Salaam salaam from BA! This is the Rorshok Ethiopia Update from the 4th of September twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Ethiopia.

Ethiopia is preparing to inaugurate the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, the largest dam in Africa, on Tuesday the 9th. However, Egypt was never on board with its construction, fearing the reduction of water that it gets from the Nile River, on which the dam is built.

In a press conference last Thursday the 28th of August, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Egyptian authorities are trying to affect the inauguration and use of the dam by various methods, including casting a negative light about them on the global stage so that the international community would condemn the project and view Ethiopia negatively, but that they won’t succeed.

The dam’s construction, which took over five billion US dollars and over a decade, is now complete.

Meanwhile, Mamo Mihretu, the governor of the National Bank for the past two years, announced his unexpected resignation on Wednesday the 3rd. He recalled in a post on Twitter that he had served in government for the past seven years. He also especially thanked Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed for giving him the chance to lead the central bank.

He added that it was time for him to leave government and pursue other professional opportunities. It was during his time as governor that the country decided to let market forces determine the exchange of the currency. His resignation came as a surprise to many as he was at the forefront of efforts to reform the country’s financial system.

Since we mentioned Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed… He talked to Rafael Mariano Grossi, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, over the phone on Wednesday the 3rd. During the phone call, the director general said his agency is going to donate a Linear Accelerator machine, an equipment used to treat cancer, to the Black Lion Hospital, a public health care center.

The donation is part of the Agency’s Rays of Hope Initiative, a support program to expand access to cancer treatment in low-income countries. Aside from the donation, they also followed up on the Rays of Hope Forum, which was held in Addis two months ago.

Speaking of conventions in Addis, the second Africa Climate Summit is going to be held in the capital from Monday the 8th to Wednesday the 10th. The city has been preparing for months to organize this event, which will have more than twenty-five thousand attendees from all over the world, but mainly from Africa.

The heads of state of forty-five African countries, along with Antonio Guterres, the Secretary-General of the UN, are expected to be among the most prominent guests. This summit is especially important, as African countries are expected to hold a united position regarding climate change, which could strengthen the continent’s influence in the global climate conversation.

At an education convention that the Addis Ababa Education Bureau organized on Monday the 1st and Tuesday the 2nd, teachers and school owners urged the city administration to deliver on its promises to provide subsidized housing to teachers.

Teachers asked for more benefits, with the city’s teachers’ association president asking officials to consider completely waiving tuition fees for teachers’ children. Private schools also want benefits already available to public school teachers, like free transportation.

Speaking at the event, the education bureau head said his office believes the requests are reasonable, but that the government hasn’t managed to deliver because money is tight and there are administrative issues that need to be resolved before they can proceed.

The city administration held another convention last Thursday the 28th, this time on urban agriculture and manufacturing. The city’s plan and development bureau presented a study prepared by the Addis Ababa Science and Technology University. According to the study, producers engaging in urban agriculture are using polluted water, which exposes them to water-borne diseases.

The study also pointed out that land supply shortages are holding back urban agriculture in the city from thriving. Participants added that urban agriculture is responsible for only one percent of Addis Ababa’s gross city product, saying that this is significantly lower than the sector’s potential.

More on fresh water accessibility, as UNICEF and the World Health Organization said in a report that thirty-seven million Ethiopians don’t have access to water for basic needs. The report also mentioned that there’s a wide gap in accessibility between rural and urban areas.

The report also said that just thirteen percent of Ethiopians can readily access freshwater from their homes, with forty-three percent having to travel to distances within thirty minutes to get it. The statistics indicate that Ethiopia sits below the global average in terms of clean water availability.

Up north in Mekelle, the capital of the Tigray region, the city’s administration has decided to ban the use of Bajajs, a three-wheeled vehicle transportation service, in the city’s downtown area.

Owners are worried about the consequences of the ban, and took to the streets last week to demonstrate and urge the municipality to reverse its decision. It appears authorities are standing their ground, saying the city has grown out of these Bajajs and will attempt to replace their services with mass transport systems.

In business news, a director from the National Bank revealed on Thursday the 28th that the total processed amount through digital channels reached eighteen trillion birr, which is around a hundred and twenty billion US dollars, in the past fiscal year alone — three times the country’s GDP.

The director said this at the launch of the digital payment app Fenan, which a fintech company developed. He also said people are carrying less and less cash as digital payment is becoming more common and preferred. The new app Fenan, on the other hand, was in its trial phase for the past six months and has processed one and a half million payments since then.

More on business, as the Haile Hotels and Resorts Group, owned by the Olympic gold-medalist, long-distance runner-turned-investor Haile Gebre-Selassie, reopened its Shashemene Hotel in the south-central part of the country. The hotel, originally launched many years ago, had to be renovated as it was severely damaged during protests in the area.

The group’s manager said the rebuild cost six hundred million birr, which is around four million US dollars, and took two years to complete. He added that the group decided to double the number of bedrooms and increase the number of halls and restaurants. Still, Haile added that he has not received compensation for the loss he suffered.

Speaking of hotels, owners in northern Ethiopia in Gondar in the Amhara region told the media that business is suffering due to safety concerns. Gondar is one of the country’s well-known tourist destinations due to its unique castles and because it used to be an important political center in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries.

They said that some hotels have been forced to close because there’s little tourist traffic, both local and foreign, and those that remain are struggling to keep their doors open.

Let’s end this episode with some sports news. Ethiopia's national football team is gearing up to take on Egypt in the twenty twenty-six FIFA World Cup Qualifiers. The game will be played this Friday the 5th.

During a press conference on Tuesday the 2nd an official of the Ethiopian Football Federation said the team has given special attention to this match. He said it won’t be just another qualifying game as it is going to be played at around the same time the country is inaugurating the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which its opponents won’t be happy about. He added that the team has worked harder than normal in its preparation, given the special meaning the game would have to the people if Ethiopia won.

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

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Ciao!