Taken together, these developments suggest a system that is modernizing and gaining momentum. Yet beyond these encouraging signals lies a more grounded question: are these gains truly reflected in the everyday experiences of the people who depend on the system?

Beyond Expansion: The Question of Utilization

A health system’s strength is not only measured by what it builds, but by how effectively it is used and trusted by the people it serves. In this regard, Ethiopia’s experience presents a more complex picture. Despite expanded access, the use of clinical and facility-based services remains comparatively limited in several areas. For example — outpatient service utilization in Ethiopia is generally estimated at around one visit per person per year or less, compared to roughly 1.3 to 1.7 visits per person per year in similar east African countries such as Rwanda and Kenya.

Similarly, the use of advanced diagnostic and specialized services remains constrained. In practice, many patients either delay seeking care until conditions worsen or bypass primary-level facilities altogether, opting to travel directly to hospitals—often at higher cost and with significant delays—due to concerns about quality, equipment availability, and diagnostic capacity.

Child health indicators point to similar patterns. A considerable proportion of children with common illnesses, such as pneumonia, are not brought to formal health facilities, reflecting persistent barriers to care-seeking. These trends suggest that availability alone does not guarantee utilization. Rather, utilization reflects trust, perceived quality, and the overall value people attach to the services they receive.

What Communities Experience?

Evidence from studies conducted across the country – particularly in rural settings-indicates that patient satisfaction levels generally range between 51 percent and 63 percent. While communities often value the physical presence of nearby facilities, their experiences are frequently shaped by recurring challenges such as drug shortages, long waiting times, limited communication, and concerns about quality of care.

These are not isolated inconveniences. They influence whether people return to facilities, recommend services to others, or choose to seek care elsewhere. Beyond formal studies, there is also a growing public perception that the quality of care and professionalism within the system may not be improving at the same pace as its expansion. Whether entirely accurate or not, such perceptions are powerful. They shape trust-and trust ultimately determines whether services are used.

The Human Side of the System

Behind every health system are the people who deliver it. In Ethiopia, many health workers operate under increasingly demanding conditions, with growing workloads and resource constraints. For example, estimates suggest that Ethiopia has fewer than 1 physician per 10,000 people, and while the number of health workers has expanded in recent years, it remains below the WHO’s recommended threshold for adequate service coverage. This imbalance often translates into high patient loads, particularly in public facilities.

At the same time, compensation and working environments have not always kept pace with broader economic realities. Studies and workforce assessments in Ethiopia have consistently highlighted low job satisfaction, high levels of burnout, and concerns about retention, especially in rural and underserved areas. Over time, this creates strain, affecting morale and potentially influencing the quality of care provided.

These pressures are not unique to Ethiopia, but their effects are visible: longer waiting times, reduced provider–patient interaction, and variability in service quality. A system cannot consistently deliver high-quality care if those at its frontlines feel overstretched and undervalued. Supporting and motivating the health workforce- through better working conditions, fair compensation, and professional development – is therefore not a secondary concern; it is central to sustaining progress and rebuilding public trust in the system.

Infrastructure: Expansion Meets Maintenance Challenges

Ethiopia’s expansion of primary healthcare-particularly through health posts-has long been recognized as a major achievement. However, maintaining these facilities over time has become an emerging challenge.

In many areas, facilities are aging, inadequately maintained, and not consistently equipped with functional medical devices. Some health posts, constructed rapidly in earlier phases of expansion, now face structural and hygiene-related limitations that affect their ability to provide quality services. This does not diminish the importance of past investments. Rather, it highlights a necessary shift in focus-from expanding infrastructure to sustaining, upgrading, and ensuring readiness of existing facilities.

Training and Capacity: A Quiet but Critical Issue

Another important dimension-often less visible but equally significant-is the quality of training for health professionals. While the number of training institutions has expanded, ensuring consistent standards in teaching, supervision, and clinical exposure remains essential. Without sustained attention to quality, there is a risk that the system may produce graduates who are less prepared for the realities of clinical care.

Over time, this affects both patient outcomes and public confidence in the system. A strong health system depends not only on numbers, but on competence, confidence, and professionalism.

Progress, Gaps, and the Nature of Change

Taken together, these observations suggest that Ethiopia’s health system is neither simply progressing nor declining. Rather, it appears to be in a phase of transition-one where important gain have been made, but new challenges are emerging that require focused attention. The visible signs of progress-expansion, innovation, and international engagement-are real and important. Yet from the perspective of many citizens, these gains do not always translate into consistent, reliable, and high-quality care. This gap between progress and experience is where the real challenge lies.

Looking Ahead: Centering the Public Experience

This moment calls not for dismissal of progress, but for honest reflection and recalibration. Strengthening quality of care, improving service reliability, supporting health workers, maintaining infrastructure, and ensuring high standards in training are all critical priorities moving forward.

Equally important is placing the experiences of communities at the center of reform efforts. Listening to patients, understanding their concerns, and responding to their expectations are essential for building a system that people trust and use. In the end, the true measure of a health system is not how much it expands, but how well it serves. As Ethiopia continues its journey, the task ahead is clear: to ensure that progress is not only visible-but also felt, trusted, and sustained by the people it is meant to serve.

Contributed by Taddese Zerfu (PhD)

This is not simply another cycle of global price volatility. It is a structural stress test—one that exposes the depth of Africa’s integration into external energy systems and the fragility of its buffers. At a moment when the continent is advancing an ambitious development vision under Agenda 2063, energy security has re-emerged as both a vulnerability and an opportunity.

Over the past two decades, the African Union and its member states have built an increasingly coherent policy architecture for energy development and integration. Flagship initiatives such as the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) and the evolving African Single Electricity Market reflect a clear understanding that the continent’s energy challenge is less about resource scarcity than about fragmentation and underinvestment.

The logic is simple but compelling: integrated markets, interconnected grids, and coordinated infrastructure can unlock economies of scale and reduce vulnerability. Regional power pools linking countries across Eastern, Western, and Southern Africa have already demonstrated the benefits of shared capacity and cross-border electricity trade.

Yet the current crisis reveals the limits of this framework when confronted with acute external shocks. Much of the architecture remains aspirational or unevenly implemented. The gap between continental vision and operational readiness is where vulnerability persists.

Compared to other regions, Africa’s exposure to disruptions in global energy transit routes is disproportionately high. While Europe and Asia are also dependent on oil flows through Hormuz, they typically combine diversified supply sources with strategic reserves equivalent to 60–90 days of consumption. Many African countries, by contrast, maintain reserves covering only a few weeks, or none at all.

The structural paradox is striking.

Africa accounts for around 7–8 percent of global oil production, yet imports approximately 80–90 percent of its refined petroleum products. This dependence on external refining and shipping systems amplifies the impact of any disruption. When freight rates rise, insurance premiums spike, or supply chains tighten, African economies face compounded costs.

In Ethiopia, for instance, the impact is particularly acute. As a landlocked country with no domestic fossil fuel production, Ethiopia relies heavily on imported petroleum to sustain its transport and logistics systems. Even as it has made remarkable strides in renewable energy, primarily hydropower, fuel imports remain a major source of foreign exchange pressure. Periods of global oil price volatility have historically translated into inflation spikes and fiscal strain, underscoring the tight coupling between energy security and macroeconomic stability.

Responses So Far: Progress Without Synchronization

The continental response to energy vulnerability has evolved, but not yet at the scale or speed required.

Encouragingly, several structural shifts are underway. Investments in domestic refining capacity, most notably the Dangote Refinery, signal a recognition of the need to internalize value chains. Renewable energy deployment is accelerating, with Africa now home to some of the world’s fastest-growing solar markets.

Regional electricity cooperation has also expanded. Ethiopia provides a compelling example here. Through its leadership in hydropower development, including projects such as the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, the country is positioning itself as a regional energy exporter.

Power interconnections with neighboring countries, including Sudan, Djibouti, and Kenya, illustrate how cross-border electricity trade can reduce reliance on imported fuels while enhancing regional resilience.

Yet these gains remain fragmented.

Strategic petroleum reserves are uneven or absent across much of the continent. Procurement mechanisms are largely national, limiting bargaining power in tight global markets. Data systems for real-time monitoring of supply and pricing are underdeveloped.

In moments of crisis, coordination often gives way to reactive, country-level measures.

The issue is therefore not the absence of frameworks, but the pace and manner of their operationalization.

From Crisis to Catalyst: Africa’s Strategic Opportunity

If the current disruption exposes vulnerability, it also clarifies direction.

Africa’s energy future is uniquely positioned to turn constraint into advantage. Unlike more industrialized regions locked into carbon-intensive systems, many African countries retain the flexibility to leapfrog into diversified, resilient energy pathways.

Ethiopia again offers a glimpse of this possibility. With over 90 percent of its electricity generated from renewable sources, primarily hydropower, it demonstrates how structural dependence on imported fossil fuels can be reduced in the power sector. The country’s parallel push toward electric mobility, including pilot programs for electric buses and incentives for EV adoption, signals an emerging shift in the energy–transport nexus.

At the continental level, the expansion of the African Single Electricity Market could transform fragmented national grids into a unified system capable of redistributing surplus and absorbing shocks.

Similarly, Africa’s vast potential in solar, wind, geothermal, and green hydrogen positions it not only as a future energy self-sufficient continent, but as a competitive player in global clean energy markets.

The crisis thus sharpens the economic and strategic rationale for reforms that are already underway. Domestic refining becomes a matter of resilience, not just industrial policy. Renewable energy becomes a hedge against geopolitical risk. Regional integration becomes a practical necessity rather than a long-term aspiration.

Immediate Priorities: Coordinated and Pragmatic Action

In the short term, there is scope for decisive and coordinated measures that can stabilize markets and build confidence. African countries, working through the AU and regional economic communities, could move toward pooled procurement of petroleum products, leveraging collective demand to secure better terms. The establishment or expansion of regional strategic fuel reserves would provide critical buffers against supply disruptions.

Equally important is the need for transparency and information-sharing. A continental platform for real-time monitoring of fuel supply, pricing, and logistics could help reduce uncertainty and mitigate speculative pressures.

Strengthening transport corridors, both maritime alternatives and inland logistics, will also be essential to ensure that external disruptions do not cascade into internal bottlenecks.

Strategic Pathways: Building Resilience for the Long Term

Beyond immediate responses, the priority must be structural transformation. Accelerating the operationalization of the African Single Electricity Market can unlock the full potential of regional integration.

Scaling up domestic refining and petrochemical industries will gradually reduce dependence on external supply chains. Integrating energy planning with industrial policy, particularly in emerging sectors such as green hydrogen and battery manufacturing, can position Africa at the forefront of the global energy transition.

For countries like Ethiopia, the strategic pathway lies in consolidating renewable energy leadership while reducing residual dependence on imported fuels through electrification of transport and expanded regional trade in electricity. This dual approach—domestic transformation combined with regional integration—offers a model that could be adapted across the continent.

Indeed, the disruption in the Strait of Hormuz is a true reminder that in an interconnected world, distant events can have immediate and profound local consequences.

For Africa, the lesson is obvious: energy security cannot be externally guaranteed; it must be internally constructed.

The upcoming STC session in Johannesburg offers more than a forum for discussion—it is an opportunity to align immediate crisis response with long-term continental ambition.

