Capital

ETC in row with SIM card subcontractors

By Tedla Yeneakal

Government seeks partners for major ventures

By Andualem Sisay

Mobiles to go Abesha

By Andualem Sisay

24hr Ethiopian TV for diaspora

By Tedla Yeneakal

Addis on the web

By Eskinder Michael

Manhunt on for kidnappers

By our staff reporter

Ethiopia has 5.5% GDP growth Signs encouraging: Senior Economist

By Eskinder Michael

Former DBE president joins bamboo production

By Groum Abate

MoR collects 8 bln birr in seven months

By Eskinder Michael

UAE could lift meat export ban

By Eskinder Michael

Lack of bridge runs Jimma out of fuel

By Groum Abate

Paper mills in pipeline

By Groum Abate

‘...the new ventures would put Ethiopia as the seventh biggest producer of pulp …’

Italians eye Ethiopia investment

By Andualem Sisay

Maathai: ‘shift resource to environment’

Malnutrition-obstacle in fighting HIV

By Andualem Sisay

Ethiopia, UN Agencies sign over 750 mln birr grant

By Eskinder Michael

In one of its largest grant agreements in recent times, the United Nations has signed a 750 million birr grant agreement with Ethiopia.
The UN, through four of its prominent agencies, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Populations Fund (UNFPA), and World Food Program (WFP) signed a Country Program Action Plans (CPAPs) for the provision of a grant amounting to 754.1 million USD.

Change old approach, SC-Sweden

By Andualem Sisay

‘...Only 13 per cent of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa had a national policy on orphans…’

Cars driving drivers Ethiopia loses up to 1% GDP every year to traffic accidents

By Andualem Sisay

ETC in row with SIM card subcontractors

By Tedla Yeneakal

The Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (ETC) is engaged in a heated row with private companies which are subcontractors of mobile SIM cards, after the latter claimed that ETC is not giving them enough cards for sale, thereby failing to meet high demand.
A SIM card retailer who requested anonymity, told Capital that the Corporation has stopped giving them the SIM cards and is undertaking the sales of the cards on its own.
“We have not been able to benefit from the eight percent commission out of the SIMs that we sell,” the retailer said. “ETC is carrying out the sales and preventing us from gaining profit out of the commission from the ever increasing demand for SIM cards.”
ETC’s management passed a decision in 2004 to outsource its mobile SIM card sales to focus on infrastructure development in the sector. Six private companies have initially been selling the cards for a price of 443.10 Br and then reduced it to 363.10 Br
Abdurahim Ahmed, Corporate Communication Division Manager of ETC on his part told Capital that the Corporation is undertaking the phase of network optimization and is evaluating the radio frequency to avoid congestion problems.
He defended the Corporation’s stance that it is undertaking SIM card sales to protect its customers, as some retailers have charged extra amount of money to benefit from the shortage of cards.
“We have reduced the amount of SIM cards that we give to the retailers to optimize the network and regulate its operations,” Abdurahim said. “Mobile networks work with radio frequency. It is not like the landline that once installed, does not need any network evaluation.”
The six private companies have been distributing SIM cards to more than 1,000 points of sales and in addition, there are also more than 2,000 shops and kiosks that sell outsourced mobile cards in Addis Ababa.
ETC now has more than 829,000 landline telephones and 1,030,000 mobile subscribers. Until February 2007, tele-denisity in the country was 1.03 lines per 100 people.

Government seeks partners for major ventures

By Andualem Sisay

The Privatization and Public Enterprises Supervising Agency (PPESA), is looking for domestic or foreign public or private partners for its Coal Phosphate Fertilizer and Rubber Plantation and Processing projects.
The Coal Phosphate Fertilizer project, the total cost of the complex which is estimated at between 500 and 600 mln USD, is based on the lignite deposit in Yayu, Illubabor Zone, some 540 kms in southwest Ethiopia.
A study in the area revealed that 230 mln tons of extractable lignite exists in an area of 41km2. The proposed plant at Yayu envisages to produce 500, 000 tons per year of urea.
The annual urea import of Ethiopia has currently surpassed 100,000 tons a year. The summary of forecast of urea demand in Ethiopia made by the National Fertilizer Industry Agency in 2001 reveals that by the year 2012, demand will be about half a mln tons per year.
According to the sixth public tender of February 21st, 2007, the price of urea per ton reached 388.70 dollars, a significant increase from an average of 310 dollars last year. It is 40 dollars higher than projected earlier by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MoARD).
Setting aside some of the deposit for power generation and assuming that only 75 per cent of this deposit to be economically exploitable, the lignite available for the project is estimated to be at least 112,500,000 tons.
The Rubber Plantation and Processing Project with import substitution of about 1600 tons of natural rubber and 2,400 tons of rubber goods per annum, is estimated to cost 121.2 mln birr, of which 40% is in foreign currency. About 123 mln birr is needed for the development of 2,000 hectares of rubber plantation.
The project also comprises the component development of infrastructure and rubber processing plant, staff development and research. 200 skilled and semi-skilled personnel as well as up to 20,000 temporary workers will be required for the project.
The venture will be developed as a nucleus estate in two phases. Two rubber estates of 1000 hectares each would be established during the first eight years (2003-2010).
Addis Tire Share Company had established a pilot rubber plantation of 16.61 hectares, with the planting of 10 hectares in 1995 and 6.61 in 1997. Some trees planted in 1995 matured by 2001. Tapping WAD started with 250 trees in February 2001, and increased to 1000 trees in March 2002.
Currently a total area of 300 hectares has been developed out of which the share of the National Nucleus Project is 150 hectares. The project is under implementation in the Southern Peoples Nations and Nationalities Regional State around Addis Alem.
Under the Public and Private Partnership Program, PPESA, the Ethiopian government is working towards attracting foreign private partners for joint venture and lease arrangements with public enterprises.
Since the country has began privatizing the former state-owned companies in 2001, 44 companies are privatized so far.

