Content: Viewpoint

  • State in Industrialisation: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

    Ethiopia is growing. Its growth, praised even by the usually skeptical international financial institutions, has brought a rare momentum of change in economic, social and political spheres. The age old Westernised inclination of associating Ethiopia with drought and impoverishment is, slowly but surely, fading away. A rather new image, associated with huge public investment push […]

  • Making African Agriculture Attractive

    From September 29th to october 2nd, hundreds of agriculture experts from the public and private sector will converge on Lusaka, Zambia, for the 2015 African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF).  A key priority of this year’s meeting was to move aggressively to incorporate Africa’s soaring youth population – the 226 million people between 15 and 24 […]

  • Technologies: Not as Neutral as They Seem

    We shall control nature! So we, socialist Ethiopians, used to say in the past. Our counterparts in the West, namely (in the eyes of those socialists) “man-eating capitalist sharks”, go beyond the slogan and try to practise it. If at all it is possible to control nature, we could not come closer to controlling technologies. […]

  • A Way to Price Out War in South Sudan

    It is no coincidence that South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir cracked down hard on dissent at precisely the same moment he reluctantly signed the Compromise Peace Agreement (CPA) – a deal that should ostensibly bring an end to the last 20 months of fighting with the SPLA in Opposition (SPLA-iO) forces. This also reveals why […]

  • What Happens in Beijing Does Not Stay in Beijing

    Eyob Tesfaye (PhD) is a macroeconomist. The views expressed in this commentary are the personal views of the writer and do not in any way represent the organisation(s) he works for and is associated with.

  • China’s Forex Follies

    Barry Eichengreen is professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, United States. He also served as policy advisor at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This commentary is contributed to Fortune by Project Syndicate. 

  • Trust the State before the Market, on Industrialisation

    In consecutive viewpoints on industrialisation headlined, “Which Way Should Ethiopia Industrialise?” (Volume 16, Number 791, June 28, 2015) and “Industrialisation: No One Road Takes Us There” (Volume 16, Number 800, August 30, 2015), Getachew T. Alemu argued that “the state could not be a force to rely on for industrialisation”. Even though Getachew first acknowledges […]

  • Without Morality, Economic Growth Sure to Fade

      For citizens of all too many of the world’s countries, poverty is still a norm. But the tangible improvements in the basics of life that make economic growth, entail better living standards, greater life expectancy, fewer diseases, less infant mortality and malnutrition. Are we right to care so much about economic growth as we […]

  • Ethiopian Journalism – From Common Sense to Activism

      Terms, concepts and theories in  certain professions might be misunderstood. It happens and may be tolerable until the misconception is over. But it would be weird and sad to see a given profession misunderstood almost in entirety. That is the case with journalism in Ethiopia. We used to listen to many people who write […]

  • Climate Change: Prevention, Better Than Cure

    Attaining and preserving food security for all of humanity appears to be an important but daunting global challenge in the face of population explosion, economic growth, environmental degradation and accelerating climate change. Indeed, much lip service is given to mitigating the risks posed by climate change to food security in the scientific literature and the […]

  • Industrialisation: No One Road Takes Us There

    I do not know whether it is the right time to write about industrialisation or not. For one, the whole hype has been about the official visit of United States President Barack Obama and a global discussion on financing for development. In a country where collective thinking is a way of life, it often is […]

  • Prophetic Musical Activism: A Solution to Promoting Tolerance in Ethiopia

    Though “Ethiopian history is replete with tolerance” as Tagel Getahun, an advocate in law, rightly stated in Fortune’s Viewpoint titled, “Reality Supports Narrow Political Spectrum” (Volume 13, Number 683, June 02, 2013), unfortunately, we now witness religious intolerance emerging. This is on top of the extensive political polarisation the country has experienced for the last […]

  • The Paris Package: Is a Binding Climate Deal Closer?