By accelerating integration, investing in resilience, and leveraging its unique resource base, Africa can transform vulnerability into strategic advantage.

In doing so, the continent moves closer to realizing not only energy security, but the broader vision of sovereignty and shared prosperity embedded in Agenda 2063 – the enduring promise of “The Africa We Want.”

Alemayehu Tedla is a political analyst.

Contributed by Alemayehu E. Tedla

This was further strengthened in the national transport policy of Ethiopia 2020, which clearly encourages the expansion of transport systems operating on renewable energy without compromising the safety of our environment. The Transport sector’s ten-year development plan 2020/21 until 2030 also strongly raises electrification of transport systems as a core strategy. The plan clearly identifies heavy dependence on imported fossil fuels and rising emissions from road transport, especially old vehicles and freight as major challenges. It calls for a shift to electric mobility to reduce fuel costs as well as cut greenhouse gas emissions. 

It is not merely the policies and strategies themselves that are driving this change. Senior officials in the transport sector, anchored by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD), have demonstrated decisive leadership in steering Ethiopia away from fossil fuel dependency. 

Ethiopia’s EV transition has been reinforced through public statements which consistently frames electric mobility as both an economic necessity and a symbol of national transformation. These consistent strategic interventions, especially since the early 2020s, demonstrate that the EV transition is not a fragmented policy choice, but a deliberate, top-level national vision. 

The proof of this vision lies in its execution. Most notably, the 2024 fossil-fuel vehicle import ban signaled to global markets that Ethiopia’s green transition is absolute, not optional. This bold stance is backed by a robust fiscal and strategic framework. To lower the barrier to entry, the government introduced deep tax exemptions and duty reductions, making EVs economically competitive with traditional engines for the first time. This was further solidified by the E-Mobility Strategy (2025–2030), which sets an ambitious target of 500,000 EVs on the road and an 80% share in new registrations. To ensure this isn’t just a private-sector trend, high-level directives now mandate the transition of government fleets, while new infrastructure regulations ensure that charging networks keep pace with the influx of vehicles.  

While policy reforms have opened the door, Ethiopia’s EV transition is being accelerated by a dynamic private sector that has rapidly taken the lead. Private actors now dominate EV imports, local assembly, e-bus operations, logistics pilot and skills development, creating jobs and building a self-sustaining ecosystem aligned with growth and climate goals. Marathon Motor Engineering Plc, founded by Haile Gebrselassie with Hyundai Motor Company, pioneered local EV assembly, while Belayneh Kindie Group (BKG) has deployed hundreds of electric buses through partnerships, including major fleets in Addis Ababa. Other key players such as Green Technologies Ethiopia, Huajian Group, Tamrin Motors, Dodai, and MOENCO (authorized dealer of BYD Company) are further expanding production, distribution, and charging ecosystems, collectively driving faster, broader adoption of electric mobility across the country. 

Adding to this momentum, Ethiopia has hosted several high-profile e-mobility expos and events to showcase its readiness and bold actions. Key examples include the Ethio Green Mobility 2024 exhibition, Ethiopia’s first-ever dedicated green mobility expo, which featured cutting-edge EVs, renewable energy technologies, and a strong presence of EV exhibitors to promote market linkages and sustainable transport. This was followed by the Ethio Green Mobility Week 2025, building on the previous success with displays of latest innovations. Internationally, Addis Ababa hosted the flagship Africa E-Mobility Week in October 2025, Africa’s leading summit on zero-emission transport, complete with an EV expo and high-level policy dialogues, that drew thousands of participants, including a notable cross-border EV convoy from Kenya.  

And in recent days, amid the escalating Middle East conflict and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which has severely disrupted global oil supplies, spiked fuel prices, and caused shortages in import-dependent countries like Ethiopia, the Ethiopian government has intensified its push for EVs as a shield against such shocks. Government has issued a national call urging all sectors of society, government institutions, and private enterprises to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles (and natural gas options using local gas resources where applicable), along with dire oil conservation actions which described all these actions as a “far-sighted decision” that is now protecting the country from the worst impacts of international fuel market turbulence.  

For decades, Ethiopia’s growth has been tethered to a $4 billion annual fuel tax, a massive foreign exchange drain that siphoned wealth out of the country and left the Birr vulnerable to the whims of distant oil markets. Every dollar spent on a liter of imported benzene represents a diverted investment from Ethiopia’s schools, factories, and social infrastructure. Now, by switching to electric vehicles, Ethiopia is on the way of saving that money at home.  

Ethiopia’s EV transition directly advances the goals of the Homegrown Economic Reform (HGER) agenda by addressing some of the country’s most critical structural challenges which are external vulnerability, low domestic productivity, and limited industrial depth. As emphasized in the reform program, a central objective is to reduce dependence on external markets and strengthen domestic self-sufficiency while boosting productivity, investment, and innovation across sectors. The shift to electric mobility coupled with bold and decisive government actions fits directly within this vision: by cutting fuel imports, it improves foreign exchange stability and the balance of payments, while redirecting scarce resources into domestic investment. At the same time, EV adoption stimulates new productive sectors such as vehicle assembly, charging infrastructure, energy services, and digital systems aligning with HGER’s focus on expanding productive capacity, fostering private sector growth, and creating jobs.  

At the same time, this transition is powerfully reinforced by Ethiopia’s investments in renewable energy, most notably the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) and other large dams, which were largely financed and built by Ethiopians themselves. These projects symbolize national self-reliance and provide abundant, low-cost electricity that is critical for powering electric mobility. By linking domestically generated renewable energy with transport electrification, Ethiopia is creating a uniquely integrated development model where energy and mobility systems reinforce each other. 

This revolution is not just about vehicles on the road. Ethiopia is building the entire industry at home. The goal is clear: by 2030, at least 30 percent of all electric vehicles will be assembled or manufactured inside the country. New industrial parks, training centers, and innovation hubs are now the sector’s priority investment areas. Young Ethiopians are gaining valuable skills in battery technology, vehicle assembly, maintenance, and digital systems. Thousands of good jobs are required as EV factory workers, earning steady wages to charging-station operators and software developers. If we do this properly, then other than the environmental and financial legacies EV may turn into an industrial growth engine that keeps money, knowledge, and opportunity inside Ethiopia and the region.  

To move even faster and make the dream bigger, Ethiopia is welcoming trusted international friends as true partners. Organizations such as the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) are already working with the government to turn national ambitions into ready-to-fund projects and actual investments. This transition is being de-risked by strategic partners like the GGGI. By moving beyond mere advocacy into the realm of ‘bankable’ reality, GGGI is helping the government bridge the gap between national ambition and actual capital flow, particularly through PPP-based models for electric Bus Rapid Transit (eBRT) that aim to mobilize hundreds of millions in investment.  

What makes EV transition in Ethiopia far interesting is its “people at the center” approach. Cleaner air means healthier children who can play outside without coughing. Lower transport costs mean more money left in family pockets for food, school fees, and medical care. Public buses and shared taxis are becoming electric first, so even those who cannot afford their own car still enjoy cheaper, cleaner rides. Special care is being taken for women, young people, and vulnerable communities. New jobs in assembly plants and service stations are opening doors that were once closed, while affordable mobility helps economic actors bring produce to market faster and women reach clinics or schools more easily. But above all, it helps bring wider transport access to the majority of Ethiopians. 

Ethiopia’s success is already lighting the way for the entire continent. East Africa has become Africa’s clear pioneer in electric mobility, with nearly 150,000 electric vehicles, mostly motorcycles and buses now on the roads of Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda. Ethiopia alone accounts for a good share of the regional fleet. These five countries share a common vision: use their young populations, growing cities, and abundant renewable energy to leapfrog straight to clean transport. 

Through the Africa Continental Free Trade Area, the countries are working to remove trade barriers as well as policy harmonization discussions so that like any other commercial products, EV related products such as batteries, spare parts, and finished vehicles could move freely across borders. This therefore is expected to create bigger markets, lower costs, and stronger factories that no single country could build alone.  

Regional harmony means shared charging standards, joint training programs for young mechanics, and coordinated plans to recycle batteries so that valuable minerals stay on the continent. It also attracts bigger investors who see a whole region moving in the same smart direction. When one of the countries invests in EV minerals and value additions, the other might invest in EV assembly or charging infrastructures.  

Many African countries still struggle with the same old problems: heavy spending on foreign petrol, pressure on their currencies, and traffic jams in fast-growing cities. The current Executive Secretary of the UNECA clearly stated this scenario in another dimension describing it as rich mineral endowments offer an opportunity for the African continent to be at the heart of the dynamic battery value chain as well as the revolution driven by the development of electric vehicles. Ethiopia is proving those problems can become opportunities. By using its own rivers, building factories at home, value adding its mineral resources, planning for the long term, and working hand in hand with neighbors and international partners, Ethiopia is showing that a cleaner, stronger, and more self-reliant future is not a distant dream, it is already taking shape on the roads of East Africa today.  

Ethiopia’s electric mobility transformation didn’t come without its challenges. Areas such as limited public awareness of EVs, the pressing shortfall in widespread public charging infrastructure particularly beyond urban areas, gaps in after-sales service ecosystems, specialized maintenance capabilities, and EV-specific insurance products, as well as the ongoing reliance on imported vehicles pending the maturation of domestic assembly all demand sustained, urgent attention and collaborative support from the government, private sector, regional actors and international partners alike.  

The logic is purely economic. By utilizing the low-cost baseload power from the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), Ethiopia is essentially converting its surplus electrons into domestic mobility. Within the context of the AfCFTA, this creates a clear competitive advantage in regional value chains—moving from being a consumer of energy to a hub for e-mobility industrialization.  

 (Gashaw Tenna Dewo is a senior Urban Green Infrastructure Officer, Global Green Growth Institute Ethiopia Office)

Contributed by Gashaw Tenna Dewo

Entering Ethiopia means navigating infrastructure that is still being built — by state partners who are also potential competitors. That is not in any global playbook.

A few days before Wildberries, the largest e-commerce marketplace in the Russian-speaking world, held its first information session in Addis Ababa, I bought a pair of headphones online. The purchase is worth recounting because of the process.

An influencer’s ad caught my attention. I checked the seller’s Instagram page, then moved to Telegram to place the order. A response came, eventually. I compared prices, asked questions, and made a decision. From there, the transaction moved offline. A phone call to confirm. A deposit sent separately to the seller’s TeleBirr account. Another exchange to arrange delivery. When the driver arrived, we spent several minutes finding each other, navigating by landmarks rather than addresses.

The headphones arrived days later. The transaction was informal and entirely unremarkable. This is how online commerce works in Ethiopia’s capital and it points directly to what any platform entering this market will need to solve.

The front end is digital. Everything behind it is still mainly analog.

On April 15th, Wildberries,  processing over 25 million orders daily in 11 countries worldwide, announced its entry into Ethiopia. Within nearly half a year after signing an MoU with the Ethiopian Investment Holdings, the platform had opened to local sellers.  The rollout begins with outbound trade. Ethiopian sellers in coffee, textiles, and consumer goods are gaining access to international markets before the domestic market opens in turn.

The occasion carried diplomatic weight.

