Ethiopian Airlines (Ethiopian) and Boeing are partnering to deliver much-needed aid supplies to organizations across Ethiopia.
The airline took delivery of a new 787 Dreamliner from North Charleston, South Carolina in December and loaded the jet with 34,000 pounds of books and 5,800 pounds of school supplies, clothing and medical supplies for the flight home to Addis Ababa.
“We are happy to partner with Boeing to carry humanitarian goods on our delivery flights from the U.S.,” said Ethiopian Airlines Group CEO Tewolde Gebremariam.
“As a responsible corporate citizen, we take our responsibility to society seriously and always endeavor to contribute our share to the socioeconomic development of countries around the globe.”
According to a joint statement issued by the airlines and Boeing, the organization Ethiopia Reads will send the books and school supplies to its libraries across Ethiopia which serves 100,000 children each year.
Medical supplies, clothing and hygiene products will be delivered to the Mary Joy Development association, which helps women and youth gain the skills they need to rise out of poverty.
The December flight follows another flight in November when an Ethiopian Airlines 787 Dreamliner carried more than 11,000 pounds of clothing, personal hygiene items and medical supplies from South Carolina bound for the Mekedonia Home for the Elderly and Mentally Disabled and St. Paul’s Hospital.
The flights are part of Boeing’s Humanitarian Delivery Flight Program, collaboration between Boeing, its customers and nongovernmental organizations, which delivers humanitarian aid around the world.
The program has delivered more than 1.6 million pounds of humanitarian supplies on more than 200 flights worldwide since the inaugural flight in 1992.
To date, Boeing has partnered with Ethiopian Airlines on 39 humanitarian delivery flights, delivering more than 266,000 pounds of supplies to organizations in Ethiopia.
“Through Boeing’s Humanitarian Delivery Flight Program, and in close collaboration with customers like Ethiopian Airlines and charitable organizations around the world, we are providing important and oftentimes lifesaving resources to those in need,” said Cheri Carter, vice president of Boeing Global Engagement.
“We can do so much more when we work together, and Boeing is committed to continuing partnerships like this.”
Ethiopian, Boeing partners to deliver aid supplies to orgs in Ethiopia
Council calls on political parties to cooperate in completing GERD
The Office of National Council for Coordination of Public Participation on the Construction of Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) called on political parties today to enhance their participation in realizing the dam.
Speaking at a workshop organized by the office today, Public Relations and Media Communication Director Hailu Abraham urged political parties to scale up their participation on GERD by mobilizing their members and the community at large.
Since the dam is the symbol of the national unity and pride of the people, political parties should set aside political differences and support the completion of GERD, he added.
Hailu stated that political parties need to strengthen their common stance and cooperation on GERD to withstand forces that work to create instability in the country and thereby obstruct the construction.
GERD Project General Manager, Kifle Horo on his part briefed representative of the parties about the current status of the GERD.
According to Kifle, the dam will begin to produce electric power partially at the end of 2013 Ethiopian year.
About one hundred representatives of political parties attended the workshop.
EU to support 1 Trillion Euros of investment for sustainable climate dev’t
European Union will support 1 trillion Euros for investment in mitigating the ever growing climate change effect over the next decade, the commission revealed.
According to a press release, European Commission President von der Leyen said Europe has planned to become the first climate-neutral continent by 2050, slowing down global warming and mitigating its effects.
He pointed out that “what European businesses and change-makers need from us is easy access to financing. To pull this off, we will deliver a Sustainable Europe Investment Plan. It will support 1 trillion Euros of investment over the next decade. We will work hand in hand with the European Investment Bank, Europe’s climate bank.”
The president revealed that next March, the commission will propose the first-ever European Climate Law to chart the way ahead and make it irreversible: investors, innovators and entrepreneurs need clear rules to plan their long-term investments.
Noting that forests burn from America to Australia and desserts are advancing across Africa and Asia, the union has been pulling changes to deliver a Sustainable Europe Investment Plan, he added.
