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(Nairobi/Geneva) – The International Trade Centre (ITC) and Equity Group Holdings PLC signed a memorandum of understanding to drive inclusive, commercially viable economic development across East Africa, starting with Kenya. The agreement targets three high-potential sectors: coffee, leather and creative industries, with an explicit mandate to scale.

The deal pairs ITC’s global trade development expertise with Equity Group’s pan-African financial infrastructure and its Africa Recovery and Resilience Plan (ARRP), a six-pillar regional growth strategy spanning food and agriculture, manufacturing, micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), technology and social impact investments.

Equity Group operates banking subsidiaries in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania.

ITC Executive Director Pamela Coke-Hamilton said: “We know that access to finance is critical for small businesses – but it has to be matched with the right skills to use it effectively. That’s why we’re partnering with Equity Bank – to ensure small businesses across East Africa can tap both financing and trade expertise to move up the value chain and compete in global markets, from leather to the creative industries.”

Why Ethiopia should stop calling road crashes “Accidents”

Opinion

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June 7, 2026

Why Ethiopia should stop calling road crashes “Accidents”

The night of May 30, 2026 was an important night for football fans across the globe. English Premiership champions Arsenal battled French League One Champions Paris Saint Germain for the UEFA Champions League final. This match had a particularly high anticipation in Addis Ababa where there is a large Arsenal fan base.

The week of May 24 was filled with promotions by bars offering different types of amenities and comfort from which people can watch the game. Around late afternoon on Saturday the 30^th, the town’s bars were filled with spectators – devoted fans praying for an Arsenal victory, and rivals eagerly wishing for their downfall. Some Arsenal fans would have you believe the latter account for every football fan outside Arsenal fans – a sentiment that, while statistically unverified, certainly felt true in the electric atmosphere of the city.

I had elected to watch the game at home with family. The game was fantastic, food for the eyes really. When the game ended, I had to take some relatives who were watching the game with me to their home. It was inevitable that the roads would be chaotic after such a football night. I expected jams and intoxicated pedestrians.

The trip from my home to my relatives’ and back took around thirty minutes. In those thirty minutes, however, I witnessed three traffic “accidents”. The first one was on my way forth, when I noticed, two cars had collided front-to-rear; the front of the rear vehicle had been damaged extensively. The two drivers bickered near a traffic police officer who was studying the different sides of the cars and their vicinities, while another policeman sporting a rifle watched with slight amusement in his face.

I stumbled upon the second “accident” on my way back; this one featured a car that had slammed head-on into a bridge barrier. The damage to the front of this car was much bigger; the windshield and window mirrors showed breakage and cracks, while the airbags had popped out. I lamented that a night of an exciting football game had ended this way for someone.

By this time, I had thought I’d seen the end of it. Alas! A third one; and quite the shock it was! A man laid flat on his belly in the middle of one lane; he had no visible wounds at first glance, but I could see he was unable to move from the waist down. He waved his hands and spoke with what I could detect from a distance was a very angry tone to police officers and a number of passersby surrounding him. Sitting in the ensuing jam, I heard more people joining the crowd speak of a hit-and-run.

These tragic scenes are playing out daily across Ethiopia, framed by the public and media alike as unavoidable “accidents.” But modern traffic science tells a completely different story—one of predictable chains of events that we have the power to break.

Luckily, I got home safe. However, I couldn’t stop thinking about what I saw. At least three families will now be affected; their lives altered in proportion to the injuries inflicted upon their loved ones. What troubled me most was not only the crashes themselves, but how predictably they would be discussed the next morning. I thought – Tomorrow there would be news on how many traffic “accidents” occurred the night before; the audience would be told how big a hazard traffic “accidents” have become and then it will be another ordinary day. No details on the victims, no in-depth look at the commonalities and differences between the events that led to a serious injury and significant property damage.

The narrative and the level of seriousness with which “traffic accidents” are treated in the media space had long remained unchanged. True – there are a number of road and traffic related programs, particularly on the radio; true – print media dedicate articles to road traffic safety whenever there is a story every now and then. But the contents of media work covering road safety need to change fundamentally to reflect the gold standard in the science of road traffic safety today which is underpinned the pioneering works of public health experts like William Haddon and embedded in successful road safety strategies such as Sweden’s Vision Zero.

The term “accident” can unintentionally reinforce the idea that crashes are unavoidable acts of chance rather than preventable events shaped by human and systemic factors. However, this is very much removed from what the study of “accidents” in general and road traffic safety in particular tell us.

