Salaam salaam from BA! This is the Rorshok Ethiopia Update from the 18th of September twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Ethiopia.

On Wednesday the 10th, on the eve of the Ethiopian New Year, the head of the Dialogue Commission, an entity that a bill established temporarily to facilitate discussions on controversial national issues, said it should instead be restructured as a permanent office. The commissioner said this when he presented the commission’s annual report for the previous fiscal year.

He said that the commission deals with long-term issues, so it shouldn’t be dissolved because the country still needs it to address them.

The commission has so far managed to hear the thoughts of Ethiopians from all over the country and beyond, except for the Tigray region in the north, where the political circumstances haven’t allowed the commission to implement its plans.

Speaking of Tigray, Simret, a new party that former heads of the region’s interim administration assembled, said it is finding it hard to proceed with its formation because the current heads of the interim administration are putting pressure on the party.

The party’s PR official said the interim administration is falsely associating Simret with armed groups. The National Election Board of Ethiopia, which has to oversee political parties, cannot legally issue licenses to parties engaged in violence. So Simret is saying that the administration wants to make the party appear as if it is a violent entity so that it won’t receive a license.

The PR official said that the administration is also trying to detain individuals who publicly support or want to become members of the party.

Recently, the government has detained several journalists, and some say that the executive is also denying people’s rights. Well, this week, forty-two countries, most of them from Europe, said they’re worried about the country's restrictions on assembly and freedom of expression rights in a joint statement they submitted to the UN.

They added that both the government and non-state actors are responsible for human rights violations. They said they’re also not happy with the transitional justice process, which they say has stagnated.

Speaking of foreign relations, Dina Mufti, an ambassador and member of the House of Peoples’ Representatives standing committee on foreign relations, said this week that Ethiopia would benefit significantly if it became a member of the Arab League.

He explained that several of the league’s members are Ethiopia’s neighbors and that due to the country’s both social and geographic proximity to member countries, it should join the league. He added that becoming a member could also benefit Ethiopia’s bid to gain access to the Red Sea. He also said that although no notable steps have been taken yet to become a member, it would be important to strengthen relations with some influential members of the league.

Next up, the Second African Climate Summit was held early last week in Addis and on the sidelines, several foreign partner organizations and countries introduced a project they would jointly fund to help small-holding farmers increase their revenues.

The EU, the Danish, French and other European governments are funding this project, worth about ten billion birr, which is over sixty million US dollars. The program will mainly work by helping farmers to commercialize agriculture.

This is the second round of the program, with the first edition reportedly benefiting over four million farmers. This time around, they hope to increase this number to six and a half million.

Different government offices, including the Ethiopian Agricultural Institute, are expected to take part in implementing the plan.

In business news, a Kenyan bank, Equity, has joined its competitor, the Kenya Commercial Bank, with a bid to join Ethiopia’s banking sector, which has been closed to foreign investors for decades until late last year.

The CEO of Equity, which is based in Kenya but also operates in other African countries, sat down with the head of the Ethiopian Investment Commission. The commission’s head said the bank has the commission’s full support as it eyes an expansion into what many say is a large market.

The bank, along with other interested foreign investors, can enter the Ethiopian banking sector through several ways - it can either incorporate a subsidiary, buy shares in local banks, or open a branch or a representative office.

More business news as the Oromia region’s sovereign wealth fund signed a development deal late last week with Midroc, one of the largest private organizations in the country, owned by Sheikh Mohammed Al-Amoudi, the wealthiest Ethiopian citizen. The region’s president attended the signing ceremony.

The deal involves development in several sectors, including agriculture and mining. The president said efforts to reform the region’s sovereign wealth fund have increased the private sector’s interest in working with the regional government.

That wasn’t the only headline Midroc made. Earlier this week, the company organized what it called Family Day to thank its workers, look back at its progress during the past five years, and unveil plans for the future. Sheikh Mohammed Al-amoudi spoke virtually at the event, saying that the company has plans for mega projects, though he didn’t give more details.

He said he also plans on coming to Ethiopia soon. He hasn’t been in the country for several years now because the Saudi government charged him with corruption, along with other wealthy individuals, as part of a corruption crackdown in twenty seventeen.

It’s back-to-school season in Ethiopia, and Sandford, a private school in Addis Ababa, has caused quite a stir as it notified parents recently that it won’t admit their children unless they pay the school in US dollars or an equivalent amount in birr, which parents think is a masked price increase.

Parents reported the school’s decision to the Education and Training Authority, which warned the school not to go forward with this decision and not to make unnecessary tuition fee increases. On top of this, parents have also sued the school. The court said it would take up the matter and look into it in detail, but in the meantime, it issued an injunction, meaning the school’s decision won’t be implemented until the injunction is lifted.

More on education as the Ministry of Education, on Sunday the 14th, held a press conference where its head, Berhanu Nega, broke down the results of the annual national university entrance exam. The ministry put up the results online the next day..

Compared to last year, tens of thousands fewer students sat for the exam. However, both the percentage and the number of students who have passed have gone up, with 8.5 percent of the almost six hundred thousand who took the exam scoring fifty percent or more.

Recall that passing percentages got as low as three percent when the ministry began cracking down on cheating a few years ago.

The ministry was in the news again as its officials said they are preparing a directive that will hold parents and guardians criminally responsible if they don’t send their children to school. An official told the media that education is a fundamental right for children and that currently, not all parents are sending their children to school.

According to the directive, which is yet to enter into force, parents will first receive warnings, then fines and obligatory community service before being brought to court for violating a child’s rights.

However, the directive will not apply to parents in areas where there’s an epidemic, a natural or man-made disaster, or conflicts.

From draft directives to drafts that have entered force now, as the Ministry of Finance issued a directive increasing tariffs on imports of various products. Among the products are printing machines, arm rests, head rests, air compressors, and vinyl envelopes. The ministry said it sent this directive to the customs commission and its branches several weeks ago.

Along with the directive, the ministry sent a letter to the commission explaining that the directive was issued to help substitute imports and support local manufacturers.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

Don’t forget that we do many other updates. We’ve got country and non-country updates, including the Arctic, Ocean, and Multilateral shows.

Check the full list with the link in the show notes.

Ciao!