Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD) welcomed the resignation of top leadership of Wolaita zonal administrators in the SNNP regional state following the recent tragic incident in the region.
“I expect the Sidama, Gurage and Kebena leaders and city mayors to respect popular will take full responsibility and follow suit,” he added.
It is to be recalled that about five senior leaderships of Wolaita zone submitted letters of resignations.
Among those who tendered their resignations include chief administrator of the zone and his deputy.
Premier welcomes resignation of top leadership of Wolaita zonal administrators
The new government of Italy and the Euro
Politicians and financial markets remained surprisingly relaxed after the recent Italian election. Their expectation was that the newly elected parties would act like all Italian parties before and forget about the promises they had made before the election. And, just in case they would not, that the most important Italian in Europe, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi would somehow make sure everything stayed calm by buying up even more Italian bonds.
However, the new Italian government is blowing the top off the illusionary hope, nurtured by politicians in Brussels and Berlin, to overcome the eurozone crisis by doing more of the same. Sticking to their program which is at the core lower taxes, a basic income for everyone and the abolishment of the past pension reform, will lead to much higher deficits for Italy.
Whatever one thinks of this program, the effort to overcome the Eurozone crisis by solving the problem of too much debt with yet more debt has now been unmasked as a fairy tale. The flood of money provided by the European Central Bank in recent years has suppressed the symptoms, but not removed the causes.
According to Paolo Savona, an Italian economic analysts, like it or not, the Eurozone needs an orderly process to overcome the burden of too much public and private debt and the diverging competitiveness of its members. The latter requires a restructuring of the membership, which either means that Germany and some other northern countries exit or some of the less competitive countries in the south leave.
However, Giovanni Tria, Economics Professor at Rome Tor Vergata University, argued that before such a restructuring can take place, the real debt burden has to be reduced. There are not many options. The best way would be an orderly debt restructuring, undertaken in a joint effort by debtor and creditor countries. In this case, the debt overhang of the public and private sector in the Eurozone estimated in the range of three trillion Euros, would be pooled and paid back over a long period of time.
Both creditors and debtors would contribute and the European Central Bank could support this process by buying up part of the debt. The concept has been well-known for nearly ten years. But this option requires political leaders to admit to the public that the Euro was a political project that lacked a proper economic foundation which is what caused big losses for all countries involved.
As much as German leaders will want to deny it, Italy’s new government is correct in insisting on the notion that austerity policies do not fix the problem of over-indebtedness, but rather make it worse. They also do not address the issue of diverging competitiveness. Riccardo Puglisi, a Political Economy Professor at the University of Pavia insist that the policy of Germany with regard to the Euro crisis of the past 10 years can only be described as a total failure.
It amplifies the costs for both the debtor countries as well as the main creditor country, Germany. Riccardo Puglisi strongly argued that if Chancellor Merkel wants to keep the illusion of the euro as beneficial for Germany and her image as successful manager of the eurozone, she has to do “whatever it costs” to prevent Italy from leaving the Euro.
The new Italian government has taken on the key lesson from the failure of Greece’s Syriza government. One cannot just threaten an exit from the Euro, rather to prepare for it. Hence Italy’s preparations for a parallel currency. Once you have a parallel currency in place, it just takes one decree to switch to a new currency for the whole country. Even without doing this, it is conceivable just over time that the Mini-BoTs would become the currency used in day-to-day life in Italy.
Giovanni Tria stated that this poses a significant political threat to the Euro as it would demonstrate that the common currency is by no means“irreversible,” as claimed by its defenders among the politicians. Indeed, markets would expect other countries to follow, and rightly so. According to Giovanni Tria, given those ominous prospects, France and Germany will be very flexible in their response to Italian demands, irrespective of the official rhetoric from both countries.
Concerning the issue of debt cancelation, the first version of the coalition agreement of the new Italian government asked for a partial debt cancellation by the European Central Bank. This idea is not as crazy as it sounds. For some years, there has been a serious discussion going on among economists as to whether a debt cancellation by the central banks could be a solution to the over-indebted world economy.
Adair Turner, former head of the Financial Services Authority in the UK, is the most prominent supporter. In his view, central banks should just buy up significant parts of the outstanding debt and then simply cancel it. As central banks never can become insolvent – they just “print” the money – this would be a miraculous way to get rid of the debt. Critics of such a maneuver fear a loss of trust in the value of money and the emergence of Weimar-type inflation. However, the scheme’s supporters argue that, as long it is a one-off measure, there should be no negative impact.
