Addis Ababa Angles Network announced its investment in Eshi Express, a delivery service firm, as part of the strong belief in the transformational capacity of a robust startup ecosystem on the nation’s economy.
Delivery business plays a big role in one country’s economic development and as Ethiopia is embarks on a digital economy this service becomes more crucial for its success. Delivery service in Ethiopia is highly fragmented and predominantly done by company vehicles, personnel or informal players. This leads to high cost of goods, management headaches and inconvenience to people and organizations. Addressing the last mile challenge will be essential for economic growth and Ethiopia’s digital transformation.
Founded by a group of investors in 2020, the Addis Ababa Angels Network is the first in Ethiopia to invest in startups and entrepreneurs in exchange for equity ownership aiming to build a robust startup ecosystem in Ethiopia that addresses the existing funding gap and targets early-stage innovative startups.
Addis Ababa Angels invests in Eshi Express
ECA’s Songwe echoes Africa’s expectation from the G7 summit
Leaders of the Group of Seven nations (G7) including the United Kingdom (UK), Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States, are meeting for a three-day summit in the UK from 11 to 13 June 2021. Their discussions will focus mainly on issues relating to COVID-19 recovery, climate change and trade.
Ahead of the G7 summit, Vera Songwe, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) conveyed the following points, which capture Africa’s expectation from the G7 leaders.
Songwe echoed the need for a “historic vaccines roadmap where the G7 stop hoarding, start sharing the financing, the doses and the manufacturing capacity needed to deliver on vaccine access.”
Her second point was on the urgent need for a historic green recovery financing and coordination agreement, leveraging the IMF Special Drawing Rights and World Bank balance sheets, meeting the $100 billion climate finance pledge, and doubling individual climate finance pledges by G7 countries.
The UN official’s third point was an interrogation on the G7 aid cuts, which disproportionately hit and hurt African nations (cut by two-thirds), disproportionately hit women (cut by 80-90%), and disproportionately hit the UN system agencies like UNAIDS, UNFPA UN Women.
WFP receives €8.5 million from Germany for emergency food assistance
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) received a contribution of €8.5 million for 2021-2023 from the people of Germany to provide emergency assistance to save lives and the livelihoods of communities affected by conflict and climate change in Ethiopia. It is part of Germany’s flexible funding for the Eastern Africa region.
Germany’s donation will contribute to WFP’s Tigray emergency response that aims to reach up to 2.1 million people with urgently needed food and nutrition assistance. A total of 5.2 million people, or 91 percent of Tigray’s entire population need emergency food assistance due to conflict.
The donation will also support WFP’s refugee response in the country and help to deliver life-saving and life-changing emergency food assistance to communities in Ethiopia’s Somali region who are affected by extreme climate shocks.
“WFP welcomes this timely and generous contribution from the people of Germany to enable us to respond to the most urgent humanitarian needs across the country,” said WFP Ethiopia’s Representative and Country Director Dr. Steven Were Omamo.
Africa Climate Resilience Investment Summit ACRIS V
The Fifth Africa Climate Resilient Investment Summit ACRIS V under the theme “Embedding and financing climate resilience for Africa’s green recovery” will be held virtually from 16th to 17th June 2021. The two-day program will deal with investments for climate resilience. The panel discussions will deal with cross-border energy, resilience, nature-based solutions, smart agriculture, innovative finance, and Africa Climate Resilience Investment Facility.
The Africa Climate Resilience Investment Summit (ACRIS V) is in its fifth year, following the highly successful ACRIS IV held in Johannesburg, South Africa, in June 2019.
ACRIS V will be held in partnership with The World Bank, Nordic Fund and United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA).
The overall objective of ACRIS V is to strengthen the capacity of African institutions, including national governments, river basin organisations, regional economic communities, power pools and others, together with the private sector to plan, design and implement investment in relative sectors. These sectors include cross-border energy, resilience, nature-based solutions, smart agriculture, innovative finance to increase their resilience to climate change. The AFRI-Res (Africa Climate Resilient Investment Facility) will be discussed during ACRIS V.
