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Ethiopia Diaspora Trust Fund Advisory Council formed

The office of the prime minister of Ethiopia announced today the formation of Ethiopian Diaspora Trust Fund Advisory Council.

Diaspora Trust Fund Advisory Council members

The Ethiopian Diaspora Trust Fund is among the initiatives of the government to directly involve Ethiopians in the Diaspora in the development of the country.

The government of Ethiopia is prepared to work with and engage all Ethiopian Diaspora communities worldwide in the socio-economic and political development of the country.

In his speech to the parliament, Prime Minister Abiy called on the Diaspora to contribute one dollar a day to fund social and developmental projects. In Response to his call, a diverse group of well-known Ethiopian scholars, business executives and other professionals have volunteered to mobilise the Diaspora.

The Council is expected to come up with a plan, which includes mechanisms to ensure accountability and transparency, project section criteria for funding and identification of practical means to attract broad support among the Diaspora.

The Council is also expected to seek input from the Diaspora communities to ensure that their voices are heard in the establishment and administration of the fund.

Diverse in all its forms, the volunteer-based council draws its fifteen members from academicians, business leaders, and human rights activists, among others. California State University Professor Alemayehu Gebremariam, Tamagne Beyene, a former comedian- currently an activist, and Obang Metho, Executive Director of Solidarity Movement for New Ethiopia are among the names included in the advisory council. (Check out the full list from the attached picture below)

The statement issued by the office of the prime minister stated that Abiy Ahmed’s challenge to Ethiopian Diaspora “has been accepted enthusiastically throughout the Ethiopian Diaspora.”

Apart from funding development efforts, the prime minister goal in initiating the program is to engage Ethiopians in the Diaspora in the socio-economic and political development of Ethiopia, according to the statement.

 

Nation Earns 2.8 Billion USD Export Revenue

Ethiopia has earned 2.83 billion USD from export, slightly higher than half of the planned 5.23 billion USD, during the concluded Ethiopian budget year, according to Ministry of Trade.

Agriculture, manufacture and mining sectors were the top sectors in achieving better performances of 64.9 per cent, 45.9 and 15.2 per cent of the plan respectively, the press release added.

Compared to the same period of last year, the revenue earned in the budget year witnessed a lower performance by 71.4 million USD.

The unabated proliferation of contraband, low quality of products and supply, unrests in some parts of the country, lack of improved revenue collection schemes and market linkage, as well as a low performance of investment projects, were among the reasons for registering low national export performance, it was learned.

Ethiopian and OLF sign reconciliation agreement

Ethiopia and the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) have signed a reconciliation agreement in the Eritrean capital Asmara today.

The deal reached between Chief Administrator of the Oromia regional state, Lemma Megersa and OLF Chairperson, Dawd Ibsa, provides for termination of hostilities.

The agreement further states that the OLF will conduct its political activities in Ethiopia through peaceful means.

The two sides also agreed to establish a Joint Committee to implement the agreement.

Meanwhile, the Ethiopian delegation led by Foreign Minister Dr Workneh Gebeyehu and Lemma Mergesa also met President Isaias Afwerki of Eritrea yesterday.

During the meeting, they exchanged views on the implementation of the recently signed peace agreement between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Ethiopia launches national youth volunteer service program

The Ethiopian government is launching what is poised to become Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s flagship program of “trans-boundary volunteers.”

With this program, youth volunteers are to serve outside of their respective ethnic-based Federal states, seemingly which is why it is named “trans-boundary”, in the country.

1000 graduating students drawn from different parts of Ethiopia are taking part in the program which started on 8 August. And the volunteers are to get credit for their participation when they are looking for employment after graduation.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed met with the volunteers today before they are deployed to where they are assigned.

“When you serve the community as volunteers, you also need to learn and acquire knowledge as well,” the prime minister told the volunteers. He meant to emphasise that there is knowledge in the community outside of university and other institutions of higher learning.

Apart from providing new graduates with relevant work experience, the motive of the program is to foster what the government describes as “people to people relation” and national feeling.

Ethiopia has a history of mobilising youth for volunteer work in the community. Soon after the Ethiopian Revolution in 1974, Colonel Mengistu Hailemariam’s government embarked on a nationwide illiteracy eradication program by deploying hundreds of thousands of youth in the countryside in different parts of the country to provide basic education. The plan was successful so much so that illiteracy was significantly reduced in the country.

 

Ethiopian Airlines rolls out stopover packages to promote tourism into Ethiopia

Ethiopian Airlines and SKYTRAX certified Four Star Global Airline, announced that starting from August 1, 2018, it has rolled out stopover packages without any additional airfare that cater for all leisure needs to promoting tourism into Ethiopia.

Passengers travelling through Addis Ababa and continuing their journey to one of the destinations on Ethiopian network can now take advantage of stopover offerings from Ethiopian Holidays, the tour operator wing of Ethiopian Airlines, enabling them to discover and experience the many historical, cultural, religious and natural treasures of Ethiopia, Land of Origins. An online e-visa service for processing stopover visa is available for all international visitors to Ethiopia at evisa.gov.et.

The packages range from sightseeing in Addis Ababa, the diplomatic capital of Africa, to visits to the pre-Christian era obelisks of Axum, the stunning medieval rock-hewn churches of Lalibela, the amazing 9th century mosques of Harar, the majestic castles of Gondar, the stunning source of the Blue Nile, the jaw-dropping Simien Mountains, the splendor of the lakeside resorts of Hawassa and Arba Minch, or the unique coffee farms of Kaffa, birthplace of coffee, and much… much more.

