The Federal Police Commission has announced that an internationally accepted election fraud investigation will be in use for the upcoming 6th national election.
For the coming national election to be concluded without any security problem, the government has formed a taskforce chaired by Gedu Andargachew, Security Advisor at the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), and included all security entities including regional institutions, Capital learnt.
Zelalem Mengiste, Deputy Commissioner General of Federal Police Commission, said that Federal Police Commission have established exclusive investigation desk for the coming election, “Similar desks have also been formed under regional polices,” he explained.
“Internationally accepted election fraud investigation standard has been developed and investigators will be trained in the coming weeks,” he added.
It has been reported that exclusive court and Attorney General have been formed to conduct any election frauds.
Zelalem said that security would be a priority for the upcoming election that the reformist government promised to be unique compared with the previous experience.
“The security apparatuses has similar stand with the government to make the coming election process peaceful, fair and democratic,” he said at the discussion held at the OPM’s ‘Addis Wog’, a dialogue focused on election and communication.
“The security force should commit without any involvement and favor of any groups or parties,” he said.
Three discussions that include all stakeholders from federal and regional governments have been conducted until now regarding the preparedness and strong discipline on the upcoming event.
Now, the security force is under training is up to the lower government administration to conduct the operation under code of conduct to undertake free election.
No one apart from the security apparatus that was trained will be allowed to come close to the 55,220 ballot drop-off locations. The security apparatus will receive election security training, under the Ethiopian National Electoral Board election code of conduct.
The Deputy Commissioner General said that pre and post election security package have been developed to make the coming election as per the expectation to be prudent.
“The areas that are identified as security zones and those that would present a threat have already been mapped,” he explained.
The security forcewill be involved in the peacekeeping at the election stations and the areas would have exclusive identification cards and uniform, which was not applied in the previous elections.
The security official promised that the upcoming political event would be conducted without harassment arrest. Furthermore, he emphasized that they will try their level best to make it historical as per the demand of the government.
Securing the vote
The E-Commerce platform with a purpose
A new e-commerce platform that was established by the Ethiopian diaspora hopes to promote Ethiopian smallscale business and expand hard currency generation.
The platform, ‘PurposeBlack’ that already commenced online trade has stated that the Ethiopian operation will be introduced in the near future.
Mekey Ibrahim, Corporate Communication Director at the e-commerce platform said that the scheme is formed by the Ethiopian diaspora business community and scholars at Silver Spring, USA as an international business module.
So far the company has created a transaction network via its platform for goods and services for international buyers and sellers.
Via email from his base in Gavle, Sweden, the Corporate Communication Director told Capital that the company wing in Ethiopia will start soon.
“As we haven’t gone operational in Ethiopia, so far we have not registered any vendors from Ethiopia, but we already have vendor companies owned by Ethiopians in the US,” the Corporate Communication Director elaborated.
“We will start operation in Ethiopia soon when the local agent finalizes preparation,” he says and added that the company will operate in the country as the law of the land, “It means we will have an agent who will register under Ethiopian law and help vendors to register at the platform. It is free of charge. Those who are legally registered producers and sellers are eligible to be registered as vendors.”
Mekey explained that the local licensee operator (LLO) will take all the responsibility in payment and delivery activities.
The investment in setting up the Ethiopian office (Office, warehouse, staff, and others) is covered by the LLO.
He said that the scheme will create an opportunity for Ethiopian products to simply promote worldwide and get customers besides scaling up innovative small businesses and existed small scale businesses.
“We aimed to help Ethiopian products get international market. Those who produce in small scale will have the access to export their products. So it will create jobs to our vendors as well as direct employment in the LLO services,” he added.
He said in terms of hard currency earnings, it will contribute much, since companies are selling their products in foreign currency, “It will absolutely generate foreign currency.”
However, he did not mention a given day when the Ethiopian centre will commence operation although he expects it to be very soon.
PurposeBlack was established as a share company in the US with the initial idea by Fisseha Eshetu, founder of Black Economy Excellence and former founder and owner of Unity University, about eight months ago.
Black Economy Excellence has launched the first of its kind unique global virtual marketplace which has dedicated 100 percent of its proceeds to social programs.
PurposeBlack came up with a brand-new model known as Profit Sharing Membership Program (PSMP) for its lifetime subscription members. PSMP is an out of the box model where PurposeBlack included its lifetime customers in a profit-sharing program or venture.
