioning bath¬room and uniform electrical appliances, to mention but two. The issue of adequate parking (although it’s also linked to the city administration’s way of allocating land and enforcing regulations), is one of the biggest problems customers are expected to sort out. Having the right location? Well that is almost a luxury. It is acceptable to everyone that hotel build¬ings can pop up almost everywhere – in the middle of mar¬kets, next to schools, next to churches and mosques, and in the middle of residential neighborhoods. The only criterion seems to be the availability of a plot of land. The rest is not history, but the customers’ problem.
Overrated price
Anyone who stays in one of the many self-rated hotels in Addis Abeba leaves with one thing to remember these hotels by: eye watering bills. True, there is a huge demand which leaves desperate customers with no or little choice. Demand may be one aspect, but it should not be the single most im¬portant aspect to decide what an Average Daily Rate (ADR) should be. Whenever there is a big meeting happening in the city hotels, BB inns and specialty lodging rates simply tri¬ple. More often than not, officials at the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs summon hotel owners just to plead with them not to over exploit their customers. But what happens on the ground is far from the agreements and discussions be¬tween the ministry and hotel owners.
Many things go wrong when rates are driven not by the quality of service and amenities of these establishments but by the supply and demand gap. True, in a country like Ethiopia, which claims to have a free market economy, there should be no authority to enforce ADR caps. But that should not necessarily mean that hotels in the city must treat their customers as one-time off customers who should pay a one-time off outrageous prices for services not worth the half of the price.
A few international chain and many local hotels will go operational within the coming two to three years. That is good news and will surely minimize the pressure of demand and demand-driven overrated prices. As the venue for countless international and continental conferences and a destination for growing numbers of tourists and transit passengers hotel owners in Ethiopia have the advantage to show a service delivery that exceeds the expectations of customers. Along with that, however, should come tackling the issue of poor hospitably. To be fair, there are local establishments that are trying their best in fixing most of these problems. They need to be encouraged. Of the three international hotel chains in the city, the Sheraton Addis is providing service quality that matches its rate as a five-star hotel, and the Radisson Blu is known for its impeccable customer-oriented services. Other local establishments have a lot to learn from both; with naturally embedded hospitality culture it takes little to be the best customers need. Of looks and technical details of ho¬tel buildings, Ethiopian hotel developers must learn that the small practical details are what matter most to customers; it is unacceptable that hotel rooms that cost on average US$ 100 are fitted with non-functioning electrical appliances.
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Javier Blas, Africa Editor
(FT.com) – Every country tapping the global sovereign bond market details the dangers investors face in its prospectus, often in a boilerplate section enumerating possible problems – such as fiscal deficits or taxation issues – that is largely ignored.
But the document sent by Ethiopia to international investors ahead of its foray into the global sovereign bond market is somewhat different. Far from a boilerplate, it includes a list of unfamiliar hazards, such as famine, political tension and war.
The document, seen by the Financial Times, is a sobering reminder of the risk of investing in one of Africa’s less developed nations. With gross domestic product per capita at less than $550 per year, Ethiopia is the poorest country yet to issue global bonds.
In the 108-page prospectus, issued ahead of its expected $1bn bond, Ethiopia tells investors they need to consider the potential resumption of the Eritrea-Ethiopia war, which ended in 2000, although it “does not anticipate future conflict”.
There is also the risk of famine, the “high level of poverty” and strained public finances, as well as the possible, if unlikely, blocking of the country’s only access to the sea through neighbouring Djibouti should relations between the two countries sour.
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, also warns that it is ranked close to the bottom of the UN Human Development Index – 173rd out of 187 nations – and cautions about the possibility of political turmoil. “The next general election is due to take place in May 2015 and while the government expects these elections to be peaceful, there is a risk that political tension and unrest . . . may occur.”
But the long list of risks is not deterring investors, as ultra-low interest rates in the US, the UK, eurozone and Japan push sovereign wealth funds and pension funds into riskier countries in search of higher-yielding bonds.
Instead, some investors are focusing on the danger of a currency crisis. Addis Ababa has devalued its currency, the birr, twice over the past five years – by 23.7 per cent in 2010 and 16.5 per cent in 2011 – in an effort to win export competitiveness. Since then, the Ethiopian central bank has managed to slow the currency’s depreciation by intervening regularly in the market.
Read More on FT.com>>
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Israeli AORA’s Tulip solar power system gets its first commercial application in Ethiopia.
Powered primarily by the sun, AORA’s Tulip energy system works 24/7 – even at night and when it’s cloudy
For five years now, a Tulip concentrating solar power plant has been operating at a kibbutz in Israel. In January 2012, a second one sprouted in Spain. While both plants have been successfully pumping out electricity ever since, they were also both built as research and development exercises. Soon, however, the world’s first commercial Tulip plant will be built for a paying client, in Ethiopia.