Anastasia Deriglazova, First Secretary of the Russian Embassy, addressed the gathering, framing the entry as an extension of ties between the two countries that stretch back to 1898.

The presentation that followed was a confident account of what Wildberries has already built — order volumes, seller counts, and a track record across Russian-speaking markets. What it did not address was how the platform intends to operate in Ethiopia specifically: its payment infrastructure, its logistics constraints, the regulatory frameworks. The event had the shape of a global platform launch with the harder questions still ahead.

The case for e-commerce in Addis Ababa does not need to be argued. In recent months, fuel shortages have continued to restrict movement. Traffic can turn a 20-minute trip into two hours. Shops carry inconsistent stock. The problem is not persuading consumers to buy. It is connecting everything that happens after they decide to.

Payments remain tightly regulated and only partially interoperable. Despite rapid growth, Ethiopia is still early in its transition away from cash. Around 58 million users now have mobile money accounts, in a country of over 120 million people, and digital payments are growing at roughly 60 percent year-on-year.

 At the same time, internet penetration sits at roughly 31 percent of the population, limiting full-stack digital commerce adoption.

“Ethiopia is ready for business,” declared Yidnekachew Worku, State Minister for Trade and Regional Integration, at the event. In the same remarks, the state minister described Wildberries not as a platform entering Ethiopia’s market, but as “a partner in this transformation, contributing to the systems that will enable digital trade to function effectively in Ethiopia.”

The framing matters.

A platform entering a functioning system operates on top of existing infrastructure. A partner in transformation is being asked to help build it.

Wildberries brings serious capability—scale, an integrated model, experience across multiple markets. But the nature of that capability will be tested here in ways it has not been tested elsewhere.

Safaricom’s experience is instructive.

East Africa’s dominant mobile operator entered Ethiopia in 2021 with more regional advantages than most foreign entrants could claim: a proven model, M-Pesa’s track record, and significant international backing. Four years on, it is still working out how to operate in a market where Ethio Telecom—state-owned, deeply embedded, and now running its own e-commerce platform in Zemen Gebeya—controls much of the infrastructure Safaricom needs to function at scale.

What Safaricom underestimated was not Ethiopian consumers. It was the institutional landscape: a market where the infrastructure you need to build on is partially governed by the same state entities that are also your competitors.

Wildberries enters into a version of the same terrain — except from further away, with less regional context, and a model built entirely outside Africa. Its MoU with the Ethiopian Investment Holdings envisages  the state as a key business partner. But partnership at the institutional level is not the same as fluency within it.

The payment rails, logistics networks, and regulatory frameworks that will determine whether this platform can operate at scale are still being shaped by the same institutions Wildberries is now aligned with. Navigating and adjusting to that context—knowing where the leverage is, how decisions get made, which constraints are fixed and which are not—is not a problem that global expertise solves.

It is a problem that local knowledge solves.

An expert familiar with the Wildberries’ operations was blunt: “The gap between what a platform can do and what a market like Ethiopia requires isn’t a technology problem. The technology exists. What’s harder to source is the institutional fluency. Understanding how payments regulation is moving, how logistics networks actually function, who the right partners are and why. It requires a strong regional strategy and an experienced local team that understands how to navigate the market complexity.

Localization, in this context, means people inside the institutional landscape—with the relationships, the regulatory fluency, and the decision-making authority to move within it—not teams outside designing frameworks for a market they are still learning to read.

The harder problem is not the consumer. They have already figured out how to buy. The harder problem is the infrastructure the transaction depends on — the payment rails, the logistics networks, the regulatory frameworks still being written. At the April 15th event, those questions were not on the agenda addressed by the international speakers who will go back to their Moscow HQ in a couple of days leaving an impression that their  presentation had been built on what works in Kazakhstan or Russia.

Encouragingly, an Ethiopian team was present on the day, which mattered. Wildberries’ newly appointed Country Manager, Biruk Ganene, hails from BeU, a Chinese-owned delivery service, while the event’s convener, Rahwa Gebremeskel, was recently featured in Africa PR Week’s top 10 women professionals.

This leaves hope that Wildberries gets it. The platform can be imported. Local knowledge cannot.

Yet the most powerful expressions of this progress are not always found in formal declarations or institutional frameworks, but in the quiet, humane actions of ordinary people. In many parts of the world, Muslims and Christians are no longer merely discussing coexistence; they are practicing it in ways that speak directly to the human heart. These lived examples, simple yet profound, illuminate a path toward a more harmonious future.

One such moment of profound unity was witnessed when hundreds of Muslims gathered to perform Eid al-Fitr prayers within the walls of a Christian church. On that sacred Sehur:pre-dawn meal consumed by Muslims early in the morning before starting the daily fast (sawm) during the month of Ramadan; the doors of the church were opened not only as a gesture of hospitality, but as a declaration of shared humanity. A space consecrated for Christian worship was respectfully transformed into a place where Muslim prayers rose in devotion. The symbolism of that act was powerful and unmistakable. It was not merely about accommodating a religious need; it was about affirming that reverence for God can coexist with respect for one another.

Those who spoke on that occasion captured its essence with remarkable clarity. A guest speaker ones described it as a living testimony of faith in action, an expression not only of love for God but of genuine love for one’s neighbor. An imam, in turn, offered a prayer that transcended the boundaries of language and tradition, invoking blessings upon all present and asking that the bonds of friendship and peaceful coexistence be strengthened. In that shared moment, differences did not disappear, but they ceased to divide.

This reflection is offered not in the spirit of accusation, but in the spirit of responsibility. It seeks not to divide, but to remind; not to inflame, but to awaken. Ethiopia’s enduring strength lies in its diversity, in the richness of its cultures, the depth of its histories, and the coexistence of its faiths. That strength must not be taken for granted.

The Spirit of International Cooperation

In many parts of the world, remarkable acts of unity continue to demonstrate that faith, when guided by sincerity and compassion, can bring people together rather than divide them. The example of Muslims praying al-iftar inside a Christian church stands as a powerful symbol of this spirit, and its meaning extends far beyond a single moment. It reflects a growing willingness among communities to open not only their doors, but also their hearts to one another.

This spirit of solidarity has found expression in many corners of the world, particularly during the holy month of Ramadan. In different societies and cultural settings, Christian communities have taken the initiative to host iftar gatherings for their Muslim neighbors, transforming the breaking of the fast into an opportunity for deeper human connection. In some places, priests and nuns have joined volunteers in preparing and serving meals at sunset, demonstrating through action that compassion transcends doctrinal differences. In Australia, interfaith groups such as the One Church NSW/ACT Synod have not only co-hosted iftar gatherings but have also gone further by preparing suhur meals before dawn, showing a thoughtful understanding of the spiritual rhythm of Ramadan.

In Ethiopia, organizations committed to social harmony, including initiatives such as AGMAS Ethiopia, have organized interfaith iftar programs that bring together people of different religious backgrounds in a shared atmosphere of respect and brotherhood. Similar gestures have been witnessed in various countries where Christian organizations, including members of the Latter-day Saints, have welcomed Muslim communities into their spaces, offering hospitality that reflects both generosity and openness. In other regions, Christian leaders have worked hand in hand with Islamic scholars to organize joint iftar events, creating platforms where dialogue flows naturally alongside shared meals.

Across the Middle East, longstanding traditions of coexistence have also been expressed through institutions such as the Arab Orthodox Club, where iftar gatherings have been organized entirely by Christian communities as a gesture of goodwill toward their Muslim neighbors. These acts, though diverse in their settings and expressions, are united by a common moral vision. They reflect a growing global awareness that faith, when guided by compassion, humility, and a genuine concern for others, becomes a bridge that connects hearts rather than a barrier that separates them.

The Situation in Aksum, Ethiopia

Against this global backdrop of growing understanding, the events that unfolded on April 10, 2026, stand in painful and troubling contrast. Aksum is not merely a city; it is a symbol of Ethiopia’s ancient civilization, a place deeply woven into the historical and spiritual identity of the nation. It is a land where faith has long been a source of strength, continuity, and cultural pride. It is therefore all the more distressing that such a place should become the setting for an incident marked by division and violence.

According to Mohammedawol Hagos (assistant professor), on that Friday, Muslims who had gathered for prayer, reportedly in the absence of mosque, were subjected to acts of aggression by some individuals. Reports suggest that this violence may have occurred due to the inaction of certain local authorities. It is essential to state with clarity and fairness that such actions do not represent the broader Christian community of Aksum, many of whom have historically lived in peaceful coexistence with their Muslim neighbors. The tragedy lies not only in the violence itself, but in the distortion of values it represents.

The absence of a mosque had already placed the Muslim community in a position of vulnerability, compelling them to gather in open spaces for their Friday prayers. What should have been seen as a peaceful expression of faith was instead misinterpreted by some as a provocation. This misinterpretation, fueled by extremism, gave rise to hostility where there should have been understanding and an opportunity for coexistence.

The violence was disproportionate, and reports indicate that children, the elderly, and persons with disabilities were among those injured. One of the victims, a father and a former freedom fighter, expressed his anguish in deeply moving words, saying that he had fought to bring freedom to the people but could not protect his own freedom, unable to safeguard his own dignity and security in his later years.. He further appealed that if he were to die from his injuries, others should speak on his behalf.

His words carry a profound moral weight that extends far beyond the immediate incident. His voice, marked by both sorrow and dignity, raises profound questions about the meaning of freedom and justice in a country that has long prided itself on both.

Local Islamic institutions’ authorities, elders, and religious leaders have urged all members of the community to stand together, assume their responsibilities, and work to stop such acts. Paying attention to this situation, they argue, is not only necessary but vital, as it concerns the protection of fundamental human dignity and the preservation of social harmony.

Mohammedawol claims that several worshippers were injured in the attack, while many others were reported to be under arrest.

Reports broadcast by Mimber TV indicated that an organization known as Bedr International Islamic Foundation, operating in the United States and Canada, called for an immediate investigation and corrective action in response to the beatings, arrests, and alleged looting of worshippers gathered for the prayers. The organization emphasized that statements calling for the exclusion of Muslims from the city, restrictions on religious practices such as the call to prayer and the wearing of the hijab, and similar actions constitute violations of religious freedom, constitutional rights, and the peace of the country, and it called for those responsible to be brought to justice.

The President of the Ethiopian Muslim Youth Council, Ustaz Haider Kheder, also emphasized that the various forms of attacks on Muslims in the Aksum area are acts condemned by law, religion, and morality. Local authorities, elders, and religious leaders have urged all members of the community to stand together, assume their responsibilities, and work to stop such acts. Paying attention to such a situation is not only necessary but vital.

In the aftermath, concerns have also been raised regarding broader tensions surrounding religious expression in public spaces, including schools. Media outlets and observers have brought attention to the incident, and calls for independent investigation and accountability have grown stronger. Importantly, voices from within Ethiopia, including religious leaders, elders, and young people, have spoken out to condemn the violence and to call for a return to the principles of justice, legality, and mutual respect.

These events cannot be dismissed as isolated or insignificant. They touch upon fundamental questions of religious freedom, human dignity, and the rule of law. Any act of hostility carried out in the name of faith ultimately undermines the very essence of faith itself. It weakens the moral fabric of society and erodes the trust upon which peaceful coexistence depends.

