Saturday, September 27, 2025
Home Blog Page 2607

Ethiopia in Czech colours III

Staff Reporter
-
0
Ethiopia in Czech colours III

The Czech Republic Embassy in Addis Ababa organized an event titled “Ethiopia in Czech colours III” held on October 30, 2021, at the premises of the Czech Embassy in Addis Ababa. The third round of this Exhibition is set in order to commemorate the Czech National Day and as a tradition, where artists are invited to use paints manufactured in the Czech Republic to tie the two countries in the journey of art and creativity.
The Ethiopian Visual Artists Association and the Ethiopian Women Artists Association handpicked the participants. There are 9 men and 1 woman artists that displayed their oil paintings. There was also a sculpture artist Amen Badeg, with a distinct test that has exquisite pieces made from scrap metal. There were different items being sold such as coffee, honey which designate the Ethiopian traditional flavor. There were stands by the leather products “Undkǝn”- handcrafted by the musician, Kenny Allen.
Awash Winery is catering the Bazaar and Exhibition with a coffee stand that was enjoyed by over 100 guests from different Embassies, international organizations, and art fanatics.

Demography and Development

Alazar Kebede
-
0
Demography and Development

Tectonic demographic shifts are happening to the foundations of the world economy. Consider that about 85% of world GDP is generated in countries that face an unprecedented reversal of the population ageing pyramid. As it happens, this rapid process of population ageing is affecting developed and developing countries alike. Among developing countries, China’s leaders were early to focus on ageing-related challenges. Their country’s long-run joint approach to demographic change and development offers a useful case study for today’s poor and young countries.
Lauren Johnston, a Research Associate in School of Oriental and African Studies, at the London University stated that in 1979, leaders of then poor and demographically youthful China initiated an economic modernization agenda commonly known as “reform and opening.” The aim was for those reforms to facilitate economic development and poverty alleviation. At that time in China, poverty was endemic and hunger a major concern. The parallel implementation of a complementary population policy, which would become known as the One Child Policy, was considered a step in the direction of supporting that modernization and poverty alleviation journey.
Lauren Johnston noted that Chinese leaders foresaw, however, that a low total fertility rate and falling mortality rates, including via rising life expectancy, would also mean that China’s population structure would age more rapidly. China’s median age in 1980 was 21.9 years and had risen to 37.0 years by 2015.
Worse, there was basically no feasible rate of economic development that would mean China realise high per capita income living standards for its people – before the population itself was “old.” China, that is, would be old, and not yet rich. Worse, China’s policy makers worried that facing such aging-related challenges as a “poor” country would weigh upon China’s prospects of ever becoming a “rich” country.
What is the Economic Demography Transition?
Implicit in China being “poor-old and old” are three parallel economic demography categories: “Poor-old and young,” “rich and old” and “rich and young.” Put together, these form the Economic Demography Matrix (EDM). The Economic Demography Matrix is a simple and useful framework for categorizing countries and regions via their economic and demographic profile. By extrapolation, it also forms the basis for study of the interaction of demographic and economic transition within and across countries over time, or study of the economic demography transition.
According to Lauren Johnston, whether, for example, a country first moves from “young” to “old” or “poor” to “rich,” may be essential to understanding how demography and the economy are interacting. Japan, which got rich before it got old, and China, which is old but not yet per capita income rich, make for an interesting comparison on that point. As the world’s largest economies almost all move rapidly out of their respective demographic dividends window, understanding the particular national dynamics of economic demography over time is increasingly essential to shaping effective fiscal and monetary policies, as well as for determining needed microeconomic reforms.
Similarly, at the other extreme, today’s poor and young countries, most of which are concentrated in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, can also learn from China’s very explicit utilization of its demographic dividend for development. Hence, they can shape a long-run economic demography transition strategy, a development strategy that takes demographic change as integral.
Jean-Pierre Lehmann, emeritus Professor of international political economy at Lausanne University in, Switzerland explained that all countries, whether rich-old, rich-young, poor-old or poor-young, would best consider how to adjust fiscal and monetary policies over time accordingly, before time and opportunity are lost and change becomes even harder to make.
Jean-Pierre Lehmann argued that rapid population ageing across most of the world’s major economies is the new normal. This may serve to stagnate global growth. Whether ageing populations effectively also “age” their economies or whether economic and social structures are able to be sustainably and continuously adjust to this new structural reality will determine how late-stage demographic transition affects the future of the global economy.
And hence, whether poor-old countries (e.g., Brazil, China, Russia and Turkey), rich-old countries (most OECD economies) or poor-young countries hoping to embark on a sustained process of development, it seems timely that every country’s policymakers might best learn from China by advancing an economic demography strategy. Understanding the economic demography transition, a process that appears to have been implicit to China’s long-run development since the 1980s, is the first step in that process.

LASTING CHANGES

admin
-
0
LASTING CHANGES

True to the African saying, “It take a village to raise a child,” the word child in retrospect as a metaphor can be replicated to many things in society today. For example, a child can be used to envisage the challenges that society faces in the everyday life and the village in turn can be the various action takers that ensure lasting changes are met in the challenges of the day.
These action takers can come in different forms. For example, they can be international not- for-profit organizations who champion a certain cause. Amongst these international NGOs is SNV Netherlands Development Organization- a non-profit international development organization, established in the Netherlands in 1965.
Driven by the Sustainable Development Goals, SNV makes a lasting difference in the lives of people living in poverty by helping them raise incomes and access basic services. The organization currently works in more than 25 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Capital drew links with Dr. André de Jager, Global Managing Director of Sectors for the SNV Netherlands Development Organization based in Nairobi, Kenya, for an inside view of the lasting changes being made by the organization.

