Ethio Lease, the first foreign-owned leasing company, handed over 16 combine harvesters to farmers and unions. The agricultural mechanization equipment are delivered to the farmers in line with the government’s strategy and the collaborative Memorandum of Understanding, Ethio Lease signed with the Ministry of Agriculture and the Agricultural Transformation Agency. The agreement came to effect to enable smallholder farmers who will not afford to buy agro-mechanization equipment by themselves. The latest delivery of combine harvesters to the farmers brings the total number of agricultural equipment being delivered to farmers to 100 with a total worth of more than $7 million fulfilling the commitment the company made to the farmers and the agricultural sector. The Company is also finalizing the import of dozens of combine harvesters worth $10 million which are expected to arrive in September and October. These combines are intended for the main harvest season. Girum Tsegaye, Ethio Lease CEO said “the continued arrival of these agricultural equipment demonstrates our commitment in supporting the country’s agricultural mechanization endeavour in lieu of solving foreign exchange issues to import such critical equipment.” He further stated “Sustainable agricultural mechanization can play a key role in enabling recovery and building long-term resilience of the farming community. Mechanization can improve efficiency, productivity and income in agriculture endeavour, and enhances food security and livelihoods of farmers.”
Customer service
Aschalew Tamiru works with Dashen Bank, as Director-Marketing and Customer Experience. He is among the first Marketing Management graduates of the Addis Ababa University. He has a total of 16 years of working experience. He has also been a lecturer of Marketing and Management courses in various Universities and Colleges for more than eight years.
His industry experience started when he joined Commercial Bank of Ethiopia as a first post graduate management trainee and served the Bank in different capacities including marketing, Branch manager and internal trainer. Currently, he conducts trainings for the National Bank of Ethiopia and other institutions. He is also on the jury of Dashen Kefta Entrepreneurship contest, Dashen Bank’s Ethiopian talent power serious which is part of Dashen’s corporate social responsibility initiative. He is also the founding member of Ethiopian Marketing Professionals Association. He recently authored a book titled “Make a difference with customer service” that focus on marketing and customer service. He talked to Capital about his new book and other branding concepts. Excerpts;
Capital: Can you please give us an overview about your new book?
Aschalew Tamiru: The book has a total of four parts. The first chapter discusses about basics of customer service, external and internal customers, customer personality style and other related facts.
The second part rises ‘why customer is top priority for companies?’ and presents practical facts and responses. Customer service principles, what do customers ever buy, positive attitude and customer service and building high performance team for good customer service are the other issues discussed in the chapter.
Chapter three is about how companies or businesses operating in the same industry with the same services or products to sell to the customers use customer service as a tool to make a difference and stand out from the competition. That is customer service and sometimes it is the only differentiating factor between organizations that contributes to greater customer retention loyalty and long term profitability. Furthermore, issues such as Customer’s First Impressions Effective Communication and Customer Service, Conversation over the Telephone, Business Email Communication and Major Do’s and Don’ts of Customer Service are well addressed.
Under the final chapter of the book customers of various types are discussed and it lends tools to deal with these customers. Issues like communicating with unsatisfied customers, dimensions of customer service, solving customers’ problems, customer service recovery, moment of truth, follow-up with the customer, quality customer service and benefits of good customer service are presented.
Capital: What is your reason to publish the book?
Aschalew: I have taught marketing and management courses at various universities, marketing as a profession gives top priority for customers.
Companies practicing Marketing philosophy in their work place, believes that customer is the most important person who pays everyone’s salary and who decides whether a business is going to succeed or fail. In fact, the customer can fire everybody in the company from the chairman (CEO) on down, and he or she can do it simply by spending his money somewhere else. Literally, everything we do, every concept perceived, every technology developed and associate employed, is directed with this one objective clearly in mind – pleasing the customer.
As a marketing and branding professional, I always question myself about my contribution and role in bridging the gap between this marketing thoughts and principles and what customers are practically experiencing at most companies of the country.
Ethiopians have thousands of years of hospitality culture in welcoming guests at our home, why this is not reflected and practiced at work place is the other reason that pushed me to write the book.
