Results for “Ethiopia” 155 found
Ethiopia dam fact of the day
Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam when filled will have capacity to hold 74bn cubic metres of water, more than the volume of the entire Blue Nile. Makes Egypt nervous about water supply in a drought.
That is from Adam Tooze.
Africa Luxembourg Ethiopia Congo state capacity facts of the day
Government revenues average about 17% of gdp in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the IMF. Nigeria has more than 300 times as many people as Luxembourg, but collects less tax. If Ethiopia shared out its tax revenues equally, each citizen would get around $80 a year. The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo is so penurious that its annual health spending per person could not buy a copy of this newspaper.
That is from The Economist.
Ethiopia fact of the day
Unusually for Africa, Ethiopia has sustained a high investment rate: currently 38 per cent of gross domestic product.
Here is more from Paul Collier at the FT.
The triumph of Ethiopian YIMBY
Yonas receives permission from the county seat to build a new house:
Ethiopia fact of the day
Here is another reason to be optimistic about the country:
In Ethiopia, once among Africa’s top five countries for child marriage, the practice has dropped by a third in the past decade, the world’s sharpest decline, says the World Bank. The government wants to eradicate child marriage entirely by 2025.
In contrast:
Three out of four girls in Niger are married before they are 18, giving this poor west African country the world’s highest rate of child marriage. The World Bank says it is one of only a very small number to have seen no reduction in recent years; the rate has even risen slightly. The country’s minimum legal age of marriage for girls is 15, but some brides are as young as nine.
That is all from The Economist.
Can privatization solve Ethiopia’s problems?
Here is a new paper by Ermyas Amelga, excerpt:
Privatization will not just solve the GTP’s financing problem, a worthy enough accomplishment in its self, but would also help address macroeconomic problems. These include funding/driving aggregate demand, financing aggregate investment, solving the foreign exchange shortage, rebalancing the balance of payments, dampening inflation and reviving general economic activity. May seem improbable but its not.
In the context of the huge financing needs to fulfill the plans under the GTP, privatization represents an excellent means of cashing out on the accumulated net worth of Ethiopia’s SOE’s. Indeed, there is arguably no more justifiable use of this accumulated net worth than spending it on the GTP that the government itself believes is worthy of supreme sacrifice from all corners of society.
This paper is a very good introduction to both Ethiopia’s corporate problems and also their fiscal problems. Privatization is not entirely fashionable these days, but the current situation in Ethiopia presents perhaps the strongest case for it. So if your initial reaction is “Ah privatization, that is the failed strategy that China rightly rejected”…you are making exactly the same mistake made by many privatization proponents in the 1990s. Ethiopia is starved for revenue, foreign exchange, and the country needs more private sector involvement/
And lo and behold, Ethiopia has in fact just announced a major plan to privatize many parts of some of the major state-owned companies.
By the way, I wish to thank Chris Blattman for an introduction to Ermyas and also for valuable ideas and information related to Ethiopia.
The safety net in Ethiopia
They are participants in Ethiopia’s Urban Productive Safety Net Project, which was launched in 2017 and is among the largest social programmes in sub-Saharan Africa (outside South Africa) designed specifically for urban areas. About 400,000 poor Ethiopians in 11 cities are already enrolled. The government hopes it will eventually help 4.7m people in almost 1,000 towns. Beneficiaries are selected by a neighbourhood committee based on how poor and vulnerable they are. In addition to the paid work, they also receive training. Those who want to start their own businesses are given grants.
Safety-nets, in one form or another, have proliferated across Africa in recent years. Spending on them in sub-Saharan Africa now amounts to about 1.5% of GDP (see chart). In Tanzania 10% of the population is covered by its safety-net (at a cost of just 0.3% of GDP)…
Ethiopia’s programme is a step towards building a national social-security system that will, in time, replace a hotch-potch of small ones. It builds on Ethiopia’s flagship rural safety-net, which is the largest of its kind on the continent and covers some 10m poor people in the countryside (out of a total population of about 102m). The government has committed $150m to fund the new scheme and the World Bank has stumped up the remaining $300m needed for the first five years. Ethiopia hopes that within ten years it will no longer need help financing the programme.
Here is more from The Economist. You can think of this as further evidence of state capacity in Ethiopia.