Mobiles to go Abesha

By Andualem Sisay

When technologies transfer from one country to another, they need to be adopted to the extent that they benefit the majority of the people.
Unfortunately, due to various reasons, some technologies are directly imposed without taking into consideration the limitations of the recipient society to fully utilize the technology.
The mobile phone is among the technologies that have been directly transferred to Ethiopia. As the majority of the people of the country are not familiar with the English language or other languages that are used on mobile phones, we observe many people can’t do a routine operation like save a friends name and number.
Such problems led Abraham Tsegaye and his team comprising of Solomon Worku and Daniel Adbib to write a mobile phone operating system in Amharic, as their Bsc Degree final graduation project.
“Because of the language barrier, many people in our area and the majority of Ethiopians do not properly understand the English menus on their cell phones,” says Abraham. “What we did was to figure out how we can solve the problem.”
It is this intention that led them to the idea of using Motorola’s Symbian operating system software. With in a three month period of the project time set by the HiLCoE school of Computer Science and Information Technology, Abraham and his team develop at 200 characters on the nine keys of a Motorola apparatus.
Using Amharic language characters, they were able to develop phone book, message and phone settings in Amharic.
“Our progress to go this far with limited resources as students made us view this project seriously and push on until we see our people use this product,” says Solomon. “Therefore, with an interested partner who is willing to invest on the realization of the need for Amharic mobile menu software and with consultation we have started with Nokia, we will soon be able to provide this product to the market.”
According to Solomon, they are looking for a partner who is willing to provide them with the necessary equipment to finalize their research and develop their first fully compatible Amharic mobile phone operating system using Symbian.
In addition, they are also looking forward to consulting and sharing experiences with individuals who have developed Amharic software and to continue discussions with Nokia.
According to recent information obtained from Ethiopian Telecommunication Corporation, which is the sole telephone service provider in the country, there are more than 1,030,000 mobile phone subscribers.

24hr Ethiopian TV for diaspora

By Tedla Yeneakal

Sosinna Tesfa, along with other journalists and artists living in the United States, gathered to launch a 24 hr television network, this week Thursday, March 1, 2007.
The Ethiopian Television Network (ETN), comprises broadcast of news and political analysis, educational programs and entertainment recorded mostly in Amharic and is transmitted via satellite to Ethiopian expatriates in North America.
ETN’s Chief Executive is Mulugeta Lule, a journalist who has worked in several media outlets including Tobia newspaper and magazine, which he founded and edited in the 1990s before leaving to the United States in 1996 and applying for political asylum.
Tesfa conceived ETN early last year with two friends. They recruited other Ethiopians and Ethiopian Americans who mortgaged their homes and took loans to raise $500,000 in startup funds.
The staff members of ETN include Tamagne Beyene, a famed entertainer who toured Ethiopia's stages and arenas, but gave up the life for refuge status in Alexandria. He is popular for his political humor. Tamagne moved to the United States in 1996.
Other members include famous names in the media such as Dereje Desta, Nebyou Eyasu, Genet Alemu, and Getachew Abdisa.