Capital: How do you evaluate our working culture and customer handling?
Aschalew: As a society, Ethiopians are very hospitable and friendly in welcoming guests to their home, but this may not be always true while one is visiting companies operating in the country. I strongly believe that the hospitable culture of the society that is only limited at home should be extended to every company and practiced as well. This enables the companies to satisfy customers with their services, to make a difference and win customers.
Capital: You have been a lecturer at higher education institutions. Do you think there are suitable lessons regarding customer service?
Aschalew: Well, customer service is the one and main aspect of marketing; generally marketing is the young discipline around the globe. Marketing is everywhere. In every walk of our life, we deal with marketing. I strongly believe that comparing to other disciplines, marketing has received the least attention among companies. Following this, most companies’ marketing departments are led by non-marketing professionals.
When one sees our universities, their marketing department didn’t have customer service course in their curriculum. Only some aspect of customer service is enclosed in some courses of marketing. Universities should incorporate separate customer service course in their curriculum and deliver it to the marketing students.
Capital: What will your book contribute to the field?
Aschalew: Whether one is new to his/her service role, looking for a job as a service provider, need a good refresher in the basics of exceptional customer service, or a trainer, this book will be helpful and an input in need.
Industries such as Banks, Insurances, Hotel and the likes whose services or products are somehow similar, may make a difference among themselves by working more on customer service. 
Customer service is not a department, rather is an attitude. Customer facing staff must have a positive attitude towards serving customers. Once the staff has a positive attitude, their knowledge and skill gaps can easily be bridged through customer service trainings and reading. In this regard, the contribution of this book is invaluable.
Capital: How is the feedback?
Aschalew: The feedback is very encouraging. The first five thousand copies have been sold out and the second round of publication is under way and it will be in the market by this week.
I’m receiving a phone call from various distributors to distribute the book; so far Jafar and Ha-Hu book stores are the main distributors. To make the book more accessible to the readers I’m advising the main distributor to distribute it to all book stores and walk in retailers. Besides, the book will be available in super markets soon.
Capital: Do you have any other work in the near future?
Aschalew: I have been determined to contribute my part to bring changes in the marketing of companies operating in Ethiopia; publishing the Book entitled ‘Make a Difference with Customer Service” is part of this effort. In addition to translating the book to Amharic and make available to the market, I have finalized my preparation to publish practical salesmanship book.
I also want to take part in the promotion of volunteerisms in the country. To this end, from the sales of the book, I decided to donate 10% to charity organizations.
Non-existence of proper customer service is already a problem in most places. The problem is more serious in public government organizations. To contribute my part as a Marketing and Branding professional, once the book is published in Amharic and COVID19 is eradicated; in collaboration with media and my marketing fellow friends I’m planning to organize a campaign to deliver customer service trainings to selected customers facing employees of public government organizations for free.
Exquisite photographs by African photographers display Africa On the Move on Wikipedia
Wiki In Africa, the international organisers of the 6th Wiki Loves Africa photographic and media competition announced the international prize-winners of the 2020 competition.
The competition takes place annually and calls for submissions along themed lines.
Both amateur and professional photographers and filmmakers are called to share the world they see every day; life recorded and observed from within their own communities. Their contribution forms a collection of royalty-free images about Africa, a continent that is often the subject of an external gaze and many subsequent stereotypes.
Initially intended as a month-long intervention, Wiki Loves Africa 2020 took place as the COVID-19 crisis hit Africa. It launched on the 15th of February, and the deadline was extended from 15th March to 15th April to facilitate the significant life changes wrought as the COVID lockdowns impacted each country after another.
Over the eight weeks of the competition, 1904 people contributed just shy of 17,000 images, 2 sound and 202 video files that broadly capture the 2020 theme of Africa on the Move! across the continent.
