World known neurovascular interventionist, Professor Sirintara Singhara, who played a vital role to enable the treatment of stroke without surgery at Bumrungrad International Hospital, provides master-class training to Ethiopian health professionals.
The training and experience sharing was facilitated courtesy of the Dubai based Health Live and Black Lion Hospital College of Health with a focus on the advanced technology based treatments.
Prof. Sirintara is widely known for her vast experience in health related researches and in the sharing of her experience for the benefit of other health experts across the globe.

Dagne Daba Agricultural Products Exporter, who massively engage in agricultural development, announce that they are embarking on the development of sunflower seeds that will be supplied to farmers in the harvest season from the beginning of the upcoming year.
The agriprenuer and owner of the farm, who currently supplies fruits and vegetables for local and regional markets, stated that the business venture has expanded to Gurage Zone, SNNP besides its farm in Bilate of the same region of Wolayta zone.
Dagne whilst explaining why he was undertaking this new venture explained that it was his goal to cultivate sunflower with the aim of substituting the import edible oil from the ingredients, within the coming two years.
Currently, edible pressers are imported crude for their production, while the volume of finished sunflower and other edible oil product is mostly imported from different sources since the local production has significant gap to fill the demand.
Experts over the years have pointed out for government to step in with regards to allocation of ample resources for local agricultural development to substitute the input and finished edible oil import.
According to Dagne, who boasts a track record of accomplishments on fruit production like banana, avocado and papaya, the country must move forward to feed itself by sourcing locally produced inputs.
“We are targeting to provide high quality sunflower seeds for farmers who can be potential suppliers for oil pressers,” he said, adding, “like the wheat campaign we can attain a success on the oil sector and save the foreign currency that is allocated to import the basic commodity.”
Currently at its adjacent farms at Bilate and Abaya areas, the farm is cultivating 150 hectares of sunflower that will be expanded to 2,000 hectare in the coming rainy season with the supply chain being prepared to deliver the seeds to the farmers.
At the moment, the products produced from DagneDaba Farm are supplied to Somaliland and Djibouti markets besides different destination in the Ethiopian market.
“We have papaya, banana, sweet potato, avocado, orange that we are supplying for market. Currently Etfruit, which is responsible for the supply of agricultural products at reasonable rates, is distributing our banana at market friendly costs which are lesser than the market. Similarly our banana has the major market share in the market,” he said.
“We are supplying the product with lesser price points but the government should equally play its part in structuring the market stability,” he said, adding, “if we shall have a market place at cites we shall provide basic commodities at cheaper prices that can mitigate the inflation.”
He also claimed that the farm is not supported by financial firms, “we are not getting any bank loan for our investment and we hope for government to also solve this since we are producing seeds for farmers.”
He underlined that if sufficient finances were made available, more potential investors would be lured easily to invest on the agriculture sector.
Recently, DagneDaba Farm took 2,000 hectares of land in Gibe Basin, Enemore Woreda, Gurage Zone, while it has also already proposed an expansion of 8,000 hectare at the same location.
The farm owner said that there is enormous water resource from three rivers at the area, “We are now going to construct a water system to leverage the resource to practice our agricultural activity.”
To realize the development, the farm has undertaken site clearing and constructed a 12 km access road that will provide service for the farm and community in the area.
“At the current stage it is difficult to estimate the cost at the new farm in Gurage but when the total 10,000 hectare is developed it needs over three billion birr,” Dagne added.
Regarding export business the company has so far been shipping its fruits and vegetable for regional market, while the company claims that its product is fit for the standard to European and other strict markets.
The challenge to expand the export as cited stems from lack of refer container and refer trucks to which the government promised to solve the issue.
“The National Bank of Ethiopia has promised to facilitate foreign currency to buy 50 refer containers and 50 refer trucks, but the government by itself should facilitate the logistics materials to expand the export,” the farm owner added.
In the past season, DagneDaba Farm supplied seeds that have been distributed to farmers, “For the upcoming faming activity, our maize seeds that were produced in the past rainy season may cover 30 percent of the total maize farming in the country.”