Addis on the web

By Eskinder Michael

The arrival of the Ethiopian millennium has prompted several Ethiopians to come up with innovative business plans Addis Tours is a company that has embarked on putting Addis Ababa on a unique website.
Addis Tours is a three month old. IT solutions company and has finalized www.addistour.com, a website that contains a detailed map of Addis Ababa with names and directions of main and feeder roads.
“We decided to create an electronic map of Addis Ababa on the net so that people who do not know their way around could find a place easily. The main reason though, is the Ethiopian millennium guests numbering between 250 and 300 thousand expected. Half of those will be foreigners who know nothing about Addis Ababa,” Mesele Gulilat, Addis Tour’s Marketing team member told Capital.
The website was launched about 3 months ago and classifies Addis into 14 sub-cities and has grids for every sub-city. Other parts are also classified into 14 categories such as hotels, embassies, business firms and entertainment, among others.
A user who wants a particular place simply looks for the category in which the place falls into and types in the name. The location will then appear on the screen with a detailed map, and for those who do not know of it; the site will point out the place in relation to other well known spots.
“We tried to get an electronic version of a map of Addis, but that was difficult, so we had to reconstruct the paper map and add more information. The process took us a little over a year,” Mesele said.
The tedious part of collecting the data was to go all over Addis Ababa and enter the names of every street and also register every feeder road.
“All we wanted to do was make life easier for those who do not know Addis Ababa. The reason we incorporated just 80% of the information in Addis is because we believe that foreigners who come here on tour or business might not need to go to the outskirts of Addis.”he added.
The site also has an events scroll bar where the city’s main events will be displayed. Summits, meetings, musical and cultural shows will be incorporated on the bar. The site will immediately link the user to the site of the body that organizes the event.
“We had to pool 20,000 birr to get this to work, not including the manpower spent while collecting data and assessing the market,” Hiruy Estephanos, another member of the marketing team said.
Addis Tours is also looking to work with another marketing firm that would help them in promoting the website. The site is free of charge, hence the need for marketing help to get companies and offices to advertise on the site.

Manhunt on for kidnappers

By our staff reporter

A massive manhunt is on in Ethiopia on Saturday after an unidentified group kidnapped five Europeans and 13 Ethiopians in the country's northeast.
There were conflicting reports that up to 20 foreigners had been abducted.
The Europeans along with Ethiopian staff were abducted at a camp in the inhospitable Afar region, where separatist rebels are known to operate, on Thursday night, Ethiopia's state news agency ENA quoted the police as saying on Friday.
In London, British foreign secretary Margaret Beckett confirmed that five "members of staff, or relatives of members of staff, at our embassy in Addis Ababa" were missing in the desert region which bordered southern Eritrea.
While Beckett made no direct reference to the Britons being kidnapped, she said the Ethiopian authorities had promised "to ensure that the situation is resolved peacefully".
Britain sent a team of officials to Ethiopia in efforts to trace the five.
"We're sending out staff to supplement the embassy staff there," a British foreign office spokesperson in London told AFP.
Britain's national contingencies committee Cobra, which included the heads of the security services, met to discuss the kidnapping, the BBC said.
This indicated a "national security" element to the abductions.
French embassy officials were also en route to the desert region.
The British foreign office amended its travel advice for Britons in or intending to head to the remote area of Ethiopia, advising citizens not to go.
The 13 Ethiopians missing were working as drivers and interpreters for the tourists.
ENA news agency reported that a group of Europeans living in Ethiopia left on February 23 on a tourist trip to the remote Denkel valley.
Ethiopia requires tourists to the area to travel with police escorts due to regular bandit attacks.
One group in contact
Addis Ababa said earlier that it would do everything possible to ensure the safety of the missing foreigners.
"We heard about an abduction and we are trying to confirm their whereabouts," Bereket Simon, an advisor to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, told AFP. "We'll try our best to ensure their safety."
The Europeans were among between a dozen and 20 Western tourists - belonging to separate tour groups - who were reported missing or feared kidnapped on Friday.
A tour operator, Origins Ethiopia, said one 10-member group had since been in contact.
"One group has reappeared with 10 people," said spokesperson Samson Teshome, who declined to specify their nationalities.
"Their satphone was not working, that is why they couldn't contact us."
However, he said seven French tourists, reported missing by Paris-based French volcano trekking specialist Aventure et Volcans, were still unaccounted for.