An international jury of photographers from across Africa and Wikimedia specialists from around the world deliberated on the 16,982 images. The quality of images was a key criterion in the selection, as was the encyclopedic value of the image, and also that it was visually arresting and well framed. Of equal importance was the quest to ensure that the unexpected was featured. As a project, Wiki Loves Africa is focused on obliterating the ‘single story of Africa’ by visually displaying the myriad of experiences that make up daily life on the continent. In this case, the thousands of images represented Africa in all its dichotomy through the theme of transport, from donkeys and potholed roads to high-speed trains, cargo and ferry boats.
After an exhaustive jury process that lasted several intense weeks , they decided on the following winners:
1st prize goes to the image My Homeland (Lake Burullus, Egypt) by Mohamed Ahmed Yousry
Mohamed said how he came across this image “I heard a lot about the virgin islands scattered along Lake Burullus. One particular image of an island called Shakloba haunted me. It might be the stunning image I saw on Facebook or the strange name of the island. But either way, curiosity got the best out of me and my travel companions and we decided to explore the island. Shakhloba is one of over a dozen small, mostly uninhabited islands in Lake Burullus. The magnificent lake, the largest in Egypt’s Delta, is located in Kafr El-Sheikh governorate. Lake Burullus has a very rich landscape. It is nestled in the green fields of the Delta, bordering it from the south, with Nile’s Rosetta branch towards the east and the Mediterranean to the north.”
2nd Prize goes to Bread delivery bicycle by Abd Elhamid Fawzy Abd Elhamid Tahoun also taken in Egypt.
Abd said that his motivation to take this shot was “because the boy attracted me for his great effort during work at midday, then I noticed the light and shadow and decided to take the shot.”
3rd Prize goes to A Mess by Summer Kamal Eldeen Mohamed Farag.
Summer is a return winner for 2020. She won 2nd prize in the 2019 contest. She took the photo during lockdown “because I like to shoot from the top when there are suitable configurations”.
Every year the contest looks for an image that represents ancient traditions within a modern context, with this in mind the following image won the Traditional Culture Prize.
Traditional Culture Prize went to Salt transport by a camel train on Lake Assale (Karum) in Ethiopia by Olivier.
The final prize goes to the new video category. The video prize goes to Bouba Kam’s Le Transport Lagunaire à Abidjan (STL) réalisé par Bouba Kam’s that displays an unexpected element to transport in Africa by taking us on a ferry ride across Abidjan’s Ébrié Lagoon.
The winning video was chosen by the competition organisers for its quality imagery and the simple, contemporary way of sharing the journey on board Abidjan’s Lagoon Ferry.
The encouraging entries from across Africa, events were held by local Wikipedia volunteers to encourage people to contribute photographs, and share information on the specifics of Wikipedia licensing and how to upload their entries.
Some observations on the troubling Ethio-Egyptian discourses over the Grand Renaissance Dam
By Tadesse Kidane Mariam
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam that Ethiopia has been building over the Abbay (Blue Nile) river over the last 9 years has provoked heated debate between Egypt and Ethiopia over a wide range of issues including the scheduled impounding of the river sometime in the first two weeks of July/2020. The frenzied speed with which Egypt has been defining and redefining the debate over the dam in recent months makes sound analysis of issues rather problematic. Yet, the underlying narrative of Egypt’s all-out campaign to mobilize the world community behind its position is the existential threat that the dam’s very construction will have on Egypt’s 100+ million people, The discursive frame that Egypt is a desert country whose very survival depends on the life giving waters of the Nile is not some thing new. Timothy Mitchell (1995) had captured Egyptian construction of its development challenge as emanating from a problem of geography and demography i.e. a narrow strip of 15,000 square miles of land along the Nile and its delta accommodating 98% of its 100+ million inhabitants. This overwhelming dependence of the country on the waters of the Nile and the absence of any other alternative hydraulic resource base has defined its position on the legitimate question of upper riparian states for a just and equitable share of the waters of the international river. Mitchell had criticized Egyptian construction of its economic development challenges from a nexus of ‘fixed amount of usable land and the rapid growth of the population’ as a constrained vision that had led to a myopic definition of solution spaces in the realms of improved use of technology and management of resources. The neglect or the downplaying of the social and political ecology dimensions of Egyptian society has remained a fundamental aspect of Egypt’s internal development dynamics and its external relations with critical countries that share the waters of the Nile.