A microeconomic guide to travel, including Ethiopia
That is my latest Bloomberg column, here is the opener:
I sometimes wish the market supplied “travel guides as if microeconomics really mattered.” Most guides outline the major sights and the best hotels, but what about the little things that make up so much of the value of a trip? Here’s my handy introduction to the micro side of travel, based on my recent 10-day stay in Ethiopia. You should consider investigating these same factors before choosing a destination:
How are the sidewalks?
I enjoy walking around cities, but it’s not just the quality of the architecture or the vitality of the street life that matter. The quality of the sidewalks is a central consideration, especially in emerging economies. What good are the sights if you are looking down all the time to avoid a slip or a broken ankle because of gaping holes? Sometimes major thoroughfares have no sidewalks at all.
I am happy to report that in Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia, the quality of the sidewalks and street paths is high enough to sustain productive walking with your head held high. Most of the time. B, and B+ outside the capital.
There is much more at the link, definitely recommended.
China Ethiopia donkey estimate of the day
There are estimated to be 44 million donkeys in the world, almost all of which are maintained for work. China has the highest population (eleven million) followed by Ethiopia (five million)…
Here is the source, via pointers from Yves-Marie Stranger and Michelle Dawson. That estimate seems to be from the 1990s, the article has much more data of donkey interest, and it is a good example of Cowen’s Second Law and indeed Cowen’s First Law: “It has been made clear that the estimates of donkey populations presented here should be treated with great caution.”
And here is a 2011 report on donkeys, horses, and mules in Ethiopia. Ethiopia has the third largest total equine population in the world.
Will Ethiopia be the next China?
That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column, noting that they have been averaging about ten percent growth for the last decade. I basically make a “deep roots of state capacity” argument, here is one excerpt:
Ethiopia also had a relatively mature nation-state quite early, with the Aksumite Kingdom dating from the first century A.D. Subsequent regimes, through medieval times and beyond, exercised a fair amount of power. Most important, today’s Ethiopians see their country as a direct extension of these earlier political units. Some influential Ethiopians will claim to trace their lineage all the way to King Solomon of biblical times.
In other words, the process of organized, national-level governance has been underway for a long time. It was this relative strength of Ethiopian governance that allowed the territory to fend off colonialism, a rare achievement. It is also why, when you travel around the country, a lot of the basic cuisine doesn’t change much: Dishes are seen as national and not regional…
Like many Iranians, they think of themselves as a civilization and not just a country. They very self-consciously separate themselves from the broader strands of African history and culture. And, as in China, they hold an ideological belief that their country is destined to be great again.
Do read the whole thing.
Cities in Ethiopia, and why is the second largest one so small?
For a country of about 102 million people, this distribution of city sizes is remarkable, noting that the true population of Addis is likely larger yet:
| Addis Ababa, Ethiopia | 2,757,729 |
|---|---|
| Dire Dawa, Ethiopia | 252,279 |
| Mekele, Ethiopia | 215,546 |
| Nazrēt, Ethiopia | 213,995 |
| Bahir Dar, Ethiopia | 168,899 |
It is striking that the population is still about 80% “rural,” even with ten percent growth for a decade or so.
It seems that most people don’t want to leave their villages. Given that apparent constraint, many of the somewhat larger villages have evolved into mini-cities with very limited infrastructure and density, but lots more consumption. And Addis still is not so crowded, which makes it quite pleasant. We’ll see how this pans out, but I had never seen this “enhanced rural” model before and it is worthy of more attention. Here is one account of what is going on:
An entire town is to be built here — with a school and a training center where the farmers from the surrounding area can learn new skills, which they can then put to use to earn money. The newly founded municipality, which is to gradually grow to around 15,000 residents, is called Buranest. The idea behind the project is that the city must come to the farmers in order to keep the rural population from flooding into the cities…An entire network of this new type of settlement is to be built as part of Ethiopia’s Nestown project — half village, half town.
Just for a point of comparison, the tenth largest city in the Philippines, total population about 103 million, has 675,000 inhabitants and even the fifth largest city, Cebu, has almost a million people.
