The Ethiopian Electric Utility (EEU) held celebrations at its primary data center located in Addis Ababa to officially inaugurate the new SAP ERP system.
The celebration, which marked the official go live of the SAP system, heralded a new era of efficiency and accountability in the EEU’s billing and reporting capability. It is another step in the ongoing commitment of the Ethiopian government to improve the overall economics and service of the electricity supply industry. The sector has been reviewing its operations across the board to identify opportunities to improve in areas such billing and collections, private investment in generation, capacity building and tariff management.
The EEU operates in a highly complex environment and serves customers in cities across all eleven regional states. It faced challenges in delivering services efficiently while also maintaining full visibility and accountability across all its systems. SAP ERP and SAP CRM were selected by EEU to streamline processes and provide real time visibility. The new system also enables EEU to quickly identify any issues and resolve them promptly, to ensure top class customer support.
“SAP is committed to helping companies run better,” said Pedro Guerreiro, Managing Director for SAP Central Africa. In his address at the opening event, he spoke about the need for partnership and working together across private and public sector. “By smartly leveraging technology, EEU is taking steps to become an intelligent enterprise, able to thrive in the digital age and able to offer its valued customers an enhanced customer experience. We look forward to our ongoing partnership to ensure EEU remains not only the pride of Ethiopia, but a role model for other organizations contributing to economic growth in Ethiopia and the Continent”.

Ethiopians earned a total of 7 medals, including two gold, during the first Pan-African Special Olympics held from January 23 to 30 in Cairo, Egypt.
Ethiopia earned two gold, one silver and four bronze medals in the competition.
The Special Olympics consists of individuals with Intellectual Disabilities which is held for the first time and representatives from Ethiopia participated. The Ethiopian National Association of Peoples with Intellectual Disability has sent the team from its members and it was led by two assistants and 4 competitors.
The team has returned to the country on February 1 and a welcoming and awarding ceremony was held on February 2 at the premises of the Association in Addis Ababa. On the ceremony Deborah Foundation has awarded 50 thousands birr to Gold medalist, 40 thousands to Silver medalist, 30 thousands to Bronze medalist and 20 thousands to the team members.
The Ethiopian Olympic Committee has also granted awards in money to the medalists and team members.

Africa’s economies are growing strongly, but growth alone cannot meet the needs of the continent’s poorest citizens, because “nobody eats GDP,” the African Development Bank’s President, Akinwumi Adesina, said as he unveiled the Bank’s flagship economic report on Thursday.
The 2020 African Economic Outlook (AEO) showed that the continent’s economies are growing well, higher than the global average. The report projected a steady rise in growth in Africa from 3.4% in 2019 to 3.9% in 2020 and 4.1% in 2021.
According to the report, these figures do not tell the whole story. Across the continent, the poor are not seeing enough of the benefits of robust growth. Relatively few African countries posted significant declines in extreme poverty and inequality, which remain higher than in other regions of the world.
Inclusive growth occurred in only 18 of 48 African countries with data, the report revealed.
According to Adesina “Growth must be visible. Growth must be equitable. Growth must be felt in the lives of people.”
The theme of the 2020 Africa Economic Outlook report, Developing Africa’s workforce for the future, calls for swift action to address human capital development in African countries, where inclusive growth has been held back by a mismatch between young workers’ skills and the needs of employers.
The Bank’s flagship report states that increased investments in education is key as well as progressive universalism in education spending—setting high priorities for the poor and disadvantaged and focusing on basic education first where social returns are highest. Its recommendations include improving access to education in remote areas, incentives such as free uniforms and text books, banning child labour and improving teaching standards.
To better match skills with job opportunities, the report recommends that governments need to develop a demand-driven education system in tune with rapidly emerging jobs in the private sector, including software engineers, marketing specialists and data analysts, the report says.
“Africa is blessed with resources, but its future lies in its people…education is the great equaliser. Only by developing our workforce will we make a dent in poverty, close the income gap between rich and poor, and adopt new technologies to create jobs in knowledge-intensive sectors,” said Hanan Morsy, Director of the Macroeconomic Policy, Forecasting and Research Department at the Bank.

The United States National Institutes of Health has announced that its HVTN 702 clinical trial of an HIV vaccine has been stopped. While no safety concerns were found during the trial, the independent data and safety monitoring board found that the vaccine was ineffective in preventing HIV transmission.
The trial, conducted at 14 sites across South Africa, followed more than 5400 HIV-negative 18–35-year-olds over 18 months. The participants received six injections during the six-month period, either the vaccine or a placebo. An analysis undertaken after at least 60% of the participants had been in the study for more than 18 months showed that there were 129 HIV infections among the people who had the vaccine, while 123 people who had the placebo became infected.
“While we are obviously disappointed with the results, important science has been learned that can be carried forward to future trials. I thank the study team for this important vaccine trial,” said Winnie Byanyima, UNAIDS Executive Director.
Other major vaccines are currently being tested at scale—the Mosaico trial, which is testing a vaccine among transgender people and gay men and other men who have sex with men in the Americas and in Europe, and the Imbokodo trial, which is testing a vaccine among women in sub-Saharan Africa. An effective HIV vaccine may well prove to be key for sustaining progress against HIV in the future.
Despite considerable investment in prevention during the trial, there was still an HIV incidence of around 4% per year among the women in the trial. This is simply too high. HIV transmission can be prevented. This requires the right combination of interventions, including HIV testing; antiretroviral therapy for people living with HIV; pre-exposure prophylaxis, condoms and other prevention options; sexual and reproductive health services, including comprehensive sexuality education; keeping girls in school; and the lifting of social, legal and economic barriers for women and girls.