Conclusion

This reflection is offered not in the spirit of accusation, but in the spirit of responsibility. It seeks not to divide, but to remind; not to inflame, but to awaken. Ethiopia’s enduring strength lies in its diversity, in the richness of its cultures, the depth of its histories, and the coexistence of its faiths. That strength must not be taken for granted.

At a time when the world is striving for peaceful coexistence and attempting to build bridges between communities, such incidents stand as stark reminders of how fragile those bridges can be. Yet they also remind us of the urgent need to protect and strengthen them. A heart shaped by intolerance may struggle to produce compassion, but it is precisely compassion that Ethiopia’s history demands and its future requires.

To preserve this shared heritage, all citizens must stand together with clarity and conviction, rejecting extremism in all its forms, defending justice without hesitation, and nurturing the values of respect, coexistence, and unity. Only through such collective commitment can the shadows of division be overcome.

The former freedom fighter’s words resonate deeply: he championed the liberty of others yet was unable to safeguard his own. This declaration transcends personal sorrow; it serves as a public condemnation of any system or mindset that permits violence against peaceful congregants to transpire without consequence.

Only when light is chosen over darkness, and when justice is allowed to prevail over extremism, can Ethiopia truly honor its ancient heritage and its modern aspirations.

Only then can light truly overcome darkness.

(Opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the stance of The Reporter.)

Contributed by Teshome Berhanu Kemal

These were not simply geographical features. They were living classrooms—places where life unfolded through labor, discovery, and silent instruction. As young boys, we walked toward these hills with purpose, carrying baskets and simple tools, tasked with collecting dried bushes, aloe vera petals, and cow dung for fuel. These humble materials sustained our homes, feeding the fires that baked injera and simmered wot—the daily nourishment of our families.

The journeys were long, the paths stony, and the loads heavy. Yet we walked them without complaint. At an age when today’s children are closely guarded, we traveled one or two kilometers—sometimes more—carrying responsibilities that shaped both body and mind. Childhood, in those days, was not separated from duty; it was formed through it.

Today, childhood has taken a different shape. We no longer allow children of eight or nine to walk even to their school service bus or nearby shops on their own. We accompany them, watch over them closely, and carry their schoolbags and lunch boxes—tasks they might once have managed themselves. This change arises from love and concern, yet it quietly marks a transformation: from a childhood of early independence and resilience to one of careful protection and constant supervision.

And so, when I look back upon those journeys to Wonberet, I see more than simple errands. I see a formative world—where distance was a teacher, effort a discipline, and the land itself a patient guide into maturity.

The Living Classroom of the Hills

Our journeys were never empty of meaning. Though we set out to collect fuel, the land offered us far more than what we carried home. It offered knowledge—subtle, practical, and deeply rooted in observation. Every path, every plant, every shift in wind or soil became part of our education.

We learned without being formally taught. We understood without being directly instructed. The land spoke, and through repeated encounters, we gradually learned to listen.

Among the many quiet gifts of this landscape, one small plant has remained vividly alive in my memory: Hamashiro (ሐማሺሮ), known also as Khamashire (ኻማሽረ in Agewugna) and Amashiro (አማሽሮ in Amharic).

At first glance, it appeared insignificant—a leafless succulent growing modestly among rocks and dry soil. Yet it carried within it a quiet importance. Emerging after the rains and enduring both sun and drought, it stood as a subtle reminder that life persists even where it seems least likely.

Hamashiro in the Rhythm of Life

Hamashiro was part of our daily rhythm in ways so natural that we rarely paused to reflect upon it. As we gathered firewood, we would search for it—sometimes before beginning our work, sometimes after fatigue had settled into our limbs. It was both refreshment and reward, necessity and small delight.

We did not consider it extraordinary. Yet, in truth, it represented a deeper relationship between human beings and their environment—a relationship grounded not in control, but in understanding.

This relationship, as I have come to realize, is not confined to our land alone. Across distant regions of the world, people living under similarly demanding conditions have developed comparable ways of engaging with nature. In the dry expanses of southern Africa, for example, communities such as the San people have long relied on succulent plants closely related to Hamashiro, including species of Caralluma and Hoodia. During long journeys or hunting expeditions, these plants are consumed to ease hunger and thirst, serving as quiet companions in environments where survival depends on attentiveness and inherited knowledge.

In parts of India, rural communities have traditionally used related species—sometimes eating them raw, at other times preparing them as simple cooked vegetables. In the Arabian Peninsula, including regions of Oman and Yemen, pastoral communities have depended on hardy desert plants to sustain both themselves and their animals during long travels across arid landscapes.

We did not know these parallel practices in our childhood. Yet, unknowingly, we were part of a wider human experience—a shared wisdom that emerges wherever people live in close relationship with the land. It is a silent connection that binds distant cultures together: the ability to recognize value in what appears small, to survive through understanding, and to transform necessity into knowledge.

The Practice of Eating: Skill, Imagination, and Meaning

Eating Hamashiro required more than hunger; it required knowledge. It demanded careful handling. We learned to peel away its outer layer, revealing the soft, fleshy interior beneath. This simple act reflected an essential truth: nature offers, but only to those who know how to receive.

Its taste carried a mild bitterness—not unpleasant, yet not immediately inviting. And so, we transformed the experience—not by altering the plant itself, but through imagination.

With playful voices, we would recite:

“ሐማሺሮ፣ ትኩስ ሽሮ፣ ጣዓመኒ ሽሮ ሽሮ” It literary means Hamashiro, hot Shiro, please test like Shiro. Shiro is a traditional wot in Ethiopia.

In that moment, language became a tool of transformation. The bitterness softened—not only on the tongue, but in perception. What we were doing, though we did not name it, was an act of creative adaptation: reshaping reality through shared expression.

At times, we combined Hamashiro with other small plants that carried a slightly salty taste, creating a natural balance that satisfied both hunger and thirst. This was not mere improvisation—it was lived knowledge, born of interaction, necessity, and attentiveness.

Sharing and the Ethics of Community

When we found Hamashiro in abundance, we brought it home. We shared it with our sisters, our mothers, and others in the household. In doing so, we felt a quiet pride—not in possession, but in giving.

Sharing was not taught as a formal moral lesson. It was practiced as a natural way of life. It strengthened relationships, created joy, and affirmed our place within the family and the wider community.

Hamashiro was also known among adults. Farmers and travelers consumed it during long hours of labor or movement. At times, it even appeared in small quantities in local markets, reflecting its recognized value within the community.

Equally significant was the knowledge surrounding it. Not all Hamashiro was edible. Distinguishing between safe and unsafe varieties required careful observation and accumulated experience. This knowledge was neither written nor formally codified. It was transmitted through example—through watching, doing, and remembering.

Indigenous Knowledge and the Universality of Wisdom

What we practiced, without naming it, is now often described as indigenous knowledge—a form of understanding rooted not in abstraction, but in lived reality. It is practical, adaptive, and deeply connected to the environment.

Modern science, in identifying plants like Hamashiro and studying their properties, affirms what communities have long known. Yet science often follows where experience has already led.

Across continents—from the highlands of Ethiopia to the deserts of Africa and the dry plains of Asia—this pattern repeats itself. Human beings, when placed in demanding environments, learn to observe, adapt, and survive. In doing so, they develop systems of knowledge that are local in form, yet universal in essence.

Reflection: Lessons from a Modest Plant

Hamashiro, in its simplicity, carries profound meaning. It reminds us that survival is not always a matter of abundance, but of awareness. It teaches that even the smallest elements of nature can hold significance when approached with attentiveness and respect.

From it, we learned to see—to truly see what lies before us. We learned to distinguish, to adapt, and to endure. We learned that hardship does not exclude possibility; rather, it often reveals it.

Perhaps most importantly, we learned that wisdom does not always announce itself loudly. Sometimes, it grows quietly among rocks, waiting for those who are willing to notice.

Today, as modern life distances many from such intimate relationships with the land, these memories take on renewed importance. They are not merely recollections of a distant childhood; they are records of a way of knowing—a cultural intelligence shaped by necessity, refined through experience, and carried across generations.

Hamashiro stands as a humble yet powerful symbol of that heritage. It reminds us that across time and place, human beings have always found ways to live, to adapt, and to draw meaning from their surroundings.

And in remembering it, we do more than recall the past—we reconnect with a wisdom that still has much to teach us.

Contributed by Teshome Berhanu Kemal

On December 17, 2025, a shipping container carrying essential input materials for our factory arrived in Djibouti. As expected, we hired a transitor to handle the customs processing. What followed was a frustratingly familiar ordeal to anyone who moves goods through the system: weeks of exchanges, requests for clarification, resubmissions, and empty assurances. Two months passed with the issue unresolved. The container sat at the port, unreachable in practice, accumulating demurrage charges and starving the factory of the materials needed to keep production running. Machines sat idle; orders went unfilled.

Eventually, on the advice of a friend, we transferred the documents to a different transitor. There had been no way to know about the new team in advance, but within a week, the matter was settled. What had resisted resolution for two months was completed in mere days.

The moment that stayed with me happened early on a Sunday. At 5:45 a.m.—before most people had made their first coffee—a staff from the new team, let’s call her Aster, sent a WhatsApp message stating that Customs had issued the approval. She wanted to inform me immediately so the next steps could begin without delay. I wrote back at 6:11 a.m., noting she was the first person I knew willing to work so early, adding, “There is hope then…”.

While the exchange was brief and entirely professional, I felt a sense of relief that was out of proportion to the events themselves. For a brief moment, the system felt as though it was actually working—a kind of quiet efficiency I had rarely encountered in my ten years traveling back and forth to work in Ethiopia. Which raises a simple question: why should something as ordinary as professionalism feel remarkable?

The Familiar Explanation — and What It Hides

Most people have a ready explanation for these experiences: it depends on who you deal with. Anyone navigating public offices recognizes the pattern—some officials move things along and clarify what is needed, while others repeat procedures without resolving the problem. Over time, we learn to navigate institutions less by mastering the formal rules than by identifying the individuals willing to make those rules workable.

Yet, this familiar shorthand obscures a critical failure. Institutions are designed precisely so that outcomes do not depend heavily on the particular individual you happen to encounter. This is what Max Weber called rational-legal authority: rule-governed, impersonal administration meant to produce predictable results. When everyday experience repeatedly contradicts this expectation, the issue lies not in personalities, but in the way the institution itself has come to function.

As the formal machinery of the system fails to produce results on its own, the burden of making things work does not vanish; it simply shifts. Responsibility for making the system function has quietly migrated downward—from the structure of the institution itself to the discretion of the individuals operating within it. This reliance on personal judgment simply to accomplish routine tasks turns an isolated anecdote into a window into the deeper workings of the institutional order.

When Institutions Become Barriers

This downward migration of responsibility signals a quiet transformation within the institution itself. Institutional deterioration rarely announces itself through sudden collapse; rather, it happens quietly behind intact structures—where offices remain open and regulations are still written, but the machinery inside has ceased to turn.

As I noted in an earlier essay, “A Mirror to Our Duty,” one of the most damaging forms of institutional decay is the corruption of responsibility, where officials learn to treat rules as shields against judgment rather than guides for it. Instead of asking what a regulation was meant to accomplish, the safest course becomes simply reciting the rule itself. Initiative looks dangerous, caution becomes the highest virtue, and the institution hardens.

