International Women's Day: a series of panel discussions
I hope you all had a great International Women’s Day. There were quite a few events lined up over the past week focused on women’s rights issues, I suppose as a way of compensating how much of this stuff is ignored over the year. Still, it was fun.
I spoke on one such panel entitled, ‘digital feminist activism and online violence’. I spoke representing the Ethiopian Media Women’s Association, of which I am a member and based on my experiences (and my colleagues) and the online violence that women reporters face (spoiler, it’s very ugly). Here’s Capital Newspaper’s story on the event.
Another event I attended was organized by Setaweet, a feminist organization focused on research and activism work. The event was on the launch of their latest work, Alegnta; an app that can be used to report gender-based violence using geo-location. The idea is an extension of their Alegnta hotline (6388) and the team is ironing out the kinks before its official public launch. If you want to get notified when it’s available for use, scan below.
Now, to the news.
GERD back in the limelight
The issue of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) has been making headlines last week after reports came out on the latest Arab League meeting.
Last week Wednesday, during the 59th session of the Arab League Council, the Egyptian Foreign Minister, Sameh Shoukry, talked about Egypt’s reliance on its “Arab brothers to force Ethiopia to abandon its unilateral, non-cooperative practice,…”
The Foreign Minister further announced ‘the decision to put the GERD as a permanent item on the agenda of the Arab League and the League’s call on Ethiopia to show flexibility on the issue of GERD, as it is related to Arab national security’.
The Ethiopian government was dismayed by this, according to a statement released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
‘We should not have to remind the League that the Nile River and all the riparian countries are found in Africa,’ reads the statement. ‘The League is once again serving as the spokesperson of one state, disregarding the basic principles of international law.”
In February, International Crisis Group wrote an in-depth piece on what the priorities of the recently concluded AU Summit should be, and this had included the issue of GERD; Ending the Impasse Over Ethiopia’s Nile Dam. The article says that, ‘the root of the trouble is that both Ethiopia and Egypt view the project through a nationalist lens that leaves each little room for accommodation of the other party’s interests.’ But also, that, ‘neither Ethiopia nor Egypt is likely to abandon its maximalist position, as in both countries a hard line enjoys considerable public support.’
Take a look at the full report here.
A more detailed report in English on the Arab League Council session from Arab News here and an interesting story on how AI may help come up with a solution for GERD.
Forex woes
Last week, I briefly wrote about how the forex crunch was affecting medicine supply in the country. The week before that, Wazema Radio did a report on how private banks are selling dollars for importers at nearly the same price as sold on the parallel market. That is, the actual selling price at banks would be at the nationally set price of 54 Birr and some change but then a commission fee of 55 to 60 Birr would be added on to that, bringing it up to nearly 115 Birr for one US dollar. Around three years ago, the National Bank of Ethiopia had disbursed 100 million US dollars for banks in the country to alleviate shortage. But nothing similar has happened since then.
Loan and grant support from the World Bank and other financial institutions have been postponed due to the war, and this has turned a bad situation to worse.
The results on the negotiation of the debt restructuring for Ethiopia, requested last year by the government, has yet to bear any fruits. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has been reiterating the importance of the debt structuring, as indicated by his talks during recent trips to France and to Qatar last week at the 5th UN Conference on the Least Developed Countries. The detailed report in Amharic here.
This week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to be in Ethiopia; he will be discussing the implementation of the peace agreement and this in turn may determine a host of issues, including AGOA privileges. Rights group, Amnesty International, is calling for human rights issues to be central in the talks.
I’m sorry to say that the city administration is cooking up yet another housing scheme
The Addis Abeba City administration has passed a decision that is intended to enable its employees across the city to become home owners.
What this means is that the city administration will facilitate the provision of land and loans from banks for employees who wish to build homes. This is predicated on the employees proving that they (or their spouses) do not own any homes.
They should also prove that they are not currently saving for the condominium housing scheme launched by the city administration in 2005 (and then again in 2013). Yes, you read that correctly, there are people who - after saving for years under the condominium housing scheme - have yet to receive their apartments, 18 years later. Actually, thousands of them. This is different in that it won’t be the city administration that will be overseeing the construction, it’s the employees themselves.
