The Internet shutdown muzzle(s) freedom of expression in Ethiopia: competing narratives

Freedom of expression is a foundational stone for democracy and embraces a number of other rights, including – freedom to seek, receive, and impart information using any medium. Around 16 million Ethiopians, comprising 15.4% of the total population, use the Internet. The Ethiopian Internet shutdown saga has been marked by competing narratives. On one hand, the government has been using two governing narratives, i.e. national security narrative and ‘economic growth’ narrative to justify shutdowns of the Internet. But, the individuals’ self-expressions on social media find itself as competing narrative. Since 2016, the Internet has been closed more than six times under the cloak of national security, quelling rising protests, controlling strikes, and exam cheating. As such, freedom of expression of millions has been muzzled. The article argues blanket Internet shutdowns do not meet the caveats of human rights law.     

Enforceability of electronic contracts in light of the Ethiopian General Contract Law: appraising the issues

Modern information communication technologies, especially the Internet, have been extensively used in contracts. Yet laws which govern contractual relationships were passed at a time when Internet was unknown. Due to this fact, conventional contract laws empirically face significant challenges to address legal controversies arising from electronic contracts. In the same fashion, Ethiopian General Contract Law is unfit to accommodate legal controversies resulting from the occurrence of electronic contracts. The main legal challenges due to the development of electronic contracts are uncertainty regarding legal recognition of data messages, issues associated with consummation of consent, attribution of communications, input errors, time of contract formation, formality requirements, variation, notice of nonperformance, privity of contract, admissibility and parole evidence rule of electronic records. The above-underlined issues, which stem from the emergence of electronic contracts, are hardly addressed by our civil code. Therefore, this work is mainly meant to make a humble attempt to examine the appropriateness of the Ethiopian General Contract Law to accommodate technologically driven electronic contracts.     

The River Nile and Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam: challenges to Egypt’s security approach

There are increasing challenges to Egypt’s security approach to the River Nile. The river is under immense pressure. This paper examines the significance of the Nile for Egypt and the factors and problems of diminishing its waters. It reviews Egypt’s long-time policy on the Nile and concludes that this policy is difficult to maintain in the face of the present and future challenges. It recommends a non-security multilateral solution for the benefit of all parties.     

埃塞俄比亚矿产资源分布及找矿方向初探

埃塞俄比亚具有良好的金属矿产、非金属矿产和能源矿产的成矿潜力。文章在总结埃塞俄比亚区域地质背景、构造演化特征以及区域矿产分布特征基础上,探讨了埃塞俄比亚成矿远景区金属矿产和油气资源的地质矿产特征,并据此划分了各成矿远景区有利的找矿方向。希望借此为国内矿业企事业单位赴埃塞俄比亚开展地质勘查或矿业开发等提供有益的借鉴。     

Investigation of pedestrian crashes on two-way two-lane rural roads in Ethiopia

Understanding pedestrian crash causes and contributing factors in developing countries is critically important as they account for about 55% of all traffic crashes. Not surprisingly, considerable attention in the literature has been paid to road traffic crash prediction models and methodologies in developing countries of late. Despite this interest, there are significant challenges confronting safety managers in developing countries. For example, in spite of the prominence of pedestrian crashes occurring on two-way two-lane rural roads, it has proven difficult to develop pedestrian crash prediction models due to a lack of both traffic and pedestrian exposure data. This general lack of available data has further hampered identification of pedestrian crash causes and subsequent estimation of pedestrian safety performance functions. The challenges are similar across developing nations, where little is known about the relationship between pedestrian crashes, traffic flow, and road environment variables on rural two-way roads, and where unique predictor variables may be needed to capture the unique crash risk circumstances. This paper describes pedestrian crash safety performance functions for two-way two-lane rural roads in Ethiopia as a function of traffic flow, pedestrian flows, and road geometry characteristics. In particular, random parameter negative binomial model was used to investigate pedestrian crashes. The models and their interpretations make important contributions to road crash analysis and prevention in developing countries. They also assist in the identification of the contributing factors to pedestrian crashes, with the intent to identify potential design and operational improvements.     