Procedures originally designed to guide action gradually begin to inhibit it. They produce endless requests for clarification, shifting responsibility from resolving the matter to ensuring no rule has been interpreted incorrectly. Delay becomes the easiest decision. The formal language of procedure remains unchanged, but rules increasingly serve to justify hesitation, generating friction rather than movement. Tasks that should proceed routinely become unpredictable, relying entirely on whether someone inside the system is willing to interpret the rules in a way that reconnects them to their original purpose. This reconnection does not happen in the abstract; it occurs at the specific point where the citizen meets the system.

The Interface

Encounters like the one with the transitor are the true institutional interfaces—the invisible front lines where formal procedures meet practical needs and the real life of institutions becomes visible. On paper, institutions appear coherent, but when individuals attempt to move goods or secure approvals, this apparent solidity gives way to a fluid reality. Here, rules rarely apply themselves; they must be interpreted, prioritized, and reconciled with unanticipated circumstances. Officials must decide whether the spirit of a rule should guide its application as much as its letter.

The exchange with Aster was exactly this kind of interface. On one side stood the formal procedures of customs administration; on the other stood a stalled factory and idle machines.

Standing at this juncture, the role of the transitor at this interface is not to choose between the institution and the citizen, but to find the path that allows both to function. The real operation of institutions takes place in these everyday acts of mediation, where individuals translate static rules into meaningful outcomes.

This work of translation is possible only because no system can be perfectly automated; because rules cannot anticipate everything, discretion is inevitable. It can produce inaction, procedural defensiveness, or even opportunities for extraction. Yet, discretion can also reconnect procedures to the practical purpose the institution was meant to serve. Aster used her discretionary space not to stall or exploit the process, but to move it forward, demonstrating that institutions are continually re-created by the choices of people at the exact points where rules and reality meet.

The Calling as a Bridge

In systems where procedures have hardened into obstacles, progress rarely comes from sudden reform of the institution itself. More often it comes from individuals who find ways to reconnect the rules to the task the institution was meant to accomplish. These actors do not remove the barriers. The procedures remain exactly as they were. What changes is the way those procedures are interpreted and mobilized. Instead of treating rules as reasons to delay action, they treat them as instruments that must ultimately serve the work at hand.

Aster’s intervention functioned in precisely this way. The customs regulations did not change. The offices involved did not change. Yet a container that had remained stalled for two months began moving within days. The difference lay not in the structure of the system but in the way someone operating within it chose to engage with that structure. In this sense, institutions sometimes continue to function not because their procedures operate smoothly, but because particular individuals build temporary passages through the obstacles those procedures have become.

That Sunday morning, at 6:16 a.m., Aster replied to my message:

“It is my task, and I have to respect my profession as well as my customer. After you pay the amount of duty and tax, please prepare color print of the new invoice and packing list…” The sentence arrives almost as an aside, yet it is the key to everything.

“I have to respect my profession.” The phrase have to is not about external compulsion. It reflects something internalized: a sense that the work, once undertaken, carries its own demands. And then, immediately, she returns to the task: the color print, the stamp, the hard copy, Djibouti. The ethic is not abstract; it expresses itself in follow-through.

But why do some people use that space to keep processes moving while others allow them to stall? The answer lies in an idea that Max Weber famously traced back to its religious origins: the concept of Beruf, or the “calling.” In this tradition, labor is not merely a contract or a means to an end; it is a moral obligation. One’s worldly work is seen as a task set by a higher authority, demanding a level of care and integrity that exists independently of whether a supervisor is watching or a system is rewarding you.

When work is understood in this way, the professional ethic does not emerge from a handbook; it emerges from a person’s internal map of what it means to be a righteous actor in the world. The professional, in this sense, does not act only because the rules require it. The work itself becomes a matter of personal obligation—a standard internal to the activity that must be met.

Loyalty and the Silent Guard

If the calling is what drives these individuals, we must still account for their persistence in systems that frequently frustrate their ethic. When organizations decline, many pursue ‘exit’ to find better environments. Others stay and “voice” their frustration, hoping to spark reform.

There is, however, a third path: a quiet, stubborn loyalty. This isn’t loyalty to a failing department or a broken set of rules; it is loyalty to the purpose those things were meant to serve. In a society where institutions are fragile, the person who refuses to be corrupted—who refuses to be lazy or indifferent—is performing an act of profound loyalty to the community.

Aster’s professionalism did not depend on the larger system being healthy. In fact, her ethic shone precisely because the system was not. She chose to be a “bridge” in a landscape of barriers, demonstrating that the individual can remain a repository of institutional health even when the institution itself is ailing. This quiet loyalty, often rooted in faith or a deep-seated sense of duty to one’s neighbor, is the invisible force that allows the country’s economy to continue breathing even when the “machinery” has seized. Yet, the very effectiveness of this personal dedication creates a difficult paradox for the institution it saves.

Ambivalence

It is tempting to conclude simply that dedicated individuals sustain our institutions. Yet, this carries a profound ambivalence: if survival increasingly depends on personal commitment, these individuals are simultaneously compensating for—and obscuring—deeper structural weaknesses.

On one hand, without actors like Aster restoring motion, the accumulation of delays and extractive practices would quickly render institutions incapable of basic functions. On the other hand, their effectiveness masks the deterioration. The system appears to function—containers eventually move, decisions eventually arrive—even though the underlying processes have become incredibly fragile.

Aster’s intervention thus carried two meanings at once: it proved effective action was still possible, but revealed how much that possibility relied on personal choice rather than systemic reliability. The very professionalism that sustains the institution today may also delay the recognition that the institution requires much deeper repair.

Hope and the Final Question

Still, the encounter suggests something vital: the norms these institutions were meant to embody have not completely disappeared. Professional ethics, careful discretion, and loyalty do not arise spontaneously; they are learned through institutional traditions and persist within the individuals who continue to act according to them.

This is why the exchange stayed with me. In my final message to Aster that morning, I wrote: “If only there are more people like you… You give me hope”. The hope I named was not that the structural delays and defensive routines had vanished. Rather, it was the quiet realization that within increasingly constrained institutions, there are still individuals carrying the work according to its intended purpose. Where such individuals remain, institutional possibility remains as well.

Yet, this leaves one final, urgent question. If the survival of our institutions hinges entirely on individuals who carry the weight of the system—those awake before dawn, pushing a stalled economy forward through a WhatsApp chat—their future depends on something far more fundamental than procedural reform. It depends on whether these systems can still produce the people willing to carry them at all.

Tsegaye Nega (PhD) is a Professor Emeritus at Carleton College in the United States and the Founder and CEO of Anega Energies Manufacturing.

Contributed by Tsegaye Nega (PhD)

Stay-at-home women are often behind the scenes, doing so much, yet they are labeled as “unemployed,” or “just a mom,” or “just a wife.” In truth, they are the ones who carry families on their shoulders, bringing warmth into a home, hope into despair, strength into weakness, healing into pain, peace into conflicts, well-being into worry, joy into anguish, and wrap their loved ones in comfort and safety.

They turn a house into a home, a plate into a meal, a day into a bright moment, a night into a peaceful retreat, creating a place of harmony, comfort, and belonging. Their sleepless nights, unseen tears, unheard cries, desperate pleas for help, silent untold stories, and quiet pains often remain hidden as scars behind their smiles and in the depths of their eyes. The meals prepared with love, the way they care for everyone during sickness, and the countless roles they embody as a parent, caregiver, teacher, mentor, coach, nurse, doctor, chef, friend, and protector are acts of devotion that rarely receive the recognition they deserve.

Single mothers carry an even heavier load, balancing both roles at home and, for many, with responsibilities outside the home as well. The weight they carry is enormous, yet society rarely pauses to appreciate their strength or the efforts they make, analyze, and accommodate their needs. And let us not forget the caregivers or the ones who suffer from illness or pain, yet who continue to nurture even as they face their own illnesses or struggles. Their giving hearts do not stop, even when their bodies are tired or fail.

While not all of us may have the privilege of having our great-grandmothers, grandmothers, mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, cousins, teachers, neighbors, or friends physically present with us today, each of us has undoubtedly encountered a woman who profoundly impacted our lives—someone who instilled within us the values of love, kindness, strength, and courage, someone who championed our endeavors even in the absence of external recognition, and someone whose unwavering support provided solace during challenging times.

We also commemorate the women who are no longer with us, whose voices may be silent, but whose impact continues to resonate within us. Their teachings, their sacrifices, their resilience, and their affection remain integral to the tapestry of our lives. They left behind legacies, moments of joy, artistic expressions, narratives, principles, visual memories, tangible artifacts, and profound wisdom that time cannot diminish but only cherish.

Women have consistently demonstrated their integral role alongside men throughout history, navigating challenges, overcoming obstacles, and celebrating achievements. Their contributions frequently serve as the foundational support, providing stability and cohesion within families and societies. The multifaceted nature of their roles defies singular categorization, encompassing a diverse array of narratives. A woman embodies the genesis of life, a wellspring of wisdom, an educational cornerstone, and a fundamental pillar for families, communities, and nations. Her profound influence extends broadly, as she often serves as the initial bearer, listener, educator, comforter, and guide..

Throughout history, issues concerning women have consistently been central to discussions, intense debates, and various social, religious, economic, and political movements. From the initial struggles for fundamental recognition and representation to global campaigns advocating for equality and equity, both women and men have diligently championed women’s rights, dignity, and well-being. Their collective voices have effectively challenged inequitable hierarchies and systems, reformed legislation, and transformed societal structures. Significant progress has been achieved: numerous opportunities have become accessible to women, and many legal reforms now safeguard and empower women in ways that were previously unimaginable.

Despite these advancements, the pursuit of complete equality and equity remains an ongoing endeavor. Even in the current century, numerous girls and women continue to encounter systemic racism, discrimination, limitations, and restrictions. Many are deprived of educational opportunities, marginalized in leadership roles, undercompensated for equivalent work, or dissuaded from pursuing their aspirations solely due to their gender. Others confront cultural, social, economic, or political impediments that constrain their autonomy and hinder their potential. They are denied opportunities, excluded from decision-making processes, or discouraged from pursuing their ambitions.

Globally, women continue to face violence, exploitation, and systemic injustices that jeopardize their safety and prospects. Annually, a significant number of women and girls tragically perish due to violence, including femicide, abuse, rape, racism, discrimination, or systemic failures in protection. Some are incarcerated, at times unjustly, for expressing themselves, pursuing education, aspiring, or simply existing in ways that challenge prevailing oppressive norms. Others experience homelessness, bearing untold narratives and suffering, as they seek security while simultaneously harboring the pain and hope for improved circumstances.

Despite adversity, women continue to advance. Even amidst the most profound challenges, they embody a profound sense of optimism for a brighter future. They demonstrate resilience, steadfastness, and a commitment to nurturing and rebuilding, all while envisioning improved circumstances. Their unwavering courage serves as a powerful testament to the potential for transformative change, underscoring the possibility of constructing a more equitable, benevolent, empathetic, and compassionate world, where every woman is secure, esteemed, valued, and liberated.

