Ethiopia aspires to internationalize the quality of skilled labour as a potential source of the economy.
The East Africa Skills for Transformation and Regional Integration Project (EASTRIP) which has been working to standardize the East Africa qualification framework and occupational standard has signed to validate a qualification framework for technical and vocational education and training (TVET) between the three east African countries; Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania.
At the regional workshop on adoption of East African qualifications framework for TVET, Assegid Getachew, State Minister of Labour and Skills, said that EASTRIP will have quite a lot of benefits, including exploiting economies of scale to lower costs of training for individual countries on specialized and industry certified training programs, facilitating mobility of technology and skilled labour, promoting peer learning among countries and institutions and sharing good policies and practices, and targeting employment toward regional economic corridors such as the Northern and Central Corridor Initiatives and other mega infrastructure projects in the region.
“More importantly a project that is striving to not only create centers of excellence within our TVET polytechnic colleges but also to push beyond that and ensure a regional integration with our neighboring countries,” Assegid said.
The sharing of standards, curriculum, and training facilities will help reduce costs for each center. At the same time, demonstrations will help inform and guide the broader array of national TVET reforms in these countries. The regional TVET centers of excellence can serve the labor needs of major regional infrastructure projects.
Genene Abebe, technical working group coordinator, said that through the project the three countries have been working to validate their qualification framework that would allow the three countries to adopt each others standard and even shall share skills.
Genene told media that the scheme is crucial for economical benefit since if the countries have qualified skilled with accepted international standards that would attract investments and even exporting skilled labour to the region and globally with better and higher standard jobs and pay.
He reminded that the establishment of Education and Training Authority has concluded and the regulation has been ratified that would give life for the implantation of qualification framework.
Assegid said that certification has been a challenge, “currently we are looking abroad for certifications for skilled labour thus we send it overseas.”
”The establishment of a center of excellence will allow the country to certify Ethiopians locally with internationally accepted standards. For that the establishment of the centre is under construction that would have holistic facilities and expertise,” the State Minister told media.
EASTRIP is a project funded by the World Bank and the governments of Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania to increase access and improve quality of TVET programs offered by the selected Regional Flagship TVET Institutes and promote regional integration.
The project is expected to benefit not only the three countries directly involved in the project but also other countries in the Sub-Saharan Africa. One of the project interventions is promoting the regional integration through mutual or regional recognition of TVET qualifications which will allow the free mobility of skilled workforce from one country to another.
According to the 2015 World Bank Enterprise Surveys, over 25 percent of the formal firms surveyed in Sub-Saharan Africa identify an inadequately educated workforce as a major constraint, and over 29 percent of all production workers are rated unskilled workers by these firms. Shortage of specialized TVET skills is particularly acute in transport, energy, manufacturing, including agro-processing, and ICT, and this could slow the industrialization agenda.
Streamlining labor needs in the region
Africa hotel development: It’s Egypt, Morocco, Ethiopia; Accor, Marriott, Hilton
Just six words are needed to sum up the main findings of this year’s African hotel chain development pipeline survey conducted by W Hospitality Group, in association with the Africa Hospitality Investment Forum (AHIF); those words are Egypt, Morocco, Ethiopia, Accor, Marriott and Hilton.
This year’s annual survey, which is widely acknowledged as the industry’s most authoritative source, has, as of Q1 2022, a record 42 global and regional (African) contributors, reporting on a pipeline of hotel development activity totalling around 80,300 rooms in 447 hotels, in 42 of Africa’s 54 countries.
Looking first at the number of rooms physically under construction, Morocco and Egypt are ahead of the pack, with 5,577 and 6,142 rooms respectively. They are followed by: Ethiopia, 3,871; Cape Verde, 3,016; Nigeria, 2,544; Kenya, 2,450; Algeria, 2,337; Tunisia, 2,280; South Africa, 1,948 and Senegal, 1,919. In Tunisia, Kenya and Morocco, over ¾ of the pipeline is “onsite”, whereas in Egypt, 71% is just at the planning stage, reflecting its relatively “young” pipeline (a lot signed in the last 3 years). While Nigeria has 45% onsite; eight of the 15 hotels (with half of the total rooms) that have started construction have stalled, and the sites are closed.
