Prepared by Ethiopia Reads(ER), the third annual children’s reading summit was held on September 22-23, 2022 for two days with the theme of ‘Early childhood Development in Reading” at Addis Ababa Sapphire Addis hotel.
Aimed to inform, discuss and reflect on challenges and opportunities on children reading culture, the summit brought together more than 150 education stakeholders from Ethiopia and beyond.
(Photo: Anteneh Aklilu)
Ethiopia Reads children summit started in 2019 and due to the pandemic and conflict in the country it was interrupted for one year and resumed this year for its third summit collaborating with the Ministry of Education.
Founded in 1998, Ethiopia Reads has been working in building youth and children’s literacy across Ethiopia. Its first library was established in 2003, and since that time ER has built more than 72 libraries spanning every region of the country, shipping more than a quarter million books and serving over 130,000 children per year.
The ER programs are managed by Ethiopians who live and work in Addis Ababa and the regional capital of Hawassa.
(Photo: Anteneh Aklilu)
In Ethiopia, one of the biggest obstacles to literacy development is lack of reading materials for children in native languages. ER has stepped in with an effort to develop story books for children in several major Ethiopian languages. The organization has also begun collecting a bibliography of children’s literature in Ethiopia, both historical and current.
The Ethiopian Environmental Protection Authority (EEPA) is the Federal institution for managing the Environment of Ethiopia. EEPA is responsible in ensuring the realization of the environmental rights, goals, objectives and basic principles enshrined in the Constitution. EEPA is also responsible for coordinating appropriate measures, establishing systems, and for developing programs and mechanisms for the welfare of humans as per the Environment Policy of Ethiopia, in addition to the safety of the environment. It is mandated to formulate or initiate and coordinate the formulation of strategies, policies, laws and standards as well as procedures and up on approval monitor and enforce their implementation. It is also responsible for the synergistic implementation and follow-up of international and regional environmental agreements. With all these mandates on its plate, Capital reached out to EEPA head, Getahun Garedew (PhD) for insights on policies, carbon trading and overall participation of Ethiopia on climate change issues amongst other issues ahead of COP27. Excerpts;
Capital: What is your evaluation of the overall climate change policies of the country?
Getahun Garedew: Our climate change policy directly engages different sectors of which the climate resilience green economy strategy remains integral. This strategy engages different sectors such as agriculture, transport, energy and so on. Additionally it helps us to integrate these different sectors together for better results. For example, energy and agriculture goes hand in hand as the agriculture sector needs energy for say irrigation. If energy becomes expensive agriculture becomes expensive too. If our energy is pollutant, our agriculture can be pollutant too. Transportation is also knitted to agriculture as we deliver our production using transport which uses energy; thus there is an evident cycle.
I believe that we have a more comprehensive policy as a nation to which the implementation is also good.
(Photo: Anteneh Aklilu)
In recent times we have been taking certain measures including the 10 years plan, national green legacy, promoting electric vehicles that can reduce carbon emissions both in adaptation and mitigation of which these efforts are showing good results. The issue may be that we need to adopt a new legal binding law which may compromise all these activities.
It can be said that we have been doing and are still doing practical climate investments. We have our national determinant contribution plan, that is, a climate action plan to cut emissions and adapt to climate impacts. This is based on both conditional and unconditional plans as climate change is a global issue. The so called conditional plan is planed based on the money and conditions westerners promised to pledge to reduce climate change impact as Ethiopia’s role in the global climate change is near to the ground. Again we have the unconditional plan if the promises are not kept we will continue to grow in a good manner that will not have an impact to the environment.
At the same time we are participating in different climate change negotiating groups by considering Ethiopia’s priorities on climate change.
Climate change negotiations are group negotiations, however, more than any of these, we always depend on going with plans which can go with the nation’s capacity, potential and sectors strategy and even our ten-year plan is also done based on this.
Capital: There are comments that indicate the overall participation of Ethiopia on climate change issues in the globe are decreasing. What’s your response to these?
Getahun Garedew: The issue of climate change cannot be dedicated only for one institution especially in a developing country like Ethiopia.