The impact of weather fluctuations and climate shocks on farmers’ welfare: insights from rural Ethiopia

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the welfare effect of inter- and intra-seasonal weather shocks using a nationally representative dataset. Results show that both rainfall and maximum temperature variability appear to exert a negative impact on the considered outcomes. Higher between-years average of rainfall implies an increase in income. This impact is nonlinear when the shock is computed over shorter reference periods and is higher in the upper tail of the income distribution. Moreover, small levels of rainfall variability have a positive effect on income, but only up to a certain threshold, after which the effect becomes negative. There is a nonlinear relationship between welfare outcomes and the first two moments of the maximum temperature distribution. Agricultural extension services, access to rural credit and use of sustainable land management practices (SLM) are crucial to mitigating the negative welfare effects.     

Factors affecting households' decisions in biogas technology adoption,the case of Ofla and Mecha Districts,northern Ethiopia

This study examined the factors that influence households' decisions on adoption of biogas technology in northern Ethiopia. It involved 179 biogas-user and 179 non-user sample households. They were selected using proportionate simple random and purposive sampling techniques, respectively. Data were collected mainly using semi-structured questionnaires. Data analyses employed logistic regression model. The results of the study showed that male-headed households are more likely to adopt the technology than female-headed ones. Educational level, heads of cattle, income level, access to credit, distance to the main fuelwood source, and number of planted trees have significant (p < 0.01) positive influences on adoption of biogas technology. Significant (p < 0.01) spatial variations are also obtained between the two study sites. Furthermore, the interaction effects of a few pairs of explanatory variables were found significant (p < 0.1). Empowering females and female-headed households, improving educational levels of the household heads, increasing cattle size, raising income levels, improving access to credit, and encouraging households to plant more trees are likely to be some of the way forward to increase the adoption of the technology. Considering the spatial variations, ensuring the creation of satisfied biogas-users, upgrading the existing biogas model through addition of ‘injera’ stove can also enhance adoption of biogas technology.     

Techno-economic analysis of photovoltaic pumping system for rural water supply in Ethiopia

The diesel-driven water pumping systems have a great impact on rural water supply in Ethiopia in past decades due to the lack of access to grid electricity and associated capital intensive nature of grid expansion to rural areas. However, the requirement of diesel generator for frequent maintenance and soaring fuel cost encourages the government and concerned bodies such as NGO to go for most reliable and cost-effective alternatives. In this paper, direct coupled photovoltaic (PV) pumping system has been designed for hypothetical rural village in southern region near Arba Minch (latitude 6.02^″N, Longitude 37.54^″E) to show techno-economic feasibility of the technology. The result shows that direct coupled PV pumping system is cost-effective in terms of life cycle cost and technologically feasible for rural water supply by virtue of its very low running cost and high reliability of the component and the system as a whole.     

The impact of climate change on the distribution of rural income in Ethiopia

Recent evidence suggests that global climate change is likely to increase the incidence of environmental disasters, as well as the frequency of extreme weather events. As a result, it is generally recognized that climate and weather variability has negative impacts on households’ welfare relying mainly on agriculture. In Ethiopia, 95% of the population depends on rain-fed agriculture and consequently the economic impact of climate change is crucial for small-scale farmers’ food security and welfare. The objective of this study is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the impact of climate change on rural households’ welfare in Ethiopia by using a Quantile Regression (QR) analysis. The main econometric results show that the elasticity of crop income with respect to rainfall varies across quantiles. It is confirmed that there is a non-linear relationship between climatic variables and income.     

Leather processing in Ethiopia and Kenya: lessons from India

This article discusses the successful value-added chain within India's leather industry, and then draws contrasts with the evolution of the leather products industries of Kenya and Ethiopia. Much of India's success derives from the ability of its stakeholders—from government to industry—to set their own policies and priorities regarding the development of the leather industry. The fact that India selectively liberalized the entry of a variety of industries into the global economy added to the improved performance of its leather products sub-sector. By contrast, both Ethiopia and Kenya followed different policies regarding liberalization, with differing results. Although the leather industry is important for both countries, moving up the value-added chain remains tenuous at best for Kenya and only slightly better for Ethiopia. This article recommends that both countries need to formulate and implement policies that will move the leather industry from raw and semi-processed production outward to the leather products and leather goods sub-sectors.