It is interesting to note that successive Egyptian governments have taken such discursive frames in any serious discussion on the shared management of the waters of the Nile. Egypt’s hegemonic stand on the utilization and management of the waters of the Nile is grounded in the 1902, 1929 and 1959 colonial treaties and agreements that essentially excluded upper riparian states and gave it almost exclusive use rights to this day. The construction of the grand renaissance dam has dramatically changed the nexus and it is time to evolve a common ground for all riparian states to share the water and its management on the basic principles of fair and collective utilization of international rivers. The agreement that the Nile basin countries reached in charting out a strategy for the fair and cooperative management of the waters of the Nile basin was a good start. Unfortunately, subsequent measures were not taken largely due to the unreasonable opposition of Egypt to any meaningful strategy that would have evolved a workable basin-wide water management regime.
The current strategy of Egypt is unfair and devoid of any semblance of normative diplomatic approach to problem solving. The goodwill that Ethiopia has shown towards both the Nile basin initiative and the tripartite approach to the resolution of perceived or actual problems that could emanate from the construction of the Grand Renaissance dam has not been reciprocated by Egypt. Instead it used its diplomatic advantages in the US, the Arab World and the United Nations to subvert the goodwill shown by the Ethiopian side. The massive propaganda campaign of the Egyptian and Middle Eastern and Gulf press and social media against the Ethiopian project has poisoned the environment for sane deliberation on whatever critical issues that needed to be discussed. The continuous shifting of the forum for resolving the perceived danger emanating from the impounding of the waters of the Blue Nile is a strategy of diversion that lacks legality, sincerity and goodwill. The recent rhetoric by some in the Egyptian political circle that ‘all options were open’ is a veiled threat to seek non-diplomatic resolution to an essentially non-existing problem. The pronouncements of both officials and experts of the Ethiopian side have underlined the fact that the three countries had already reached a memorandum of understanding on most technical issues.
Egypt fully knows that its water supply will not be significantly compromised by the impounding of the waters of the Grand Renaissance dam. Even if there is a slight decrease in the volume of water during the impounding, it is neither an existential threat nor a gap that could not be filled with better management of the use of its water. Egyptian water management practices need to be revisited before anticipating water shortage and other management problems that could develop from the Ethiopian dam. Egypt should have appreciated Ethiopia’s tremendous sacrifice in building the largest dam in Africa without the assistance of any foreign source – a dam that has significant economic and social benefits to the entire Horn of Africa, East Africa and the lower basin countries of Sudan and Egypt.
I find the shifting discursive formations that Egypt has been manufacturing troubling. A cursory look into Egyptian geography, demography and political economy clearly shows the importance of the water of the Nile. Egypt has a total area of 386,000 sq. miles and a 2020 population of 100 mln, 98% of which is concentrated in 5% of the Nile river valley and its extensive delta. Egyptian agriculture is among the most productive systems in the world with an average acre of Egyptian farmland producing more than three times that of both Bangladesh and Philippines, two of the most densely populated countries of Asia (Egypt Stat, 2011). Egyptian agriculture growth rate had kept pace with its population growth rate. Egyptians consume large amounts of food (3,557 kilocalories/capita/day), higher than most upper middle-and-high income countries. Yet, social inequality was such that more than 30 % of children suffered from mild malnutrition and another 31% from moderate to severe undernutrition (1990 Studies in Family Planning). The growing disparity between social classes had been such that it had affected agricultural policy in favor of meeting the demands of the better off population for higher value foods such as meat. Studies in the 1990s had indicated that Egypt had been producing more food for animals than for humans. It has become one of the leading importers of food crops and commodities in the world notwithstanding the fact that it had a robust agricultural export sector. The US and its grain companies have benefitted immensely and continue to do so from the export of millions of tons of wheat other grains and commodities every year. The billions of dollars-worth of subsidies given to the food sector and the Egyptian military have created a political and social class that has followed a flawed agricultural policy that assigns more investment to animal feed than crops for human consumption. The social indicators for Egypt show a middle-income country with a well-established industrial and service economy. (Mitchell, 1995). Other Egyptian geographic, demographic, socio-economic and environmental indicators can be cited to refute the simplistic notion that Ethiopia’s grand renaissance will have an existential threat on the country’s development and livelihood. In comparison, Ethiopia’s social indicators show a significantly lower standing on almost all fronts.