Ethiopia has 5.5% GDP growth Signs encouraging: Senior Economist

By Eskinder Michael

The World Bank in its Africa Development Indicators 2006 report revealed that Ethiopia was headed in the right direction for economic growth. This was supported by statistics that show Ethiopia is a sustained economic growth country with 5.5%average annual GDP growth at the end of 2004.
Ethiopia’s GDP per capital growth in 1990 was estimated at -1.60% while the GDP per capital growth in 2004 reached 10.14%. Though not a World Bank report, Ethiopia’s GDP per capita had reached 132 USD by the end of 2006.
Ethiopia was one of those countries that used to be highly indebted but according to the World Bank, it has now been categorized among as having reached Heavily Indebted Poor Country Debt Relief (HIPC) completion point. Ethiopia’s estimated total nominal debt service relief is 3,275 million USD and is ranked as the third lowest debt burden in Africa.
“The data we collected show definite signs of encouragement, but these numbers are for the year 2004. Though we have the numbers for 2005 and 2006 and even projections, those numbers are not official yet. Jorge Saba Arbache, Senior Economist, Office of the Chief Economist Africa Region told Capital.
Arbache believes that the data compiled by collecting over 1,300 variables has proven that Ethiopia and Africa as a whole have shown trends of economic growth. The WB supported that belief with a statement that said, “Africa’s growth rates are catching up to other developing countries”
The report has several pointers on Ethiopia, also showing that it was rated among countries that needed well under 50 days (close to a month) to register and start a business.
A paradox that could be derived from the indicators put forth by the WB is that though GDP was increasing in Ethiopia, Human Development hasn’t been doing that well. The reason for this, Arbache said, is that growth doesn’t necessarily reach the poor. This fact could be supported by a simple example: about 92% of the urban population in Ethiopia gets clean water coverage while only a mere 19% of the rural population has access to clean water.
A senior WB economist however, believes otherwise, as he told Capital that Ethiopia seems set to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in terms of Human Development while other sectors need more work and tripled investment.
African countries are venturing more and more into export and some success has been recorded in some. But, says Arbache, African countries can’t bank on exporting just a few commodities, as they need to take lessons from the financial melt down in China a few days ago and diversify their export items.
Though the report showed positive growth trends in Africa, the WB believes that the suspension of the WTO talks in Geneva will hit poor sub-Saharan countries hardest – and the talks may well not resume until sometime in mid 2007 or 2008.

Former DBE president joins bamboo production

By Groum Abate

Moges Chemere, former president of the Development Bank of Ethiopia (DBE), has been appointed as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Land and Sea Development-Ethiopia.
Land and Sea Development-Ethiopia is a company aspiring to undertake bamboo development in Benshangul-Gumz State with a capital of 30 million dollars.
Moges served as head of the DBE for 12 years and was the bank’s head of Legal Services from 1992-94.
He took over the presidency in 1994 from Gebremariam Woldu, who served as a transitional head for two and half years after the Derg regime collapsed.
Formed in 1945 as an agricultural and industrial development bank after the Ethiopian government obtained a loan from the United States, DBE has the role of providing long and medium term loans, strongly focusing on investments made in the agricultural sector.
Moges was also accused of approving loans totaling 86.7 million birr to Addis Industrial and Almi Corporation on March 31, 2005. The Federal Ethics and Anti-corruption Commission arrested him on April 7, 2006, along with with Kidane Nikodimos, former president of Wegagen Bank.
Moges was released from jail after five months, on September 2006, after securing 5,000 birr bail.
Wondwossen Teshome, a 45-year old finance head of the Rural Credit Division took over the presidency.

MoR collects 8 bln birr in seven months

By Eskinder Michael

The Ministry of Revenue (MoR), the country’s largest revenue body, has collected over 8 billion birr from its three agencies. This is about 93.2% of the amount that it had planned to collect in the first seven months.
The Federal Inland Revenue Authority (FIRA) managed to collect over 3.5 billion birr from tax payers or about 90% of its target.
FIRA’s collection in the seven months of this year exceeds that of last year’s by 695.22 million birr.
The Ethiopian Customs Authority (ECA), another revenue generating office under the MoR, collected about 4.5 billion birr in the first seven months, about 95% of the targeted amount for the same period. This was more than last year’s 770.9 million birr.
The National Lottery Administration (NLA), the smallest of the three, earned almost 11 million birr in the first seven months, though it had planned to collect 12.74 million birr. That amounts to 86.2% of the targeted amount and exceeds the collection of last year by 0.55 million birr.
According to the ministry, it has started implementing a Radical Institutional Transformation and Revenue Sector capacity building program in a bid to strengthen the revenue collection system. The ministry is concerned that FIRA’s ability to enforce tax payments hasn’t been as strong it should be.
FIRA, at the beginning of this fiscal year, started implementing the new Tax Administration System called SIGITAS, a system that is helping it collect tax and provide service more efficiently.
The authority has printed a new CD (Price Database 9 to replace Price Database 8) that would help tax collectors calculate the tax of small tax payers.
In related news, the Customs Authority, in a bid to fight contraband trade, has trained 960 customs police in three months. Customs has also increased its services and is on duty 24 hours at the airport and 16 hours at its La Gare office.
The MoR, currently trying to complete the civil service reform, last year underwent several trainings and transformations and is trying to achieve the five points of the civil service reform: enhancing service, improving ethics, administration, personnel management and expenditure on administration and management.