Indeed, science does not deny there could be random, or probabilistic components to crashes. However, science tells us that “accidents” are caused by a number of systemic faults, which come together like a chain of events to lead to a crash. Take any one of the three tragic events that I described earlier and think about how speeding, driving distracted by the use of mobile phones, alcohol consumption, the rainy evening that impeded quick braking, and poorly lit street sections could have contributed to the crashes. Thus, one may conclude that the combination of any of these factors may have formed the chain of events that led from safety to tragedy.

Hence, reducing the prevalence of these systemic risk factors can significantly reduce the likelihood and severity of crashes. This is indeed the beautiful part of this “chain-of-events model” to conceptualize crashes; because the chain can be broken by addressing individual risk factors in it.

Globally, road traffic crashes claim around 1.2 million lives in a year per WHO’s global road safety status report of 2023. Ethiopia’s share of fatalities is well above twenty thousand in the same report, though official government statistics lower this number to around four thousand.

A big part of mitigating this national tragedy is changing the narrative on road traffic safety. It is imperative that the media space embraces the terminology of crashes instead of accidents. In this regard, I am not giving a dogmatic prescription for the local media – I’m not a linguist. What I argue for, rather, is the use of proper wording that indicates the intentionality embedded in traffic safety problems – the intentional speeding, the intentional delay or dodging of annual vehicle inspections, the intentional corruption in driver-licensing procedures, the intentional alcohol consumption, the underinvestment in capacitating the traffic police force, and so forth.

All of the above systemic ills make us party to the daily tragedy on Ethiopia’s roads. The media can play a pivotal role in changing societal understanding of crashes, thereby instilling in society a much-needed attitude of agency over matters of traffic safety.

Small shifts in vocabulary can serve as seeds of change towards a wider media strategy to communicate road traffic safety issues in a scientifically honest and societally helpful manner.

Name:Rahel Nigussie

Entrepreneurs

admin

June 7, 2026

2 Education : ( የት/ት ደረጃ)

10

3 Company Name ( የካምፓኒ ስም)

Rich Coffee

4 Title; : ( የስራ ድርሻህ)

Owner

5 Founded in; ( መቼ ተመሰረተ )

2013

6 What it do; (ምንድነው የምትሰሩት)
Coffee and Tea services

7 Head quarter ( መስሪያቤት )
Addis Ababa

8 Start up capital ( በምን ያህል ገንዘብ ስራዉን ጀመርሽ/ክ)
5,000 birr
9 Current capital ( የአሁን ካፒታል )

Above 800,000 birr

10 Number of the Employees ( የሰራተኞች ቁጥር )

6

11 Reason for Starting the business ( ለስራው መጀመር ምክንያት )

My passion for the work

12 Biggest perk of ownership ( የባለቤትነት ጥቅም)

Working toward my goal and making it a reality

13 Biggest strength ( ጥንካሬህ/ሽ)

By not giving up and being able to focus only on the future

14 Biggest challenge ( ተግዳሮቶች ምን ነበሩ)

The veranda/street-side work I used to do was very difficult

15 Plan : ( እቅድ)

Establishing my own coffee house

16 First Career ( የመጀመሪያ ስራ) :

Housemaid in Beirut

17 Most interested in meeting (መገናኘት የምትፈልገው ) :

Ethio Telecom CEO Frehiwot Tamru

18 Most admired person ( የምታደንቀው ሰዉ)

Abraham Afewerki

19 Stress reducer ( ጭንቀትን የሚያቀልልሽ/ለህ) :

Talking with my husband

20 Favorite book:( የመፅሐፍ ምርጫ)

The Bible

21 Favorite past time ( ማድረግ የሚያስደስትህ) :
Helping and supporting my family

22 Favorite destination ( ከኢትዮጵያ ወጪ መሄድ የምትፈልገው/ጊዉ ስፍራ):

Jerusalem

23 Favorite automobile ( የመኪና ምርጫ) :

Range Rover

Invest in Ethiopian cities startup ecosystems for a transformational and sustainable private sector led economy

Society

admin

June 7, 2026

Invest in Ethiopian cities startup ecosystems for a transformational and sustainable private sector led economy

Government versus Private Sector Led Economies

State led command and mixed economies are characterized by government owning major means of production. The state allocates resources via directs investments. The government directly controls prices be it for inputs, goods, services, Foreign Exchange (FX) or interest rates. They feature dominance of State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) and substantial corporate shareholding ownership in strategic markets. Government has direct management of macroeconomic outputs. They have highly centralized long run national plans, active strategic industrial policies and state interventions through subsidies.

The World Bank’s 2023 Business of the State (BOS) report showed Ethiopia had at least one traditional SOE in slightly over 40% of all economic sectors and at least one BOS firm in 50% of all sectors. The World Bank contends that traditional State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) firms focus on central government and majority ownership while Business of State (BOS) BOS is any firm with at least a 10% public sector ownership stake. The World Bank highlights that that complex, indirect, subnational, and minority state ownerships are very prevalent globally more so after Covid19 pandemic with these types of enterprises generating half of all BOS related revenues.