Mankind has seen such phenomena before, the president said, adding that but never at this speed. He stated that Ethiopia, for instance, is experiencing untimely rain recently.
“In addition to climate-induced drought often witnessed, Ethiopia is currently experiencing untimely rain which compromises its harvesting season. Science tells us that we can still stop this epidemic, but we are running out of time,” Leyen stressed.
The president also appreciated Ethiopia’s effort as part of this European and global movement for climate.
“Last year, Ethiopia reported to have planted more than 350 million trees in 12 hours, beating world record and a comprehensive 4 billion trees during the year.”
According to him, nine European citizens out of ten ask for decisive climate action saying “We will work hand in hand with the European Investment Bank, Europe’s climate bank for Europe and a contribution for a better world.”
Information and Climatology Director at the Agency, Melese Lemma, said the Agency releases updated forecast three times a year to create awareness and give emergency alerts coordinating with international agencies.
“Our forecasting is not based on only from our own forecast; we have not sophisticated models. We use international forecasting models. There are international forecasting centers which disseminates information. For instance, the Pacific Ocean has been given forecasting for so longtime combining the three months events to be happened like ways Indian Ocean. So, we take international outputs,” Melese stated.
African countries have been calling on the world to consider the continent as a special case in terms of implementation of the Paris Agreement and climate finance during the recent COP 25 Summit in Madrid, Spain.
The Paris Agreement is an agreement reached at the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP 21) in Paris, France, where the world’s nations undertook a determined course to reduce climate change.
ICT The way forward
The majority of businesses in Ethiopia do not have websites to promote their businesses for the online community. Business processes of most companies in Addis Ababa are manual. To this end challenges in access to digital infrastructure like Broadband; access to reliable electric power; under developed digital service provision; and others are among the challenges that the business community faces.
Mesay Hailemariam Moreda is CEO of Ronabit Consult. He has more than a decade of experience in multidisciplinary fields. He successfully led projects such as Integrated Social Security Administration System project, the exam registration and placement and the Unified Billing Project of Ethiopia among others.
Currently his company is developing many national strategies in the field of ICT including the Ethiopian national government strategy of National Network master-plan, ICT for community development strategy, Vendor management assistance, and Procurement Management assistance.
Capital sits with Mesay to talk about the challenges businesses face and how ICT can intervene. Excerpts;
Capital: What can you Identify and prioritize ICT related services and actions which support the transformation of the Ethiopian businesses for realizing effective and efficient services?
Mesay Hailemariam: For example, a media company could deliver personalized and targeted advertisements via their websites and related tools. Hospitals may further engage their patients to interact with specialist using short texts, chats, and even videos. Retail businesses directly on conducting online using web-based systems and electronic online payment systems could be a common example of this. The manufacturing sector Using of Robots and drones for various business related activities. Sharing economy using a digital platform is another example. Selling any extra goods as services for example extra car-seats; extra car time; extra store; extra room could all be sold as a service using software applications.
Capital: What are the major legal, business and capacity challenges undermining the role of ICT for promoting businesses in Ethiopia?
Mesay: We can list many challenges. Lack of awareness and Knowledge of the Business community about the business benefits of Information communication technology is among the leading challenges.
According to a study conducted by Ronabit Consults in 2018, for example, majority of Businesses in Ethiopia do not have websites to promote their businesses for the online community. Significant number of businesses in Addis Ababa own computers but primarily use they it as a type writer. Many own smart phones but use to browse social media contents. Business processes of most companies in Addis Ababa are manual. Business processes facing customers are in the first-row to be automated; I think, the reason is they are not usually profitable. Customer facing process automation do not usually have a direct relationship with revenue generating or profit bearing activities and cheaper when done manually. Their return on investment is indirect and takes relatively long-term to pay back – as they mostly pay back through efficiency and customer satisfaction. The other challenges Access to digital infrastructure like Broadband; access to reliable electric power; under developed digital service provision; etc are among the other challenges. This is actually challenging the existing business models in a positive and progressive manner 
Capital: You have an ICT support strategy document that can guide future interventions towards supporting the business community to benefit from the ICT sector?