Created by Israeli company AORA, the Tulip system is certainly unique. It incorporates a central tulip-like tower, surrounded by an array of sun-tracking mirrors on the ground. Those mirrors turn to track with the sun, reflecting and concentrating its rays onto the tower’s top-mounted “bulb” throughout the day. This causes the air inside the bulb to heat to temperatures as high as 1,000ºC (1,832ºF). That ultra-hot air is then used to run a turbine generator, thus creating electricity.
One of the existing Tulip pilot plants
At night or in cloudy weather, the plant’s generator can also run on fuels such as diesel or natural gas, allowing it to supply electricity 24 hours a day.
The new plant is being built for the Ministry of Water, Irrigation and Energy of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, as part of that country’s Climate-Resilient Green Economy Strategy. It will have an output capacity of 100kW of electricity along with 170kW of thermal power, while occupying less than 3,500 sq m (37,673 sq ft) of space.
Additionally, unlike some other concentrating solar power systems, Tulips don’t require water as a heat-carrying medium or for cooling. This is an important consideration for a partially-arid country such as Ethiopia.
Construction on the new Tulip is scheduled to begin next year. Assuming it performs well during its trial period, plans call for a series of other plants to then be built in underserved off-grid locations across the country. All of them will be run by local people, who have been trained by AORA staff.
Source: AORA
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(Reuters) – Swedish telecom group Ericsson is set to sign a contract with Ethiopia to expand telecom infrastructure, taking a slice of an $800 million contract from Chinese firm ZTE Corp because of a row over terms, a senior official told Reuters on Thursday.
ZTE Corp’s deal with state-run operator Ethio Telecom was signed in 2013. The other half of the overall a $1.6 billion package to help double mobile subscribers was shared with another Chinese firm, Huawei Technologies Co Ltd.
But Ethiopian and ZTE differed over the cost of upgrading an existing network. Ethiopian officials said the firms were expected to carry out the upgrade at no extra charge, while ZTE said it would cost an additional $150 million to $200 million.
Ethiopian officials had said Nokia and Ericsson could take some work if agreement was not reached.
Ethio Telecom Chief Executive Andualem Admassie told Reuters that discussions with Ericsson were nearing completion.
“Ericsson will start working on that share of expansion work,” he said, without giving a value for the deal. “We are only waiting for confirmation from the (Ethio Telecom) board.”
“Huawei is continuing its role,” he said, adding that ZTE would continue with some work. “ZTE have lost parts of their share but have made it clear they are willing to resume work, no matter what the current circumstances.”
Ericsson could not immediately be reached for comment.
The overall project aims to help the nation of more than 90 million people double mobile subscribers to 50 million in the next year and expand its 3G service.
The overall contract also includes a plan for Huawei to roll out a high-speed 4G network in Addis Ababa.
China has extended its economic influence in Africa in recent years, with state-owned firms winning road tenders in Kenya, signing deals for construction of energy projects in Uganda and running mining projects in various countries.
The $1.6 billion contract signed with the Chinese firms in Ethiopia had a long-term loan package to be paid over a 13-year period with interest of less than 1 percent, officials said. (Reporting by Aaron Maasho; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Mark Potter)
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A BRITISH tourist has been killed in Ethiopia, the Foreign Office said.
The British national was shot dead in the north western Ethiopian city of Bahir Dar at 10:30am local time yesterday, according to reports.
A suspect has reportedly been arrested and the tourist has been taken to the capital Addis Ababa today for a post mortem.
Government spokesman Shimeles Kema said the suspect had not known the gun was loaded and that the incident happened in a church on the morning of Christmas Eve, Sky News reported.
He said: “It appears that a resident of Bahir Dar, who was licensed to carry a gun, accidentally discharged his gun while changing the gun position from one shoulder to the other.”
A spokeswoman for the Foreign Office said: “We can confirm the death of a British national in Ethiopia. We are providing consular assistance to the families.”
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(Reuters) – An Ethiopian air force pilot has defected to Eritrea, flying a helicopter across the border with his co-pilot and a technician, Ethiopian state-run media said on Tuesday.
The three men had been missing since Friday morning soon after leaving their base on a routine training session, Ethiopian Television reported.
Eritrea and Ethiopia have been locked in a border dispute for years and routinely accuse each other of backing rebels trying to destabilize and topple the other’s government – a legacy from the two-year war they fought in the late 1990s.
“The military helicopter landed in Eritrea, flown by a traitor pilot who forced both his co-pilot and a technician while they took part in a training exercise,” the report said, citing a defense ministry statement.
It did not give further details.
No official from either side was available for comment, but reports from pro-Eritrean government outlets and those of opposition groups said the helicopter was an MI-35 gunship.
Ethiopia says the spat over the demarcation of their shared border following the 1998-2000 war would only be solved through a negotiated settlement.
Eritrea wants Ethiopia to pull its troops out before normalising relations, citing a decision by a Hague-based boundary commission which awarded it the flashpoint frontier village of Badme in 2002.
(Reporting by Aaron Maasho; Editing by Drazen Jorgic and Louise Ireland)
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ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — A fire department official says a fire has damaged a hotel which is a historical landmark in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
Commander Tadesse Gemechu said Sunday two people were taken to the hospital after being rescued from the fire at the Taitu Hotel which was built in 1907.
