The African Economic Conference is urging African governments to put governance at the center of their agenda. The conference that gathered researchers, policy makers, civil society and private sector leaders was held in Addis Ababa this week at the United Nations Economic Conference for Africa.
“Governance, as we all know, determines which public policies get adopted and how they are implemented. There is a growing consensus that African countries require a more conducive governance environment for them to be able to pursue better public policies and ultimately to achieve better outcomes, including structural transformation and inclusive development,” said United Nations Under Secretary General and ECA’s Executive Secretary Dr Vera Songwe during the conference’s opening session.
The theme for this year’s conference is, “Governance for structural transformation” and according to Songwe, bringing the two concepts together to constitute the theme of this conference is very deliberate notably because of their centrality and importance in moving our continent forward towards the development trajectory envisioned in both the 2030 development Agenda and Agenda 2063.
“Governance and structural transformation can be said to be mutually re-enforcing. On the one hand, good governance and effective institutions are prerequisites for the attainment of structural transformation.”
“On the other hand, structural transformation can have a strong disruptive effect on governance (particularly political governance) – giving rise, for example, to interest groups that push for accountable leadership and effective institutions. As countries get more transformed, more effective institutions also become more affordable. Over time, economic transformation can advance core governance objectives of accountability, participation and transparency,” Songwe said.
Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn who officially opened the conference also underlined that Structural transformation as related to the national development agenda is all about the path to and achievement of industrialization. This goes from securing productions and markets to including an equitable mechanism of fairness in spreading the wealth.
“In this regard, there are theories and experiences of recent success, such as those of the East Asian region, Africans can refer and look into for better lessons. It is true these late industrializations did not have the conventionally prescribed and over promoted neoliberal governance capabilities when they started it, or even at later time during their unprecedented massive economic transformation. It does not mean, though, these countries did not have governance qualities of other kinds,” the Prime Minister said.
“In East Asia and other successful developmental states, massive transformation was brought about through an effective and successful centralization of economic rents and allocating them to value-creating sectors and actors,” he said.
The three-day annual event, organized jointly by the African Development Bank (AfDB), United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), brought together over 500 participants consisting of government officials, researchers and many other development actors. International leaders, authorities in the field of governance research, were also present.

Berhan Bank, which changed its name, during a recent general assembly, announced that it concluded the past fiscal year with a massive accomplishment. It has boosted its paid up capital by more than 90 percent.
The bank is considered a new player in the industry and during the 2016/17 fiscal year it improved its performance in all areas. Abraham Alaro, President of Berhan, told Capital that the bank has performed well because customer service is a priority.
“We have also introduced new products and services besides the strong contribution of the board of directors, management and the whole staff which allowed us to register a marvelous achievement for the year,” he said.
According to the annual report, the bank’s profits have risen significantly.
The report stated that the bank’s net profit before tax was over 471 million birr, which is an increase of 35 percent.
For the stated period the bank also floated additional shares enabling it to increase its paid up capital to 1.4 billion birr. A year ago the paid up capital of Berhan Bank was 730 million birr. The current increase in paid up capital is 91.1 percent more than a year ago. According to Solomon Alemseged, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Berhan, in addition, the return on investment for the 2016/17 financial year is very big.
He said that the return on investment for shareholders is 32.8 percent. A single share that has a value of 1,000 birr earns 328 birr. Most of the time when companies expand their share or paid up capital the return on investment percentage goes down but in this case it went up.
The number of shareholders also expanded by 53.6 percent and reached 14,841.
During the last fiscal year the bank opened 56 new branches, which has increased the gain on deposit mobilization by 43.3 percent.
According to the report, the deposit mobilization reached 7.6 billion birr which expanded the role of the bank on loan and advance activity. The total loan and advance that the bank provided reached 5.4 billion birr which is a 42.1 percent increase.
Berhan now has 161 branches which is an over 53 percent increase.
At the general assembly held late last week the name of the bank was also shortened. During its formation the bank was called Berhan International Bank, but now it has been renamed as Berhan Bank. The name is expected to be ratified by the National Bank of Ethiopia, which is responsible for ratifying bank names.
Early this week the bank has also included an actor on the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) as one of the business partners for traders there.
“Our export partners will be more advantageous since we will join ECX and our clients will get easier business transactions in their activity than at the trading floor, which is the major export commodity market,” he said.
The hard currency earnings of the bank will also increase since it will have more relationships with exporters, according to the president.
“We have formed a business strategy that will automate our activity and enable us to tackle challenges that we face in business,” Abraham told Capital.

With a total cost of 300 million birr, Kokob Paint factory, located at Bahir Dar, officially started production of ceramic, tile and paint.
The18, 000 hectares factory which took close to two years for construction created job opportunity for 500 people and have the capacity to produce 25 million liters of paint and 500,000 meters of ceramic tiles annually.
The factory extract the raw materials from Benishangul Gumuz Regional.
Gedu Andargachew, president of the Amhara Regional State at the opening said that the factory will play a big role in saving foreign currency.
The Factory is established by Beka General Trading Plc in Amahara regional state.
The company is also in the process to open other four companies.