Ethiopia likely to join middle income countries in ten years time :UNCTAD
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November 17, 2011 - The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said Ethiopia is likely to become one of the middle income countries during the next ten years.UNCTAD here on Thursday made official the 2011 report on Least Developing Countries (LDCs).

The government has been investing a significant amount of resource on infrastructure development, which helps to extricate the country from poverty within short period and also create favorable situation for the private sector.

The Director mentioned the efforts of the government to bring about structural change in the economic sector in particular to transfer the agriculture led economy to industry.

Report on LDCs has been made official since the past 40 years.The number of LDCs has increased to 48 from the then 25.

South-South cooperation is getting strengthened and gives opportunity to developmental government as it focuses on infrastructure and capacity building.

The relation between the least developed and developed countries has also a positive side as development support provided to the developing countries enables to bring about change in the economic sector.

Ethiopia as a model for health care leadership
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By: Michael Greenwood
23 Nov 2011 16:25
Despite extensive poverty and limited resources, Ethiopia has made impressive strides in improving its health care system and can serve as a model for other countries seeking to make similar gains, a new paper by Yale researchers suggests.

The east African nation - which is more than double the size of California and has one of the largest populations in Africa - has successfully applied concepts of grand strategy to implement achievable priorities, work with diverse partners and external funders and develop middle-level management to promote new health policies.

Taken together, the country's wide-ranging approach has resulted in tangible changes on the ground and in improved health for more than 80 million Ethiopians. Ethiopia has, for example, constructed numerous new health centers and clinics and trained personnel to staff them, expanded access to clean water and nutritious food and sharply cut the number of deaths from malaria.

"Ethiopia's health reform strategy has been guided by an extraordinary clarity of purpose, reflecting the priorities of the country rather than the priorities of donors," said Leslie Curry, a research scientist and lecturer at the School of Public Health and one of the paper's authors. "The real progress in areas that matter to the Ethiopian people reflects key strategic approaches, including authentic engagement of complementary partners and program implementation that can rapidly respond to front-line realities."

Ethiopia demonstrates that a country, even an economically disadvantaged one, can surmount internal and external obstacles and make measurable improvements in health within a relatively short time span, the authors said. The paper traces Ethiopia's improved health care system to the 2005 appointment of Health Minister Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and the country's ongoing partnership with the William J. Clinton Foundation.

Yale researchers also continue to work closely with health and government officials in Ethiopia to address the country's health challenges. Ethiopia, for instance, sends a delegation of health officials to Yale each spring for the Global Health Leadership Institute (GHLI) seminar. The program trains people in grand strategy-overcoming limited resources in order to accomplish far-reaching goals-and assists them in developing solutions to specific health care challenges.

The paper also notes that Ethiopia has successfully navigated a long-standing divide in the field of global health between vertical solutions (combating single diseases such as malaria and HIV/AIDS) versus a more horizontal approach-such as expanding infrastructure or training additional health workers. The authors detail how that the two approaches have fallen in and out of favor since the modern global health movement began in earnest in the post-World War II era.

"Effective grand strategists in global health will find ways to apply both vertical and horizontal approaches at once in varying ways, viewing these as means to the larger end of improving health and health care globally," said John Gaddis, the Robert A. Lovett Professor of History and a GHLI affiliate.

The paper is published in the current issue of Global Health Governance. Other authors include Elizabeth H. Bradley, professor at the Yale School of Public Health and director of both the GHLI and the Global Health Initiative at Yale, Michael Skonieczny, the GHLI's executive director, and Lauren Taylor, a GHLI research associate.

OIII architects: commercial bank of ethiopia proposal
I personally don't like the design





http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/9/ ... posal.html
This is much better

Yebanadowoch Merz:
Thank you so much; it is obvious Ethiopia is changing fast in all ways; and there is nothing that makes us all ecstatic than witnessing the development of our great nation.
The degenerated Shabia and their besmirched tools are crowding this forum and as much as they hate the betterment of Ethiopia, they are blazing with anger and jealousy to see the very opposite. While I admire EPRDF’s policy for putting Ethiopia at faster pace of development, it is important to fulfil the inevitable, to do what has been simmering within all of Ethiopians. Bastard shabias and their tainted concubines should now that this Ethiopian generation will not sleep with out accomplishing what it deserves by any means necessary.