Tadesse says the cause of the fire is being investigated. Many of the hotel’s rooms, its historic pieces and a bank office were completely burned down before firefighters put out the fire. The city’s famous jazz club that used to be frequented by foreigners and locals alike, Jazz Amba, was also completely destroyed by the inferno.
Addis Ababa’s Deputy Mayor Abate Sitotaw said efforts will be made to restore the Taitu Hotel.
Fire Damages Historic Taitu Hotel in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
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Photo: Wikipedia
By Lucy Kassa
African Union’s (AU) high level panel on illicit financial flows (IFF) from Africa ranked Ethiopia ninth from the top 10 African countries with high illicit financial flows from 1970 to 2008 next to Côte d’Ivoire and Sudan.
The panel, which was chaired by Thabo Mbeki, former South African president and comprised nine other members, released its report at Hilton Hotel on February 1, 2015.
The high level panel is the first African initiative mandated to be established after the fourth joint annual meeting of the AU/ECA conference of ministers of finance, planning and economic development adopted a resolution to establish the level of IFF from the continent, to asses its long term impacts and to propose policies in reversing the illegal outflows.
The Report of the High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa, used estimates by various researches on illicit financial flows from Africa, adding that a significant amount was from sources such as bribing and trafficking of drugs, people and firearms, which are secret in nature and could not be properly estimated.
The panel reported that Ethiopia could have lost 16.5 billion dollars due to illicit financial flow from 1970 to 2008, which was 2.3pc of the total IFF from the continent, based on which the total continental loss could be computed to a little over 700 billion dollars. However, the report gives a different figure, 854 billion dollars for the total loss during the period.
The report, however, also adds that the loss of the last 50 years could be in excess of over one trillion dollars, adding the average annual loss could be significantly higher than the estimates because of secret bribes and trafficking.
Similar reports have previously been released by other bodies. Citing corruption and bribery as major reasons for the increase in IFF, the Global financial report, which had illustrated data from World Bank and the International Monetary Fund showed that Ethiopia had lost 11.7 billion dollars in illegal financial out flow between 2000 and 2009. Similarly, the UNDP report had shown that Ethiopia had lost 8.3 billion dollars from 1990 to 2008 representing 3.6 pc of its GDP.
The AU panel, after noting that IFFs had a negative impact on fiscal shortfall and on social spending, showed that Ethiopia loses six percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) due to IFF per year. According to the report, Nigeria, Egypt and South Africa are the top three African countries with 217.7, 105.2 and 81.8 billion dollars cumulative IFFs respectively from 1970 to 2008, with Nigeria accounting for 30.5 pc of the total.
Ethiopia would take only nine years to reach the MDG goal of under-five mortality since 2000 if IFF was eliminated, instead of 13 years, the report said. The actual annual reduction in under-5 mortality rate between 2000 to 2011 was 5.3 pc according to the report. This rate of the under five mortality rate will potentially reduced to 7.58 pc in the absence of the illegal flow, the report claimed.
The report identifies three prominent grounds for the illegal flow with IFF originating from commercial activities accounting 65 Pc. Abusive transfer pricing, trade mispricing and misinvocing of services with the aim of tax evasion, aggressive tax avoidance and illegal export of foreign exchange are the activities mentioned within IFF originating from commercial activities by the report. Criminal activities such as human trafficking, drug trafficking and money laundering account for 30pc of the illicit flow, with corruption accounting for just five percent.
Corruption, particularly in relation to the construction and hydroelectric sector is the main reason for the high illicit financial flow from Ethiopia, an economist who wished to remain anonymous told Fortune, adding that over invoice of import items and under invoice of export items have also contributed to the high IFF in the country.
Ensuring publicly accessible national and sub-national budget information and transparent auditing is recommended by the report for African countries to curb the corruption element of IFF. Moreover, to eliminate trade mispricing, the report advises countries to have clear and concise laws that illegalize intentional stating of prices.
Despite fears of disruption to the river’s flow, Egypt has agreed to Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance dam, which will generate 6,000 megawatts of electricity
Egypt has agreed to a preliminary deal with Ethiopia on a dam project that Cairo had feared would hamper the flow of the Nile, paving the way for a binding regional agreement that has been years in the making.
The leaders of Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan gathered in Khartoum on 23 March to sign the agreement of principles on Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance dam project.
“I confirm the construction of the Renaissance dam will not cause any damage to our three states and especially to the Egyptian people,” Ethiopian prime minister Hailemariam Desalegn said at the signing ceremony.
Egypt, heavily reliant for millennia on the Nile for agriculture and drinking water, feared that the Grand Renaissance dam would decrease its water supply.
However, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said on Monday that “this is a framework agreement and it will be completed. We have chosen cooperation, and to trust one another for the sake of development.”
He said the final accord will “achieve benefits and development for Ethiopia without harming Egypt and Sudan’s interests”.
Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, hailed the deal as “historic”.