Japan may provide the relevant policy example that such an approach could work. The Bank of Japan is currently holding more than 50% of Japan’s debt and will soon own above 70%. Observers expect a debt cancellation in the coming years. Alberto Bagnai, an Associate Professor of Economics at Gabriele d’Annunzio University stated that implementing such an approach in Europe is more difficult, as it involves several countries and implies a redistribution of wealth between countries.
Naturally, countries with higher debt levels will benefit the most. According to Alberto Bagnai, although it seems unimaginable to many outside observers of the German political and economic scene, it is fair to assume that German politicians would ultimately be prepared to accept such a solution, in spite of all their public statements.
Like it or not, the new Italian government is in a much stronger position than many observers and politicians in Germany are willing to accept. Already back in 2012, a Bank of America analysis showed that from the vantage point of game theory the most probable result is a successful blackmailing of Germany by Italy, followed by an exit of Italy from the Euro. However this unfolds, the end game seems very near. Irrespective of how this plays out, there can be no doubt that the illusion of having resolved the eurozone crisis is vanishing rapidly.
Dessalew Adane
Every day more refugees pour in to Gambella escaping the violence in South Sudan. To address this humanitarian crisis, Plan International has been busy during the past four years trying to help the innocent victims of violence by building schools in Gambella and educating over 13,000 elementary school children.
Capital’s Reporter, Tesfaye Getnet spent a week in Gambella and visited Dessalew Adane, the Emergency Response Manager of Plan International Ethiopia to learn how the refugee children are being educated and their psychosocial needs addressed. Dessalew Adane, has a Masters in Public Health; he has spent 14 years working in program management for several governmental and International Organizations including: Save the Children, World Vision and International Medical Corps. Here is what he had to say about making the best of a bad situation. Excerpts.
Capital: What major activities are you doing to benefit South Sudanese Children in Gambella refugee camps?
Dessalew Adane: Plan International’s overall goal in Ethiopia is to ensure that vulnerable children, especially adolescent girls, and youth are able to realize their full potential within protective, reliant and resilient communities which promote girl’s rights and gender equality. Similarly, the Gambella Program Area of Plan International Ethiopia is operating in 4 of the six refugee camps in Gambella Region and in five similar camps in Benishangul Gumuz Region. Half of all the refugees in Ethiopia are found in these two regions. The refugee camps established in Gambella Region where Plan International operates include: Kule, Pugnido II, Ngueyyiel, Jewi and the Pamdong reception site. The camps in Benishangul Gumuz Region are Tongo, Gure Shembola, Bambasi, Tsore, Sherkole and Abramo Reception Center. As Plan International is a child focused
organization, our activities include education in emergency, early childhood care and development, child protection, and youth engagement. Each of these major thematic areas are further structured and carried out through well designed strategies and activities. For instance, we address protection needs through established child friendly spaces, Community Based Child Protection Mechanisms, Child Protection Mainstreaming, and Accountability Mechanisms. The Education in Emergency and Youth Engagement thematic areas have their own school or facility based and community based structures that keep the interventions functional and ever improving. In general the activities keep the children safe and protected, entertained, help them acquire academic knowledge, along with psychosocial and life skill development services.
Capital: We have heard that many teachers are working in the school without the required documents; how is recruitment conducted?
Dessalew Adane: The South Sudanese people fled their home and country to save their lives. In such a circumstance, let alone documents, family members are separated as their departure is accidental and there may not be a possibility to get prepared and organized. As a result, it is common to encounter people without proper documentation including academic credentials. Taking the context in to consideration, we recruit teachers and other incentive social workers by providing exams to check if they are knowledgeable up to the grade level they claim to have attained. They are also are provided further trainings once recruited.
Capital: How do you reduce dropout rates among refugees?
Dessalew Adane: We have established different structures in the refugee camps. There are mothers in the school who follow up with students on a daily basis are who are in close communication with teachers. When a child is absent, they contact the family and identify the reason. They deal with the problem either by themselves or via referral as per the need. If the issue is beyond their capacity, they may contact the Parent-Teacher association for help addressing the problem. If there are still advanced problems, the refugee central committee may also become involved. We have several hierarchical structures which resolve teaching-learning related problems including school dropouts.
Capital: How come you only provide five subjects when many elementary schools have more than six?