UAE could lift meat export ban

By Eskinder Michael

Years after the United Arab Emirates decided to ban Ethiopian meat imports, it now seems to have warmed to the idea of lifting the ban following reports from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
The ministry has reached a verdict that Rift Valley Fever hasn’t been detected over the past few years. This finding seems to have been accepted by the Gulf nation.
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), along with other organizations - voices that seems to have weighed on the UAE’s decision to consider lifting the ban, have recognized Ethiopia’s fight against the fever.
Rift Valley Fever was widely detected among cattle in Ethiopia, forcing the UAE to ban Ethiopian meat import.
Exporting live cattle and fresh meat to the Middle East has been a potential export strength area before the sector was blighted with disease.
If disease is detected anywhere in Ethiopia, Ethiopia has the responsibility to notify its customers. Rift Valley Fever was first detected in Kenya.
Rift Valley Fever Virus is an acute, febrile, viral disease that affects livestock (such as cattle, buffalo, sheep, goats, and camels) and in some cases, even people. It is a member of the family Bunyaviridae, genus Phlebovirus.
The virus is found in eastern and southern Africa, most sub-Saharan countries and in Madagascar. The fatality rate of the fever in humans is approximately 1% while the rates are significantly higher in livestock. In addition, the fatality rate for fetuses in pregnant livestock is 100% and 90% for newborn lambs.
Ethiopian cattle had also suffered from Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD). FMD is one of the most contagious animal diseases.
Animals can become infected through inhalation, ingestion and by venereal transmission. The primary mechanism of spread within herds is by direct contact and through inhalation of virus aerosols. Under the right conditions, long distance spread (measured in kilometers) of FMD by wind-borne virus can occur.
It was earlier stated that Ethiopia needs hundreds of million birr to tackle Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) that is currently becoming an obstacle to the country’s livestock export.

Lack of bridge runs Jimma out of fuel

By Groum Abate

Jimma town has been struck by a fuel shortage in the past few days as regular fuel is not available at any retailer.
According to one retailer in Jimma town, regular fuel has been scarce since the Gibe bridge collapsed.
The retailers also said that tanker trucks could not pass through the old bridge because it could not support their weight of heavy tanker trucks.
The town administration has also started to distribute coupons to vehicle owners and the public for fuel and fuel products need.
But the scheme could not continue as supplies have totally run out.
Located 180 kilometers south west of the capital, the Gibe bridge collapsed when a heavy truck was crossing to Illubabore Zone, Oromia Regional State.
The truck was carrying a bull-dozer and plummeted into the river, taking a section of the bridge with it.
An average of 300 trucks and trailers carrying coffee and products of Bedele Brewery used to pass everyday across the Gibe Bridge.
The bridge was built in 1955, replacing an arched-bridge built by the Italians.
The shortage has also been observed in the east of the country but was resolved days later.
Ethiopia subsidizes 342 million birr (39.36 million dollars) for fuel over three months after the price increment was introduced recently to reduce the impact of the increment on people of low income.
Diesel, kerosene, super kerosene, and benzene are among the major fuel products Ethiopia imports with diesel taking 54 percent of imported fuel.

Paper mills in pipeline

By Groum Abate

‘...the new ventures would put Ethiopia as the seventh biggest producer of pulp …’

Three pulp mills are to be constructed in Ethiopia jointly with Land and Sea Development- Ethiopia (LSDE), and Chinese and Indian companies.
LSDE started undertaking bamboo development in Benshangul-Gumz State with a capital of 136 million dollars on a plot of 393,000 hectares of lease free land. The company has also secured another 50,000 hectares in the state for plantation and harvesting eucalyptus trees.
At the official inaugural ceremony of the company’s office at Assosa, Founder and CEO of the company, Dr. E. Druce Fisher told Capital that the company is in final negotiations with a Chinese company MCC International and an Indian company, Andhra Paper Mills Ltd. for the construction of pulp mills in Benshangul-Gumz State and Oromia Regional State. The mills have a capacity of producing 100,000 and 75,000 tons of pulp respectively.
The mills are scheduled to come on line in two years and would cost about 360 million dollars, which would be a 50/50 joint venture between LSDE and the other parties.
The company is also negotiating with another Indian company J.K Paper Ltd., to open a third mill that with a capacity of producing 500,000 metric tons of pulp.
According to officials of the company, the new ventures would put Ethiopia as the seventh biggest producer of pulp after all factories become operational.
A pulp mill is a manufacturing facility that converts wood chips into a thick fibre board which can be shipped to a paper mill for further processing.
The activities of LSDE are divided into three phases the first of which would be harvesting the naturally grown exotic bamboo species that could be developed in a short period of time. The second phase is the export of bamboo for which the company has already secured an order. The final phase would be the establishment of a paper mill that utilizes the plant for raw material.
LSDE has also signed a contract agreement providing for the sale and delivery of dry raw bamboo, eucalyptus forest material and products to its clients – pulp and paper mills in India and China.
The company would also start exports after the trucks the company ordered have been delivered and after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), approves their application with a license for harvesting the forest. The company is under negotiations with EPA for and the agency is reviewing the company’s plans.
The company’s president said that it would be harvesting and re-planting bamboo, hybrid eucalyptus and other non-wood crops that could be used in the pulp and paper manufacturing process.