The picture changes somewhat when one looks at rooms being planned as well as those under construction. In this approach, Egypt is the star. It doesn’t just lead the country table, with over 21,000 rooms in 85 hotels in development, up 20 per cent on last year; but it is streaking ahead of the pack. It has almost three times the number of new rooms planned as Morocco, and almost four times Nigeria, which was top of the table for many years. What’s more, with continued signing activity (20 hotels with about 5,250 rooms last year), Egypt now accounts for over 25 per cent of the total hotel development pipeline. Morocco has 7,209 rooms in development, spread across 50 new hotels; Nigeria has 5,619 rooms in 33 hotels, Ethiopia has 5,206 rooms spread across 29 hotels and Cape Verde has 4,639 rooms in 17 hotels. The next five places are taken by Algeria, 3,202 rooms, Kenya, 3,155 rooms, South Africa, 3,133 rooms Tunisia, 2,918 rooms ! and Senegal 2,693 rooms.
Notably, four out of the five North African countries are in the top ten; and the top ten countries represent 67% of the total hotels, and 74% of the rooms, in the survey.
While Africa’s hotel development pipeline is at its strongest ever, 80,291 rooms being planned or constructed, the top-line number masks a reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa, where there has been a greater amount of hotel investment in recent years. Of the six sub-Saharan countries in the top 10, only Cape Verde has seen an increase in planned rooms, 33%, whilst the “power houses”, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya and South Africa have between them seen a decline of 29%; Nigeria is down 41%. There are three main reasons for the reduction: fewer new opportunities in the region; opening of some 2,700 rooms in 15 hotels last year, and a pipeline “cleansing” which the hotel chains do periodically to remove various projects which are unlikely to go ahead.
Looking at the development activity of the hotel chains, both Accor and Marriott are nearly as dominant as Egypt and Morocco, each representing just over 25% of the entire pipeline! Accor has 20,857 rooms in development, spread over 107 properties; Marriott has 20,248 rooms spread over 103 properties. Hilton, in third place, has around half as many rooms, 10,505 in 55 hotels. Radisson, 4th, has 6,248 rooms in 35 hotels. The next six places are taken by IHG, 3,136 rooms, Barceló, 2,488 rooms, Hyatt, 1,995 rooms, Meliá, 1,743 rooms, Louvre, 1,273 rooms, and Minor, 1,203 rooms.
IHG merits comment, due to its growth of over 10%. It signed a deal for four Indigo-branded hotels in Egypt, with 650 rooms in total, as well as a 300-room InterContinental hotel in Cairo’s New Capital.
Analysis of the number of rooms under construction, as opposed to those merely being planned, changes the hotel chain ranking substantially, because Accor has only 26% of its pipeline onsite, whereas Marriott and Hilton have around 57% and Radisson 85%. This puts Marriott in top spot, Hilton second, Accor third and Radisson fourth. The top ten combined have 82% of all the rooms under construction in Africa, and the top four account for fully 66% of the total, up from 58% last year.
Trevor Ward, Managing Director, W Hospitality Group said: “The chains anticipate that 200 new hotels are expected to open this year and next, although their expectations can sometimes be over-optimistic! After a positive trend in 2019, the actualisation of hotel deals (ie: the proportion that actually opened, compared to what the chains expected to open) was less than 30 per cent in both 2020 and 2021 – however, that was quite understandable with pandemic travel restrictions killing the demand for hotel rooms.”
Trevor continued: “I am not surprised by the slow-down in the number of deals signed in sub-Saharan Africa, as the past couple of years have seen not only the pandemic, making it more difficult to travel and meet new partners, but also less appetite from investors for major markets such as Ethiopia, Nigeria and South Africa. However, what does surprise me is that the majority of investment is going into upscale, upper upscale and luxury hotels, when there is very strong demand across Africa for decent quality branded budget and midscale hotels.”
Matthew Weihs, Managing Director of The Bench, which organises AHIF, concluded: “While the hospitality industry has just been through the bleakest period in my professional career, it is fascinating to see that the pandemic has done nothing to dent long-term investor confidence in hospitality. If anything, the savviest financiers have seen it as an opportunity. They have been encouraged by enlightened governments, such as Morocco’s, which have spent $ billions on new infrastructure to incentivise investment in tourism. What’s more, judging by our other conferences this year that have sold out, we are seeing how keen people are to travel again and how valuable it is to meet face to face, rather than over a video link. I am confident that when AHIF takes place on 2-4 November, in Taghazout, close to Agadir, we will see the atmosphere buzzing, with highly productive networking and with more deals announced than ever before.”
CoM 2022 calls for extension of debt service suspension
The 54th Session of the Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development (CoM 2022) ended with renewed calls for improved liquidity and better fiscal space for African countries as they recover from multiple global crises.
The draft resolutions approved by the Committee of Experts recognized that in spite of the best national and global efforts, the effects of COVID-19, the war between Russia and Ukraine and worsening climate conditions “are widening the development financing gap in Africa and augmenting the continent’s debt vulnerabilities”.