Throughout history, women have profoundly influenced societies in numerous capacities, both overtly and subtly. Their contributions span across family structures, education, sciences, mathematics, astronomy, medicine, literature, economics, and every domain of human advancement. They have served as healers, caregivers, leaders, innovators, artists, thinkers, teachers, educators, philosophers, scholars, protectors, and community builders. They have been instrumental in driving change, often from prominent positions and sometimes from behind the scenes, unacknowledged yet undeniably impactful and essential. Many of history’s most significant female figures are those whose names may remain unknown, yet their dedication, sacrifices, and nurturing efforts have shaped generations and continue to resonate.

The diverse beauty of women represents one of humanity’s most significant strengths and assets. Women from all racial, cultural, linguistic, spiritual, and experiential backgrounds contribute distinct wisdom, traditions, customs, and perspectives. They embody a spectrum of qualities—powerful yet delicate, strong yet gentle, fierce yet compassionate, proud yet humble, vocal yet serene—demonstrating that womanhood transcends a singular form, voice, or path. Instead, it is a vibrant tapestry of experiences that enriches the world, akin to a flourishing garden where each woman contributes her unique colors, fragrances, aromas, flavors, lights, beauties, richness, and distinctiveness.

As a society, we are obligated to enhance our performance. It is imperative that we establish systems designed to safeguard, empower, and acknowledge the contributions of women, while also providing them with comprehensive support. We must construct frameworks that guarantee respect, inclusion, equality, and equity. Awareness is crucial, and transformative change originates with each individual. Through our collective efforts, we can honor women by demonstrating respect, ensuring fair and just treatment, extending kindness, upholding their inherent dignity, and offering assistance and support, beginning with the women within our households, professional environments, and communities.

 We acknowledge and celebrate the invaluable contributions of all girls and women, recognizing their diverse roles as caregivers, innovators, scholars, leaders, achievers, and sources of joy. Our thoughts also extend to those who confront adversity, those who facilitate healing, those who demonstrate perseverance, those who experience suffering, those who mourn, those who have departed, those who uphold hope, and those whose quiet resilience underpins our global community. Moreover, we are committed to cultivating a future where all girls and women, worldwide, can flourish without fear, and with respect, dignity, value, equal opportunity, love, and hope.

Nadia V. Pietro Monaia is an Ethiopian‑Eritrean and Italian multilingual and multicultural PhD research student at the University of Exeter (UK), within the Graduate School of Education at the Faculty of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. Her Doctoral Research focuses on Applied Linguistics and Curriculum Pedagogies, with a particular emphasis on Women’s Issues via Critical Pedagogy. The author can be contacted at: nadiamonaia@gmail.com

Contributed by Nadia V. Pietro Monaia

Cities do not preserve their histories only through monuments that rise proudly above the ground. Much of a city’s true memory lies lower, quiete and often forgotten. Old cemeteries are among the most overlooked yet most revealing historical spaces. They do not argue, explain, or defend themselves. They simply remain—bearing names, dates, languages, and symbols that speak to those willing to look closely. A weathered stone leaning at an angle, a half-buried inscription slowly consumed by roots, a cross or crescent worn smooth by wind and rain—these are not mere remnants. They are evidence. They are testimony. They are, in the most literal sense, the weight of history made visible.

In a city like Harar, whose identity has always been shaped by movement, encounter, and exchange, cemeteries are not marginal spaces. They are essential historical texts. Each tombstone is a page; each inscription, a sentence; each burial ground, a chapter. When such places are neglected, damaged, or erased, history itself becomes fragmented. What was once a continuous narrative becomes a collection of gaps. What was once a record of lives becomes, instead, a record of our indifference toward them.

This reflection arises from a simple visit—one that unexpectedly revealed a much larger question about heritage, responsibility, and memory. What follows is not speculation, but a direct account of what I saw, what I questioned, and what the neglected international cemetery near the shrine of Aw Ezin reveals about Harar’s past and our present relationship with it. I write not as an academic detached from his subject, but as a witness. And what I witnessed demands not only documentation, but response.

Encountering the Unseen: From Shrine to Cemetery

When we finished visiting the well-known shrine of Aw Ezin—a name that may be a corrupted form of Ezedin, my brother Muhammad Ali casually mentioned that there was once a Greek cemetery nearby. The remark was brief and unassuming—almost an afterthought—but it immediately stirred my curiosity. Cemeteries are never “just cemeteries,” especially in a city like Harar. They raise questions about who lived there, how they arrived, how long they stayed, and how they were remembered after silence finally claimed their voices.

As we moved closer to the location he indicated, I attempted to take a photograph by leaning against a high fence. It was impossible. My camera could capture nothing but the barrier before me. The fence did not protect a cemetery—it enclosed farmland. The land inside bore clear signs of cultivation. Corn had been planted there recently. The soil had been turned, used, and claimed for agricultural purposes. It had been claimed, in other words, as though it had no other history, no other claim upon the present.

Scattered across this cultivated ground were tombstones, some still standing, others cracked, broken, or partially buried. Here and there, carved stone emerged from the earth like the exposed bones of a body long buried and now carelessly unearthed. The transformation of a burial ground into farmland was not subtle. It was complete, visible, and deeply unsettling. No marker indicated what this place had once been. No fence protected it from further violation. No sign invited reflection or respect. There was only the corn, the broken stones, and the silence of those who could no longer speak.

Crossing the Threshold: Entering the Cemetery

Faced with this scene, I felt I had no choice but to enter. When I searched for the entrance, the Iron Gate—which I assumed would be firmly locked—was tied only with an electric cable, loosely wound, easily loosened. There was no sign, no warning, no indication that this was a protected or even recognized heritage site. There was no suggestion that anyone had thought about this place at all, except perhaps to calculate its utility for planting. I opened the gate easily. Together with my brother and teacher, I stepped inside.

The moment we entered, the contrast between what this place had been and what it had become grew even more striking. This was not an ordinary burial ground. The tombstones were made with care and skill. Some were clearly imported—marble and granite cut to European specifications and transported at considerable expense across oceans and continents. Others were crafted locally by highly skilled stonemasons working under the direction of grieving families or communities. Their shapes, materials, and inscriptions reflected traditions that were not local to Harar alone. Here was an Orthodox cross. There, an Armenian inscription. Elsewhere, Italian marble weathered by decades of Harari sun and rain.

On several headstones were inscriptions written in Greek, Armenian, Italian, French, and other European languages. Names, dates, and identifying phrases were carefully carved, deeply incised, intended to preserve identity long after death. Some included epitaphs—brief messages from the living to the dead, or from the dead to posterity. “Beloved husband.” “Devoted mother.” “Rest in peace.” “Eternal memory.” These were not anonymous graves. Each stone represented a life once lived fully, consciously, and with the expectation of remembrance. Each name was once spoken daily, called at market stalls and dinner tables, whispered in moments of tenderness, cried out in moments of grief.

Historical sources indicate that the earliest arrival of foreigners of non-Muslim faith in Harar began from the time of Egyptian occupation in 1875. Prior to this, the only British traveler mentioned is Richard Burton in 1854, whose famous—or infamous—visit to Harar was undertaken in disguise, at considerable personal risk. Between Burton’s solitary journey and the Egyptian occupation lies a gap of twenty-one years. Between the Egyptian occupation and the present lies nearly a century and a half of continuous, if shifting, foreign presence in the city.

Yet now, these stones stood neglected—covered in dirt, cracked by time, undermined by roots, and threatened by complete erasure. Some had been deliberately broken. Others had been displaced, moved from their original positions to accommodate planting rows. Still others had sunk so deeply into the earth that only their uppermost curves remained visible, like drowning faces disappearing beneath dark water.

Harar as a City of Many Lives

As we moved among the graves, Muhammad explained that Armenians, Greeks, Italians, French, Germans, Maltese, and others had lived in Harar hundreds of years ago. He spoke not from books alone, but from inherited knowledge—stories passed down through families, fragments of memory preserved in a city where the past is never quite past. Some came as traders, drawn by Harar’s renowned markets and its position along established caravan routes linking the Ethiopian highlands to the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. Some came as craftsmen, bringing skills—metalwork, masonry, tailoring, carpentry—that were eagerly adopted by local artisans. Some came as scholars, as advisors, as merchants of luxury goods and everyday necessities. Others arrived under various professional guises whose precise nature has now been lost to time.

Harar, situated at a crossroads of trade and culture, naturally attracted people from far beyond its immediate region. Its walls, famously described by Burton as protecting “a city of saints and coffee,” did not exclude the foreigner. They enclosed a space of encounter—sometimes tense, often fruitful, always dynamic. The city’s famous Jugol, its historic wall, was never a barrier to movement. It was a membrane, permeable and selective, regulating contact without preventing it entirely.

Some of these individuals died while living in Harar and were buried here. In certain cases, their remains were later collected by surviving family members, by consular officials, or by religious communities and returned to their countries of origin. A few were disinterred and reburied in the great European cemeteries of Aden or Cairo, way stations on the long journey home. Others remained, their graves becoming part of Harar’s physical and historical landscape, absorbed into the very soil of the city that had hosted them in life.

This reality confirms a truth often overlooked in contemporary discourse about Harar’s identity: Harar has always been international. Its history cannot be confined within ethnic, linguistic, or national boundaries. To speak of Harar as purely Ethiopian, purely Islamic, purely Harari, is to erase centuries of exchange that shaped the city into what it became. The presence of this cemetery alone is evidence of long-standing global connections—trade routes that stretched from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, diplomatic networks that linked Ethiopian rulers to Ottoman pashas and European monarchs, commercial partnerships that bound together merchants from Athens, Marseille, and Harar in mutual dependence.

The cemetery, therefore, is not a foreign intrusion into Harar’s history. It is a record of Harar’s openness—a testament to the city’s role as a place of encounter. It does not diminish Harari identity to acknowledge that others lived and died within its walls. It enlarges our understanding of what that identity has meant across time.

Reading the Stones: Language, Identity, and Loss

After photographing several inscriptions—many so obscured by dust, lichen, and neglect that their characters were barely legible—we returned to the city. Later, Muhammad attempted to read and interpret some of the inscriptions using AI technology. He succeeded in translating one of them, revealing details that had remained hidden to us at the site: a name, a date of birth, a date of death, a place of origin, a phrase of remembrance from grieving loved ones.

This small act of translation revealed a much larger truth: how much information lies dormant in these stones, waiting to be studied. Each inscription potentially contains clues about migration patterns, professional networks, family structures, religious affiliations, and practices of belonging. Each gravestone is a primary source document, contemporaneous with the life it commemorates and the death it marks. Yet without systematic documentation—without a comprehensive survey, without academic attention, without public awareness—such knowledge remains vulnerable to permanent and irreversible loss.

Cemeteries like this one are not only burial grounds; they are open-air archives. Unlike written documents stored in libraries or manuscripts preserved in museums, they cannot be easily replaced or reconstructed once destroyed. A torn page can be repaired. A faded manuscript can be treated and conserved. But a shattered gravestone, its inscription scattered across cultivated soil, is lost forever. The names it carried, the dates it preserved, the memory it embodied—all vanish with the stone itself.