Italians eye Ethiopia investment

By Andualem Sisay

An Italian business delegation from sixteen companies along with Italian officials, discussed with various stakeholders in Ethiopia issues regarding investment and trade opportunities.
During their three-day visit, the delegates made more than one hundred contacts. Most declared themselves pleased with the investment climate in Ethiopia, according to the information obtained from the Italian Embassy which facilitated the visit.
The Embassy reported that the delegation is attracted to trade and investment opportunities in agro-industry, leather, garment, construction and manufacturing.
It also added that many of the delegates intended to return soon to continue the investment arrangements on the sectors they have shown interest.
As part of privatizing state owned businesses, the government of Ethiopia has recently transferred two agriculture sectors to Italian investors.
According to recent data, trade between the two countries has reached 187 mln USD, out of which Ethiopia’s export share to Italy is worth 47 mln USD.
Itay is the premier country to sign a foreign investment agreement with Ethiopia.
Since Ethiopia began its journey towards privatization and a free market, the country has signed investment guarantees such as Overseas Private Investment Cooperation (OPIC) and Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), which is a member of the World Bank.
The government is also providing investment incentives for foreign investors.A foreign investor, is required to invest not less than USD 100,000 in cash and/or in kind as initial investment capital per project.
The minimum capital required of a wholly foreign investor investing in consultancy services or publishing is USD 50,000, which may be in cash and/or in kind. A foreign investor reinvesting profit or dividends, or exporting 75 per cent of output, however, is not required to allocate a minimum capital.
One hundred per cent exemption from the payment of import customs duties and other taxes levied on imports is granted to an investor to import investment capital goods, such as plant machinery and equipment, construction materials., as well as spare parts worth up to 15% of the value of the imported investment capital goods, provided that the goods are not produced locally in comparable quantity, quality and price.

Maathai: ‘shift resource to environment’

Prof. Wangari Maathai, the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, has called this week Wednesday at the Sheraton Addis, on African leaders to turn their focus in terms of their financial allocation to the environment as opposed to military spending.
“We have to focus on development with an emphasis of avoiding environmental destruction,” Maathai said speaking at a two-day workshop on leadership. “Environmental degradation is the invisible enemy and we have to be prepared for it similar to the preparation that is made before waging war.”
Maathai explained the issue of the environment as being vital for the future well being of the people of Africa as it causes natural environment hazards such as crop failure, water shortages, flood, hunger and dieseas.
“We are at the moment extremely unprepared for this enemy,” she said, “We are sitting on a time bomb.”
Moreover, Maathai appealed to Africa for the protection of the Congo forests and the Amazon, stressing that these forests are extremely important for the survival of Africa. “Deserts could wipe us out if we do not take action,” Wangari warned of the implications of not protecting the environment.
Researchers estimate that millions of people die in Africa associated with environmental degradation.
“If we do not protect our primary resources, we will become environmental refugees,’ she said. “ We need to adopt a sustainable management of resources.”
Matthai was in Addis Ababa this week to address a seminar organized by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies Senior Leaders Seminar on Environmental Security.
Proffesor Matthai is the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize and has improved the environment of her native Kenya by persuading the women of Kenya to plant trees. In doing so, she has launched the Greenbelt environmental movement.

Malnutrition-obstacle in fighting HIV

By Andualem Sisay

A Health and Nutrition National Expert at the FAO indicated that rescuing the lives of HIV positive people in Ethiopia is facing challenges due to malnutrition.
“In Ethiopia, one person gets below the standard 2100 calories per day as recommended by FAO. When it comes to a person with HIV, who requires 10 or 20 percent additional calories to the standard, the risk of HIV becoming full blown AIDS will increase,” says Shewandagne Belete, Health and Nutrition National Expert at the FAO, who briefed on the monthly Media Roundtable Forum on the tropic ‘Food for thought on HIV/AIDS’, on March 1st, 2007.
Many HIV positive people across Africa have not developed AIDS after years of living with the virus. Some put this down to luck, others to dietary regimes. The vulnerability of AIDS increase as the food and medicines such as ART Anti Retroviral Treatment faces difficulty to be absorbed by the small intestine. “To minimize such an effect, one has to frequently get enough food apart from normal meal hours,” Shewandagne says.
“With regard to fasting, which is a part of most religions, HIV positive individuals do not necessarily have to fast because there is no such rigid injunction.”