Dessalew Adane: Education in an Emergency is quite different from the regular education program. We start with rudimentary education services, sometimes even under shade of trees until we get prepared for accidental influxes of refugees we encounter. It is difficult to avail all the needed resources at a time including teachers. Education in an emergency is not only a venue to educate children but to keep them safe in a protected environment. Gradually, we upgrade the class rooms to the conventional types and increase the number of subjects from the basics to all through time once we ensure access.
Capital: How are the parents of the children working with you?
Dessalew Adane: Parents actively participate starting from the time they send their children to school. Some are members of ‘mothers in the school’ who take care of children while in the school. Others are represented in Parent-Teacher Associations of each school and support us in administering the school. In general we have very strong linkages with parents in every aspect of the teaching learning process and the other interventions as well.
Capital: There are a number of NGOs who are working with the refugees. How do you avoid duplication of efforts and wastage of resources with other agencies by doing similar interventions?
Dessalew Adane: There is a clearly demarcated responsibility matrix for every organization working in refugee camps assigned by ARRA and UNHCR. We are either engaged in different thematic areas if not each of us are responsible for a specific camp where another similar organization does not operate. We are linked with referral pathways for complimentary services between different agencies. Therefore, duplication of effort and wastage of resources is avoided in such a way and via periodic coordination meetings.
Capital: How are you helping to address the psychological and psychosocial needs refugees have?
Dessalew Adane: Refugees may have passed through traumatizing hardships while escaping the war and fleeing their home. These situations may expose some to stressful mental conditions and they will need psychosocial and other advanced specialized services. We have a much tailored approach to identify children with different needs of protection with a clearly categorized level of priority for response. The primary objective of our child protection intervention is to address such service needs. Plan International Ethiopia provides para-psychosocial support using trained social workers and case managers. When we encounter cases that should be addressed through specialized support, we link them to other partners via established referral pathways.
Capital: Rape, child labour and other violence are some of the challenges of refugee children. How do you help them deal with this?
Dessalew Adane: The first action we take is to raise awareness on violence among adolescents and youth. This minimizes the incidences by changing behaviour of potential criminals and providing coping mechanisms for those vulnerable, especially adolescent girls. For instance, girls are advised not to go far from their camp with a person who is not a close family member; to travel in group when they go out to collect fire wood or carry out other activities. We also provide para-psychosocial support and referral service as a response to girls exposed to such violence. There are various case reporting and community based complaint management mechanisms established by Plan International.
Capital: Tell us one of the saddest stories you encountered while you had been working with the refugees.
Dessalew Adane: It is unfortunate to commonly encounter children who are unaccompanied and don’t know anyone, let alone a relative. We search for volunteer care givers from the refugees and handover such children to a family they do not know as there is no other option to keep the children safe. It is so sad and hard to see a child below two years of age abandoned and to watch his eyes wandering eagerly seeking his family.
Capital: What are the major challenges you face here?
Dessalew Adane: The major challenge is limitation of resources to secure quality and sustainable services for refugees. As refugee crises are worsening in many parts of the globe, attention of donors is shifting to save lives in those newly emerging humanitarian disasters. As a result, it has brought a major challenge to mobilize sufficient resource to protracted refugees like the one in South Sudan.
Capital: What is your future plan in the camps?
Dessalew Adane: We have the experience on how to build good classrooms in a very short time. Those schools in which we have been managing for years are in much better condition when compared to the recently opened ones. We don’t have sufficient class rooms for all school aged children. Furthermore, we haven’t been able to make all the schools the same standard due to limitation of resources. Our plan is, therefore, to expand the accommodation of the schools for all school aged children and reduce the number of students per classroom to an acceptable ratio. So far, we have created access for only 50% of school aged children. In addition, we would like to upgrade those class rooms with iron sheet walls to the conventional standard classrooms we built in the older schools. We need to improve the different facilities in the school as well. There are also various improvement needs in the protection and youth engagement sectors that demand huge resources, especially those in the five camps of Benishangul Gumuz which we took over recently. We are striving to secure resources needed through our 22 national offices found all over the world. We also continuously search for innovative approaches to address the needs of children in an ever improving efficiency and effectiveness. Apart from the refugee response, Plan International has taken some initial steps to address developmental needs of Ethiopian communities in Gambella and Benishangul Gumuz who reside in adjacent districts where refugee camps are established. We would like to expand these interventions integrating with the refugee so that demands of both sides are dealt with.