    The United Nations Food & Agricultural Organisation (FAO)’s Global Information & Early Warning System predicts a high risk of drought in the main agricultural areas of Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Tanzania in the coming months. Scientists are also warning El-Niño could cause drought and famine in West Africa. The reports are in line with the […]

  • Sustainability of Growth Hinges on Institutions, Professionalism

    Eidmon Tesfaye has a Master’s Degree in Agricultural Economics & Rural Development. He can be contacted at eidmondrdae@gmail.com.  

  • Africa’s Future, Optimistic with Effective State

    Recently, Africa has been gaining positive coverage from the international media. Most, if not all, African countries have been registering sustained economic growth that has resulted in poverty reduction and job creation. The continent that had been called a “Hopeless Continent” by The Economist magazine in its May, 2000 edition, has even been praised as […]

  • Chaotic Roads, Passive Authorities

    Like most of you, I am a permanent resident of Addis Abeba, and I am horrified by the number of accidents reported in the city. The way we use our roads on a daily basis, how our simple and calm demeanour changes completely once we get behind the wheel of a vehicle, and the way […]

  • When EPRDF Insults Democracy, America Lends a Hand

    Another election has come and gone. The ruling party has improved its sham election record from a 99.6pc in 2010, to a 100pc win in 2015. The political opposition, on the other hand, has fast regressed from 174 seats in 2005; to just one, yes, just one seat in 2010, to a zero, yes zero, […]

  • China’s Finances: From Sound Bull Market to Mad Cow

    The tumult in China’s equity market appears to have come to an end. But considerable uncertainty remains, not only about what caused the recent plunge in the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges, but also about what the episode will mean for China’s financial reform efforts. China’s stock market crash has been attributed to a variety […]

  • Doubtful Whether IGAD-Plus Can End South Sudan’s War

    Four years after ending its armed struggle with Sudan and declaring its independence, South Sudan remains embroiled in internal crisis with no end in sight. Despite the tremendous support, close scrutiny, and high hopes of the international community, the new nation is presently conflicting with that same community’s ideas on how to resolve and recover […]

  • Market Manipulation Goes Global

    Market manipulation has become standard operating procedure in policy circles around the world. All eyes are now on China’s attempts to cope with the collapse of a major equity bubble. But the efforts of Chinese authorities are hardly unique. The leading economies of the West are doing pretty much the same thing – just dressing […]

  • No Hope for EPRDF to Govern Well

    Published two days apart, two of the widely read newspapers in Addis Abeba dedicated their editorials to one of the pertinent issues in Ethiopia – “the lack of good governance”. Fortune’s editorial on July 12, 2015 and Reporter’s (Amharic) editorial on July 15, 2015, lamented on the current state of socio-economic and political governance in […]

  • Sustainable Development – Neither Expensive, Nor Unreachable

    Over the last 20 years, economic growth has helped to lift almost a billion people out of extreme poverty. But one billion people are still extremely poor – 1.1 billion live without electricity and 2.5 billion people without access to sanitation. For them, growth has not been inclusive enough. In addition, growth has come at […]

  • What the Future Holds for Ethiopian ICT

    The world is transforming in front of our eyes, and this transformation is happening at a faster pace than arguably any other transformation. The world is feeling like a village, where residents have the access and capability to communicate, albeit instantly, and the whole village is growing so fast, in all rounds, be it economically, […]

  • Public Private Partnerships No Panacea

    One of the new philosophies of the contemporary system of public management is the transfer of public functions to private entities by both the state as well as local government administration. It assumes that if a particular domain of activity can be successfully realised in market conditions, there is no reason why the activity should […]

  • No Pan-Africanism without Enhanced Ethiopianism

    The year 2015 marks Ethiopia’s diplomatic success in the battle for hearts and minds. Public diplomacy has radiated the concept, agenda and vision of the Ethiopian Renaissance within the rubric of Pan-Africanism and African Renaissance. This is a fact to the point where Addis Abeba wants other countries to discern its desire for the realisation […]