To solve the observed national problems related to nutrition, FAO is working with the government and other stakeholders such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to prepare a National Nutrition Policy of Ethiopia, According to Shewandagne’s presentation, which was on organized by Internews Local Voices, Ethiopia in association with HIV/AIDS Prevention and Controlling (HAPCO).
Currently, FAO is supporting health extension workers by preparing and providing nutrition counseling manuals to assist the diet habits of people living with HIV. The manuals include the possible food items that can be prepared for people with HIV/AIDS based on the available resource and its preparation and storage mechanisms among other.
To solve the food insecurity of people living with HIV/AIDS in Addis Ababa, the World Food Program is providing food assistance to make effective the uptake of ART. Critics say that such provision will not help these people much, since they don’t consume but sell the food they receive to cover immediate expenses such as house rent, electricity and water bills.
Considering this and other limitations of the direct food supply to a family with a member who is HIV positive, FAO is advocating and working towards the implementation of a new approach that targets strengthening the food security capacity by supporting a healthy member of that family to generate income.
So far, there are three universities in Ethiopia that give nutrition programs at higher level. Of these, Gondar University, which is about to graduate MPH students for the second time in the field of nutrition.
Jimma and Hawasa universities are also following Gondar University in introducing nutrition programs.
According to the 2005 Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), which was launched few months ago, 45 per cent of children in Ethiopia are suffering from malnutrition.
1.4 percent of Ethiopians aged 15-49 are HIV-positive according to the Survey result. This means that about one million Ethiopians have HIV. Women are twice as likely as men to be infected with HIV-1.9 percent of women are HIV-positive compared to 0.9 percent of men.
Women and men living in urban areas are at especially high risk; almost 6 percent of adults in urban areas are HIV positive, while less than 1 percent of rural residents aged 15-49 are HIV positive.

Ethiopia, UN Agencies sign over 750 mln birr grant

By Eskinder Michael

In one of its largest grant agreements in recent times, the United Nations has signed a 750 million birr grant agreement with Ethiopia.
The UN, through four of its prominent agencies, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Populations Fund (UNFPA), and World Food Program (WFP) signed a Country Program Action Plans (CPAPs) for the provision of a grant amounting to 754.1 million USD.
It was learnt that about 330.60 million USD of the total grant was obtained from the UN’s regular budget. The balance of about 423.5 million USD would be provided to Ethiopia through the period from January 2007 to December 2011.
As the grant is meant to finance the Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty (PASDEP), the priority areas of assistance will be food security, recovery and humanitarian response, enhanced economic growth and good governance.
The grant will also be used in the sectors of education, health, water and sanitation, Information Communication Technology enhancement and gender based works, basically the main parts of the PASDEP.
The government of Ethiopia and the agencies have agreed to implement the support based on the principles of global commitment in terms of country ownership, harmonization, alignment and simplification, among others.
State Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Mekonnen Manayazewal and the respective officials of the agencies signed the agreement.
Ethiopia, as one of the poorest countries in the world, is part of the UN’s plans to help poor countries reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and needs assistance. Professor Jeffrey Sachs, a special adviser to former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, was quoted as saying that to reach the MDG, Ethiopia needed a solid national strategy and strong international support for that strategy.
But in order for countries like Ethiopia to meet the MDGs, strong international assistance is needed, but all in all, the level of donor assistance has been significantly low, compared to what has been promised and compared to what is needed. The donor countries have repeatedly promised that they would take concrete steps towards the 0.7 of one percent of GNP development assistance goal, close to 175 billion USD a year, but the assistance now lies at a little over 50 billion USD a year.
Ethiopia can’t reach the MDGs unless donors increase their development assistance. Ethiopia requires close to 5 billion USD a year.

Change old approach, SC-Sweden

By Andualem Sisay

‘...Only 13 per cent of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa had a national policy on orphans…’