What makes this loss particularly poignant is its proximity to preservation. The shrine of Aw Ezin, just across the way, is maintained, visited, respected. Pilgrims come from across the region and beyond. The tomb is cared for. The site is recognized. Yet the cemetery, separated from the shrine by only a narrow path, has received no such attention. One space of memory is honored; another, equally authentic, is erased. One community of the dead is remembered; another, no less deserving, is forgotten. This is not a failure of resources alone. It is a failure of recognition.

Ownership, Authority, and the Question of Heritage

Standing among the damaged graves, my feet planted in soil that had been turned for corn but should have been left undisturbed for eternity, I found myself asking questions that demanded serious reflection.

Who owns this cemetery now? The question is not as simple as it appears. Legal ownership, if it exists at all, may lie with any number of entities—a government ministry, a municipal authority, a religious institution, a private landholder. But legal ownership is not the same as moral stewardship. One can hold title to land while abandoning responsibility for what lies within it. One can inherit property without inheriting obligation.

Who has the authority to decide its fate? If decisions about this place have been made—and the presence of corn planted among graves suggests they have—who made them? On what basis? With what consultation? According to what criteria of value? No community was asked whether this burial ground should be converted to agriculture. No descendants were consulted, for no descendants remain to be consulted. No heritage authority was invited to assess the significance of what stood here. No public discussion preceded the transformation of a cemetery into a farm plot.

Who allowed it to be converted into farmland? This is not a rhetorical question. Some person, or some office, or some institution gave permission for this land to be used in this way. That permission may have been explicit—a formal authorization, a signed document, an official decision. It may have been implicit—a failure to enforce protection, a neglect of oversight, an absence of objection. Either way, responsibility exists. Either way, accountability is possible.

More importantly, who is responsible now? Old cemeteries—especially those containing the remains of diverse communities whose descendants have dispersed across continents and generations—should not be treated as abandoned land simply because no immediate family members remain to defend them. Heritage does not require continuous occupation to retain value. Its value lies in historical significance, not present utility. The absence of claimants does not nullify obligation. It concentrates it.

If this place is not heritage, then what is? If a 150-year-old cemetery containing the graves of dozens of individuals from a dozen nations, inscribed in multiple languages, reflecting centuries of global connection, does not qualify as cultural heritage worthy of protection, then the term has lost all meaning. If this place can be plowed under without objection, then no place is secure. If these graves can be broken and scattered without response, then every cemetery, every memorial, every marker of lives once lived is vulnerable to the same dismissal.

Comparative Reflection and Academic Responsibility

In many cities with similarly complex histories, international cemeteries are protected precisely because they represent moments of encounter and coexistence that define urban identity. Even when the histories involved are painful or complicated—even when they involve colonialism, occupation, or exploitation—preservation is seen as an ethical obligation rather than an inconvenience. The past is not sanitized. It is confronted. It is studied. It is remembered.

Such cemeteries are often mapped and recorded, their inscriptions transcribed and translated, their histories published and taught. They are legally protected, designated as historic sites under national or local preservation laws. They are modestly maintained—not necessarily restored or embellished, but kept stable, prevented from further decay. They are made accessible to researchers and visitors, recognized as resources for education and reflection. They are not celebrated uncritically, but respected responsibly. The distinction is crucial.

Against this background, the condition of the international cemetery in Harar raises difficult questions—not primarily about resources, but about recognition and priority. As I stood there, surrounded by broken stone and growing corn, another question emerged with increasing urgency: Could this cemetery not form the basis of serious academic research? Even without excavation, a careful study could document everything visible above ground. Inscriptions could be photographed, transcribed, and translated. Burial styles and materials could be catalogued and analyzed. Patterns of origin and settlement could be traced through names, dates, and epitaphs.

A well-designed doctoral dissertation could be conducted based solely on what already exists in this small, neglected plot. Not in the distant future, when funding appears or interest awakens, but now, before more is lost. Each season of planting risks further damage. Each rain further erodes weathered inscriptions. Each year without documentation marks the permanent disappearance of information that will never be recovered.

Such research would not only benefit historians. It would contribute directly to heritage preservation by establishing the significance of what remains. It would support cultural tourism by adding a new dimension to Harar’s already rich attractions. It would increase public awareness, both locally and internationally, of the city’s cosmopolitan heritage. It would demonstrate, through concrete action, that these lives and deaths matter.

Cemeteries, Dignity, and Moral Obligation

Beyond policy and research, beyond legal frameworks and academic projects, lies a deeper issue that resists easy resolution: human dignity. The dead cannot speak for themselves. They cannot protest the plowing of their graves or the scattering of their headstones. They cannot petition authorities or write letters to newspapers. When their graves are broken or ignored, it is the living who must answer—not on behalf of the dead, who are beyond all injury, but on behalf of ourselves and the kind of society we choose to inhabit.

Respecting cemeteries is not about honoring foreigners over locals. It is not about privileging one community of the dead above another. It is about honoring human life and human memory as such, without regard to origin or identity. The Armenian merchant buried in Harar in 1892 was someone’s father, someone’s husband, someone’s friend. The Greek craftsman buried beside him was someone’s son. They lived. They loved. They worked. They died. They were mourned. They were buried with care and intention. They were promised remembrance.

We who live now have inherited that promise. Not legally, perhaps, and not formally, but morally. When we allow their graves to disappear under cultivation, we are not merely failing to protect old stones. We are breaking faith with the dead and with the living who trusted that their loved ones would not be forgotten. We are saying, through our inaction, that some lives do not matter enough to be remembered. We are declaring, through our neglect, that some deaths are not worthy of respect.

To allow graves to disappear under cultivation is not merely an administrative failure. It is a moral failure—a choice, however unexamined, to value present convenience over permanent memory.

Conclusion: A Test of Memory and Responsibility

The international cemetery near the shrine of Aw Ezin has not yet vanished completely. That fact alone offers hope. Broken stones can be repaired. Displaced markers can be restored. Cultivated land can be returned to its original purpose. Inscriptions can be transcribed, translated, and published. The dead can be remembered again.

But hope requires action. It requires recognition that this place matters—not as an obstacle to development, not as an inconvenience to agriculture, not as an abandoned plot awaiting more productive use, but as a record of lives once lived and a testament to Harar’s long history of global connection. Cemeteries like this are not obstacles to progress; they are foundations of historical understanding. They are not burdens to be shed; they are responsibilities to be accepted.

Harar has always been a city where worlds met. Its walls enclosed not separation but encounter. Its markets exchanged not only goods but ideas. Its streets accommodated not only residents but sojourners. Its cemeteries received not only locals but strangers who became, in death, permanent residents of the city that had hosted them in life. The neglect of the international cemetery, therefore, is not only a loss for historians. It is a loss for Harar itself—an erosion of the very complexity that makes the city distinctive. To restore this place is not to import foreign values. It is to recover Harari values that have been, for whatever reason, temporarily forgotten.

This is the truth that the neglected international cemetery confirms. This is the truth that its broken stones still testify. And this is the truth that will be lost if we allow these graves to disappear without response. What remains is a choice—not only for authorities, not only for heritage professionals, not only for academics, but for all who care about history and its preservation. The choice is stark in its simplicity and profound in its implications: to allow silence to erase memory, or to let recognition restore dignity.

I have written this account because silence is no longer acceptable. I have documented what I saw because documentation is the precondition for preservation. I have asked difficult questions because unanswered questions become, in time, unasked questions—and eventually, unaskable questions. The dead cannot speak. But we can. And we must.

Contributed by Teshome Berhanu Kemal

Pan-Africanism represents the complexities of black political and intellectual thought over two hundred years. What constitutes in Pan-Africanism and what one might include in a Pan-African movement often changes according to whether the focus is on politics, ideology, organizations or culture.

Pan-Africanism actually reflects a range of political views. At a basic level, it is a belief that African peoples, both on the African continent and in the Diaspora, share not merely a common history, but a common destiny.

Currently, Pan-Africanism, without any doubt, is in crisis. Africa leaders have very little, if any, experience in open democratic discourse and is unfamiliar with the critical values and practices that anchor that culture and tradition. New Pan-Africanism was founded by a group of Africans with a purpose to create a sense of brotherhood and cooperation between all Africans living in and outside of Africa.

Pan-Africanism represents the complexities of black political and intellectual thought over two hundred years. What constitutes Pan-Africanism, what one might include in a Pan-African movement often changes according to whether the focus is on politics, ideology, organizations, or culture? Pan-Africanism actually reflects a range of political views.

At a basic level, it is a belief that African peoples, both on the African continent and in the Diaspora, share not merely a common history, but a common destiny. This sense of interconnected pasts and futures has taken many forms, especially in the creation of political institutions. One of the earliest manifestations of Pan-Africanism came in the names that Africans gave to their religious institutions.

An important political form of a religious Pan-Africanist worldview appeared in the form of Ethiopianism. Ethiopia’s African diasporic religious symbolism grew in the 1800s among blacks in the United States and the Caribbean, through a reading of Psalm 68:31, “Ethiopia shall soon stretch forth its hands unto God,” as a prophesy that God would redeem Africa and free the enslaved. The verse served as a bulwark against a racist theology that declared black people were the descendants of Ham, the cursed son of Noah whose children were to be the hewers of wood and drawers of water.

Ethiopianism thus emerged initially as a psychic resistance to racist theology, soon becoming the basis of a nascent political organizing. Négritude is a literary and ideological movement, developed by francophone black intellectuals, writers, and politicians in France in the 1930s. Its founders included the future Senegalese President Léopold Sédar Senghor, Martinican poet Aimé Césaire, and the GuiananLéon Damas. The Négritude writers found solidarity in a common black identity as a rejection of perceived French colonial racism. They believed that the shared black heritage of members of the African Diaspora was the best tool in fighting against French political and intellectual hegemony and domination. They formed a realistic literary style and formulated their Marxist ideas as part of this movement.

Ethiopianism took institutional form in South Africa.

African diasporic activist-intellectuals begun to convene pan-African conferences, the first of these gathering was the Chicago Conference on Africa, convened on Aug 14, 1893.

Lasting a week, it drew, among others, Henry McNeal Turner and Alexander Crummell, the Egyptian Yakub Pasha, and African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church bishop Alexander Walters. Topics of discussion included “The African in America,” “Liberia as a Factor in the Progress of the Negro Race,” and “What Do American Negroes Owe to Their Kin Beyond the Sea.” That impulse toward an African identity was also apparent in the religious practices of enslaved people throughout the Americas, who tended to develop syncretic religions that blended African deities and belief systems with Christianity and Catholicism, giving rise to Santería in Cuba, Vodun in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and Candomblé in Brazil.

In contrast, enslaved people in the United States tended not to develop elaborate belief systems, but their African-informed religious practices helped foster a sense of collective identity, just as Vodun and Santería did, and served as the basis of certain radical political practices. The Haitian revolution, itself facilitated and organized through Vodun, inspired several southern enslaved ministers (Nat Turner, Gabriel Prosser, and Denmark Vesey) to lead or plot slave revolts.

In southern Africa in the late-1800s, Ethiopianism assumed institutional form following visits from the African Methodist Episcopal Church, especially Bishop Henry McNeal Turner. Two groups, one led by Joseph Mathunye Kanyane Napo in 1888, the other by Mangena Maake Mokone in 1892, broke from the Anglican and Methodist churches, Mokone establishing the Ethiopian Church in 1892, which joined the African Methodist Episcopal Church four years later. This led to several South Africans visiting the United States and attending historically black colleges, including some of the earliest leaders of the African Native National Congress.