The so called climate change action plan should be planned at different sectors with coordination coming to one organization. So we have to have preparations, changes and activities by considering these. And one part to this is increasing practical level engagements.
We can say that our practical engagement is increasing from time to time. For example planting 25 billion trees annually is huge. This alone can be greater than the total forest count of lots of countries. This is what practical engagement is.
With regards to negotiation it is not that much effective since negotiating alone on a climate change stage can’t be fought alone, so to speak. So, for us strengthening our group engagement remains vital.
For instance a couple of month ago we hosted the Africa Group of Negotiators (AGN) summit and also last week we participated on the African Environmental Protection Ministerial Conference to which we look forward to hosting them next year. We have also chaired Least Developed Countries Negotiators and AGN.
On a wider view, the issue may seem that we are not effective since at the base the action plan is distributed in different sectors and only coordination is dedicated to us, and with that it’s difficult to shine out. May be the other cause can be because this leadership positions usually rotate to other countries, so the impact might not be evident. However, it should be well understood that it is not because we have decreased our engagement but it is because of the way the system is run.
Capital: How is the preparation for Cop27 summit ferrying on?
Getahun Garedew: We are currently on a good stage of extensive preparation. We are not aiming for a personalized summit where only our issues are raised but rather the issues of the whole of Africa.
We are working round the clock to ensure the issues raised are inclusive and not that of the select few countries and we hope to have a platform where visible change will be seen.
Of course there will be different side events on different issues such as water, and we are ready for that too, since as a country we are not afraid of any issues if they arise. However, we believe we will not be dragged to this issue. That’s why we are engaging with different groups which have similar intentions.
Climate change is a multilateral negotiation not bilateral of course there will be bilateral negotiations on mitigation, adaptation and finance too.
The other thing is that we hope the stage will not be political driven, rather scientifically driven and our preparations stem from this.
Additionally, the issues are about implementation. There are lots of promises, and enough paper or legal preparations. So what we want in Africa COP is for the implementation of promises, to be the ‘Action COP’. No more pledges and other round of negotiations or promises. The negotiation should be on implementation.
Capital: How will the participation look like?
Getahun Garedew: There will be three levels of participants. The first one will be the head of state of governments, followed by a ministerial participation to which there is a committee established under the Prime Minister’s Office. Last but certainly not least, is the technical level engagement which will continue through our office, EEPA.
For us, we are now engaging on about 18 issues that can benefit our country based on our human resource and we are doing so by engaging different Ethiopian professionals.
And in the near future, we will see which ministry will be engaged on the ministerial level and which leader will participate as head of the state.
Capital: What is the current status of Ethiopia’s carbon trading?
Getahun Garedew: We cannot tell the exact stage of the process, since the carbon market is still on process.
We have been using the clean development mechanism when selling the Humbo Carbon.
Currently, there are three modalities, based on the Paris agreement article 6, that is, bilateral, market mechanism and non-market mechanism.
Here the main issue is that we have been processing using the old mechanism of the clean development mechanism (CDM). When the Paris agreement came, we were about to receive our payment so our negotiation here is to make CDM part of article 6, to finish our projects which we started using CDM to be completed by article 6 as transition.
We are working with countries which have similar intention and so far things are looking good and we expect good results.
Capital: How is the implementation of both the unconditional and conditional NDC plans of Ethiopia going?
Getahun Garedew: Unconditional plans are almost achieving more than 100 percent, and each sector is contributing their role. In just ten years, the Ethiopian government has spent more than 500 billion birr for climate change related issues.
However the conditional plans have been lagging behind since the promises set have not been backed on the ground. The pledges were in overall 100 billion USD, but have not hit the ground maybe because of other focuses such as the pandemic and the Russia- Ukraine war. For us however, we should focus on adaptation as opposed to mitigation as it is more beneficial in the long run. We are pushing for at least half of the pledge to go towards and we believe the groups will have a strong negotiating capacity to achieve this on the Cop27.
Capital: Recently, the Alliance For Food Sovereignty In Africa (AFSA) held its summit on Africa’s ‘ROADMAP TO ADAPTATION THROUGH AGROECOLOGY’, to which you participated. How did you find the session?
