A policy dialogue session on enhancing youth empowerment through improving entrepreneurs program at TVET colleges in Ethiopia was held at the premises of the Netherlands embassy on Tuesday, May 18, 2022.
The event was organized in collaboration with the Technical and Vocational Training Institute /TVTI/, Maastricht School of Management /MSM/, International Labor Organization /ILO/ and Africa agree business academy- Ethiopia.
Government officials, policy makers, international organizations, private sector and donors participated on the session.
The first policy dialogue took place in a series initiated by MSM in the framework of the Nuffic-funded Bright Future in Agriculture project. The topic under discussion during the session was entrepreneurship development within the technical vocational education and training system (TVET).
In his opening remarks, Henk Jan Bakker, Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, referred to the challenging transformation that Ethiopia is in, that is, from a government-led economy to a market economy. He opined that this requires the government to interfere less and the private sector to step in.
Moreover, recommendations have been made by a purposefully selected group of experts to the Ministry of Skills and Labour on how to achieve an entrepreneurial transformation of the Ethiopian TVET.
Molding entrepreneurial success in Ethiopia’s TVETs
12th Ethio Chamber International Trade Fair
Ethiopian Chamber of Commerce and Sectorial Association in association with Ministry of Skill and Labor launched the 12th Ethio Chamber International Trade Fair.
Gebremeskel Chala, Minister of Trade and Regional Integration, Nigusu Tilahun , State Minister of Labor and Skill and other officials attended the opening ceremony.
Aimed to strength the role of private sector in the economy, the exhibition is said to stay for 5 days from June 2 to 6, 2022. More than 200 local and international companies participated in the exhibition.
The exhibition is said to attract foreign direct investment (FDI), promotes joint venture opportunities between Ethiopian citizens and foreign investors, stimulates a culture of entrepreneurship locally, promotes exports of locally produced goods, and promotes access to the Ethiopian market for international exhibitors according to the organizers.
Streamlining labor needs in the region
Ethiopia aspires to internationalize the quality of skilled labour as a potential source of the economy.
The East Africa Skills for Transformation and Regional Integration Project (EASTRIP) which has been working to standardize the East Africa qualification framework and occupational standard has signed to validate a qualification framework for technical and vocational education and training (TVET) between the three east African countries; Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania.
At the regional workshop on adoption of East African qualifications framework for TVET, Assegid Getachew, State Minister of Labour and Skills, said that EASTRIP will have quite a lot of benefits, including exploiting economies of scale to lower costs of training for individual countries on specialized and industry certified training programs, facilitating mobility of technology and skilled labour, promoting peer learning among countries and institutions and sharing good policies and practices, and targeting employment toward regional economic corridors such as the Northern and Central Corridor Initiatives and other mega infrastructure projects in the region.
“More importantly a project that is striving to not only create centers of excellence within our TVET polytechnic colleges but also to push beyond that and ensure a regional integration with our neighboring countries,” Assegid said.
The sharing of standards, curriculum, and training facilities will help reduce costs for each center. At the same time, demonstrations will help inform and guide the broader array of national TVET reforms in these countries. The regional TVET centers of excellence can serve the labor needs of major regional infrastructure projects.
Genene Abebe, technical working group coordinator, said that through the project the three countries have been working to validate their qualification framework that would allow the three countries to adopt each others standard and even shall share skills.
Genene told media that the scheme is crucial for economical benefit since if the countries have qualified skilled with accepted international standards that would attract investments and even exporting skilled labour to the region and globally with better and higher standard jobs and pay.
He reminded that the establishment of Education and Training Authority has concluded and the regulation has been ratified that would give life for the implantation of qualification framework.
Assegid said that certification has been a challenge, “currently we are looking abroad for certifications for skilled labour thus we send it overseas.”
”The establishment of a center of excellence will allow the country to certify Ethiopians locally with internationally accepted standards. For that the establishment of the centre is under construction that would have holistic facilities and expertise,” the State Minister told media.
EASTRIP is a project funded by the World Bank and the governments of Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania to increase access and improve quality of TVET programs offered by the selected Regional Flagship TVET Institutes and promote regional integration.
The project is expected to benefit not only the three countries directly involved in the project but also other countries in the Sub-Saharan Africa. One of the project interventions is promoting the regional integration through mutual or regional recognition of TVET qualifications which will allow the free mobility of skilled workforce from one country to another.
According to the 2015 World Bank Enterprise Surveys, over 25 percent of the formal firms surveyed in Sub-Saharan Africa identify an inadequately educated workforce as a major constraint, and over 29 percent of all production workers are rated unskilled workers by these firms. Shortage of specialized TVET skills is particularly acute in transport, energy, manufacturing, including agro-processing, and ICT, and this could slow the industrialization agenda.
Africa hotel development: It’s Egypt, Morocco, Ethiopia; Accor, Marriott, Hilton
Just six words are needed to sum up the main findings of this year’s African hotel chain development pipeline survey conducted by W Hospitality Group, in association with the Africa Hospitality Investment Forum (AHIF); those words are Egypt, Morocco, Ethiopia, Accor, Marriott and Hilton.
This year’s annual survey, which is widely acknowledged as the industry’s most authoritative source, has, as of Q1 2022, a record 42 global and regional (African) contributors, reporting on a pipeline of hotel development activity totalling around 80,300 rooms in 447 hotels, in 42 of Africa’s 54 countries.