Ethiopia began diverting the Blue Nile in May 2013 to build the dam, which will be Africa’s largest when completed in 2017 and will generate 6,000 megawatts of electricity.
Egypt believes its “historic rights” to the Nile are guaranteed by treaties from 1929 and 1959 which grant it 87% of the river’s flow and the power to veto upstream projects.
But Nile Basin countries, including Ethiopia, signed another deal in 2010 allowing them to work on river projects without Cairo’s agreement.
Related NEWS
In protest, Egypt withdrew from the Nile Basin Initiative, a forum to discuss management and development of the region’s resources, but later resumed participation.
Neither Sudan nor Egypt has signed the 2010 Nile Basin deal.
Sudan, like Egypt, relies on Nile resources but has said it does not expect to be affected by Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance project.
(Reuters) – Ethiopia’s state-run telecoms monopoly has launched a fourth generation (4G) mobile service in the capital Addis Ababa, aiming to catch up with the high-speed communications available in some east African neighbours such as Kenya and Uganda.
Africa’s telecoms industry is booming, with subscribers across the continent totalling almost 650 million in 2013, up from just 25 million in 2001, according to the World Bank.
But analysts say high-speed connections are vital to maintaining growth and supporting the wider economy.
Ethiopia is one of the last African countries to have a state monopoly in telecoms and has lagged some neighbours in rolling out 4G, which offers much faster speeds than 3G, allowing users to browse the Internet more easily and run complex applications.
State-run Ethio Telecom is committed to improving its network, however. The 4G service, initially able to serve 400,000 subscribers, is part of a $1.6 billion deal signed two years ago with Chinese firms Huawei and ZTE to expand mobile infrastructure throughout Ethiopia.
Ethio Telecom’s Head of Communications Abdurahim Ahmed told Reuters the 4G network had taken eight months to build.
The firm said internet packages would range from 420 birr ($21) a month for 2 gigabyte (GB) of data to 3,600 birr ($180) for 30 GB.
Vast parts of Ethiopia, including the capital, still suffer from occasionally patchy mobile reception.
Ethio Telecom’s plans have been complicated by a dispute over the cost of upgrading the existing network, which led it to cancel a slice of ZTE’s portion of the $1.6 billion deal. Sweden’s Ericsson replaced ZTE in December.
The $1.6 billion project also aims to also double 3G capacity to 60 million subscribers by the end of the year in the country of more than 90 million people.
Government officials have ruled out liberalising the telecoms sector, saying the revenue it generates is being spent on railway projects. Ethiopia plans to build 5,000 km of railway lines by 2020. (Reporting by Aaron Maasho; Editing by Mark Potter)
Ethiopia is not a bucket-list
destination for most travelers to Africa. But this country in the Horn of
Africa with its archaeological, cultural and natural riches is definitely a
rewarding destination.
The
country is a mosaic of cultures with diverse ethnic groups, each with their own
unique costumes, hairstyles and rituals.
In the South of Ethiopia, in the
Omo Valley, travelers can encounter some of the country’s most extraordinary
tribes. This is undoubtedly one of the most unforgettable cultural experiences
any traveler could dream of; the tribe’s traditions, songs and dances are still
as vivid as they have been for hundreds of years. This valley is as close as anyone
can come to “untouched” Africa.
The most famous tribe is the
nomadic, pastoralist Mursi tribe. When a Mursi woman reaches 20 years old, a slit is
made beneath the lower lip and a clay plate inserted. Each year a larger plate
is added, stretching the lower lip until it juts out so far that a six-inch
plate can be worn and the woman can pull her lip right over her head. This is
considered the height of attractiveness: the larger the plate, the more livestock her family will receive
when she marries.
Mursi men
take part in stick fights, which in the past sometimes ended in the death of
one of the participants. Decorated with white clay, they hit each other with 6-foot-long
poles. The winner is carried off by a group of eligible women who then decide
which one of them will marry him.
The friendly Dorze people will gladly welcome travelers
into their homes and teach them all about the construction of the unusual, beehive-like
huts as well as share the secrets of traditional weaving. Travelers can also
opt to stay the night in a traditional Dorze hut.
The Hamer tribe, known for distinctive
hairstyles and highly imaginative bodily decorations, is definitely worth a visit. The tribe is well known for the “bull-jumping”
ceremony, which usually occurs during harvest season. During this ceremony,
teenage boys run over the backs of about a dozen bulls to prove their manhood.
Ethiopia
has much more to offer than just its cultural tribes, though. The oldest
independent nation in Africa, Ethiopia boasts heritage dating back to the first
century. It is also the earliest known home of humankind; a skeleton of an
older human ancestor believed to be more than 3 millions years old,
Australopithecus Afarensis, was discovered in 1974 in the Afar region. The skeleton
is popularly known as Lucy or Dinkinesh.
The country’s
historical route of the North, which can easily be combined with a cultural
tour of the South, takes visitors from
the current capital of Addis Ababa to the former capitals of the Gonderite and
Axumite Empires as well as to the sacred city of Lalibela and the rock churches
of Tigray.