Getahun Garedew: The main goal of the summit was the conceptualization of food security which signals that even though you have huge per capita income that does not necessarily translate to being self-sufficient in food.
Of course a good citation of issues can be seen by the challenges faced in the pandemic lockdown and the ripple effect in the well established countries following the Russia- Ukraine war, which led to huge food crisis.
(Photo: Anteneh Aklilu)
So we cannot be sure on food security just because we have a huge economy since there are both human made and natural crises that can challenge countries’ food self sufficiency.
Beyond that as an Africa continent, there is also the dependency factor from the West, to which viable means of becoming self sufficient was looked into at the summit.
The meeting also focused on expanding agriculture and farming using agroecology, which goes hand in hand with nature and the environment. It was noted that as Africans we ought to expand agriculture /farming based on agroecology, which can protect the environment bring forth better production down the road.
Usually on agriculture productivity, one of the main negative impacts of commercialization is that in our context only planting the same grain on farmlands can make the farm land lose its productivity and fertility.
For instance, in the horticulture sector most of the flower producing lands cannot be used for other plants so it is difficult to turn it to other production due to chemicals used in the production which changes its nature. So the summit was gearing towards more of an agroecology approach as opposed the regular commercial approach.
Capital: Is there anything you want to add?
Getahun Garedew: I want to emphasize that we will continue to strengthen our engagements, and our diplomats are also working a lot in promoting Ethiopia’s practices so that climate change issues cannot be given to one organization.
Dire-Dawa Free Trade Zone, contraband, Franco-Valuta, are said to attribute to the widening gap
Expansion and low control of contraband, Franco-Valuta scheme and the opening of Dire-Dawa Free Trade Zone are said to attribute to the widening gap between the Ethiopian currency’s official exchange rate and the parallel-market.
Experts opine that the high escalation of the parallel exchange will face a sharp decline as government starts to crack the whip on the matter.
It is widely thought that the surging inflation and a shortage of hard currency in Ethiopia are driving up the price of the US dollar on the black market, to which most experts agree.
One of the economists that Capital reached out to explained that after the launching of Dire-Dawa Free Trade Zone, investors were trying to get hold of foreign currency in order to inject investments to the free trade zone which has a duty free scheme. “Investors are misunderstanding the free trade concept,” said the economist, who wanted anonymity.
“Everyone thought we had completed building the infrastructure for the free trade zone. IPDC is still on process to complete necessary documents including legal framework and customs regulation works to administer Dire-Dawa FTZ,” said Sandokan Debebe, CEO of IPDC, the owner of the free trade zone.
“Despite receiving numerous applications, we still haven’t chosen companies for the investments,” emphasized the CEO.
On similar lines, experts also suggest that despite Franco-Valuta privileges being applied with the aim of stabilizing the market; it has not performed as expected. The Ministry of Trade and Regional Integration also stressed that Franco-Valuta has not reeled in the success as expected and has further not been able to stabilize the soaring inflation.
“As the scheme lacks control over verifying importers’ source of foreign currency; it allows importers to capitalize on the black market creating demand. That is why the Franco Valuta scheme has zero contribution in stabilizing the market,” one expert explained.
Experts claim that finished products are flowing into the country disguised as raw materials taking advantage of the duty free scheme under the cover of investment. Experts also argued that illegal importers are using the changed harmonized code to import materials especially finished materials having bought forex from the parallel market.
“The import customs duty is almost minimal when importing raw materials, which is far from the case for finished goods. Thus, illegal importers are using improper documents to steal from customs duties,” experts explained, adding, “This further affects the local industry besides bypassing the government import levy.”
“Data may show that the volume of raw material import is very high since the harmonized code document shows it is the import of input for manufacturing industries, but in actual sense the commodities are finished and directly channeled to the market,” the experts pin-pointed on how swift the crooks act.
“Foreign currency allocation goes for finished materials, contrabandists, and for those who abused the privilege the country facilitates, such acts creates false narrative on the sector development and expands the tax evasion,” they underlined.
