Africa > East Africa > Ethiopia > Social / CSR

Social / CSR in Ethiopia

  • Bill Gates sees US likely to maintain aid levels for Africa

    BOTSWANA, 2017/08/15 The US will probably maintain its current levels of aid to Africa despite President Donald Trump’s proposals to slash funding, according to Bill Gates, the world’s richest man. Trump said in May his government would no longer allocate funding for family planning, a move that has the potential to undermine aid programs in the poorest nations in the world. However, with Congress in control of the budget, it’s unlikely that all cuts proposed by the Trump government will go ahead next year, Gates said in an interview in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s commercial capital.
  • Activism And The State: How African Civil Society Responds To Repression

    BURUNDI, 2017/07/09 African citizens, activists and organisations are finding new and innovative ways to resist, organise and mobilise in the face of mounting restrictions on their rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association. Restrictions on civic freedoms are increasing worldwide, but are being acutely felt in African nations. According to the CIVICUS Monitor – a constantly updated tool rating nations’ fundamental civic freedoms from open to closed – 43 African nations fall under the bottom three categories of closed, repressed and obstructed with only two African nations rated as open. In most African nations, freedom of expression, assembly and association are stifled by national and non-national actors through the use of restrictive legislation, policies, and judicial persecution inclunding physical attacks, threats and detention of activists and journalists. While these restrictions generally occur at the same time as civil society groups speak out in direct opposition to public policy, there is strong evidence that restrictions increase during politically sensitive periods, like elections and prior to constitutional changes on term limits of political leaders.
  • Ethiopia’s online visa application

    ETHIOPIA, 2017/06/15 Ethiopia on June 12, 2017 announced an online visa application process to relieve visa processes to travellers to that country, but only one African country out of the 54, is eligible to use the platform with two others exempt, because these two nations have visa exempt agreements with Ethiopia. Out of the 39 nations eligible to apply for visa online, inclunding North Korea, some Western and Latin American nations, the only African country eligible to apply for an e-visa is South Africa. The other two African nations on the inventory, Kenya and Djibouti, have visa exempt deals with Ethiopia.
  • Ethiopians celebrate Orthodox Christmas

    ETHIOPIA, 2016/01/10 The domestic counters of Addis Ababa Bole International Airport are heaving with passengers going to Lalibela, a town in northern Ethiopia which is home to what a lot of consider to be one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Lalibela churches are 11 ancient monolithic structures carved out of solid granite. It is here that a lot of pilgrims of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church from different parts of the country travel to celebrate Christmas. The airport is particularly busy on the eve of Ethiopian Christmas, which falls on Jan. 7 each year.
  • Ethiopia: Rebalancing Economic Growth,

    ETHIOPIA, 2015/12/08 Albeit impressive economic increase which is hailed for reducing absolute poverty by half, Ethiopia stands part the crowd to be challenged by sharing the benefits of this increase part its vulnerable urban poor, a group which has grown in size in the completed decade. Accordingly, the issue of the vulnerable and the destitute looks to be creeping on to the policymakers and their development partners in preceding months. Both the IMF and WB in their recent research works regarding Ethiopia has dealt with the issue of urban poverty and associated gain inequality. Almost equally alert is the Government of Ethiopia which has finalized its preparation to roll out a USD 559 million Urban Productive Safety Net Program, write Asrat Seyoum and Birhanu Fikade. Solomon Eshetu, mid-thirties and a father of two, is one of the new inductees to Addis Ababa's used car import business. Prior to his newly found line of work, Solomon worked in the construction sector where he struggled to make ends meet. On one occasion, he managed to travel to Europe invited by a friend with whom he grew up with.
  • Ethiopian New Year based on the Coptic calendar of Julian calculation

    ETHIOPIA, 2015/09/15 Enkutatash which literary means "a gift of jewel to your finger!" marks the Ethiopian New Year based on the Coptic schedule of Julian calculation. There is an eight-year gap between Ethiopian schedule and that of the one adopted by the rest of the world which follows the Gregorian schedule. I will try to familiarize you with the distinctive Ethiopian New Year. Enkutatash signifies the end of the rainy season and the ushering in of the sunny one. The tradition goes back 3,000 years as it was started to commemorate the Queen of Sheba of ancient Ethiopia and Yemen who visited King Solomon of Israel in Jerusalem. She had gifted Solomon with 120 talents of 4.5 tons of gold inclunding incomparable spices and jewels. Up on the return of the Queen to Ethiopia, her chiefs welcomed her with enku (jewels). This remained to be a symbol of heralding the Ethiopian New Year.
  • Obama holds talks on security, human rights in Ethiopia

    UNITED STATES, 2015/07/27 President Barack Obama huddled with Ethiopia's leaders Monday for talks on counterterrorism, human rights and regional security issues, inclunding the crisis in neighboring South Sudan. Obama's visit marks the initial visit by a sitting U.S. president to Ethiopia. He arrived at the National Palace in the capital of Addis Ababa for a bilateral conference with Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, followed by a joint news conference. Later Monday, Obama was to convene a conference of African leaders on the situation in South Sudan. The world's newest country has been gripped by civil war for months, spurred by a conflict between warring factions in the government.
  • Ethiopia Should Leave Africa

    ETHIOPIA, 2015/07/05 In the 1870s Japanese public intellectual Yukichi Fukuzawa shocked his audience by stating that he thought Japan should leave poor Asia and join the modern world. Japan in those days was going through a phase of rapid change, which would from presently on lead to Japan becoming a modern country and the leading country in Asia. Yukichi Fukuzawa, who founded a university and Japan's initial daily newspaper, travelled extensively in America and Europe, and his books about the development of the West became bestsellers in Japan. The provocative, brave ideas of Yukichi Fukuzawa angered a lot of Japanese, but additional significant, inspired millions of his countrymen to support Japan's modernization effort, thereby improving people's lives. How does this story of 150 years ago in a very different part in the world, connect to Ethiopia and Africa?
  • Oxfam Study Finds Richest 1% Is Likely to Control Half of Global Wealth by 2016

    AFGHANISTAN, 2015/01/20 The richest 1 % are likely to control additional than half of the globe’s total wealth by next year, the charity Oxfam reported in a study released on Monday. The warning about deepening world inequality comes just as the world’s business elite prepare to meet this week at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The 80 wealthiest people in the world all own $1.9 trillion, the statement found, nearly the same all shared by the 3.5 billion people who occupy the bottom half of the world’s gain scale. (Last year, it took 85 billionaires to equal that figure.) And the richest 1 % of the people, who number in the millions, control nearly half of the world’s total wealth, a share that is as well increasing.
  • Ethiopia becomes Africa’s largest refugee host

    ETHIOPIA, 2014/08/21 The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) announced on Tuesday that Ethiopia has surpassed Kenya in hosting the majority refugees in Africa, sheltering 629,000 refugees as of the end of July. Mr. Adrian Edwards, UNHCR spokesperson, who made the announcement, while briefing UN reporters from Geneva via video-conference, said the major factor in the change in the situation was the increased numbers of refugees fleeing the conflict in South Sudan. He noted that the conflict, which erupted in mid-December, had sent 188,000 refugees into Ethiopia since the beginning of 2014.