Ethiopian professionals share Israeli expertise

By Tagu Zergaw

Israeli experts of various professions have provided training in different fields to a number of Ethiopians driven from various professions. The training session were provided during the last two weeks in the towns of Jimma, Holeta and Hawzien.
Dr. Avihai Ilan, a leading Israeli Plant Biologist, said more than 20 trainees from ten different institutions that are dealing with tissue culture were provided with a two week training in plant mass propagation that was conducted in Jimma Agricultural Research Institute. Most of the trainees were plant researchers and plant lab technicians.
The training focused on theoretical and practical aspects of micro-propagation - the process of growing parts of plants with artificial nutrition done in a test-tube. The aim of the training, according to Dr. Ilan, was to enable laboratory technicians select better, and disease free varieties of plants for future propagation and distribution to farmers. Jimma Agricultural Research Institute is where one of Ethiopia's tissue culture laboratories is located. Dr. Ilan added that the government of Israel's assistance is in line with the Institute's to turn the laboratory from a research laboratory to a semi-industrial laboratory where mass plant propagation in pineapple and coffee that are suitable for the area will take place for large scale distribution amongst farmers.
Dairy products management was the other area where two Israeli experts provided a workshop and consultations to thirteen Ethiopian professionals who have specialties of diary farms. Boaz Hanochi and Ephraim Ezra, project manager of the herd management software and statistical expert respectively of the Israeli Cattle Breeders Association have provided the training and held intensive discussions with the participants and relevant authorities in Addis Ababa and Holeta on issues of improving Ethiopia's dairy production management.
"Israel is one of the leading countries in the world in management of dairy products and that is the experience we would like to bring to Ethiopia," said Boaz. Both of the experts were in Ethiopia seven years ago and said they have seen a tremendous change particularly in private dairy farm development in Ethiopia, something they would like to see in the public and individual farm sectors.
The visit of the experts was conducted under the framework of the agreement signed between MASHAV, the Israeli Centre for International Cooperation, USAID and the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, MoRAD. Itamar Israeli, a MASHAV expert permanently stationed in Ethiopia to facilitate the implementation of the agreement said that the MASHAV-USAID-MoRAD agreement has shifted its strategy from providing trainings to Ethiopian agricultural professionals to establishing center of excellence with all the facilities in order to provide an on going training of trainers in field grafting. Such a center is being built in Butajira for mango and other types of fruits grafting and it is expected the center will be fully functional as of next winter.
In a related development, two Israeli health experts, Professor Pablo Yagupsky and Dr. Jakob Orkin have provided a week-long training in Integrated Management of Neonatal and Childhood Illness (IMNCI) to 25 participants in the Tigray region Hawzien town. The training of trainers was provided in the framework of the Millennium Village Project in which Israel is involved in providing technical support in various fields to more than 55, 000 farmers from eleven villages that are incorporated in the Millennium Village Project. The 25 participants of the training were health professionals who came from all the eleven villages known as Koraro Cluster in Hawzien, according to Simon Afriat, an Israeli expert who is stationed in Hawzien.
During the week-long training, the two experts have trained the participants on topics such as: the practical approach to the management of neonatal and childhood diseases in the developing world: danger signs, assessment, classification, treatment, nutritional assessment, and follow-up. Childhood morbidity and mortality in the developing world: causes of death under the age of 5 years, childhood mortality rates. Interventions to reduce morbidity and mortality in neonates and early infancy: prenatal care, maternal health and nutrition, assisted delivery, breastfeeding, supplementary feeding, kangaroo care of low-birth weight newborns, and immunization. The training also covered issues such as history and physical examination of the newborn, basic neonatal healthcare as well as principles of child development.

Will the power shortage trip the industry growth story?

By Groum Abate

The worst hit is the small and medium scale sector here in the capital. When there are power cuts the losses can balloon by twice or thrice the rate of slowdown because of the partial closure.
When the state owned electric utility the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation (EEPCo) recently extended the power rationing from one to two days every week, the worst fears of small scale businesses were confirmed.
Mimi, who owns a small shoe factory, said that the loss of production due to extensive load shedding is not just in manhours and in terms of wages that are paid, but also the interest paid on raw materials, transport booked for the whole month, etc. The situation around the country is not any better. Many small-scale units don’t have generators at factory premises as it makes the products uncompetitively high priced. Businesses choose to keep their machines idle and pay workers for doing nothing for two days a week.
There is a strong link between energy and development. One of the key measures that need to be taken to reduce poverty is to increase access to electricity in all parts of the country including the rural areas. 94% of the country’s electric power generation relies on water resources. Even though Ethiopia’s hydroelectric power generation potential is in the range of 30,000 to 45,000 MW, only 817MW has been put in use. Due to that, less than 20% of the population has access to electricity supply. Current per capita electric power generating capacity of the country is about 10 W and the annual per capita electric energy consumption is limited to 28 KW. The share of oil and electric power in the energy consumption of Ethiopia is only 5.5%.
For the last four years the power giant has not added capacity but has set up new power projects. Many of the small scale sector industry units and small businesses found making even marginal profits from manufacturing or trading was becoming impossible.
Another trader that owns a secretarial services outlet said that they would not make a single cent during the two days at power shedding and are forced to close down their shops. They said that they cannot even dare think about installing generators.
The businesses in Addis Ababa are not very sure if the situation will change very soon, but small industry is suffering hugely because of crippling power shortage.
EEPCo announced last week that the power interruption would continue for the coming two or three months after the corporation faced a power shortage of over 40% in Addis Ababa.
The corporation is trying to cope up with the problem by installing over 45 diesel generators that cost the corporation over 100 million birr a month. If the corporation changed its customers for the generator power, consumers would be forced to pay seven times higher that they used to pay.
The corporation is waiting the rainy season and the disparity has occurred between demand and supply of electric power due to the ever increasing demand.
The corporation also urges the public to use various electric devices apart from the corporation’s grid.
The amount of electric power supplied during the past nine months is almost equal with the amount supplied during the previous year. The corporation said that the demand grows 12% every year. According to the corporation’s data in 1999 Ethiopian fiscal year EEPCo distributed 2160GWH power and in the last nine months of the 2000 fiscal year the corporation distributed 2412GWH power.
The ever increasing number of new industries as well as the expansion of investment activities in various parts of the country, accompanied by low level of rain during the main rainy season have aggravated the problem, according to the General Manager.
Addis Ababa has an installed capacity of just 200MW while gap between the demand and supply is about 80 MW.
The new projects coming up in the state are 300 MW at Tekezze, 420 MW at Beles, 420MW at Gilgel Gibe II, and 1,870 MW at Gilgel Gibe III. All these projects will become on-stream by 2011. But what most small businesses owners fear is that even these capacity additions which have planned by the state owned utility company as a knee jerk reaction to the stupendous problem of power shortage will not be able to meet the power demand by the time they become on-stream because the demand would have multiplied by then.
Apart from the small scale businesses, the huge investment that is attracted by the country’s favorable investment opportunities can’t resist the temptation of making comparisons with the situation in other countries which are also competitors.
“I often hear about how Wal-Mart in the US would seek suppliers who have large capacity to meet their global needs. But we are constrained to add capacity because our machinery is lying idle for two days a week. The losses are becoming unbearable’’, one garment manufacturer and exporter said.
Talking of privatization, the government has proposed plans for private entities to generate power. But the cost of power would rise over 0.12 dollars per watt.
The investments required for capacity expansion in power generation, transmission and distribution till 2012 will be over 128 billion birr.
Due to an increase in the demand for power many industries are now shifting to other options like fuel-operated generators and this in turn will hamper the export earnings of the country.