Economic opportunities accessible to women are primarily tied to financing, and lack of working space to a lesser extent. Studies show that women, though with less access to loans, are better loan performers in terms of repayment and society trickle-down effects. Those that do access microloans are stuck in their success as there are no avenues to transition into larger bank loans due to collateral and guarantor requirements and commercial banks have a loan appraisal systems largely incompatible with the needs of small business owners. EBR’s Mariamawit Gezahegn assesses the current financial environment as well as suggestions that are critical to gender equality and empowering women.

Persisting efforts to reposition Ethiopian coffee in the international market have begun to bear fruit, as the price of the nation’s specialty coffee has grown by 35Pct from last year, notwithstanding coffees fetching way above that during the recent Cup of Excellence competition. Yet, international markets are still not working to the interest of coffee growers but rather for processors, who use Ethiopian coffee to spice up their final coffee recipes and thus compensate for low quality coffees bought in bulk from other countries.

Ethiopia has undertaken substantial investment in increasing productivity, as well as straightening the local supply chain. However, such accomplishments domestically are not equally backed with efforts of reasserting the worth of Ethiopian coffee in international markets. Ethiopia still has no decision-making power over its coffees internationally, as coffee is mainly exported just to generate foreign currency. EBR’s Ashenafi Endale explores the remaining homework in removing the glass ceiling looking down on Ethiopian coffee.

It is to be expected that whenever demand is high, the market usually responds by supplying more. But this year in Ethiopia, supply of cement was 5.5 million tons below demand. Though shortages began in 2018, major fluctuations have twice been seen in 2021 owing to spare part and maintenance problems on one side, and political insecurity and war on the other—even to the extent of the full shutdown of Messebo Cement Factory in Tigray and its 2.1 million tons of production.

Additionally, the government is handicapped to effectively oversee distribution of even produced cement, to the point where it could only be accessed from the black market for a certain period. EBR’s Ashenafi Endale assesses how Ethiopia could go from self-sufficiency to the reconsideration of cement imports.

Of the under-pressure media sector in Ethiopia, private press is perhaps enduring the highest burden—constantly increasing rates by printers. This expense, which takes up half of Ethiopian periodicals’ annual outlays, persists in an overall rough environment where distributors are cartel-like and government is not the friendliest. Add to this encroachment by cheaply produced digital news and reduced advertising activity, private weeklies and monthlies in Ethiopia are an endangered species. EBR’s Ashenafi Endale looks into the company’s parent industry where solutions are found in better local pulp and paper production, in-house printing and distribution, and better-quality journalism.