Private sector led market economies on the other hand has the market forces of demand and supply allocating resources, managing production, and determining prices. Individual households and businesses own the means of production, make investment decisions, and operate based on profit maximization motives. Government roles in these economies is limited to providing public goods and services (for instance national defense, protecting lives and property, maintaining law and order, infrastructure (roads, railways, bridges , airports, seaports, energy, ICT, water, sanitation), regulating markets, market infrastructures and institutions , preventing monopolies and market dominance.

Ethiopia is widely acknowledged to be in the midst of transitioning from a government led economy hinged on mega state infrastructure into a private sector led economy anchored on the ingenuity and resilience of her entrepreneurs. The late Meles Zenawi Asres (9 May 1955 – 20 August 2012) who served as Ethiopia’s President between 28 May 1991 and 22 August 1995 and Prime Minister between 23 August 1995 and 20 August 2012 architected the 1991 to 2018 Ethiopian government “developmental state” model. This was heavily influenced by the successes of China, East Asian Tigers (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan) and Tiger Cub (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam) model. The results were outstanding from heavy direct investments to modernize the economy via railways, roads, dams, industrial parks, monopolies (telecommunications, banking, aviation, logistics, and power) and a double digit GDP growth of around 10% in the period 2005 – 2019.

Heavy public borrowing led to macroeconomic imbalances. Output gap between the economy’s actual GDP and its long run potential full employment GDP. Divergence between national savings and national investments. Aggregate demand outpaced aggregate supply causing high inflation which further created economic uncertainty, severely eroded purchasing power, disproportionately impacted lower-income households, and distorted interest rates. Labour market supply of workers outpaced demand by job creators (government enterprises and MSMEs) leading to high unemployment. .

Fiscal deficits from government expenditure outpacing tax revenues (PAYE, corporate income tax, VAT, excise tax, customs and duties), SOEs dividends and appropriations in aid (A-in-A) fees led to public debt borrowings ‘’crowding out’’ the private sector from credit markets. The external sector current account deficit imbalances emanated from goods and services imports exceeding exports. The current account deficits signified high dependency on foreign capital to finance domestic consumption and investments, heavy burden of repaying principal and interest on the foreign currency debt and made the local currency vulnerable to excessive depreciation.

Ethiopia from 2018 onwards started embarking on reforms which will culminate into a dynamic private sector led economy. The Home-Grown Economic Reform (HGER) agenda was launched in 2019 to address major economic and structural imbalances (GDP output gap, savings investment gap, inflation from aggregate supply versus aggregate demand imbalances, fiscal deficit from government revenues lagging expenditure and public debt ‘’crowding out’’ the private sector from credit and current account deficit from imports exceeding exports occasioning foreign debt pressures and Ethiopian Birr depreciation. Phase II of the HGER is hinged on pillars across macroeconomic and financial sector stability, promoting private sector–led growth, expanding trade and investment , unlocking productive potential, and strengthening institutions.

Invest Heavily in Ethiopia’s Startup Ecosystems in Ethiopian Cities for Rapid Private Sector Development (PSD).

The Global Startup Ecosystem Index (GSEI) by StartupBlink has been updated annually since 2017 and currently ranks the startup ecosystems of 1,473 cities and 118 countries. It levers three sub-scores. The quantity sub score measures the activity level of the ecosystem. This includes the number of startups, the number of investors, the number of co-working spaces, the number of business incubators and accelerators, and the number of startup-related meetups.

The quality sub score assesses the impact and success of the activity in the startups ecosystem. These include private sector startup investment, the number of startup employees, and the number and size of Unicorns and exits above USD$1Billion. It also covers the traction of startups (traffic, domain authority, and customer base), bigtech research & development (R&D) centers, branches of Multinational Corporations (MNCs) and value of exits with a valuation below US$1B. Other parameters includes the number and size of global startup events and conferences held in the country or city, the presence and impact of Pantheon members and global startup influencers, the number of startups accepted by top global accelerators per ecosystem, as well as the number and market capitalization of listed companies in technology sectors.

The business environment sub score evaluates how supportive the overall conditions are for startup growth. This includes the diversity index, internet speed, cost of internet, internet freedom, R&D investment, and availability of various technological services (payment portals, ride-sharing apps, cryptocurrency). It further comprises of the level of English proficiency, the country’s passport strength, availability of startup or Nomad Visas, corporate tax rate, startup-friendliness of labor laws, and Corruption Perception Index-CPI. The other indicators includes the number of peer-reviewed scientific papers published, the sovereign debt credit score, top universities per location and corporate startup activity per location.

