With the theme of “the golden Rules, Every day, Everywhere” Total Ethiopia celebrates the world day of safety 2021 from April 26-29, 2021 in all its sites.
The celebration took place by utilizing safety awareness creation games quizzes and coffee ceremony to make the date memorable with employees and stakeholders as well as by recognizing the best HSE transporter, driver and contractor, manager staff and best event game winner staff of Total.
To improve the involvement of the private sector, the Swiss based foundation , Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) has launched its global program in Ethiopia called the Scaling up Nutrition Business Network /SBN/.
SBN’s drive in Ethiopia is to increase the engagement of the private sector more so to those involved in the food sector to increase the availability and affordability of safe, nutritious foods in Ethiopia by Working with both governments and businesses. The program aims to transform the food system so that more nutritious food to all people is delivered.
The SBN is one of the four global networks with in the scaling up nutrition (SUN) movement which supports 61 countries, including Ethiopia to develop multi-stakeholder approach to nutrition.
SBN is expected to: Convene and organize business around nutrition priorities, Assess the challenges and opportunities facing business in scaling up their actions and investments in nutrition and facilitating partnerships at national and global level to support national businesses and also Improving the enabling environment to incentivize business to act on nutrition, fostering strong links and partnerships for the SBN Ethiopia with the SUNs civil society, Donor and UN networks, along with the government of Ethiopia.
The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), the UN world food program (WFP) co-convene the SBN to the global level. GAIN Ethiopia hosts the secretariat of the SBN Ethiopia and has created the SBN Ethiopia executive committee and works closely with the SUN focal point in Ethiopia. Currently there are about 25 members under the network working on the food sector.
GAIN is a Swiss based foundation lunched at the UN in 2002 to tackle the human suffering caused by suffering malnutrition.
GAIN is part of a global network of partners working together to create sustainable solution to malnutrition. GIAN also provides technical, financial and policy support to key participants in the food system.
From a statistical stand view, Ethiopia in recent years has registered significant strides in addressing malnutrition in the last decade. Stunting declined from 58.0% to 38.4%, underweight from 41% to 23.6%, wasting from 12.0% to 9.9% from 2002 to 2016, while micronutrient deficiencies such as iron deficiency anemia, vitamin A and D, iodine and calcium are still at bay posing significant threat to the economy and losses of lives. Despite such progresses, Ethiopia is still one of the highest contributors to the global burden of malnutrition after India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Nigeria.
According to GAIN in 2015, the African Union published a cost of Hunger report which estimated the annual cost of under nutrition to the country at ETB 55.5B (USD 4.7B) which is equivalent to 16.5% of GDP. More concerted effort and unbent resolve need to continue to reduce high levels of malnutrition in the country.
The private sector of course is one of the key players in the food sector that has an important role to play in such an effort. To date, such sectors which process, store, pack, label and distribute food are missing from the public discourse to address malnutrition. There are no effective platforms to date, that engage the private sector to address the high levels of malnutrition in the country.
SBN Ethiopia has thus been crafted and priority intervention areas and plans for the next three years (2021-2023) have been strategically placed to increase its membership attracting more business to scale up and invest in nutrition.
A partnership signed between IFC and Djibouti-based East Africa Bank (EAB) on April 27 will help EAB better mitigate financial risks which have been amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic and improve its sustainability.
Under the agreement, IFC will help EAB strengthen its risk, trade, and credit management framework and capacities in line with international best practices to ensure it achieves sustainable growth in light of the adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the world economy.
EAB is a fully Shariah-compliant bank with seven branches in Djibouti, offering Islamic financial services solutions to clients in the country and in the East Africa region. Djibouti’s financial sector is dominated by banks, representing over 94 percent of financial assets.
“East Africa Bank has grown from strength to strength over the years and the support by IFC, apart from re-telling the same narrative of our commitment to growth and development, signifies the break of a new dawn of reinforcing our risk, trade and credit management capabilities with the objective of solidifying our financial base as well as service delivery to all stakeholders especially our customers, who are in the middle of all we do,” said Ibrahim Jaffar, CEO of East Africa Bank.
“IFC’s support will enable EAB to develop effective risk and credit management systems, helping the bank attract capital, mitigate against losses, and instill confidence in regulators, investors, and rating agencies. Strong financial institutions are essential as Africa and the world recover from the economic impact of COVID-19,” said Cheick-Oumar Sylla, IFC Country Manager for Djibouti
A 2021 World Bank report on Djibouti shows that the country enjoyed strong economic growth over the last 20 years, although it suffered in 2020 along with most economies due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The country’s GDP is expected to grow by 5.5 percent in 2021.
IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, launched its Global Risk Management Advisory Program in response to the 2008 financial crisis to address risk management challenges in emerging markets, including in Africa. The program aims to strengthen financial institutions’ risk management capacity and frameworks, loan portfolio monitoring, and nonperforming loan management while supporting emerging distressed asset markets. It has become even more relevant during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has disrupted economies worldwide and severely tested investor confidence.
Since 2009, IFC has delivered over 150 risk management financial sector workshops in Eastern Europe, Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, the Pacific, Latin America & the Caribbean, and the Middle East and North Africa, helping financial institutions strengthen their operations.
The Board of Directors of the African Development Fund has approved a grant of $31.2 million to Ethiopia to increase access to multi-sectoral nutritional services for children under-five years, by boosting access to services for improved health, more diverse and nutritious foods, and improving knowledge, attitude and practices on feeding, nutritional care and hygiene. The Multi-sectoral Approach for Stunting Reduction Project (MASReP) targets forty districts or woredas in the country’s Amhara and Tigray regions.
The project, with a total cost of $48 million, has three programmatic components: climate-proofed infrastructure development for effective service delivery; livelihood support, production and promotion of nutritious foods; and strengthening institutional systems and capacity building.
“With its strong emphasis on using a comprehensive package of systemic and mutually reinforcing multi-sectoral interventions to simultaneously address the multidimensional causes of stunting, the project will significantly contribute to building “Grey matter Infrastructure” of the children in the target areas and lead to improved productivity in the future” stated Nnenna Nwabufo, Director General for the African Development Bank’s East Africa Region. She further indicated that “The project is also a demonstration of the Bank’s efforts to accelerate the implementation of the Bank’s Jobs for Youth in Africa Strategy 2016 – 2025 as well as operationalize the African Nutrition Accountability Score Card (ANACC) which the Bank launched in 2019 under the auspices of the African Leaders on Nutrition”.
Child malnutrition remains a significant development challenge in Ethiopia. In the project target area, nearly 50% of children under age 5 are afflicted by stunting. A range of factors contribute to the prevalence of undernourishment, including low dietary diversity and poor access to clean drinking water.
The project is aligned to the Ethiopia’s Sequota Declaration (SD), signed in 2015 as a commitment to end stunting in children under two by 2030, under the leadership of the national ministries of health; agriculture, water, irrigation and energy; education; women, children and youth; labour and social affairs; transport; and finance.
The project also contributes to Ethiopia’s effort to achieve the United Nations’ 2030 Sustainable Development Goal 2 to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, which is strongly aligned with the African Development Bank’s Ten-Year Strategy 2013–2022 and two of its ‘High Five’ operational priorities seeking to ‘Feed Africa’ and ‘Improve the Quality of Life for the People of Africa’.
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