Ethiopian Business ReviewVideo gaming is no longer just a pastime for the young. The size of the global video game market has increased as younger generations have grown up with video games as a staple of daily life. According to some projections, the United States topped the list of the largest gaming marketplaces globally in 2022, with revenue of 54.9 billion dollars. China’s video game market came in second place, with yearly sales of over 44 billion dollars.
The video game industry has advanced significantly as a result of the availability of photorealistic graphics, reality simulation, and internet connections with millions of other players in today’s games and gaming platforms. Video game playing is no longer only a kid’s pastime evolving into a way of life for people of all ages. In this article, EBR’s Eden Teshome tells a story on how gaming is growing both as a business and leisure both in Ethiopia and Africa, at large.
Since the founding of the first bank in the early 20th century, the banking sector had witnessed the heavy-handed interventions of the government. Since NBE started functioning as a central bank as stipulated in Proclamation No. 206 in 1964 this role of the government has continued.
Despite the lack of independence, the central bank has had relative competence in the way its governors execute their duties. There have also been proclamations that limit the government’s excessive interventions and borrowing. These restrictions enabled the bank to control inflation and other economic anomalies. However, the restrictions were lifted in 2008. Since then, inflation has become a major nuisance in the economy, among others.
According to reports, grains, of which wheat is a significant component, are the most imported agricultural product in Africa. Meanwhile, due to excellent agro-climatic conditions, nations in East Africa including Ethiopia, Kenya, and Zambia have the potential to produce wheat locally.
The majority of African nations imported their wheat from Russia and Ukraine. For instance, the majority of the wheat imported by Egypt, the top buyer of wheat in both Africa and the globe, comes from Russia (60 Pct) and Ukraine (22 Pct).
Since the start of the war between the Government of Ethiopia (GoE) and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in November 2020, the relationship between the USA and Ethiopia has strained. Ever since, Washington has been throwing every punch at its disposal at Abiy Ahmed’s administration.
Following the tensions, public figures and government officials have repeatedly downplayed the importance of maintaining good ties with Washington. Public protests demeaning the US and its actions quickly became common, organized by city and state administrations. It was an exercise in futility considering the irreplaceable role the US plays as Ethiopia’s single largest humanitarian donor and development partner.
Ever since protests began in the State of Oromia back in 2013, Ethiopia has hardly been able to breathe the air of peace. Then, the protests intensified following discontent among the youth claiming the expansion of Addis Ababa into the State of Oromia was detrimental and unfair to farmers in the area. Later, the protests expanded as the youth in the State of Amhara joined the demonstrations.
The ten states with food crises in 2021 were the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Yemen, northern Nigeria, the Syrian Arab Republic, the Sudan, South Sudan, Pakistan, and Haiti. Nearly 70 Pct of the world’s population is thought to be in crisis or worse or an equivalent situation. Acute food insecurity was the main cause of conflict or insecurity in seven of these countries.
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, December, 2022 – Ethiopia Real Estate and Home Expo, an annual gathering of the leading local and international Home developers showcasing the latest offers and solutions, is again back with the latest edition. Set to be held on the 17th and 18th of December 2022, the fifth Ethiopia Real Estate and Home expo comes at a time when the demand for residential houses in urban Ethiopia, especially in Addis Ababa, has dramatically risen over the past years.
If there has been anything interesting about the aspect of governance in Ethiopia these last couple of years, it would be the standoff between the Minister of Education and college entrance exam takers. Young TikTokers have been making humorous videos calling out Birhanu Nega (PhD), the Minister of Education, for the serious changes the Ministry was making around the way the entrance exams were to be administered.
The changes were necessary on the part of the Ministry as national exams have been stolen and distributed to students well before they were administered- a practice that has been typical for about ten years now. The bad habit started in 2014 when Jawar Mohammed, the then-exiled political activist, claimed to have had the exams stolen as the then incumbent, the Ethiopian People’s Liberation Front (EPRDF), failed to listen to the movement he was said to have been leading.
Africa is home to some of the world’s largest dams for the purpose of generating electricity from the power of water. While the world transitions to cleaner forms of power, dams have been a reliable source of electric energy for centuries or millennia—generating substantial amounts of electricity. Home to the Nile, Congo, and Niger Rivers, the abundance of water systems in Africa has resulted in a resurgence in the construction of massive dams to manage the supply of water distribution and generate hydroelectricity throughout the continent.