The Grand Renaissance dam is being built to generate electricity. It will create a huge reservoir for the sustained supply of water to Sudan and Egypt. That is why Egypt should desist from the politicization of a regional project that will ultimately benefit all riparian states. The best way to resolve the current unpleasant and unnecessary misunderstanding is to see the project as a regional project that generates electricity for the entire riparian states, provides well-regulated water for multi-purpose use to downstream countries and improves the quality of life of millions in the basin. As clearly indicated by Ethiopia’s prime minister and minister of water resources and energy, Ethiopia has no wish or harbors any ill-will towards the peoples of the Sudan and Egypt and would in no way jeopardize the capacity of the lower riparian states to meet their national developmental objectives and goals. The Sudanese minister of water clearly dispelled the notion that the dam will have negative repercussions on his country’s development. Egypt should listen to its southern neighbor earnestly and act responsibly rather than engage in fruitless accusation and misrepresentation of ground realities. The disinformation campaign on the process of the negotiation and the technical realities associated with all aspects of the dam is counterproductive to the resolution of the current misunderstanding and the future management of the upstream and downstream management of the water of the Blue Nile.
On a people to people basis, the longstanding relationship between Ethiopia and the lower basin countries is written in a bond of amity and reciprocity lasting thousands of years. No well-meaning Ethiopian will have the heart to harm neither the peoples of the Sudan nor Egypt by embarking upon a deliberate policy of development that will have significant negative repercussions on their livelihoods. We also think that no Sudanese or Egyptian will willfully work towards creating bottlenecks against the realization of the Ethiopia’s developmental objectives and goals. The Sudanese and Egyptian peoples have hosted thousands of Ethiopians in their times of political and economic stress. Let us not dampen it with inconsequential posturing and political brinksmanship. The problems of poor access to electricity, water, sanitation services and the perennial challenges of food insecurity are real and have significant quality of life implications in Ethiopia.
Finally, I would like to cite the experience of the US in its Colorado river basin as an example of the positive ramifications of system-wide thinking in the development of the water of a regional character. The construction of the 221 meters (726ft) high and 6.5 million-ton concrete Hoover Dam over the 2,414kms long river in the 1930s created the then world’s largest reservoir in Lake Mead. Its construction ushered a new cycle of dam building upstream and downstream that benefitted millions of people in Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada and California. More that 20 smaller, medium and large-scale dams were built for energy production, irrigation, water supply, fishing, recreation, tourism and wildlife conservation bringing region-wide prosperity for all (G. A Klee, 1991, p.110). Notwithstanding Mexico’s displeasure at the intensity of US water capture and some of its environmental externalities, the project was largely a successful management of the waters of the Colorado basin. Ethiopia’s prudent approach of generating only electricity from the largest dam in Africa should be appreciated by downstream countries. Ethiopia had never posed any threat or created any diplomatic fuss over the building of the high Aswan dam in Egypt or the Roseries dam in the Sudan. I call upon the leadership and peoples of the concerned countries to desist from the politicization of a key regional project by bringing in external forces into the negotiation. Let us cap the unnecessary bickering over inconsequential issues by charting out a long-term collective water management strategy for the entire basin. The phase one filling of the dam went without creating a stir because it was technically a non-issue in the first place. Subsequent fillings will be made without any significant repercussions on either Sudan or Egypt. Let us collectively seize the moment and re-engineer our discourses on scientific analysis of possibilities rather than allow ourselves to be guided by emotive and unrealistic assumptions and expectations.
Tadesse Kidane Mariam, Ph.D. is Emeritus A/Professor at Edinboro University of PA
