Civil servants play a vital role in the functioning of government and delivery of public services. They are the backbone of various sectors, from education to health care, ensuring that citizens receive the basic necessities to thrive. However, many of these public servants are facing a severe livelihood crisis due to insufficient salaries, which has significant implications for both the individuals and the broader society.

The current economic landscape in Ethiopia presents numerous challenges. Inflation and rising living costs have eroded the purchasing power of many civil servants. Despite their critical role in society, salaries for public servants have not kept pace with the increasing costs of living. This financial instability affects their ability to support themselves and their families, leading to a sense of insecurity that can impact their work performance and commitment. When civil servants are financially strained, the quality of public services suffers, which in turn affects the lives of everyday citizens.

Moreover, the consequences of this persistence in low wages are alarming. Disillusionment and a lack of motivation among civil servants can lead to lower productivity, hampering the effectiveness of the government machinery. Many skilled workers may seek employment in the private sector or even migrate abroad for better opportunities, leading to a brain drain that further depletes the capabilities of the public sector. This trend not only threatens the integrity and efficiency of government services but also undermines public trust in government institutions. Addressing the immediate concerns of civil servants is imperative. While systemic reforms to improve salary structures are essential for long-term sustainability, alternative livelihood strategies can provide a temporary solution for many struggling public servants.

The government could promote programs that encourage civil servants to engage in supplementary income-generating activities. This could include vocational training in sectors such as agriculture, handicrafts, or small business development, empowering civil servants to diversify their income sources. Additionally, fostering partnerships with private businesses can create opportunities for civil servants to gain valuable skills and experience while contributing to local economies. Collaborations in training or internships can uplift the spirit and skill set of civil servants, giving them the tools they need to pursue more fulfilling and lucrative careers, whether within the public service or in the private sector. Communities can also play a pivotal role.

Local governments could establish cooperative networks that allow civil servants to pool resources, share knowledge, and create collective economic endeavors. By supporting each other, civil servants can ease the burden of financial strain and work together toward solutions that benefit both their families and the community as a whole. Moreover, advocacy for fair remuneration is critical. Civil servants must organize and continue to engage in dialogue with government officials to voice their concerns over wages and working conditions. Collective bargaining can ensure that their needs are recognized and addressed. Building alliances with civil society organizations could strengthen these efforts, highlighting the importance of adequately compensating civil servants who serve the country and its citizens.

 In conclusion, the livelihood crisis faced by civil servants in Ethiopia is a multifaceted challenge that requires a concerted effort from various stakeholders—including the government, civil servants themselves, and the communities they serve. While the long-term solution lies in revising salary structures to reflect the realities of the current economy, embracing alternative livelihood strategies can offer immediate relief and empower civil servants. By working together, Ethiopia can forge a path toward a more resilient and effective public service system, ultimately benefiting all citizens.

Shewangezaw Seyoum is a senior consultant at the Ethiopian Management Institute. Views expressed here do not reflect that of the institution. He can be reached at swsm02@yahoo.com.

Making a bold choice may not always be to win, but to see what new doors it might open. Choosing to take bold actions is not always about achieving immediate success.  Instead, “What if I went for it anyway?” often serve as catalysts for growth, learning, and unexpected opportunities.

No matter what the situation is, you can have many excuse not to do something. The excuses are like little safety pushes we weave to shield ourselves from fear, discomfort, or even the possibility of failure. These “little safety pushes” serve as mental guards, allowing people to justify inaction or avoidance in challenging situations.

Yes when you doubt your abilities or if you have something in mind that you’re wrestling with, excuses may be one option as solution not to dive in certain unknown condition. But, for better or worse, excuses though it allow us to stay within our comfort zones, it may comes at the cost of denying long-term growth.

Making excuse is common in human behaviour. It often serve as psychological safety means, to protect us from uncomfortable emotions such as fear, anxiety, or the risk of failure. Nonetheless, while it can provide temporary relief, relying on excuses may limit opportunities for learning and achievement.

At times it may feel like a safe choice, but embracing discomfort and uncertainty is sometimes necessary for meaningful progress. Stepping outside our comfort zone, we may open new possibilities for personal or other development. Besides, embracing discomfort teaches resilience, adaptability, and courage.

Growth and progress often lie just beyond the boundaries of comfort. True growth and progress require stepping outside one’s comfort zone. While safety and familiarity provide stability, they can also limit our potential if we never venture beyond them.