Especially
Lalibela, a medieval settlement in the Lasta area of Wello, is considered the No.
1 sight in Ethiopia and one of the most astonishing man-made sites in
sub-Saharan Africa. Lalibela is home to 11 Ethiopian Orthodox churches that
were built in the 13th century on the orders of King Lalibela, not from the
ground up but chiseled out of the town’s red volcanic rock hills. Popular
legend says that the toil of thousands of laborers on this “new Jerusalem” during
the day was continued by angels at night.
Quick Facts
Currency: The currency used in Ethiopia is the birr; $1
U.S. will buy 20 birr. ATMs are found throughout Addis Ababa and some of the
major cities.
Getting there: Ethiopian
Airlines, a member of the Star Alliance, operates flights from Bole Airport in
Addis Ababa to Toronto and Washington. Other airlines offering services to
Addis Ababa include Lufthansa, Kenya Airways, British Airways, KLM, Turkish
Airlines, Emirates Air Line, Egypt Air and Gulf Air.
Tourist visas: Required
for all visitors to Ethiopia. Visas can be obtained from the visitor’s nearest
Ethiopian embassy or consulate before departure.
Climate: The best time to visit Ethiopia is from
October to May, which is the dry season, although visitors can expect mild
weather year-round.
Language: Although
Amharic is the official language of Ethiopia, many younger Ethiopians do speak
English.
CNN Inside Africa focused on the fast growing Ethiopian fashion industry and it’s global market. Inside Africa reporter Soni Methu talks Ethiopian fashion designers, Photographer and Fashion critic on the current trend and the future of this industry in international spot light.
Watch the Video Below
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (CNN)The country has an international supermodel. It has a world-renown designer, a centuries-old textile industry, and its very own fashion school. It’s Ethiopia, and it’s perched to hit the global fashion industry by storm.
Global interest in Ethiopian fashion is growing. See how the intricate calculations of traditional hand-weaving become elegant designs that grace the runway, as Soni Methu gets to know the designers, models, journalists and artisans driving the Ethiopian fashion scene. Hear what they think it will take to turn Ethiopia into an international player in apparel.
Posted by Inside Africa on Friday, March 27, 2015
“I do see a trend of Ethiopian fashion going abroad,” admits Mahlet Teklemariam, the organizer of Addis Ababa Fashion Week.
“(Fashion in) Ethiopia in the past was mostly local. It wasn’t known on the international market,” she notes. That, she says, is starting to change.
“A lot of international companies are investing in Ethiopia. The Turkish have a lot of big companies producing here and H&M are producing here.”
Telling a storyMany companies are drawn by Ethiopia’s textiles — stunning woven cotton with a range of rich designs. However, there is also an increasing number of homegrown designers hitting the scene.
Fikirte Addis studied child psychology, but ultimately the pull of her mother’s sewing machine proved too powerful for her.
“I loved cutting (fabric),” she recalls. “I had a box full of dresses that I would reuse.” The self-taught seamstress ultimately changed career, and she hasn’t looked back. For her, Ethiopian fabrics give new meaning to the concept of weaving a story. .. Watch the Video and Read More on CNN
(CNN) – As he tended to his goats one afternoon in the Ethiopian highlands some 12 centuries ago, a herder named Kaldi noticed that his bleating charges seemed energized after chewing mysterious red berries.
Intrigued by the strange reaction, Kaldi took the berries to a local monastery, where the monks promptly threw them in the fire disapproving of their apparently magical attributes.
As the berries were roasted by the heat, a heavenly aroma spread, and they were used to make the first coffee.
Or so the legend of coffee goes. What is more certain is that Ethiopia, widely regarded as the cradle of coffee, is a nation devoted to the stimulating beverage. The country is Africa’s biggest producer and ranks fifth globally. Last year it exported 190,000 tonnes of coffee beans, earning around $700 million, and in 2016 Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa will host the 4th World Coffee Conference, a high-level gathering of global experts.
Far from being just coffee exporters, Ethiopians are also major coffee lovers. Cafes densely line the streets of the capital Addis Ababa, and in 2013/14 3.6 million bags were consumed in the country, representing 71.6% of the total domestic consumption of Africa and 8% of all exporting countries.
TO.MO.CA, with six branches in Ethiopia’s capital, is one of the most recognizable cafe brands. It has been owned by three generations of the same family for over 60 years, and now the company is opening its first international outpost in Tokyo, Japan, this May.
“Ethiopians are coffee drinkers with a history of drinking and enjoying coffee for over 1,000 years,” says Wondwossen Meshesha, the 28-year-old grandson of TO.MO.CA’s founder and the company’s current chief operations officer.
“Here, it’s not just about getting a coffee on your way to work,” he continues. “Ethiopians socialize and meet their business partners in coffee shops.”
Meshesha says that only 20% of the coffee in the country is commercially farmed, with the rest coming from small holder farmers, who harvest coffee mainly in forest. “The specialty of Ethiopian coffee comes from the emphasis of consistency in production of quality coffee rather than volume of coffee production,” the young businessman adds.