Building Resilience, the new Focus Africa report-a collaborative initiative among Save the Children Sweden’s three Regional Offices in Africa and the Head Office in Stockholm, says a rights-based approach to children and HIV/AIDS in Africa is the best approach to address the issue of children.
The issue of children will be effectively addressed if only governments and international non-governmental organizations are able to focus on the surroundings of the children – reducing the vulnerability of the children by supporting their families and communities, rather than focusing on the children.
“A rights-based approach can rectify many of the distortions that have arisen from a crisis-driven response to children affected by HIV/AIDS, poverty, and conflict, and can provide a beacon for moving forward,” the report highlights.
“If for instance, we take the South African Social Security Grant Program, which supports low-income families; it has been quite effective in protecting children from becoming vulnerable to streets and joining institutions that eventually disconnect them from social ties,” says Etsub Berhanesilassie, Program Officer for HIV/AIDS at the Save the Children Sweden.
“There fore, the rest of the African nations should also take the lesson from South Africa’s experience and should figure out how they can support the family environment by providing social security grants for these vulnerable families such as providing free education, free housing, etc,” he says.
The existing practice of institutional care approach should be reversed by the rights-based approach as these institutions are focusing more on running the institutions than the children. In addition these institutions have been the major cause for disconnecting the children in the institution from societal links/ties and where a high degree of abuse is being observed.
Further the report states: “…Family-based care initiatives should be supported and monitored while avoiding, as much as possible, residential and institutional care for children. Responses should focus on mitigating parental death and should enable caregivers to secure economic and social resources to provide for children’s protection and care,”
The core response to orphaned and vulnerable children is through family fostering, a practice common in the Southern African region that pre-dates the AIDS epidemic. Family fostering strengthens family ties by enabling children to live with aunts and uncles who they then regard as parents, and also by distributing social and economic assets and liabilities across extended families.
“Community based approaches with a focus on assisting adult caregivers to support very vulnerable children, working on the assumption that children are dependent on adults and family caregivers, will continue to provide protection and care for children when donor-driven programs come to an end.”
Extended families, kin and communities remain the principal supports for children affected by HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa. In rural Tanzania, for example, 95 percent of orphans are cared for by relatives, according to the report.
Other than recommending focusing on caregivers, the report also found analysis-based strategic interventions and efforts to support children are best directed at the care networks by engaging government, stakeholders and the children. In addition, responses should recognize root-causes to the spread and impact of HIV/AIDS, including gender equality, as a source of vulnerability.
In 2004, 25 mln people were estimated to be living with HIV/AIDS in Sub- Saharan Africa.
The report also revealed that most African nations did not include the issue of children in their Poverty Reduction Strategic Papers (PRSPs). Only 13 per cent of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa had a national policy on orphans and vulnerable children by 2003.
The fact that most of the money that goes to non-governmental organizations who are working to address the issues of children are being ‘eaten’ by the organizations themselves and only of the money will reach in addressing their goals set on their papers, is also one of the findings of the report, according to Sophie Joy Mosko, communication and Advocacy Officer for Africa at Save the Children Sweden.
Save the Children Sweden has been working in Ethiopia since 1965.

Cars driving drivers Ethiopia loses up to 1% GDP every year to traffic accidents

By Andualem Sisay

A study revealed that vehicle accidents last year took 2,090 lives and cost 500 mln birr worth in damage 87 per cent of these accidents occurred due to the fault of drivers.
This includes high speed and negligence in checking the technical status of their vehicles. According to Abebe Asrat, Head of the National Road Safety Coordination Office at the Road Transport Authority.
“98 percent of accidents in Addis Ababa occur on asphalt and well paved roads,” says Abebe, who presented his paper at a Chamber Forum Program under the topic, ‘The hazards caused by bad driving in Ethiopia and its effects on the economy and business,’ March 1, 2007 at the Hilton Addis.
“The reasons for the occurrence of these accidents on good roads could be the result of overconfidence on the part of drivers,” says Teshome Beyene, Underwriting and Product Development of Nyala Insurance, who also submitted his findings on the day.
Ethiopia loses every year from 0.8 up to one percent of its GDP, which is 960 mln up to 1.3 bln birr, according to Teshome’s findings that took in to consideration the person’s contribution and gain if he/she would have lived and died a natural death.
According to Abebe, after the Road Transport Authority has began using speed guns last year in selected areas like Akaki and East Shoa, the accident rate declined by 30 percent from the previous year.
“Only by limiting speed, giving priority to pedestrians and respecting the lines on the street would reduce accidents and what we lose in terms of lives and property by 50 per cent,” Abebe says.
Citing neighboring Kenya’s experience, a country with some four times Ethiopia’s vehicles but with 50 percent less accident. Teshome recommends additional measures to Abebe’s advice. “Educating the drivers and the public about the hazards of accidents should go together with heavy fines on drivers who violate traffic rules.”
“The fine for violating traffic regulations has to be much bigger than what the driver benefits as a result of violating them. In addition, insurance companies should also have to teach their customers and set strong control mechanism that will enable them to increase insurance premiums on those drivers who repeatedly cause such awful accidents,’’ Teshome says.
It is estimated that the number of motor vehicles in Ethiopia is around 176,000. The fatality rate per 10,000 vehicles ranges from 80 to 90 people-the highest in the world.