I wrote about the utter chaos that is the city administration’s condominium housing schemes. Here’s an excerpt from a story I did in 2020, which, I think, encapsulates the whole debacle:
“A pool of stagnant rainwater is the first thing that greets someone making their way into the branch office of the Addis Abeba Housing Development Bureau located at the Bole Bulbula condominium site. A wooden slab lies in the middle of this floor, a glorified walkway amid the bits of plastic, wood and general building debris strewn around. This walkway leads to the stairs to the first floor. Halfway through to the stairs, a small printed congratulatory post welcomes the "second round of house owners"…”
Addis Fortune has covered this issue extensively for anyone interested on a deeper dive.
Protests unabated in Guji Zone, Oromia
Last week, I wrote very briefly on the protests in Guji Zone. This week we’re going a bit deeper.
The protests in Guji Zone, in Oromia region, are happening due to an administrative restructuring in the region. The region’s council (known as Caffee Oromia), decided to restructure the current layout splitting some districts, and merging others, and also creating a new zone. The creation of a new zone named “East Borena” is part of this restructuring. East Borena is composed of 10 districts which were formerly in other zones (namely, Borana, Guji and Bale). The capital of this new district: Negelle (or what used to be the former seat of Guji Zone).
Guji Zone residents are not happy with this restructuring, as it takes the zone’s former center and replaces it with a new one, aka Adola Rede.
The restructuring was done to ‘enhance development’ according to the region. Guji residents, on the other hand, say that this is unacceptable especially without consulting the people of the Zone.
Since this decision was passed, residents of the zone have been protesting, which as I mentioned last week, has led to deaths of civilians. The protest have continued; businesses have closed up shop as a show of protest and there have mass demonstrations across towns in the Zone.
The full report from Addis Standard, from where most of this information was sourced, here.
Protests in Addis
Three wheeled vehicles, bajajs, have been outlawed in Addis Abeba, as of March 9. The hundreds of bajaj drivers whose livelihoods depend on transporting people with their vehicles went out on a peaceful protest demanding answers. Sadly, we all know what happens after at this point. Police fire rounds to disperse the crowd, and some people are injured, many more are arrested.
According to the Saturday edition of Addis Admas, the city administration has outlawed bajajs, saying that it is are working on a plan to better the transportation system. The bajaj drivers have a much more urgent question, ‘How are we expected to make living?’ But also, they have other suspicions; that they are being pushed forcefully out of their work as a majority of bajaj drivers are Amharas. The full story in Amharic here.
In other news
The prices of food items, including major staple items like teff and wheat, has shot up. A quintal of teff, sold for about 6,500 Birr has increased upto 10,000 Birr. There’s also shortage so many vendors don’t even have teff to sell. We talked about what’s happening with wheat the week before last.
Last week’s highlights included a note on Gurage Zone, and the arrests of higher government official and other people. This Zone’s quest for statehood and ensuing confrontation between security forces and protestors have turned violent. Now, the Zone has announced the creation of a political party for the Gurage People, “Gugut Gurage Unity and Justice Party.” More in Amharic on Wazema Radio.
Following my update from last week on Adwa, a joint security task force has announced that over 800 people have been arrested for inciting violence at the 127th celebration of the holiday. More in English from Addis Standard here.
Despite the Somali region in Ethiopia being drought hit, tens of thousands of Somalis coming to the region fleeing conflict from Somaliland have been welcomed by the community. The UN is saying in order to keep peace between refuge and host communities, who have very little themselves, support needs to be amped up. Here’s the story I did for VOA.
We’re entering the second month of internet blockade on Facebook, Telegram, Tik Tok and YouTube. Amnesty International has followed the recent statements by the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission and the Ethiopian Media Council, to end this blockade. Paradoxically, the UN Internet Governance Forum was hosted in Ethiopia in December last year. Somethings are just not meant to make sense.
Announcements:
I’m working on a correction policy, basically a short explanation on how I will be making corrections on the reports that I do, should there be a need for any. This is coming next week.
For the 10th edition of Sifter, which is a couple more editions away, I’m planning to do a review on a fascinating research paper on media, so stay tuned. And as usual, don’t hesitate to hit the reply button and share your thoughts!
That’s all for this week. I’ll be back next week with more updates!
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Note: I go through all the major news outlets, newspapers, online publications, and will at times, include reports, notes on parliamentary sessions, and go through fact checking websites as well. I try to provide links to both English and Amharic sources, and I usually time stamp the video I link to unless I think the whole video is relevant.