Especially prominent figures and concepts in Ethiopian Christianity
Yes there is Mary, Jesus. and the (Monophysite) Trinity, but beyond that literally every day I hear about the following from a very religious populace:
The Ark of the Covenant: “The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church claims to possess the Ark of the Covenant, or Tabot, in Axum. The object is currently kept under guard in a treasury near the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion. Replicas of the Axum tabot are kept in every Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo church, each with its own dedication to a particular saint; the most popular of these include Mary, George and Michael.”
St. George, slaying the dragon, he is prominent in church paintings.
Days of fasting, 55 a year, and thus Ethiopian restaurants are very good for vegetarians and vegans.
Addendum: from the comments, by Yves-Marie Slaughter:
55 is only the number of days of fasting during Lent, prior to Easter.
Total number of fasting days for a ‘normal’ Christian per year, would be closer to 155…
A monk may fast more than 200 days a year.
By the way, pork is prohibited altogether.
Ethiopia reads: donkey mobile libraries
Via Malcolm Clark.
Gonder, Ethiopia
Gonder was at the height of its prosperity at the turn of the eighteenth century, when it may have had a population of seventy thousand. Emperor Fasilidades, who founded the new capital around 1635, obviously hoped to create a strong center around which the remnants of the Christian north could rally. He picked a beautiful site, a flat volcanic ridge at seven thousand feet surrounded by mountains on three sides, but with easy access to Lake Tana in the south. Gonder’s climate is warm during the day, cool at night, its two streams afforded plentiful water supplies and its hinterland abundant wood and produce.
Enough of an urban economy arose to sustain architecture, music, poetry, literature, painting, calligraphy, and educational, religious, and social institutions. The emperors appeared in considerable state, surrounded by courtiers, clergy, and soldiers…
The aristocracy and the monarchy supported the artists and artisans who put up buildings, illuminated manuscripts, decorates the interior of churches and palaces, and worked stone, wood, or pottery. The town’s castles and other monuments were built of hewn brown basalt blocks and contained features that derived from Axumite and Zagwe times as well as Portuguese models. They were concentrated in the center of the town, and provided a sharp contrast with the traditional round, thatched, mud wattled homes of the people.
That is all from the excellent Harold G. Marcus, A History of Ethiopia.
Ethiopian food in Ethiopia
I will compare to Ethiopian food in the United States, so I won’t be starting from scratch here.
The good news is that the product is tastier in Ethiopia. But the other good news is that the U.S. version of the cuisine is fairly similar, and it really does give you a pretty good idea of at least mainstream restaurant cuisine in Addis Ababa.
Ethiopians really do eat a lot of injera, made out of teff. Firfir dishes, which use injera soaked in spices, are far more common in Ethiopian cuisine in Ethiopia than in the U.S. equivalent. Overall, the quality, subtlety, and diversity of injera is higher in Ethiopia, as you might expect.
Bozena Shiro is another staple, present in both countries but again far more common in Ethiopia.
Doro Wat — chicken in the red sauce — is the dish that improves the most in Ethiopia. The sauce is richer and more subtle, more in the direction of a Mexican mole than just a mere curry.
I had two meals in private homes, one in a well-to-do apartment in Addis, the other in a rural village. Neither overturned the basic impressions I have been receiving from the restaurant food.
I ate kitfo [raw beef] once and did not get sick or even feel queasy.
The fresh honey is much better in Ethiopia than what you might get in a restaurant in America. And they pop fresh popcorn rather frequently.
Especially outside of Addis Ababa, prices are very cheap. I stayed in the nicest hotel at the number one tourist site, namely Lalibela, with its underground, rock-hewn churches. A single course at breakfast cost about a dollar and was enough for a meal. Presumably some other prices are cheaper yet.
This is a wonderful country for vegetarians and vegans. I am told that for the Christian religiously observant, about one-third of all days specify an abstention from meat. So virtually all restaurants have a wide selection of vegetarian food and it is no worse than the meat dishes, perhaps better on average.
As for foreign cuisines, I had the best outcome with Indian food, perhaps because many of the spices and cooking techniques are similar. There are Sudanese and Yemeni restaurants in Addis, Italian food is plentiful (it’s not always exactly Italian, but Castelli’s is amazing), and the Chinese meal I had was decent but not sufficiently Chinese.