Why Host the World Cup?
FIFA, the global governing body for soccer, continues to convince governments that hosting the quadrennial World Cup amounts to a win-win in terms of global recognition and economic benefits. But as the evidence piles up to suggest otherwise, some political leaders have begun to spot the con.
Whom would you trust more, Russian President Vladimir Putin or Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel? Whereas Putin is reveling in the attention that Russia is receiving as host of the 2018 World Cup, Emanuel has informed the US Soccer Federation and FIFA that Chicago has no interest in serving as a host city when the event comes to North America in 2026. Canada and Mexico will each host ten matches, and the United States will host another 60. So why is the third-largest US city taking a pass?
To understand what it means to host a global sporting event, consider the fact that Putin’s government spent $51-70 billion to stage the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, and is projected to spend at least $14 billion hosting the current World Cup, which runs through July 15. Russia’s budget provided for the construction of seven new stadiums – including one in St. Petersburg that cost around $1.7 billion – and renovations to five other venues. And that does not even account for the additional expenses for training facilities, lodging, expanded infrastructure, and security.
Chicago, having already hosted the opening ceremony and first match of the 1994 World Cup, has adopted quite a different mindset. Emanuel’s spokesperson, Matt McGrath, recently issued a statement explaining that, “FIFA could not provide a basic level of certainty on some major unknowns that put our city and taxpayers at risk.” FIFA, McGrath alleges, was demanding something tantamount to a “blank check,” including an “open-ended ability to modify the agreement … at any time and at their discretion.”
Moreover, FIFA would have required that Soldier Field – home to the Chicago Bears football team – be taken out of use for two months prior to the tournament. In the end, Emanuel’s office concluded that, “The uncertainty for taxpayers, coupled with FIFA’s inflexibility and unwillingness to negotiate, were clear indications that further pursuit of the bid wasn’t in Chicago’s best interests.”
In addition to holding anywhere from two to six games – potentially over the course of a number of weeks – World Cup host cities are expected to throw a “fan fest,” furnish training facilities for the teams, and provide extensive tax exemptions for a range of activities. In fact, FIFA prohibits both direct and indirect taxation on all income from the event, exempting continental soccer confederations, host-country broadcasters, and FIFA member associations, service providers, and contractors. It is little wonder, then, that Minneapolis and Vancouver have joined Chicago in declining the hosting honor.
To justify its imperious behavior, FIFA points out that, “[the] World Cup is a major sporting event that attracts global attention to the Host Country/Host Countries and provides the opportunity for significant financial investment in sporting and public infrastructure.” And that added attention and investment, FIFA claims, “may contribute to significant mid- and long-term socioeconomic benefits … as well as economic growth.”
But note the carefully qualified language. FIFA only goes so far as to promise an “opportunity for significant financial investment” in infrastructure, as well as attention and investment that “may contribute” to growth. In reality, scholarly evidence shows that the World Cup rarely benefits host countries and cities as much as FIFA would like the public, and public officials, to think.
For example, consider what Russia gets in exchange for its $14 billion-plus investment in this year’s event. While all of the revenue from ticket sales, international broadcasting rights, and sponsorships will go directly to FIFA, Russia will be left with seven new stadiums and five refurbished facilities that it does not need. And unless it demolishes these venues, it will have to spend tens of millions of dollars every year to maintain them. Meanwhile, hundreds of acres of scarce urban real estate will have been forfeited as sites for white elephants.
To be sure, images of sleek new facilities are being disseminated worldwide. But the optics are not necessarily working in Russia’s favor. Apparently, there was no hiding the 6,000 empty seats at the Uruguay-Egypt match on June 15.
If history is any guide, it is highly unlikely that the 2018 World Cup will increase Russia’s international investment or trade, boost its tourism industry, or strengthen its people’s commitment to physical fitness.
What it will do is instill a fleeting sense of national pride among a significant portion of Russians, while offering an ephemeral distraction from the country’s mounting problems. With or without the World Cup, oil-price volatility and international sanctions imposed in response to Putin’s 2014 annexation of Crimea will continue to darken Russia’s economic prospects and diminish ordinary Russians’ standard of living.
So, whom should you trust? I’m going with Emanuel.
Andrew Zimbalist is Professor of Economics at Smith College and the author of Circus Maximus: The Economic Gamble Behind Hosting the Olympics and the World Cup.