In Ethiopia, consuming coffee has traditionally been a ceremonial affair with a deep, spiritual meaning, conducted at home. The beans are roasted in an open pan so that their rich aroma draws family, neighbors and other guests to gather.
After they are ground with a mortar and pestle, the coffee is brewed in a jug and poured into small cups from a height, with an up-and-down motion. Cups are filled to the brim, representing a wish for “fullness of life” for the guest, and there are three servings, the last of which is called baraka, or blessing….Read More and Watch Video on CNN
US Embassy Press Release: Addis Ababa, April 3, 2015 – Ambassador Patricia M. Haslach administered the oath of service to 57 new Peace Corps Volunteers at the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa today. 33 of these Volunteers will be working within Peace Corps Ethiopia’s Community Health and HIV Project while the remaining 24 will be working within the its Environment Project. With this new group there are now 223 Peace Corps Volunteers in Ethiopia.
Peace Corps Ethiopia began working with public health in 2007 with direct support from the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Since then the program has evolved to include activities such as water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH), maternal and newborn health, and malaria prevention, in addition to HIV prevention, care and support. Volunteers are additionally involved in a variety of projects including leadership camps for youth, public health awareness campaigns, income generating activities, Grassroot Soccer HIV awareness interventions, organizational capacity building, and youth clubs.
Peace Corps Ethiopia’s Environment program began in 2010. The Resilient Environment, Agriculture, and Livelihoods (REAL) project is a partnership with USAID and the Feed the Future initiative. Volunteers, in collaboration with agriculture offices, farmer training centers, and local development agents, work to strengthen individual and organizational technical capacities and to improve food security and natural resource management. Volunteers work with leaders in agriculture, health, nutrition, education, and business to mobilize their communities and help them develop a local response to global food insecurity
About Peace Corps Ethiopia: While first established in 1962, Peace Corps returned to Ethiopia in 2007, and today 223 volunteers working in the three sectors of Health, Environment and Education. The 57 volunteers accepting the oath of service today will represent their fellow Americans in rural kebeles across the four administrative regions of Tigray, Oromiya, Amhara and SNNP.
About the Peace Corps: As the preeminent international service organization of the United States, the Peace Corps sends Americans abroad to tackle the most pressing needs of people around the world. Peace Corps volunteers work at the grassroots level with local governments, schools, communities, small businesses and entrepreneurs to develop sustainable solutions that address challenges in education, health, economic development, agriculture, environment and youth development.
Ethiopia is home to the largest population of cattle in Africa. In recent years the country’s leather industry has attracted several foreign companies that have set up factories here. For instance in 2012, Chinese footwear manufacturer Huajian Group opened a factory at the industrial zone outside Addis Ababa where it manufactures 6,000 pairs of shoes and boots per day.
“The industry has a big future,” says Yigzaw Assefa, chairman of the Ethiopian Leather Industries Association (ELIA) and CEO of Bahirdar Tannery.
As one of the government’s priority sectors, investors in leather enjoy incentives including duty exemptions on capital goods and construction materials, and five-plus years of an income tax holiday. Other positives of operating in Ethiopia are free access to US and EU markets as well as cheap labour and electricity.
Transfer of knowledge, expertise
With more foreign investment comes competition for local players, but Assefa says it will also lead to the transfer of knowledge and technical expertise.
For decades Ethiopia has exported its leather to Europe and Asia where it is transformed into fashionable items. But Assefa believes investment in Ethiopia-based factories by foreign companies will help change this. Local tanneries too are tapping into opportunities to produce shoes, bags and belts for export. One example is Assefa’s own tannery which he established in the 1980s.
Today it mostly processes animal skin for export as leather, but the company is expanding its production with the construction of a new plant that will undertake processing of leather into bags, wallets, belts, binders and gloves for sale abroad.
“We are constructing the building and training of workers. In the meantime we are testing the market with a small quantity of fashion gloves and industrial gloves which have already gotten acceptance in Italy, Russia and the US,” says Assefa.
“We have to change the image we have today, that we only produce raw materials.”
Potential for manufacturers
The local market is also opening up for other manufacturers. In the early 2000s plastic shoes from China entered the market and were quite popular, raising concerns among local shoe manufacturers. But this is shifting, with more shoe companies now selling locally and proudly displaying their ‘Made in Ethiopia’ tags. There are also multiple SMEs that manufacture leather bags for sale in the country.
Although exports dominate, Assefa believes local consumption of Ethiopian leather products will increase as people’s income levels rise.
Supply of raw materials a challenge
However, the increasing investments and activity in the industry has caused a shortage in the supply of hides. Most factories source animal skins from suppliers who in turn source from small-scale suppliers who collect hides from different homesteads.
Although most families in rural Ethiopia are farmers and keep cattle, Assefa says commercial farming needs to be developed. Inefficient farming methods by small-scale farmers, such as not properly treating animals and grazing them on the same fields year-in year-out, leads to poor quality skins, meat and milk. Careless handling and poor sanitation post-slaughter also leads to damage of the hides.
