Close to 900 million people in Africa live in informal settlements where there is no safe water, decent toilet, title deeds or rental agreements, a report reveals. An estimated 60-70 percent of urban households live in slums.
The 14th Global Forum on Human Settlements (GFHS 2019), began on Thursday at the United Nations Conference Centre in Addis Ababa in the presence of over 500 participants from 52 countries across the globe.
The two-day event is taking place under the theme “Sustainable Development of Cities and Human Settlements in the Digital Era.”
The Forum explores how to harness the huge opportunities arising from the digital revolution to upgrade the planning, construction, and management of cities and human settlements, making them greener, smarter and more sustainable.
“Human settlement must be thought of in terms of quality of life and levels of satisfaction of basic needs,” said Oliver Chinganya, Director of the Africa Centre for Statistics.
“This is a large share of the population that live in overcrowded, unhealthy and risky environments,” he said.
Chinganya said discussions on smart cities and digital citizenry must be done with the understanding that only a third of Africans are on the Internet, and that the digital infrastructures are far from the world’s best in terms of speed, volume, and reliability.
The meeting is co-organized by the Global Forum on Human Settlements (GFHS), ECA, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the World Urban Campaign (WUC).
Sileshi Bekele of Ministry of Water, Irrigation, and Energy stated that Ethiopian’s effort to use modern and digital technologies offers tremendous opportunities to improve efficiency.
“We are trying to upscale the use of innovative technology to transform the quality of life in cities and in the nation at large,” he adds.
Many people in Africa live in substandard housing
Dashen Bank to construct new building behind HQ
Dashen Bank has secured a plot from the city administration to construct a 30 +-storey building behind their current headquarters.
Dashen announced the confirmation from the Addis Ababa City Administration to obtain the 900 square meter plot of land to add another building in front of National Bank of Ethiopia.
In November 2017 the bank inaugurated its 21-story headquarters in the presence of Mulatu Teshome former President of Ethiopia.
Eyerusalem Gebrewold Architect at the Engineering Department of Dashen Bank, told Capital that the current headquarters built up area is 2,700 square meters, while the total area is 4,200 square meters. She said that the bank has a few plots in the back that will be included under the additional 900 square meters that the city administration transferred for further development.
During the inauguration ceremony of Sheik Mohammed Al Amoudi branch that was opened on the first floor at headquarters of the bank, Asfaw Alemu, President of Dashen Bank thanked the Deputy Mayor of Addis Ababa Takele Uma, who was a guest of honor at the ceremony, for accepting their request to include the land for the bank expansion project.
Asfaw told the media that as soon as the bank secures the land deed it will commence the expansion project.
The bank wants to expand its parking plot in the area, which is one of the major challenges and expand the office facilities at the headquarters. The current building has basement parking lots for 120 cars but it needs expansion, according to Asfaw.
Eyerusalem said that the bank will invite bids for design details in the near future. She said that the new upcoming building will have four floors of parking and add additional parking areas in the existing building.
The new branch, inaugurated on September 5 with the presence of the Deputy Mayor is designed to be customer centric and contains dedicated desks for people with disabilities, senior citizens, foreign investors and expats, interest free banking, corporate service, and micro, small and medium enterprises, among others. Further the branch contains modern facilities and strives to deliver fast and reliable service with its experienced staff.
Textile Tech exhibit to showcase Africa’s potential
Indian financial institution Exim Bank is teaming up with Indian ITME Society, to finance the African Textile Engineering Exhibition with the theme: “Prosperity for Africa through Textile Technology.” It will be held in February next year at the Millennium Hall.
The exhibition will be jointly organized by the Ethiopian Chamber of Commerce and India ITME Society.
The exhibition will showcase access to markets and new opportunities, joint ventures, international exposure, networking, access to finance and leasing.
It will display end solutions for textile, technology and engineering at a competitive price. It will also have a concurrent B2B program.
Govind Venuprasad, who co-coordinates ITC says Africa has unique and exclusive business opportunities and there are opportunities in textiles and textile technology throughout the continent.
More than 200 exhibitors from India, China, Italy, Switzerland, Turkey, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Austria, and Belgium will attend.
“The exhibition offers a huge opportunities for the textile and clothing industry based Ethiopia’s rich heritage and strong economy it has potential to become the Apparel hub of the world,” Hari Shankar, chairman of India ITME society said.
On the sidelines of the event there will be an investment seminar, financial solutions, technology displays and seminars including an industrial park visit.
“Banking institutions and non banking institutions with various financial programs will be available in addition to the Exim Bank of China,” Shanker added.
Teka Gebreyesus, State Minister of Trade and Industry, said the exhibition is timely and essential to make Ethiopia the manufacturing hub of textile and apparel as it links top textile technology firms with African countries.
The event is a high priority because as textiles is one of the key sectors that will bring about structural transformation of the economy, so better textile technology is a key catalysts of economic growth and the modern process,” Melaku Ezezew, President of Ethiopian chamber of commerce and sectoral association said.
ITME Africa 2020 is targeted to bring the table complete solutions to textile industry development in the continent through affordable technology, international exposure, skill development and investment opportunities.
India ITME Society is a non- profit organization founded to support textile technology when there was a shortage of technology some 40 years ago.
Hording blamed for food price spike
The Ministry of Trade and Industry says illegal traders are behind the double-digit rise in inflated prices of consumer goods. Participants at a meeting this week asked the government for a crackdown on illegal actors.
Stakeholders at the Intercontinental Hotel pointed to hoarding and shady dealers.
The Ministry held talks on a study they conducted saying that since December last year prices have been rising and by August they had gone up 15 percent, primarily due to hoarding.
“The ongoing inflation observed has no relationship with economic factors rather it is driven by economic sabotage via traders, and other actors in the supply chain,” said Fetlework Gebreegziabheir, Minister of Trade and Industry.
The study identified intervention of ‘middlemen’, a manufactured shortage of supplies of consumption goods, conducting transactions illegally and weak capacities of unions and associations as causes for the price hike on consumer goods. The participants said the government must come up with better, long-lasting solutions. 
The Ministry argues that there is no shortage of consumer goods but merchants are increasing prices pretending that there is one.
Inflation has risen with regard to both food and non-food items. However, fruits and vegetables, bread and other necessities have skyrocketed over the last few months.
“The inflation mainly hurts low-income people living in urban areas”, she adds.
The Ministry plans to alleviate the problem by controlling illicit trade, engaging more in import substitution and adequately supplying locally produced consumer products.
Representatives of the attending associations responded by urging the government to support local producers so they can make more edible oil and other vital products. They also wanted the government to prosecute middlemen and other brokers acting unscrupulously.
The government recently established a high level committee to combat the rampant inflation.