In recent weeks, due to the increased demand for foreign currencies, the dollar exchange rate at the parallel market skyrocketed making the official and parallel markets to drift exponentially apart.
In some parts of the city where black market trading takes place, during the week, one US Dollar was selling between 93 to 95 birr.
“It is not something that can be stopped by controlling mechanism,” said Fikadu Digafe, vice governor of National Bank of Ethiopia indicating that there is also a gap between demand and supply.
The foreign exchange provided by the banks is decreasing significantly. In response to excess demand for foreign exchange in the official market, parallel markets for foreign exchange have gained traction. However, the emergence and existence of active parallel foreign exchange market creates several complications to policy makers in their attempt to regulate the external balance.
“We are working to stabilize the situation. NBE is doing an assessment to figure out what the real reason is,” said the vice governor, adding, “It all has to start from knowing the reason.”
Economists are now calling on the government to be alert and stringent in mitigating this alarming issue.
Foreign banks’ representatives in Ethiopia are closely inspecting the newly proposed financial code which is expected to allow foreigners to get into the banking sector through; joint venture basis, minority share in local banks and by opening branches and subsidiaries.
The bill to open up the sector was tabled for final discussions and approval by the Council of Ministers last month. The Council of Ministers approved the policy after an extensive discussion after adding their inputs to the draft document. The council has also passed the decision for the new policy to be implemented.
“This is not what the international financial sector players expected. This will lead to a loss of interest to get into the market for many potential aspirants,” said one of the foreign bank representatives who requested to remain anonymous.
“Limiting the role of foreign financial institutions in the market, for instance having minority share could limit the position of foreigners in the management and decision making process, which is not attractive,” said the representative.
The opening of the banking industry for foreign investors is expected to improve the forex shortage in Ethiopia, and access to finance. Moreover, it is stated that the opening of the banking sector to foreign investors will strengthen linkage of Ethiopia’s economy with the rest of the world, as well as bring new technologies and know-how to the industry.
However as Getachew Beshawerd, Managing Director of Chartered Accountants and Management Consultants- a UK based consultancy opines, this option protects local banks to having power in the market.
“Government should not fully open the sector. If that were to happen it would destroy competitiveness of local banks, and the economy could fully be monitored by foreigners,” said Getachew, adding, “Even with the limited options; in principle this could be profitable and a good option in improving forex revenue and access to finance. Furthermore, it would be better for the efficiency in the banking service, since it will result in technological and knowledge transfer, in addition to boosting global competitiveness, and integrating Ethiopia’s economy into the global financial system.”
“However, all these need diligent work,” Getachew explains.
“Government should see long term advantages and consequences properly as it has the opportunity to treat the matter before anything ensues. For example, if the government aims to increase foreign currency by opening the market, it must also be aware that this new shareholders will take dividends in foreign currency. So the regulatory body should see each and every corner properly before opening and ratifying,” he elaborated showing how government ought to be vigilant, whilst opening the financial sector.
Few months ago, Yinager Dessie (PhD), governor of the National Bank of Ethiopia whilst speaking with the media indicated that foreign banks’ entrance to Ethiopia will be through buying shares from local banks and on joint venture basis, at first. As the governor highlighted, many African banks are already showing interest to come and invest in Ethiopia.
Also as Getachew stated, if foreign banks were going to buy shares from the local banks, it has to be officially known how the valuation of the banks are undertaken.
“How is the share transfer going to be? Are banks going to sell their existing share or new share are going to be floated? Because if it is their existing share, the incoming foreign banks are going to buy the share from shareholders and will only benefit the shareholders. Whereas if it is new shares, they will buy it from the company and benefits the company. So this has to be indicated in the regulating document,” he underlined.
“Besides the main proclamation there will also be a side regulation. NBE has to be sure that this regulations goes in parallel with the main proclamation. Such kind of regulations once they are published and has something wrong in it, it’s difficult to correct and will have a long term impact on the economy more than one can imagine,” Getachew stressed.
The fact that Ethiopia has closed its doors to foreign banks has benefited the sector until now.