“In order to have healthy and productive sheep, goats and cattle, more modern farms should be developed,” Assefa says.
“Backyard killing should not be practised because people damage the skin at home when peeling it off the animal. We need modern abattoirs so the collection process will be easier, centralised and the skin will be well preserved.”
Encourage local talent
In coming years Assefa expects to see more investors pump money into expanding existing facilities and establishing more factories.
“The number of shoe and leather goods factories will increase,” he predicts. “There is a conducive and enabling atmosphere in terms of both the political and economic situations.”
To compete with industries in other parts of the world, Assefa says investors in Ethiopia should prioritise local talent development.
“A cheap and trainable labour force is available. Our people are honest, polite, friendly and co-operative. But they need training, and this should be done by the government and private sector,” he says.
“These factories will only create value if they have qualified human power.”
Construction workers in a section of Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam, March 31, 2015. (Photo: Reuters)
By Harry Verhoeven
In 1991, as the Cold War drew to an end, the only African country that had never been colonized by European imperialists was but a pale reflection of the Great Ethiopia that generations of the kingdom’s monarchs had pursued. A million people lay dead following two decades of civil war. Secessionist movements in the provinces clamored for self-determination. The economy was in tatters, and another catastrophic famine loomed. The world came to associate Ethiopia with images hoards of starving children, and the country’s regional and domestic decline opened questions about its very survival.
Nationalist historians trace the Ethiopian state’s roots to the second millennium BCE. With the story of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba as one of its founding myths, Ethiopia’s history has between entwined with the development of the Abrahamic faiths: the Jewish presence in the Ethiopian Highlands predates the destruction of the Temple; Ethiopian Orthodox Christians claim that the Ark of the Covenant is located in Axum; and the first Muslim hijra, or flight from Mecca to escape religious persecution, was to Ethiopia. Mystical ancestry and military greatness provided legitimacy to Ethiopia’s rulers for centuries as they controlled their formidably diverse empire through a policy of violent internal assimilation and external expansion.
But ideas of that greatness lay shattered as rebel soldiers from the countryside marched on Addis Ababa in May 1991 and overthrew the (formerly Soviet sponsored) dictatorship of Mengistu Haile Mariam. The leftist liberation movement promised a constitution that would give self-determination to Ethiopia’s ninety-plus nations and nationalities and address the political-economic inequities that had torn the country apart, but observers were sceptical about the ability of the Horn of Africa’s once mightiest empire to reconstitute itself. When the northeastern territory of Eritrea voted for and got independence in 1993, it not only cut Ethiopia off from the sea, but also risked triggering cascading claims for self-rule.
A quarter-century on, though, the mood in Addis Ababa could not be more changed. Between 2001 and 2012–13, Ethiopia’s economy grew more than seven percent per year on average. It was the only African country to move at a pace comparable to the East Asian tigers—and to do so without a hydrocarbons boom or a huge mining sector. The economic miracle resulted in real pro-poor growth, lifting millions of people out of the vicious cycle of poverty, hunger, and poor health. While the country’s population soared from roughly 40 million in the 1980s to nearly 100 million today, it achieved the 2000–15 Millennium Development Goals for child mortality and is likely to also meet them for combating HIV/AIDS and rolling back malaria. Ethiopia is also making giant strides tackling income volatility and illiteracy. And, with sequential bumper harvests of Ethiopia’s staple crop, tef (a cereal similar to millet), millions of smallholder farmers might well be able to escape the productivity traps that historically have kept them in abject poverty.
This undated image made from a video released by Islamic State militants, Sunday, April 19, 2015, appears to show the killing of a group of captured Ethiopian Christians in Libya. (AP)
The White House Sunday evening condemned a video purportedly showing a mass execution of Ethiopian Christians in Libya by terrorists affiliated with Islamic State.
“We express our condolences to the families of the victims and our support to the Ethiopian government and people as they grieve for their fellow citizens,” National Security Council spokesperson Bernadette Meehan said in a statement. “That these terrorists killed these men solely because of their faith lays bare the terrorists’ vicious, senseless brutality.”
In the video released Sunday, Islamic State militants in Libya shot and beheaded groups of captive Ethiopian Christians. The attack widens the circle of nations affected by the group’s atrocities while showing its growth beyond a self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq.
The release of the 29-minute video comes a day after Afghanistan’s president blamed the extremists for a suicide attack in his country that killed at least 35 people — and underscores the chaos gripping Libya after its 2011 civil war and the killing of dictator Muammar Qaddafi.
It also mirrored a film released in February showing militants beheading 21 captured Egyptian Christians on a Libyan beach, which immediately drew Egyptian airstrikes on the group’s suspected positions in Libya. Whether Ethiopia would — or could — respond with similar military force remains unclear.
Ethiopia long has drawn the anger of Islamic extremists over its military’s attacks on neighboring Somalia, whose population is almost entirely Muslim. While the militant in the video at one point said “Muslim blood that was shed under the hands of your religion is not cheap,” it did not specifically mention the Ethiopian government’s actions.