Africa’s GDP will expand by 3.9 percent in 2023, up from 3.6 percent in 2022 according to projections made by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).
While presenting a report on recent economic and social developments in Africa Wednesday at the 55th session of the Commission, UNECA’s Macroeconomics and Governance Division Director Adam Elhiraika said Africa’s GDP growth declined from 4.6 percent in 2021 to 3.6 percent in 2022 but is expected to rebound to 3.9 percent in 2023.
“The slowdown in the global economy, high prices fuelled by the Ukrainian conflict, climate change and worsening international economic and financial conditions significantly impacted Africa’s growth in 2022,” said Elhiraika, adding that the 3.9 percent growth forecast for 2023 is mainly driven by growth in the continent’s east, north and west Africa sub-regions.

In the developing world, Africa was the fastest growing region after East and South Asia (4.5 percent), followed by South-Eastern Europe (3.2 percent), and Latin America (2.1 percent).
According to the report Africa’s growth in 2022 was driven by the growth in the sub regions of East, North, and West Africa. East Africa’s development was predicted to peak at 5.1% in 2022 and settle at that level in 2023. Central Africa’s growth was predicted to rise to 3.4% in 2022, driven by rising oil prices and robust domestic production. West Africa’s growth is expected to rise slightly from 3.6 in 2022 to 3.8 in 2023, but Nigeria’s real GDP growth is predicted to decelerate due to the continued weakness of the oil sector.
According to the report, net export and private consumption are expected to be the key drivers of the growth in to 2023. However the tightening of global monetary policies is expected to weigh on investments on the continent. Regarding the structure of African economies, they continue to be driven by the services sector, followed by the industrial and agriculture sectors, with an estimated average contribution of 56.2 per cent, 29.0 per cent and 19.3 per cent, respectively.
It is indicated that African Governments are facing limited fiscal space due to soaring inflation and rising interest rates. Fiscal deficits have been exacerbated by up to 0.2 percentage points, reaching -5.0% in 2022. In North Africa, fiscal deficits widened from -5.7% in 2021 to -6.1% in 2022, while in Southern Africa the fiscal deficit improved from -4.7% to -3.4%. Oil exporting countries benefited from elevated energy prices, with fiscal deficits reaching -4.6% in 2022 before an expected decrease to -4.3% in 2023.
Africa’s debt-to-GDP ratio is projected to remain high due to increased public spending and declining revenues due to exogenous shocks.
Fiscal deficits and debt levels are projected to improve in 2023, but they remain relatively higher or at par with pre-pandemic levels in most countries except in Central and Southern Africa which has had significant improvements.
Fiscal space remains constrained despite narrowing economic deficits, making it harder for most countries to invest in major sectors to ensure resilience from shocks, said the director, adding that rising borrowing costs and debt service burdens pose a significant challenge going forward and that Africa’s debt-to-GDP ratio is estimated to reach 61.9 percent in 2023.

Elhiraika added that currency depreciation has been more pronounced in countries with flexible exchange rate regimes and in commodity-exporting countries.
Countries with fixed exchange rates, especially those within the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa and West African Economic and Monetary Union experienced an average depreciation of 10 percent against the U.S. dollar in 2022.
“Rising costs of funding in United States dollars pose a big risk not only to existing debt burdens but also to prospects for mobilizing resources to finance sustainable development projects. African countries should develop their domestic financial markets with sound and effective regulatory frameworks in order to lay a good foundation for the resilience of the overall financial system and to make monetary policies more effective,” stated the report.
Global economic activities slowed in 2022. The main decline is driven by the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and Covid-19. The conflict erupted just as the Africa economies were recovering from the adverse effect of the pandemic. Owing to a slowdown in the global economy, a rise in prices fuelled by the Ukrainian conflict, climate change and worsening international economic and financial conditions, growth in Africa has been negatively affected.