Capital: Tell us about yourself and the company you are running /SNV/?
Dr. André de Jager: My name is Dr. André de Jager, I am the Global Managing Director of Sectors for the SNV Netherlands Development Organization based in Nairobi, Kenya. SNV is a not-for-profit international development organization that makes a lasting difference in the lives of people living in poverty by helping them raise incomes and access basic services. We focus on three sectors Agriculture, Energy and WASH with youth employment, gender equality and social inclusions as well as climate change are cross-cutting thematic areas across these sectors. We have a long-term, local presence in 24 countries in Asia, Africa and Central America. Our team of more than 1,400 staff is the backbone of SNV’s work.

Capital: What is SNV doing in Ethiopia as well as in Africa? What kind of projects does it have, and how is it progressing?
Dr. André de Jager: In Ethiopia, SNV’s work started in 1974, in response to the devastating drought the country faced. In the early 1980s, SNV transformed itself from a voluntary organization to a professional institution in providing technical assistance to many stakeholders in a number of sectors. The programme in Ethiopia consists of about 16 projects funded by a variety of donors. Common approaches include linking farmers with the market by using the value chain and market for the poor approach; working with local organizations; addressing systemic issues; and results-focused interventions. With this portfolio we target about 5 million households in all the three sectors.

Capital: What is OYE? Recently, for two days there was an international conference of OYE, how was it? What kinds of outcomes are expected from the conference?
Dr. André de Jager: SNV’s Opportunities for Youth Employment (OYE) approach continues to transform the lives of young men and women, as well as their communities, in over 10 countries across Africa. We apply an integrated market systems approach to contribute to systems change. OYE interventions facilitate linkages between the labor market (demand side) and skilled youth (supply side) and stimulate employment and entrepreneurship opportunities in countries and markets where we work. In other words, OYE focuses on enabling business environment, collaborating with national governments, civil society organizations, local service providers and private sector companies, assuring sustainability and scale. Young women and men gain sustainable employment and entrepreneurship opportunities through business development support services such as mentoring and coaching, market linkages and access to finance.
The theme of the International OYE conferences was; “Innovation, Inclusion, Inspiration” and that is exactly what happened. We organized a hybrid meeting with approximately 50 participants present in Addis Ababa and 160 people joining virtually from various corners of the globe. We got inspired by testimonies of young female and male entrepreneurs learned of success and failures in various projects of different project and prioritized a number of actions for future interventions.

Capital: How do you see youth empowerment and entrepreneurship in Ethiopia also in Africa?
Dr. André de Jager: Ethiopia is a fast growing economy with many opportunities for young women and men to play an important role in that process. At the same in SSA every year 12 million young people are entering the job market, in Ethiopia 2 million every year. That are huge numbers. Currently numerous barriers limit youth to start of business or find a job: mismatching skills, focus on formal employment only, ease of starting a business, no incentives for businesses to engage young women and men, insufficient job-intensive economic growth to name a few. Yet we need the enthusiasm, creativity, innovativeness of the young generation to transform towards a sustainable and greener economy and livelihood. They are also the consumers of the future making different demands on how food is produced, energy is generated.

Capital: Even if the government is working to curb unemployment, it is still a big challenge in the country from day to day. In your assumption what should be done to improve the situation?
Dr. André de Jager: I propose a few actions: – Private-sector to open-up for the youth through creating jobs, internships, learning space, supporting innovation hubs.
Government and Private sector jointly supporting practical and vocational training meeting the demands of the society today as well as for tomorrow (low-carbon; green economy).
Governments, investors and international organizations to establish localized access to finance and digital tools.
Facilitating enabling environment to stimulate an inclusive and equitable economic growth in traditional and ‘new’ sectors.
Pro-actively design targeted instruments to integrate young women in all aspects of the economic transformation.
Engage youth actively in all these trajectories.

Capital: Do you think SNV could have role on this?
Dr. André de Jager: Only a limited number of young people have the potential of becoming a successful entrepreneur, but those few should be supported to create many new jobs in the new economy. A few examples: weather forecasts, soil sensors, mobile money, eco-friendly products, plastic recycling, digital markets etc.
SNV and its teams in the countries in Africa will continue to facilitate this process and work closely with youth leadership development in mentoring and coaching, particularly young women entrepreneurs and wage earners to; improve access to finance; youth skills development and market linkages based on youth aspirations and concrete market opportunities as well as contribution to creating an enabling environment.

Parliament approves state of emergency

Staff Reporter
-
0
Parliament approves state of emergency

The first year, 6th round, 1st regular session of the House of Peoples’ Representatives (HoPR), approved the State of Emergency proclamation forwarded by the Council of Ministers.
The proclamation was said to be needed because it was difficult to deal with the current threats to the country’s survival through the regular law enforcement system.
The State of Emergency proclamation will be implemented throughout Ethiopia and is approved to last for the next six months.
The House of Representatives have unanimously approved the draft proclamation in accordance with the powers vested in the House by Article 93/1/a of the Constitution. In addition, House members have discussed a proposal for the appointment of a Board of Inquiry Commission tasked to oversee the implementation of the State of Emergency and have unanimously approved a team of seven individuals. The members of the Board were sworn in by the President of the Federal Supreme Court, Meaza Ashenafi.

1...2,6062,6072,608...4,115Page 2,607 of 4,115

EDITOR PICKS

POPULAR POSTS

POPULAR CATEGORY

ABOUT US

 

Capital is the longest-established private English newspaper in Ethiopia

Contact us: info@capitalethiopia.com

+251911637862 | +251944732300 | +251116183253
 

FOLLOW US

© Newspaper WordPress Theme by TagDiv