The video, released via militant social media accounts and websites, could not be independently verified by The Associated Press. However, it corresponded to other videos released by the Islamic State group and bore the symbol of its al-Furqan media arm.
The video starts with what it called a history of Christian-Muslim relations, followed by scenes of militants destroying churches, graves and icons. A masked fighter brandishing a pistol delivers a long statement, saying Christians must convert to Islam or pay a special tax prescribed by the Quran.
It shows one group of captives, identified as Ethiopian Christians, purportedly held by an Islamic State affiliate in eastern Libya known as Barqa Province. It also shows another purportedly held by an affiliate in the southern Libyan calling itself the Fazzan Province. The video then switches between footage of the captives in the south being shot dead and the captives in the east being beheaded on a beach. It was not immediately possible to estimate how many captives were killed or confirm their identities.
In Ethiopia, government spokesman Redwan Hussein said officials were in contact with its embassy in Cairo to verify the video’s authenticity. Hussein said he believed those killed likely were Ethiopian migrants hoping to reach Europe. Libya has become a hub for migrants across Africa hoping to cross the Mediterranean to enter Europe for work and better lives.
“If this is confirmed, it will be a warning to people who wish to risk and travel to Europe though the dangerous route,” Hussein said.
Abba Kaletsidk Mulugeta, an official with the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahdo Church’s Patriarchate Office, told the AP he also believed the victims likely were migrants.
“I believe this is just another case of the IS group killing Christians in the name of Islam. Our fellow citizens have just been killed on a faith-based violence that is totally unacceptable. This is outrageous,” Mulugeta said. “No religion orders the killing of other people, even people from another religion.”
Ethiopia’s options to retaliate remain slim, given its distance from Libya. However, Egyptian Ambassador to Ethiopia Mohammed Edrees said his country could partner with Addis Ababa to strike the militants.
“That could be an option,” Edrees told the AP. “We will see and explore what is possible to deal with group.”
Edrees said Ethiopian officials had yet to approach Egypt to discuss the idea.
After the February killings of the Coptic Christians, Egypt’s military responded with airstrikes targeting the militant stronghold of Darna. It has not launched further strikes, though its president is trying to form a pan-Arab military force to respond to extremist threats in the region.
The Islamic State group, which grew out of Al Qaeda’s former Iraqi affiliate, now holds about a third of Iraq and Syria in its self-declared caliphate. It’s called on Muslims across the world to join it. Its online videos and propaganda, including scenes of its mass killings and beheadings, have caught the attention of many extremists
Its influence has grown since it seized large areas of Iraq last summer. Insurgents in Egypt’s strategic Sinai Peninsula also have pledged to the group, while another purported affiliate in Yemen claimed a series of suicide bombings in March that killed at least 137 people. On Saturday, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani blamed an affiliate in his country for an attack on a bank branch in the country’s east that killed 35 people and wounded 125. An affiliate also operates in Pakistan.
However, it remains unclear what kind of central command-and-control structure the Islamic State group operates.
“The Islamic State in Libya is still focused on this consolidation phase of announcing its presence through these very high-profile executions,” said Frederic Wehrey, a senior associate for the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “But they face some structural limits in terms of how much local support they can get because they haven’t captured real revenue streams.”
Meanwhile Sunday, the U.S.-led coalition said Kurdish forces recaptured 11 villages in Iraq’s Kirkuk province from the Islamic State group following days of intense clashes. The coalition said the area of about 25 square miles (65 square kilometers) was south of the city of Kirkuk.
The coalition also said Sunday that Iraqi forces had full control over the country’s Beiji oil refinery, the nation’s largest. Islamic State group fighters had been targeting it for days in attacks and briefly held a small portion of the sprawling complex.
In Anbar province, the extremists recently captured three villages near the city of Ramadi and remain locked in heavy clashes with Iraqi troops. More than 90,000 people have fled the militant’s advance there, a United Nations humanitarian agency said.
“Our top priority is delivering life-saving assistance to people who are fleeing — food, water and shelter are highest on the list of priorities,” said Lise Grande, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Iraq. “Seeing people carrying what little they can and rushing for safety is heart-breaking.”
Iraqi troops backed by Shiite militias and U.S.-led airstrikes managed to dislodge the Islamic State group from the northern city of Tikrit earlier this month. But the troops have struggled against the militants in Anbar, which saw some of the heaviest fighting of the eight-year U.S. military occupation that ended in 2011.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
Families of Eyasu Yikunuamlak and Balcha Belete talk to Ethiopian FM Zami 90.7 Radio station on the 2 Ethiopian victims of ISIS killing in Libya. Families of Eyasu Yikunuamlak and Balcha Belete learned their death from newly released ISIS video showing killing Ethiopians.
Listen Zami 90.7 FM Special News on the two Ethiopians killed by ISIS below.
ዛሚ ኤፍ ኤም 90.0በአይ ኤስ ከተገደሉት ኢትዮጵያውያን መካከል በሁለቱ ቤተሰቤተቦች ሀዘን ላይ ተገኝተን ያጠናቀርነው ዘገባ