Nice! It's nice to hear that Ethiopia is improving despite the event thats happening around in the present. Just saying...

ADDIS ABABA | Zemen Bank HQ 30-storey |
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Zemen’s HQ to stand tall in financial district .

Saturday, 10 December 2011 06:04


Zemen Bank announced that it is finalizing the process of receiving a plot to erect its HQ building at Sengatera area, a place which is becoming the city’s financial village. The building is planned to be the tallest in the area.

The HQ is going to be erected in front of Addis Ababa University School of Commerce, the Bank announced on Thursday at the official launching of the building’s design.

99 percent of the process of acquiring the 2,304-square meter plot of land is finalized, Ermias Eshetu, the bank’s Deputy Marketing President announced.

From the 18 companies that participated in the auction four months ago, Jedo Consulting and engineering company won the auction to work on the design of the building. Roha consulting and engineering was the runner up and Architect Dawit Getachew was in third place.

If the building is going to be constructed according to the 30-storey design the winning company provided, the building is expected to be the tallest of the structures which are found and are planned to be built in the area.

Officials of the bank disclosed that though the building will be erected according to the design, some improvements may be made.
The winner of the design was awarded 120,000 birr while the runner up and the entrant which came in third were awarded 80,000 birr and 60,000 birr, respectively.

If the winning company is going to perform the consulting works of the building it will be paid additional money, it was learnt. The company has also participated in the design works of the headquarters of the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia’s (CBE) and Nib International Bank’s (NIB).

Hilawe Tadesse, the bank’s acting president, said that the construction of the building will take from two to three years after the land is secured from the city government. Officials of the bank, however, declined to reveal that the total cost of the building saying it is difficult to estimate at this stage.

Another picture of the winning new Zemen bank design.

South Sudan cargo to transit through Ethiopia and use the port of Djibouti
D
jibouti believes in Ethiopia’s growth


Wednesday, 14 December 2011 00:19


Djibouti is planning to invest over USD 1.5 billion in the next three years on ports and maritime related business activities, keeping Ethiopia in mind.

The Djibouti Ports and Free Zones Authority chairman, Aboubaker Omer Hadi, disclosed the intent of his agency last Friday at a reception held with clients and business partners at the Sheraton Addis.

Aboubaker said the major investment is going to be on a new ship repair and dry dock infrastructure that is going to cost 400 million dollars, while the second phase of the Doraleh Container Terminal will be constructed with an outlay of 330 million dollars with a capacity of three million TEU’s.

“The current Doraleh Container Terminal traffic is expected to reach its full capacity of handling 1.2 million TEU’s by the end of 2012 and we need to increase our capacity by constructing another terminal to handle the increasing traffic,” Aboubaker added. Djibouti Port handles over 90 percent of Ethiopia’s rapidly growing import

The 150 million dollar construction of the second phase of the Oil Terminal is also expected to start in 2012 aiming to increase the current capacity by 30 percent.

According to the chairman, the port’s activity of non-containerized traffic in 2011 increased by 60 percent reaching 4.5 million metric tons. In relation to containerized cargo service, traffic doubled to reach 800 thousand TEU compared to last year’s same time activity.

The petroleum traffic to Ethiopia also surged to 2.3 million cubic meters on average in 2010 and 2011. “This is a development supported by additional capacity created following the inauguration of the first phase of Doraleh Container Terminal,” Aboubaker said.

In addition the Djiboutian authorities are also set to expand the Port of Djibouti’s outer jetty berths and increase its depths from 12 to 13.75 meters with a total investment of 88.5 million dollars. This will provide the port with a capacity to accommodate six million tons of cargo a year in its first phase and three million extra tons in its second phase.

The authority also aspires to develop Tadjourah port at a cost of 85 million dollars. The port located 15 Km from Tadjourah and expected to be completed by 2013 will be mainly for bulk commodities like potash, explained Aboubaker.

