Ambassador Tracey Jacobson, Chargé d’Affaires of the U. S. Embassy Addis Ababa, and USAID/Ethiopia Mission Director Sean Jones launched a new partnership with private social enterprise TEKI Paper Bags PLC, which is owned and managed by young, deaf Ethiopian women. Over three years, TEKI Paper Bags PLC will use the $550,000 U.S. Government grant to turn the fight against pollution and plastic bags into a national employment solution, dedicated to youth with disabilities.
At the launch event, Ambassador Jacobson, Director Sean Jones, and Kokeb Misrak, Director for Bilateral Cooperation at the Ministry of Finance, celebrated the promising partnership, while listening to factory workers’ stories of the transformational power of their employment.
With USAID’s support, the organization will create at least 200 jobs for unemployed women with disabilities by producing and distributing recycled paper bags in collaboration with the Addis Ababa environmental protection commission, the city administration, and the private sector. The USAID activity will also improve awareness, skills, and attitudes across Ethiopia related to disability rights and inclusion.
USAID launches new partnership to employ over 200 deaf women in Addis Ababa
African Development Bank reports strong financial health, despite Covid-19 crisis
The African Development Bank Group is progressing with financial reforms that have helped it become stronger, more resilient, and better equipped in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis, the institution’s Senior Vice President Bajabulile Swazi Tshabalala said on Thursday.
Addressing the Bank Group’s shareholders, Executive Directors, and partner agencies at the organization’s 2022 Annual Meetings in Accra, Tshabalala said the institution strengthened its long-term financial sustainability framework over the last three years, ensuring that it built more resilience against future shocks.
“We updated our financial and risk policy; we undertook a review of our cost structure and are currently developing the Bank’s new cost containment framework to optimize the resources available for fulfilling our mandate,” Tshabalala told the audience, which included the Bank Group’s President, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, and senior management.
WHO raises alarm on tobacco industry environmental impact
The World Health Organization (WHO) revealed new information on the extent to which tobacco damages both the environment and human health, calling for steps to make the industry more accountable for the destruction it is causing.
Every year the tobacco industry costs the world more than 8 million human lives, 600 million trees, 200,000 hectares of land, 22 billion tonnes of water and 84 million tonnes of CO2.
The majority of tobacco is grown in low-and-middle-income countries, where water and farmland are often desperately needed to produce food for the region. Instead, they are being used to grow deadly tobacco plants, while more and more land is being cleared of forests.
The WHO report “Tobacco: Poisoning our planet” highlights that the industry’s carbon footprint from production, processing and transporting tobacco is equivalent to one-fifth of the CO2 produced by the commercial airline industry each year, further contributing to global warming.
The German Development Cooperation, Siemens Healthineers support Ethiopian healthcare providers
The German Development Cooperation and Siemens Healthineers partner up to support the Ethiopian healthcare system through ultrasound technology. The partnership is designed to provide healthcare providers with medtech equipment and to train medical and technical staff.
The German Embassy in Addis Ababa, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and Siemens Healthineers today handed over ten NX2 ultrasound devices to the Federal Ministry of Health of Ethiopia to support the Ethiopian health system in further mitigating the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic. Through this partnership approach, Ethiopian healthcare providers receive urgently needed, versatile health technology and training for medical and technical staff to fully utilise the clinical capabilities of the ultrasound devices. The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) supports the project through its programme develoPPP – a funding scheme for sustainable company initiatives.
Within Africa, Ethiopia is one country that has made significant advances in improving healthcare for its population in the past years, especially after the challenging situation posed by the pandemic.
