With the aim of creating awareness about the importance of domestic tourism and the need to teach children why it is important to protect and learn about their environment, Travel Ethiopia launched a new project.
The company, a longtime player in the tourism sector with almost 25 years of existence, stated that it will be carrying out several activities to help increase domestic travel by locals and expats as well as work with different schools so that children can learn more about their country and environment.
“We launched this project on January 15th, 2018. One of our aims is to give the opportunity for children and students to learn about the environment, to know about their surroundings and their country. So this week on Thursday, we took our first batch of students from the Edget Behibret School to the Born Free animal sanctuary. These are students that do not have the opportunity to visit such places because they live in harsh economic conditions,” said Samrawit Moges, Managing Director of Travel Ethiopia.
Travel Ethiopia started to work with Edget Behibret as it is a school for many vulnerable children that come from poor families. On the trip the students learned about the importance of protecting the environment, limiting plastic usage as well as the need to keep surroundings free from trash.
“In the Rotary club of Addis Ababa West, which I belong to, there are two Rotarians that carry out school feeding programs. One of the schools where this program is implemented is Edget Behibret; so that is why we decided to work with the children and give them the opportunity to visit the Born Free sanctuary. It was a really heartwarming experience because none of them have actually seen a lion for example. This is true for most children in general. It was an exciting trip,” Samrawit said.
Now Travel Ethiopia is working on collaborating with different institutions such as banks and insurance companies to preach and promote this idea of traveling within the country. “We plan to do this with Castel Winery as well. Most of these companies organize employee retreats, but usually they don’t go somewhere where they can learn something about the environment or history. We hope to change that,” she underlines.
Samrawit says that through the project she plans to reach all 300 students at Edget Behibret with the opportunity to visit the Born Free Sanctuary as well as other places.
“The trip costs are covered by us given the circumstances of these students. We cannot do this for everyone obviously, for schools that cannot afford to send the children on trips we plan on hopefully connecting them with institutions that would sponsor the trips.”
“We all need to collaborate to bring awareness about domestic travel. It shouldn’t be only foreigners that come here and visit places; we need to do this as well. It’s a very important part of tourism revenue and yet not a lot of focus is put there,” Samrawit asserted.
She also pointed out, on the next trip that will be organized, students will learn more about indigenous plants in Ethiopia and will be part of a seedling planting activity.

The 30th Ordinary Session of the African Union (AU) Summit held with the theme ‘Winning the Fight Against Corruption: A Sustainable Path to Africa’s Transformation’ ended on 29 January 2018, at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa. It ended with the adoption of key decisions by the Assembly of Heads of State and Government. Below are the summarized points.
They agreed that a Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM) is vital to the achievement of the long-term vision of an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa under the AU Agenda 2063; because it will bring about enhanced connectivity across the continent leading to sustainable development of the aviation and tourism industry with immense contribution to economic growth, job creation, prosperity and integration of Africa. It’s against this backdrop the Assembly adopted the Decision on the Establishment of a Single African Air Transport Market. Twenty-three (23) Member States have declared their Solemn Commitment to the immediate implementation of the Yamoussoukro Decision towards establishment of a Single African Air Transport so far.
With regard to an African Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA), the Assembly decided to hold an Extraordinary Summit on 21 March 2018, preceded by an Extraordianary Session of the Executive Council on 19 March 2018 in Kigali, Rwanda, to consider the CFTA Legal instruments and sign the Agreement Establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area and requested that the AU Commission convene an Extraordinary session of the STC on Justice and Legal Affairs to consider the instruments prior to the Summit.
The Assembly also adopted a protocol to the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community relating to Free Movement of Persons, Rights of Residence and Right of Establishment and its Draft Implementation Roadmap.
To help finance the Union, the Assembly decided that the membership of the Committee of Ministers of Finance should be expanded from ten (10) to fifteen (15) members based on the principles of equitable geographical distribution and rotation. In this regard, the Committee will be called the Committee of Fifteen Ministers of Finance.