Construction of the Port of Goubet will also consume an investment of 55 million dollars and is expected to be operational in 2013. It is a port primarily intended for the export of salt and will have the capacity of handling 4.5 million tons of traffic per year.

The authority has also a plan to set up a livestock port inside the existing Djibouti port at a cost of 20 million dollars with a capacity to serve two million heads of livestock annually. It also plans to develop a Free Zone, the Jaban Us, in PK12 at a cost of 30 million dollars, and expects to launch its study in 2012.

The coming three years will now be dedicated to the development of the Ports and Free Zones with a total outlay of 1.5 billion dollars, announced Aboubaker Omar Hadi, the newly appointed head of Djibouti Ports and Free Zones Authority.

Aboubaker, a man in his fifties who previously worked at the Port of Lagos in Nigeria, succeeded Aden Ahmed Doualeh in July 2011. With a rich career in the field of transport and port affairs, particularly with many qualities such as leadership and flexibility, he is considered the right person to take the authority to a higher level. Aboubaker has had a thirty-year career in the port of Djibouti, where he made his debut in the early 80’s.

In his speech Aboubaker noted that his office is in discussion with the ministries of transport and customs authority of South Sudan, Ethiopia and Djibouti so as to finalize the transit agreement and pave the way for South Sudan cargo to transit through Ethiopia and use the port of Djibouti as its first port. He explained the road has been completed on the Ethiopian side and is well in progress in South Sudan. But, he said, for the short and medium term the options will be the waterways from Malakal to Juba and Wau using multimodal roads and barges.

The Djibouti Ports & Free Zones Authority is the governing authority that sets the rules, directives and overarching principles for the smooth and efficient running of the current and future ports; as well as free zones, in Djibouti.

As of July 1, 2011 the management contract between DP World and the Djibouti Ports & Free Zones Authority come to an end, and the general cargo has since been handled by the authority. In June 2000, the government of Djibouti and DPWorld signed a 20 year contract to manage the Port of Djibouti facilities which were later extended. During that period of cooperation, the plan to construct a new port emerged in November 2006, and the cooperation evolved into a venture on Doraleh Port also to be managed by DPWorld. The Doraleh Port includes a container and an oil terminal which was a 450 million dollar venture where the government of Djibouti gets two third and DPWorld one third of the revenue from the port.


http://capitalethiopia.com/index.php...ital&Itemid=27

Kenya agrees with Ethiopia on price of importing electricity

Quote:
Kenya has agreed to start importing electricity from Ethiopia at $0.07 (Sh5.80) per kilowatt hour, in what the Ministry of Energy terms as a competitive rate.

The deal to import 400MW was reached on Monday between Kenya’s Ministry of Energy and Ethiopia’s Ministry of Water and Energy but failed to agree on pricing.

According to estimates from the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), new hydro-power projects price power between $0.093 (Sh7.70) and $0.111 (Sh9.20) per kilowatt hour. One kilowatt hour is equivalent to a single unit of power consumption - what is used to bill customers.

“The proposed power import is based on a feasibility study jointly undertaken by Kenya and Ethiopia,” said energy Permanent Secretary Patrick Nyoike in a statement.

Consumer prices

Construction of the interconnector is expected to start in early 2013 and end by 2016 at a cost of $1.2 billion and is funded by World Bank, French Development Agency and African Development Bank.

The power agreement is part of the government’s effort to increase the country’s installed electricity capacity to 3,868 MW by 2016 up from the current 1,394 MW.

The plan is also expected to address the chronic power shortages that constantly push the country to adopt more expensive thermal power thus fuelling high consumer prices.

The power purchasing agreement with Ethiopia is the second Kenya has had after a similar arrangement with Uganda more than a decade ago where the country imported about 30MW from Uganda.

But unlike Uganda which only serves Western Kenya, the Ethiopia supply will be fed into the national grid making it available country wide.
Hydro-power accounts for more than half of power generation in Kenya followed by thermal and geothermal sources.

http://www.nation.co.ke/business/new...44/-/hflu8q/-/