Group CEO of Ethiopian Airlines, Tewolde Gebremariam, said: “Ethiopian is working with all stakeholders in the tourism chain to make Ethiopia a tourism destination of choice. With its many riches, the world has yet to truly discover Ethiopia and tourism has the potential to become the main foreign currency generator for the country and a mass job creator for the youth. With the stopover packages, we aim to attract a significant portion of our transit customers in Addis as tourists and to enhance the flow of tourism into the country considerably.”

The stopover packages are easily accessible on the airline’s website, ethiopianairlines.com, and will pop-up as an option when passengers book flights transiting thru Addis Ababa, or can directly be accessed at Ethiopian Holidays website.

Source: Travel Daily News

Ethiopia raised life expectancy to beat some regions in Western countries

Africa is still the world’s poorest continent; many of its countries remain rooted at the bottom of global tables measuring access to health care, clean water and free education.

Yet since the turn of the millennium, almost unnoticed elsewhere, the continent has made huge strides in improving life expectancy — so much so that men in 11 sub-Saharan African states live as long or longer than their male counterparts in poorer parts of Stockton-on-Tees or South Dakota.

Across the world, life expectancy at birth has increased in recent decades, climbing from 66 in 1992 to 72 in 2016, when the World Bank last released global demographic data.

But Africa has outperformed the rest of the world, with overall life expectancy increasing from 50 to 60.

That Africans are living longer is due in large part to successes in beating back AIDS.

In the 1990s, anti-retroviral medication that brings HIV under control was scarce, too expensive for all but the richest.

Things could not be more different now. Thanks in large part to an emergency AIDS intervention largely led by George W Bush when he was US president, most Africans with HIV are receiving treatment.

Across southern and eastern Africa, the epicentre of the AIDS epidemic, 13 million of the 20 million people living with HIV are receiving treatment. South Africa has the largest anti-retroviral programme in the world.

“The increase (in life expectancy) in the eastern and southern African region — and probably across sub-Saharan Africa — can almost certainly be attributed in a large part to the expansion of HIV treatment,” says a Western aid worker based in South Africa.

As a result, a young person with HIV who starts an anti-retroviral course can now expect a near-normal life expectancy.

Although sometimes derided, the Millennium Development Goals adopted by the United Nations in 2000 have had a significant impact in boosting life expectancy in Africa.

International funding and aid efforts have seen death rates from malaria fall by 66 percent since 2000, saving millions of lives.

Crucially, there has also been a significant decline in child and infant mortality. Since 1992, the number of children who do do not live to see their fifth birthday in sub-Saharan Africa has halved to 53 per 1,000 births, according to UN figures.

Vaccination campaigns, wider availability of antibiotics, impregnated mosquito nets and better sanitation and nutrition have helped millions of children survive who might once have died.

Two other factors have also had a big impact on life expectancy: greater stability in parts of the region and increased prosperity.

The three countries that showed the biggest leap in life expectancy since 1992 — Rwanda, Angola and Sierra Leone — have all recovered from horrific civil wars. Rwandans had a life expectancy of just 28 in the mid-1990s, but can now expect to live 39 years longer.

Ethiopia, devastated by famine in the Eighties, has shown a dramatic increase as well, with life expectancy climbing to 66 from 49 in 1992. Ethiopia, like Rwanda, is among the African countries with a higher male life-expectancy than parts of California.

Just as significantly, Africa is no longer as poor as it once was. Although some targets set by the Millennium Development Goals were not reached by their 2015 deadline, a key one was: the number of people living in extreme poverty on the continent has halved since 2000.

At the same time, a commodity-driven boom in the first decade of the century saw African economies grow by six per cent, up from just two per cent in the Nineties. Economic theory suggests that when economies grow, life expectancy increases.

From 2010 to 2015, Ethiopia recorded the highest economic growth on the continent and, like Rwanda, won praise for its development policies. Rwanda, though still poor, has a national health scheme that covers 90 per cent of its population.

Despite these improvements, huge challenges remain.

Nowhere in the sub-Saharan region has yet managed to match the developed world in life expectancy. Only in two countries, Cape Verde and Mauritius — both relatively prosperous islands — can babies born today expect to live beyond 70.

By contrast, life expectancy in the European Union stands at 81 — the same as in the United Kingdom — a five-year increase from 1992.

Source: The Telegraph

Courtesy visit of an Ethiopian delegation to the Eritrean Embassy

On Wednesday 1 August, a delegation of the Embassy of Ethiopia paid a courtesy visit to the Eritrean Embassy in Brussels for the first time since 1998.

Both sides were thrilled to discuss the next steps to be taken in the reconciliation process between the two countries. Mr Taye Kenenissa, Area Manager Benelux at Ethiopian airlines, also took part in the meeting and offered a plane model of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, the national carrier’s newest aircraft, to Chargé d’affaires Michael Tesfai Hagos as a symbol of the increased number of flights linking Eritrea to the world to come.

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Ginbot 7 to Return to Ethiopia Whithin a Month

Patriotic Ginbot 7 announced on 31 July that it will return to Ethiopia in a month’s time.

In a press conference, its leaders said that the decision to return home followed a discussion held with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in Washington DC on July 27, 2018.

“The discussion was fruitful,” the leaders said.

“Patriotic Ginbot 7 is convinced that the current situation in Ethiopia is favorable to engage in a peaceful struggle,” they said.

The leaders also vowed to provide the necessary support for the reforms underway in the country.

The Patriotic Ginbot7 announced last month that it had unilaterally suspended all activities using arms.

“As of today June 22, 2018, Patriotic Ginbot 7 has suspended all self-defence operations using firearms in all regions of Ethiopia,” it said in a press release.