Can you stop blocking the internet?
and an update on food aid diversion
It’s been over four months now since the government has restricted internet access in Ethiopia. I don’t know how you are working around this, but my trick is turning my VPN on and off and activating airplane mode every once in a while, giving that page no option but to load.
The type of internet shutdown we are experiencing – in Addis Abeba at least – is called filtering. This is when the government, ‘blocks access to specific communications platforms.’
The CEO of Ethiopia’s state-owned telecom operator, Ethiotelecom, said the enterprise is doing all it can to get the social media restrictions lifted. She said this to parliamentarians last week while presenting the enterprise’s nine-month performance report. In a story covered by The Reporter, CEO Frehiwot Tamiru, said that ‘the social media curbs create “disappointing experiences” for Ethiotelecom’s customers’.
Disappointing experiences or a breach of our fundamental human rights?
Ethiopia is a repeat offender of (prolonged) internet shutdowns. According to a report by Access Now, which works on digital civil rights, the two-year-long blackout in Tigray region is the world’s longest shutdown. The shutdown gave ‘cover for warring parties to commit heinous crimes, including systematic and widespread murder, rape, and sexual violence against vulnerable groups.’
The CEO of Ethiotelecom went on to add that the enterprise doesn’t have the power to lift the restriction but that this is having a considerable negative effect on the performance of their mobile money platform. Okay, but what about our fundamental human rights?
The full story on The Reporter here and the Access Now Report here.
Aid: food aid diversion in Tigray (III)
The World Food Program may be resuming food aid in Ethiopia as soon as next month according to a story by Reuters. The pause in food aid to the country (initially Tigray region) had come as a result of an investigation that revealed that there was a diversion of donor-funded food. It looks like this resumption will depend on how much power the UN agency will have on the selection of beneficiaries; who gets to be supported in other words. So far, the Ethiopian government has had tight reins on this selection.
Here's an excerpt from a story in the Associated Press (AP):
“As the U.S. and U.N. demand that Ethiopia’s government yield its control over the vast aid delivery system supporting one-sixth of the country's population, they have taken the dramatic step of suspending their food aid to Africa’s second-most populous nation until they can be sure it won't be stolen by Ethiopian officials and fighters.”
There is one joint investigation by the USAID and the Ethiopian government while the UN is doing a separate one; both are still ongoing though federal and regional level bodies have been implicated including the Ethiopian army and Eritrean forces.
State-affiliated media house, Walta, came out with a story last week, entitled, “A Typical Campaign to Defame Ethiopia, False Accusations”; the story basically points out that Western countries are making ‘unsubstantiated accusations’ about humanitarian aid and that international media houses are failing their duty to report fairly. Here’s the last sentence of that article:
“Surveys show that this money remains in western private corporations. But these extremist media don’t want to report this disgusting act of the West.”
Not saying this sentence is a lie but the article doesn’t bother mentioning which surveys show this.
For earlier updates on the aid diversion, go here.
The full story on Reuters here and AP here.
Tech: startup gets funding for upcycling
A company working on plastic waste reuse in Ethiopia and Kenya has received seed funding of over 3 million US dollars. The company, named Kubik, turns plastic waste into house-building materials and they remove 45,000kgs of waste from landfills every day according to a story by TechCrunch. The new funding will allow Kubik to double its operations in Ethiopia.
The building materials Kubik is making using plastic waste are also more affordable. Here’s an excerpt from the story on what co-founder Kidus Asfaw, said:
“Asfaw says the materials’ affordability can play a role in bridging the current housing deficit that is partly driven by a growing urban population and hefty costs of construction.
What is worth noting here is that developed countries are the biggest contributors of waste in general (not unlike carbon emissions).
Here’s an excerpt from a report by the World Bank:
“Although they only account for 16 percent of the world’s population, high-income countries combined are generating more than one-third (34 percent) of the world’s waste.”
The full story on TechCrunch here.
Finance: another summit, another round of promises
Last week Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was attending a summit in Paris. The event (Summit for a New Global Financing Pact), organized by France, and attended by heads of state and high-level officials, was supposed to be a space where the international community would work out a new global financial system. Because the way global finance works right now is extremely unfavorable to developing countries.
Here's an excerpt from a story by the Associated Press on this:
“Some governments are being forced to choose between making debt repayments or defaulting in order to pay public sector workers — possibly ruining their credit rating for years to come,” Guterres said, adding that “Africa now spends more on debt service costs than on health care.
The IMF’s rules unfairly favor wealthy nations, he said. During the pandemic, the wealthy Group of Seven nations, with a population of 772 million, received the equivalent of $280 billion from the IMF while the least developed countries, with a population of 1.1 billion, were allocated just over $8 billion.”
So, how was the summit in Paris important for Ethiopia, whose sovereign debt stands at 27 billion US dollars?
A story by the state-owned media house, Ethiopian News Agency (ENA), reported that the Prime Minister had, ‘reached an agreement on the sidelines of the summit with leaders of countries and international financial institutions on debt adjustment and getting new macroeconomic development financial support.’
There have not been any concrete commitments at the summit and an article in Deutsche Welle on this ends with a section entitled, 'History will tell if the summit was a success’. Promising.
The full story on DW here, on ENA here.
Oromia: Ethiopian army and militia group accused of killings
Last week, Ethiopian army members shot and killed four people in Oromia region, specifically in West Show Zone. The people killed were suspected of supporting the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA). The Ethiopian government and the terrorist-designated OLA sat down for negotiations in April but it had ended with no agreements reached.
In another part of Oromia, East Wollega, eight people were killed by Amhara irregular militia group Fano. The attackers came at dawn when people were sleeping and stole more than 3,000 cattle according to a report by Addis Standard.
Here’s what the administrator of Kiremu District, where this took place, said in the report:
“Since July 2020, the group has been carrying out organized attacks and committing crimes and looting properties. They are only getting stronger and the intensity of their attacks are increasing,” Jiregna added.
The full story on Addis Standard here and here.
That’s all for this week. I’ll be back next week with more updates!
In the meantime, you can help support my work by forwarding this email to friends and family who might benefit from keeping up with what’s going on.
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.