The StartupBlink local ecosystem partner is Entrepreneurship Development Institute [Ethiopia]. Ethiopia’s startup ecosystem innovators business environment global ranking in 2026 stood at number 120 of 125 nations. The country posted an annual startup ecosystem growth rate of +4.4% as the ecosystem value grossed USD$1.1 Billion which ranked 84/125. Ethiopia Software and Data industry ranked 99/125.

Addis Ababa startup ecosystem was ranked 422nd in the global top 1,000 cities with its 5.5% annual ecosystem growth rate proving to be inadequate to keep pace with faster growing global peers culminating in its 32 spots annual drop. The city total score stood at 1.044 which constituted a national share of 100% .The Minister for Labor and Skills, H.E Ms. Muferiat Kamil, noted that, “Ethiopia’s reform-driven administration has created a supportive legal and policy environment that empowers private businesses to innovate and expand, thereby strengthening entrepreneurship nationwide and beyond. We are witnessing the emergence of a bold generation of innovative entrepreneurs willing to take risks and establish diverse businesses.”

The most notable startups ecosystem builders includes the Ministry of Innovation and Technology (MInT) which oversees national innovation policy, startup ecosystem strategy, and digital transformation programs including the Next Ethiopian Startup initiative and ICT Park development. The Entrepreneurship Development Institute (EDI) Institute under the Ministry of Labor and Skills delivers entrepreneurship training, business development services (BDS) and access-to-finance programs and it’s also the national host of the UNCTAD EMPRETEC program. International Finance Corporation (IFC) through private sector investment, telecom liberalization advisory, digital skills programming, and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) capacity building for the capital market. IceAddis is Ethiopia’s first innovation hub and tech startup incubator, providing co-working space, incubation, acceleration programs, and ecosystem advocacy through continental networks such as AfriLabs.

The key startup ecosystem milestones in Ethiopia includes the 2011 launch of IceAddis as the first innovation hub and tech startup incubator. The government set up the Ministry of Innovation and Technology in 2018 to lead national digital transformation and ecosystem growth. Safaricom launched commercial mobile services, ending decades of state telecom monopoly in 2022. Climate tech startup Kubik closed a record US$ 5.2 million seed round in 2024 to expand sustainable building material production. Parliament in 2025 passed the Startup Business Proclamation which established a formal legal framework and a national startup fund.

The valuations of leading startups on DealRoom Ethiopia with aspirations to reach the USD$1bn Unicorn status includes Komari Beverage, an FMCG founded in 2017 valued at $104—156m which offers lightly sweet fruit-flavored cocktails with zero sugar and carbohydrates that include 5% ABV in apple, lime and pineapple flavors, providing consumers with a high-quality beverage option that fits all occasions. Roha Medical Campus which offers affordable and advanced healthcare services through various hospitals and facilities is valued at $168—252m. Standard Bank Group was the exclusive financial adviser to M-BIRR which raised €8m ($9.8m) worth of equity in 2018 from European Investment Bank (EIB). EthioChicken founded in 2010 raised almost USD$ 3 million in 2017 and is today valued at $20—30m.

Ride (Hybrid Designs is the dominant ride-hailing mobility and logistics platform in Addis Ababa.Yegara host is a meaningful portal for social participation and self-discovery. Gebeya valued at $8—12m is a pan-African tech talent and marketplace platform providing software-as-a-service (SaaS) and workforce solutions launched in 2016.Chapa is an Ethiopian financial service and a global data engineering technology-based service provider of payment gateway, payment instrument, and bill aggregator solutions. Dodai is a Japanese e-mobility company focusing on the manufacturing and assembly of electric motorcycles and batteries launched in 2021 valued at $32—48m.Belcash / HelloCash provides fintech and digital payments. ArifPay provides digital point-of-sale (POS) and mobile payments has an enterprise value of $14—21m.

Call to Action for Transformation of Ethiopia’s Startup Ecosystem.

Ethiopia needs to become a startups nation serially churning out transformational USD$1billion valued Unicorns through interventions including taxpayer funded incubators and accelerators; pervasive university ideathons, hackathons, venture capital funds, spin-ins, spin-outs, spin-offs; and corporate venturing and venture capital funds. Other investments in the startup ecosystem external environment includes Ethiopia’s 12 Pillars of the World Economic Forum (WEF’s) Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), the 16 Criteria of the World Bank’s Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA), the Edelman Trust Barometer Performance , the 4 Clusters of the Mo Ibrahim Index of African Governance – IIAG, the 11 World Bank Topics on Ease of Doing Business Conditions and 7 Pillars of the World Intellectual Property Organization Global Innovation Index.

Migwi Nduku can be reached via nikaminduku@gmail.com