In response to the above, the experts implored the ECA “to support the extension of the Debt Service Suspension Initiative for two more years” and also to support a rescheduling of “an additional period of five years for interested countries”.
Furthermore, the ECA is expected to “advocate and mobilize support for the reallocation of special drawing rights to countries that are most in need” as well as push for the “reform of the international financial architecture to allow African countries gain access to resources more easily”. These and other measures are requirements for Africa to meet its targets of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 and the African Union’s Agenda 2063.
UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the ECA, Vera Songwe, explained that the ECA will work with African governments and institutions to explore the innovative finance options for Africa’s recovery that came up during the session.
Ms. Songwe cited COP 27 as an opportunity to press for innovative financing. She said, “We look forward to seeing carbon financing. We also want to advocate that Africa can fall on gas as we transition to sustainable energy. This will transform our economies through industrialization.”
On his part, the Chair of the Ministerial Committee of the session and Senegal’s Minister of Economy, Planning and International Cooperation, Amadou Hott, was hopeful that “the resolutions can be effectively worked up upon within a year or at least before the next session”.
The annual Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development (CoM) is the ECA’s largest annual event and provides an opportunity for participants to debate key issues on Africa’s development, and to discuss the think tank’s performance in delivering on its mandate.
New report urges African governments to stamp out witchcraft accusations against children
- Six countries – Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar and Niger –reported instances of ritual infanticide.
- Eleven countries – Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia, Madagascar, Rwanda and Zimbabwe – reported ritual attacks against children with disabilities.
- Seven countries – Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Liberia, Nigeria, South Africa and Tanzania – reported instances of violence against children accused of being witches.
Witchcraft accusations and ritual attacks against African children are hidden and ignored, yet are one of the most gruesome forms of violence against children.
New research from African Child Policy Forum (ACPF) shows that every year, thousands of African children are accused of witchcraft and suffer ritual attacks, abuse, physical and psychological violence, yet most governments are turning a blind eye.
“Africans have ignored this horrific violence for far too long,” said Dr Joan Nyanyuki, Executive Director of ACPF. “It is utterly unacceptable that witchcraft accusations and ritual attacks on children are still widespread across the continent. Governments must uncover this hidden shame and address these crimes and extreme forms of violence, which have life threatening effects and often result in the death of innocent children,” she added.
The report uncovers the prevalence of witchcraft accusations and ritual attacks against children across Africa. It finds shocking gaps and failures by governments, despite most countries being signatories to the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC) and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).
“Many countries’ laws do not explicitly prohibit accusations of witchcraft against a child, which in itself is an act of psychological violence. Worse still, beyond their failure to prevent these accusations and violent attacks, governments have also failed to minimise the harm children suffered when they fall victims,” said Dr Nyanyuki.
‘“African states must uphold their obligations to protect all children, especially those who are vulnerable, at risk of being accused of being witches and of facing ritual killings. Among those in need of greatest protection are children with albinism who face the most gruesome forms of ritual attacks which result in extreme violence and death. Such accusations and attacks are crimes and must be treated as such – they must be outlawed and punished.”
ACPF is greatly concerned that despite national child protection laws, witchcraft accusations and ritual attacks against children have been reported in Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Madagascar, Niger, Angola, Eswatini, Liberia, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Central African Republic, Nigeria and South Africa are countries.
The report highlights the case of a 13-year-old girl from Benin who spent years in a child reception and protection centre after being accused of witchcraft, only to be ostracised by family and community upon her return home and eventually being forced back into care after only four days.
“The horror that children accused of witchcraft are subjected to is indescribable” said Dr Nyanyuki. “They suffer public humiliation, forced confessions, torture, violent beatings, are forced to ingest traditional ‘cleansing’ medicines, are expelled from their homes, ostracised from their communities, maimed and, in extreme cases, murdered. They carry the scars of isolation, neglect and victimisation on their mental health for their entire lives.”
The report acknowledges progress in tackling the abduction, murder and mutilation of children with albinism for body parts to use in so-called ‘magical medicines’ – for examples, it showcases Malawi’s new laws and dedicated government action which resulted in attacks on people with albinism declining from 60 in 2016 to just four in 2021.
However, the report concludes on a sombre note, highlighting the woefully inadequate human and financial resources available to tackle witchcraft accusations and ritual attacks on children. What little support is available comes mostly from international donors.
“Witchcraft accusations and ritual attacks are rooted deep in our African beliefs, culture and tradition, and are often shrouded in secrecy,” added Dr Nyanyuki. “They remain one of the most elusive harmful practices challenging governments across the continent. Government authorities must focus on preventing witchcraft accusations if they are to succeed in uncovering this hidden shame.”