The usual play move to sidestep uncomfortable emotions or protect our self-image from the sting of potential failure like anxiety, embarrassment, or fear of judgment is attributing inaction to external factors. Politician usually call this externalization. Making excuses may feel like a rational way to maintain control over unpredictability. But stepping into the unknown even awkwardly—can give us something far greater in terms of perspective, growth, and sometimes, transformation.

Yet, it is obvious that bold choices don’t guarantee a smooth path—but they do guarantee motion. Even a stumble can send you into a new direction you wouldn’t have seen standing still. Thus, take move on, at least to be close and understand what you are truly afraid of and address it directly instead of seeing it at distance.

Instead of seeing excuses as the only option, it is better to expose yourself to new situations if not to build confidence but to gain a new experience. That is a common path of life if you are living in real sense. Whether you like it or not that is also the play move to open new possibilities.

To live is to choose presence over avoidance, experience over assumption not to sleep or hide from reality. Life is about engaging fully with the moment, not retreating into comfort or complacency alone. To dare may be to gain. Every unfamiliar situation tempers us a little more, to reveal something new about who we are or could become.

Real living demands attention, action, and a willingness to venture into new area may be even with discomfort. Excuses can sedate us with a false sense of control, when what we may need most is surrender—to curiosity, to growth, to life’s unpredictability.

Let us break the tie that hold us to something with fear by taking risk may be by calculated risk. The “reward” of risk isn’t always what we imagined. Sometimes it’s not the win—it may be the wisdom, the resilience, and the self you meet on the way. Without stepping out of your comfort zone or making a move beyond excuses, opportunities or success remain out of reach.

May be taking small steps at a time, gradually may help you expose yourself to new situations where you will build confidence. Sometimes viewing temporary setbacks as learning experiences rather than threats to your self-worth will help you grow. Don’t allow excuses to lead to missed opportunities or prevent the development of resilience and confidence.

Try to embrace risk wisely assessing potential consequences and benefits. By embracing risk thoughtfully and courageously, you create the conditions for success and meaningful achievement. Beware, without risk, the chance to win or grow simply doesn’t exist. After all, no ticket no chance is real.

Calculated risk is the bridge between stagnation and growth. I am not encouraging blind bravery, but I am sure informed courage gives reward. But the risk rewards aren’t always in terms of trophies or recognition. More often than not, material gains may come as a plus, but the deep rewards of taking calculated risks may come through internal transformations.

Thus, this is not to urge a blind bravery but to embrace purposeful daring—because courage without clarity is chaos. This is just to allow brilliance to be in motion. This is not to embrace risk recklessly just for the sake of taking risk.

Let each risk be an echo of purpose, not just noise in the name of fearlessness. Risk doesn’t always yield reward, but be sure without risk, there is often no reward. The truth of “no ticket, no chance” extends far beyond lotteries—it applies to all the unseen opportunities in life that slip away simply because we hesitate to take that daring step toward new possibilities.

Yet this is not a call for blind bravery, but an invitation to embrace purposeful daring. When courage is paired with thoughtful planning and deep understanding, it becomes a transformative force—one that drives meaningful growth and achievement. Whether turning a dream into reality, launching a start-up, or betting on yourself, remember that partaking is the price of possibility.

No half-measures, no room for hesitation—either you take it or leave it is the game. The need for relentless pursuit to seize opportunities is critical piece of the puzzle. Either you commit fully or you watch from the side-lines. The play rule is no ticket, no chance there is no in between.

Thank be yours for reading this little piece

The writer can be reached via gzachewwolde@gmail.com

Call to Action for Ethiopia’s Private Sector

Professor Jim Collins once asked, ‘If your company disappeared, would it leave a gaping hole that could not easily be filled by any other enterprise on the planet?’. This should encourage Ethiopia’s private sector to embrace strategic CSR , Shared Value Creation (SVC), CSR maturity ladder stage and formalization of disparate philanthropic initiatives into legal, fully fledged,  independent corporate foundations as Strategic Social Impact Investment Vehicles (SSIIV)  to experiment novel solutions or scale known solutions from anywhere in the world to solve Ethiopia’s most pressing challenges. Ethiopia’s private sector needs to deliberately invest in adopting UN SDGs, Africa’s Agenda 2063 and 10-Year Development Plan of Ethiopia explicitly in their strategic plans

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as been defined as, ‘a business approach that contributes to sustainable development by delivering economic, social and environmental benefits for all stakeholders’. This means adoption of a Triple Bottom Line (TBL) long term corporate sustainability business model focusing on 3Ps value creation (People (Social), Planet (Environment) and Profits (Financial; Economic), profits plus ESG (Environment, Social, Governance).It will require firms to define their social purpose or raison d’être (the overarching and most important reason or purpose why the firm exist) in their corporate philosophies beyond vision, mission and core values. Purpose and profits are not mutually exclusive. Purpose is profitable.