In refrence to the Report of the Leader of the African Union High-Level Committee on Libya, the Assembly expressed once again its deep concern over the persistent political impasse and the security situation in Libya, which perpetuates the suffering of the Libyan people, undermines the legal institutions of the country and poses a challenge to security and stability in neighbouring countries and in the entire region. The Assembly asked the African Union Commission to re-launch the efforts of the Contact Group on Libya, in close cooperation with the United Nations, in order to pool the efforts of the international community on the issue and support the efforts of the African Union High-Level Committee on Libya and expressed once again, its appreciation to Denis Sassou Nguesso, President of the Republic of Congo, Leader of the African Union High-Level Committee on Libya, to the African Union Special Representative,. Jakaya Kikwete, as well as to neighbouring countries, for the efforts made towards achieving lasting peace in Libya.
On the Report of the Peace and Security Council abouth its Activities and the State of Peace and Security in Africa, the Assembly welcomed the signing, on 21 December 2017, by the South Sudanese stakeholders of an Agreement of Cessation of Hostilities, Protection of Civilians and Humanitarian Access, and commended IGAD for leading the High Level Revitalization Forum, which presents a unique opportunity for the implementation of the Agreement for the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (ARCSS), in line with the Communique of the 720th meeting of the PSC, held at the ministerial level, in New York, on 20 September 2017. The Assembly expressed deep concern over the repeated violations of the Agreement by the parties, resulting in further deterioration of the already dire humanitarian situation caused by the ongoing conflict, and stated that all warring parties should stop military actions immediately and keep the commitments they agreed to on December 21, 2017. With regard to the Implementation of the Assembly Decision on the Institutional Reform of the African Union, the Assembly reiterated the commitment to the reform and renewal of the Union as part of the effort to ensure delivery of Agenda 2063 as an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in international arena. The Assembly decided that the Reform Troika will be expanded to the Bureau of the Assembly and will collaborate with President Kagame in his capacity as Lead on the AU Institutional Reform process.
On the African Leaders for Nutrition (ALN) Initiative, the Assembly reaffirmed commitment to end hunger by 2025 through strengthening development policies as an effective investment in the human capital of our countries; and re-committed to end child stunting by reducing stunting to 10% and underweight to 5% by 2025 and in particular, focusing on the first 1000 Days as the only window of opportunity during which permanent and irreversible physical and mental damage would be avoided.

The Addis Ababa Land Management Bureau has not floated any land for tender during the last five months because of confusion over using new software. This is unusual for them because they previously floated a land bid every two months.
Over 60 pieces of land in ten sub cities were prepared for the 29th land bid auction. Employees say they are confused about how to use the new software developed by the Addis Ababa Integrated Land Information Center (AAILIC).
They were attempting to register bidders by entering data like the amount of money, land code, and cash payment order (CPO) on an automated template which then goes into the data of Addis Ababa Land Management Bureau.
In the previous 28 land bids people would buy tender documents from the Bureau and write the proposed height of the building, the price per square meter of the land they are trying to obtain, the land code, and payment amount on a document. Then employees would manually fill out this document.
Million Dejene, Information Communication Director at AAILIC says the new system has many new benefits.
Filling out forms manually was vulnerable to corruption because during the process people would come into contact with many employees.
Some of the Land Management Bureau staff say the new system will actually take more time.
One employee who requested anonymity said “up to 7,000 people participate in one land tender and having to call all bidders to fill out forms on computers in a few rooms will take too much time. The city administration should think about these logistical issues before applying the system.”
Recently the Addis Ababa Land Management Bureau cancelled the bids for 144 out of 236 pieces of land they offered during the 28th land lease auction because they said the land was incorporated into the new master plan needed to be used for side road construction.
“The system is simple a bidder comes to the central station and fills in only the CPO amount and the amount of money they are bidding. If they cannot type on the computer, they can come with someone or an employee of the bureau can help them. When they are done filling out the form they click the send button and a copy of the form is given to them only. After all of the data is collected from bidders the tender committee opens the secured data base to determine the winner for each land parcel bid, which is determined randomly by the computer. The computer also shows us statistical data which helps us conduct research. The new software also cancels bids of people who do not pay,” he explained.