Looking first at the number of rooms physically under construction, Morocco and Egypt are ahead of the pack, with 5,577 and 6,142 rooms respectively. They are followed by: Ethiopia, 3,871; Cape Verde, 3,016; Nigeria, 2,544; Kenya, 2,450; Algeria, 2,337; Tunisia, 2,280; South Africa, 1,948 and Senegal, 1,919. In Tunisia, Kenya and Morocco, over ¾ of the pipeline is “onsite”, whereas in Egypt, 71% is just at the planning stage, reflecting its relatively “young” pipeline (a lot signed in the last 3 years). While Nigeria has 45% onsite; eight of the 15 hotels (with half of the total rooms) that have started construction have stalled, and the sites are closed.
The picture changes somewhat when one looks at rooms being planned as well as those under construction. In this approach, Egypt is the star. It doesn’t just lead the country table, with over 21,000 rooms in 85 hotels in development, up 20 per cent on last year; but it is streaking ahead of the pack. It has almost three times the number of new rooms planned as Morocco, and almost four times Nigeria, which was top of the table for many years. What’s more, with continued signing activity (20 hotels with about 5,250 rooms last year), Egypt now accounts for over 25 per cent of the total hotel development pipeline. Morocco has 7,209 rooms in development, spread across 50 new hotels; Nigeria has 5,619 rooms in 33 hotels, Ethiopia has 5,206 rooms spread across 29 hotels and Cape Verde has 4,639 rooms in 17 hotels. The next five places are taken by Algeria, 3,202 rooms, Kenya, 3,155 rooms, South Africa, 3,133 rooms Tunisia, 2,918 rooms ! and Senegal 2,693 rooms.
Notably, four out of the five North African countries are in the top ten; and the top ten countries represent 67% of the total hotels, and 74% of the rooms, in the survey.
While Africa’s hotel development pipeline is at its strongest ever, 80,291 rooms being planned or constructed, the top-line number masks a reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa, where there has been a greater amount of hotel investment in recent years. Of the six sub-Saharan countries in the top 10, only Cape Verde has seen an increase in planned rooms, 33%, whilst the “power houses”, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya and South Africa have between them seen a decline of 29%; Nigeria is down 41%. There are three main reasons for the reduction: fewer new opportunities in the region; opening of some 2,700 rooms in 15 hotels last year, and a pipeline “cleansing” which the hotel chains do periodically to remove various projects which are unlikely to go ahead.
Looking at the development activity of the hotel chains, both Accor and Marriott are nearly as dominant as Egypt and Morocco, each representing just over 25% of the entire pipeline! Accor has 20,857 rooms in development, spread over 107 properties; Marriott has 20,248 rooms spread over 103 properties. Hilton, in third place, has around half as many rooms, 10,505 in 55 hotels. Radisson, 4th, has 6,248 rooms in 35 hotels. The next six places are taken by IHG, 3,136 rooms, Barceló, 2,488 rooms, Hyatt, 1,995 rooms, Meliá, 1,743 rooms, Louvre, 1,273 rooms, and Minor, 1,203 rooms.
IHG merits comment, due to its growth of over 10%. It signed a deal for four Indigo-branded hotels in Egypt, with 650 rooms in total, as well as a 300-room InterContinental hotel in Cairo’s New Capital.
Analysis of the number of rooms under construction, as opposed to those merely being planned, changes the hotel chain ranking substantially, because Accor has only 26% of its pipeline onsite, whereas Marriott and Hilton have around 57% and Radisson 85%. This puts Marriott in top spot, Hilton second, Accor third and Radisson fourth. The top ten combined have 82% of all the rooms under construction in Africa, and the top four account for fully 66% of the total, up from 58% last year.
Trevor Ward, Managing Director, W Hospitality Group said: “The chains anticipate that 200 new hotels are expected to open this year and next, although their expectations can sometimes be over-optimistic! After a positive trend in 2019, the actualisation of hotel deals (ie: the proportion that actually opened, compared to what the chains expected to open) was less than 30 per cent in both 2020 and 2021 – however, that was quite understandable with pandemic travel restrictions killing the demand for hotel rooms.”
Trevor continued: “I am not surprised by the slow-down in the number of deals signed in sub-Saharan Africa, as the past couple of years have seen not only the pandemic, making it more difficult to travel and meet new partners, but also less appetite from investors for major markets such as Ethiopia, Nigeria and South Africa. However, what does surprise me is that the majority of investment is going into upscale, upper upscale and luxury hotels, when there is very strong demand across Africa for decent quality branded budget and midscale hotels.”
Matthew Weihs, Managing Director of The Bench, which organises AHIF, concluded: “While the hospitality industry has just been through the bleakest period in my professional career, it is fascinating to see that the pandemic has done nothing to dent long-term investor confidence in hospitality. If anything, the savviest financiers have seen it as an opportunity. They have been encouraged by enlightened governments, such as Morocco’s, which have spent $ billions on new infrastructure to incentivise investment in tourism. What’s more, judging by our other conferences this year that have sold out, we are seeing how keen people are to travel again and how valuable it is to meet face to face, rather than over a video link. I am confident that when AHIF takes place on 2-4 November, in Taghazout, close to Agadir, we will see the atmosphere buzzing, with highly productive networking and with more deals announced than ever before.”