The father of monetary policy, Professor Milton Friedman posited in his Friedman doctrine on shareholder wealth maximization theory article ‘The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits’ on New York Times in 1970 that businesses should leave social welfare maximization to governments. This has since been overtaken by stakeholders’ wealth maximization theory where companies seek to grow value to their customers, staff, suppliers, investors, creditors, governments, communities, regulators, board of directors and the future. As trust on businesses diminishes, the demand for transparency in the form of assurance mechanisms increases, and they have to transition from ‘’ Trust Me ‘’ to ”Tell Me” and finally to “Show Me” world. Trust via corporate governance which maximize stakeholder value creation is the currency of business.

The benefits of CSR to Ethiopian businesses are myriad. Higher customer retention and loyalty driving superior revenue growth and corporate performance. Cost savings from adoption of circular economy sustainable production and consumption practices which reduce use of resources, waste and greenhouse gas emissions. Becoming best employer of choice able to win the global war on attracting and retaining world class talent. Embedding CSR at the center of corporate strategy and Sustainable Competitive Advantage (SCA) as a generator of innovation, continuous learning, Kaizen quality improvement, research and development of new investment opportunities, products, processes, business models and alleviating by muting threats from society or environmental pain points.

Softening corporate brand by growing business reputation via positive word of mouth advocacy and publicity from by becoming a force of good while simultaneously doing well financially.  Attracting patient capital from Socially Responsible Investors- SRIs. Getting community trust as Social License to Operate (SLO) and Moral License to Operate (MLO) are much more valuable than legal regulatory licenses. Enhance government and regulator influence as firms gain mileage to lobby for business friendly policies.

Shared Value Creation and Corporate Social Innovation.

Professor Michael Porter and Mark Kramer ‘Strategy and Society: The Link between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility’ posited that companies transition in four phases in the continuum from the philanthropic charity donations, CSR, Strategic CSR to the ultimate Shared Value Creation (SVC) and Corporate Social Innovation- CSI stage. This fourth Shared Value Creation sees the business solve systemic persistent social and environmental challenges to create business and social value by redefining their social purpose and pursing transformational change, system-level collaboration and social entrepreneurship embedded in daily operations.

Fast Capital defines Corporate Social Innovation as, ‘a process of developing novel solutions to social problems that are more effective, efficient, sustainable, or just than existing solutions and for which the value created accrues primarily to society as a whole rather than private individuals’. Corporate Social Innovation can be, ‘product, process, service, organizational, or business model innovation, and can involve different actors, such as corporations, social enterprises, nonprofits, or hybrid organizations’.

Ethiopian Corporate Foundations are Paramount to Achieving Global SDGs by 2030, Africa’s Agenda 2063 and Ethiopia’s Development Plan by 2030

The 1987 Brundtland Report dubbed Our Common Future defined sustainable development as, ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’. The UN Millennium Declaration of September 2000 was transformed into eight MDGs (Millennium Development Goals). The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in 2015 created the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which embody the global aspirations. SDGs range from no poverty, zero hunger, ensure healthy lives, quality education, gender equality, clean water, sanitation and hygiene, affordable and clean energy, GDP growth and job creation, innovation and infrastructure development, reduced inequalities, sustainable cities and communities, responsible consumption and production, climate action, life below water, life on land, rights and institutions and partnerships for goals.

Africa’s Agenda 2063 has seven aspirations. Inclusive growth and sustainable development. Integrated continent, politically united and based on the ideals of Pan-Africanism and the vision of Africa’s Renaissance. Good governance, democracy, respect for human rights, justice and rule of law. A peaceful and secure Africa. Strong cultural identity, common heritage, shared values and ethics. People-driven development, relying on potential of African people, women and youth, and caring for children. Strong, united, and influential global player and partner.

Ethiopia’s 10-Year Development Plan (2021-2030) proposes home grown solutions to economic, social, administrative, and institutional problems. Interventions range from diversified economic growth, poverty reduction from improved standard of living, financial sector development, infrastructure, urban development, access to government services, power, innovation, human capital development, sustainable financing, private sector development, regional integration, gender equity to inclusive institutional transformation.

Nicasio Karani Migwi is a specialist in banking and financial services, macroeconomics, strategic management, international business and Corporate Governance (Board Directorship). He currently works as a General Manager- Special Projects and Bank Economist – real economy & financial markets at Equity Group Holdings PLC. You can contact him via nikaminduku@gmail.com