Mesay: In my opinion, Businesses could benefit from ICT in many ways: such as; the first and most obvious benefit is introduction of efficiency to their business processes especially those facing their customers. The marriage between Entertainment and Information processes (which we usually call Infotainment) is possible through automation of customer facing processes. Customer facing processes are very useful as they capture data; and data is the new oil – and for me, automating the data capturing process is like drilling an oil well.
The second benefit is Revenue generation: Usage of technologies in businesses may directly generate revenue; maximize profit margins; or minimize losses by providing additional services. For example; our concept of taxi before 3 to 4 years was to go to a roadside, wave our hands to a blue car with a label on it; negotiate a price and pay at the destination – usually prone to renegotiations of prices and disagreements. Now, from the convenience of your sofa, you just run a mobile app; click once or twice; and before you know it, the nearest Ride driver will call you – then you have a taxi. Name of the driver; Plate number; color of his car, will be displayed on your mobile and you know everything that you need to know. And at your destination, the total price is displayed on your phone and the on the phone of the driver- you are at your destination safely and pay without a hassle. Such business models could be applied to every spare good you have. May be your store that should stay empty for some time; your children’s’ rooms while they are at the university; and may be your bakery & Juicer. As far as you can imagine a business model, and have an online application, literally any extra service of good could be shared with others and generate revenue. The government as a policy maker & regulator in Ethiopia should work harder to cop up with this. A study by Ronabit consults in 2019 have reviled that the progress of ICT for revenue generation is growing relatively faster than ICT for process automation in Ethiopia.
Capital: What policy issues do you think is pertinent and streamline the ICT sector in such a way that it plays a pivotal role for enhancing trade and investment in the country?
Mesay: I call ICT – Smart everything. I mean smart building, smart manufacturing, smart transport, smart city; Going smart brings efficiency to business processes and generates revenue at the same time. Internet of things, Industrial Internet of things, Smart Manufacturing and smart Industry to enhance trade and investment in the capital and in the nation at all.
Capital: what is the role of government in expanding cloud computing?
Mesay: Newly established organizations usually lack capital to establish their own data centers. They are either required to start manually or delay their entry to market until they make capital to do so. As a solution, they may subscribe for datacenter services where they pay for the services as they use just like water, electricity, and other utilities. I strongly argue in favor of development of large scale local data centers with strong data protection and privacy policy to provide these services. We call them cloud based services by the way. Studies show that there is a visible gap in the regulations. To fill this gap, the government, in a short period, could form a digital Economy Council as an advisory board establishes focused taskforces to expedite the process of legal and regulatory matters to take base in Ethiopia. It is also important to establish concrete promotion & stimulation strategy for the digital economy that promote start-ups through a focused, competitive, and effective incentives structure. It is better done before the African Continental Free Trade Agreement takes full effect.
Capital: How does Ethiopian businesses be ready in a tough competition that would face in connection to opening up their doors for African market because of CFTA?
Mesay: First, let us see what African Continental Free Trade area is. As you know, it is the largest free trade area with an estimated market size of almost 3.0 Trillion dollars. From the digital technology or digital economy perspective, it creates very big demand for e-commerce. Thus, intensive package delivery and trade logistics for customers in Ethiopia other member countries should be improved. Next, what is its benefit for digital economy? One Benefit of AfCFTA is that it lowers or illuminates tariff providing free access to the market and market information throughout Africa. Our private sector could benefit from these expanded markets for goods and services;
Capital: Are Ethiopia Businesses ready to reap these benefits?
Mesay: AfCFTA brings not only opportunities. It comes with its own challenges: One: policy makers and regulators of Ethiopia will greatly be challenged to develop or adopt the non-existent regulations. Two: It greatly increases competitive pressure on the already under-developed local private sector. Producers in Ethiopian may lose huge sales to foreign suppliers due to the cost associated to producing the goods or services. Large companies will definitely get advantage through economic of scale. They may sell cheaper, and Ethiopian companies may not compete in some goods and services. They may not even comeback to competition quickly.