Since the coming in of the reformist government, there has been significant change and attention given to technology based economic activity that is projected to produce massive job creation as well as generate revenue including hard currency for the country.
To boost the sector, several new laws and rules have come to effect for the past couple of years.
About the Food Systems Summit
In September this year, the United Nations Secretary-General will convene the Food Systems Summit (FSS). The venue will be the UN Headquarters in New York, in conjunction with the next UN General Assembly. The summit will be a one-off event that sees transformed food systems as a way to advance the Sustainable Development Goals 2030 agenda. It aims to work on the following linked goals:
The reduction of hunger and malnutrition in all its forms
Improved food safety
Enhanced biodiversity
Reduced Green House Gas Emissions
Greater equity
Reversing environmental degradation
Reducing food loss and waste
Stronger livelihoods
Improved resilience & reduced vulnerability
But what exactly is meant by the term Food Systems? Food Systems encompass food supply chains, food environments and feedbacks with systemic drivers such as economics, culture, technology, and demography. Food Systems are the places and spaces where people and food meet, where food choices, food attitudes and food habits are shaped by a combination of personal and other factors.
Sounds complicated? Think of production, storage, distribution, processing, packaging, wholesale, retail, and markets in supply chains. Consider availability, marketing, food quality, food safety, convenience, etc. in the food environments. Find out how consumers choose what to buy and eat. What can they afford, what do they like? How much, how diverse, how safe, and how nutritious is the food they buy for themselves and their families?
And how do the environment, technology, infrastructure culture, demography, and politics influence what we can buy and eat? Finally, to what extend are policies and programs supportive?
The Food System is thus a complex maze of drivers, factors, and actions, that all need to be considered and worked on if we are to improve our nutrition status and health, globally and locally.
In their preparations for the Food Systems Summit, the Minister of Agriculture, Oumer Hussein, as Chair, and the Minister of Health, Dr Lia Tadesse, as Co-chair, called for a high-level meeting last Tuesday evening, 9th February 2021, to reflect on presentations and how to transform the food systems to deliver sustainable and healthy diets for all in Ethiopia. The meeting was moderated by the State Minister of Agriculture, Mandefro Negussie, and attended by representatives of Government and development partners. The meeting was virtually enriched with key notes and recommendations by amongst others, Sir John Beddington, Chair of the Global Panel on Agriculture and Food Systems for Nutrition and David Nabarro, Special Envoy WHO.
The outcome of the meeting will be used to further develop the Ethiopia Food Systems position paper and roadmap towards the Food Systems Summit. To do this effectively it is important to align efforts and take a holistic view to transforming the Ethiopian Food System. For this reason, a nutrient-dense diet centred approach is taken, informed by the need to deliver better nutrition and health for all of us in Ethiopia, who face serious challenges when it comes to our diet, health, and the environment we live in. I quote from the background paper presented during the high-level meeting: “While much progress has been made on increasing staple cereal production, productivity levels are still very low, and diversification to provide more nutrients dense foods like fruits and vegetables has been very limited. Ethiopia Demographic and Health Surveys show that some progress has been made to reduce undernutrition. However, Ethiopia’s burden of undernutrition and micronutrient deficiencies are still among the highest in Sub Saharan Africa. In addition, Ethiopia faces increasing overweight, obesity and diet related non-communicable diseases (diabetes and cardiovascular diseases) as emerging challenges particularly among the urban population. Poor diets, with low diet diversity and inadequate consumption of animal source foods, fruits and vegetables are in part to blame for this situation of multiple forms of malnutrition. In contrast, salt consumption is above the WHO threshold of 5 g/day in every region of Ethiopia and the national average salt intake is 8.2 g/day (Challa et al., 2017). The low diversity of the diet, food safety concerns, and the unhealthy trends of salt and sugar intake, could explain the increasing trend in non-communicable diseases, on top of the already high prevalence of communicable diseases, that are stretching the health system. Ethiopia’s food systems also face considerable challenges to assure the safety of food products. Unaffordability of nutrient-dense foods is a barrier to improving diet quality and is likely to continue favouring a predominantly starchy diet, but also could encourage increased consumption of sugar and oils, moving Ethiopia further away from the needed healthy diet. “
The challenge we then face is to identify what needs to be done to transform the Ethiopia Food System to deliver sustainable, people centred, environmentally friendly and healthy diets.
Ton Haverkort