At the same time that Dusé Mohamed Ali prepared to launch his journal, a young Jamaican printer by the name of Marcus Garvey was travelling throughout the Caribbean and Central America. Garvey would land in Europe in 1912, and upon arriving in London, he joined the ATOR staff. Ali’s journal and the political ferment in London exposed Garvey to an even wider diasporic world than he had encountered in his travels throughout the Americas. He began to envision a global movement that would unite the race and found an African empire. Returning to Jamaica in 1914, Garvey established the Universal Negro Improvement and Conservation Association and African Communities League.

The Victory   of Adwa

During the last quarter of the 19th century, there had been constant internal and external warfare and famine in Tigray. August Wylde who came to Adwa right after the Italo-Ethiopian war in 1896 pointed out that when he had visited Adwa during his earlier visit in 1884:

It was a flourishing town of about 15000 inhabitants, the commercial centre of the district. Now it is a ruin, a charnel house. War and pestilence have done their work, leaving their mark in ruined homes and blackened walls. I do not think there were a thousand people left in Adwa.

Calamity of the late 19th/ early 20th Century

The great famine of 1888-1892 began with the spread of rinderpest from Indian cattle unloaded at Massawa by the Italians to feed their troops. The disease spread instantly all-over Northern Ethiopia. It deprived the peasant of working animals to till the soil. Because of lack of grain, cattle, goat, and sheep, one third of the population is reported to have perished.  The suffering in Northern Ethiopia was aggravated by the constant external and internal wars, which took place in that province.

The successive external wars against the Egyptians in 1875 and 1876; against the Mahdists, in 1884 and 1889; against the Italians at Dogali in 1887, Sahati 1888, Koatit, Senafe, Debre Haila, Amba Alage, Mequelle and Adwa in 1894 to 1896. After the death of Emperor Haile Sellasse Yohannes IV, in March 1889, at the Battle of Metemma fighting against the Mahdists, the power centre shifted from Tigray to Shoa. King Menelliqué was proclaimed Emperor Haile Sellasse of Ethiopia. Ras Mengesha Yohannes, who was nominated heir to the throne, retreated from Metemma to Tigray.

The Wuchalle Treaty

In May of the same year, Menelik concluded the Treaty of Wuchalle with Count Antonelli, the representative of the Italian government. During 1890, Menelik received the response to his letters to the European powers announcing his coronation and requesting their recognition.

Notably, Britain and Germany responded that according to Article XVII of the Wuchalle Treaty concluded with Italy, Menelik’s communication ought to have been made through Italy. Angered by this response, Emperor Haile Selassie Menelik at once wrote to King Umberto on September 26,1890, denouncing Article XVII of the Treaty of Wuchalle pointing out that he had only agreed if he so desired, and not that he would be obliged, to employ Italy in his foreign relations.

Antonelli was then sent to Ethiopia and arrived in Addis Ababa on December 17, 1890, with instructions to give way on the question of the frontiers, provided that he could secure the maintenance of the protectorate. Fruitless negotiation continued, with Menelik remaining adamant that he would not entertain placing himself under obligatory protection of another nation.

The Empress Taitu, Menelik’s consort who had taken part in the deliberation reprimanded Antonelli when he lost his temper. Finally, Antonelli was obliged to leave with Salimbeni on February 11, 1891 without accomplishing him mission.

Menelik wrote to Umberto complaining of the rude behaviour of his envoy, Antonelli, and sent a circular to all the European powers on April 21, 1891, describing the boundaries of his Empire,

I have no intention of being an indifferent spectator while far distant powers make their appearance with the intention of carving out their respective empires in Africa, Ethiopia having been for fourteen centuries an island of Christians amongst a sea of pagans. As the Almighty has protected Ethiopia to this day, I am confident that he will protect her in the future. I have no doubt that he will not let her be divided under the subjection of other governments.

This circular is very similar to the letter written to the European powers by Menelik’s predecessor Yohannes dated Samera, (Debre Tabor), on  February 17, 1881, outlining the extent of Ethiopia’s territorial claims. 

The relation between Ethiopia and Italy rapidly deteriorated. The territorial and the protectorate issues were destined to be settled only by the use of force. Prime Minister Crispi did not take heed of Prince von Bismarck’s sound advice during his visit to Friederichsruh as early as 1887 during the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie Yohannes IV. He was told that he [Crispi] should beware of getting involved in conflict with Ethiopia, despite Germany’s basic interest of shifting Italy’s preoccupation elsewhere away from the Adriatic, which had been the cause of conflict with Austria.

On Dec 7, 1895. Ethiopia gained her first victory at Amba Alage. The Ethiopian forces successively defeated the Italian army at Mequelle on Jan 21, 1896 and at Adwa on of March 1, 1896.

 The 128th commemoration of the Battle of Adwa was observed in Ethiopia on March 2, 2024, amidst lavish festivities coinciding with the inauguration of the Adwa Museum, one of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s grand cosmetic projects.

The historical narrative of the Battle of Adwa, a cornerstone in Ethiopia’s national identity and pan-African prestige, often sparks debate among its citizens regarding the pivotal figures in the victory. For those who aren’t aware, Ethiopia decisively defeated an invading Italian force in 1896, blunting Rome’s imperial ambitions in Africa. Years later, Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya’s founding president and a prominent participant of the Fifth Pan-African Congress in Manchester in 1945, said: “Ethiopia was the sole remaining pride of Africans and Negroes in all parts of the world.”

Ethiopia’s Pivot on the Founding of the OAU

The Monrovia and Casablanca Group both invited Ethiopia to be a member of their African blocks. It was now time to address the inevitable problem that the Ethiopian government was facing. Since Ethiopia had received invitations from the two blocs, it was now time to choose whether to attend the Monrovia or the Casablanca Conference. Foreign Minister Ketema Yifru had to make a choice and present his decision to the Emperor Haile Sellasse.

Ketema Yifru informed both the Emperor Haile Selassie and Prime Minister Aklilu Habtewold of the events that had taken place so far and it would be in the best interest of his country and the cause for unity to accept the invitation from the Monrovia Group. The logic behind Ketema’s thinking was that the Monrovia Group had now outnumbered the Casablanca Group twenty-two to six. If Ethiopia had aligned itself with the Casablanca Group, it would only help in widening the ever so growing rift between the two groups.

In short, Ketema’s decision emerged from a pragmatic approach rather than an ideological stand. Emperor Haile Selassie agreed with Ketema’s solution. Since Emperor Haile Selassie could not leave the country due to his wife’s illness, he instructed him to represent his country at the Monrovia Summit Conference, held in January 1962, in Lagos, Nigeria.

Monrovia Summit 

In Lagos, Nigeria, the core members of Monrovia Group stepped up the attack on the Casablanca Group. Speakers like Azikiwe of Nigeria would condemn the rival group on various issues, including its failure to condemn interference in the internal affairs of member states.  Azikiwe publicly acknowledged the split between his group and the Casablanca Bloc.

It was during this historic moment that Ketema began to lobby the conference participants in the hopes of having the next Monrovia meeting in the Ethiopian capital. Ketema, who was on a mission to bring these two groups together, believed that once he had the approval of the Monrovia Powers, he would work on having the Casablanca members attend the proposed Addis Ababa Summit Conference. The relentless effort of Ketema paid off: all the Monrovia Summit participants accepted his proposal of having the next Monrovia meeting in Addis Ababa.

Now that the leaders had graciously accepted his proposal, the Ethiopian Foreign Minister sent a telegram to the Emperor informing him that it was imperative that he attend at least a day of the of the conference, for the sole purpose of identifying himself with the conference participants. HIM agreed to go to Lagos, Nigeria.

Upon his arrival, Ketema briefed HIM on the proposal he had made to hold the next Monrovia meeting in Addis Ababa. Again, the Emperor Haile Selassie consented to the Foreign Minister’s proposal. In his speech addressed to the conference, Emperor Haile Selassie launched Ethiopia’s diplomatic effort by stating that the gulf between the Monrovia and the Casablanca Group was not as wide as it seemed. At a time where others had publicly declared their alliance to either the Monrovia or the Casablanca Bloc, Ethiopia was now openly declaring its neutrality. The summit would end with all the participants agreeing with acclamation to have the next Monrovia bloc meeting in Addis.

Ethiopia and Guinea

In the meantime, the Casablanca Group had scheduled a conference in Egypt for June 1962. Foreign Minister Ketema Yifru, who at this point was trying to bridge the gap between the opposing groups, formulated a plan that could solve this problem. Since he had very good relations with President Seku Toure, who was one of the leaders of the Casablanca Group, he decided that it would be good if Ethiopia and Guinea held talks.

 Ketema approached the Emperor Haile Selassie with his plan of extending an invitation to President Seku Toure for a state visit to Ethiopia. Ketema argued that Toure could help the Ethiopian government achieve its goal. The Foreign Minister explained that inviting Toure to Ethiopia could create an opportunity to exchange views on the division that existed between the two blocs. The Emperor agreed, and as result, a special invitation went to Toure, who was attending the Casablanca Group conference in Cairo. He accepted the invitation and joined the Emperor on June 28, 1962, in Asmara, where the Haile Selassie was attending a ceremony for the Naval Academy graduation in Massawa.

It was agreed by both governments that the May 1963 Addis Ababa Summit Conference, which was initially set for the Monrovia Group, will now be a Summit Conference of all the independent African States. Following the agreement, they issued a communiqué that both heads of states had agreed to hold an all-out African Summit in Addis Ababa. The reason they gave for this sudden move was that both governments believed the gap between the two blocs was dramatically increasing.

Therefore, in order to protect the continent from falling into harm’s way, the governments of Ethiopia and Guinea had decided to call an all-out African Summit Conference in Addis Ababa, in hopes of resolving the difference that existed between the Casablanca and the Monrovia Groups.

Celebrating Adwa and Uniting Pan-Africanists in the Americas

The celebration of the Victory of Adwa (annually on March 2) has evolved from a national Ethiopian holiday into a global emblem of Pan-Africanism. For the African Diaspora in the Americas, Adwa is not just an Ethiopian military triumph; it is a “foundational light” that proved European invincibility was a myth. As we look toward the 2026 commemorations, the Americas Diaspora’s intellectual and financial resources can be channeled into several high-impact areas:

Intellectual contributions: “reclaiming the narrative”

The Americas Diaspora holds a massive repository of academic and creative talent that can expand the meaning of Adwa beyond the battlefield. First, diaspora scholars can integrate Adwa into Ethnic Studies and Black History programs in the U.S., Brazil, and the Caribbean. This positions Adwa alongside the Haitian Revolution as a twin pillar of global Black liberation, secondly, digital storytelling: utilizing the expertise of Americas Diaspora filmmakers and tech professionals to create virtual reality (VR) experiences or high-fidelity documentaries about the strategic genius of Emperor Haile Selassie Menelik II and Empress Taytu Betul. Third, global legal heritage: intellectuals can lead the campaign to have Adwa recognized as a World Heritage Struggle, formalizing its status as a shared human legacy of resistance against oppression.

Financial and Developmental Resources

The financial power of the Americas Diaspora—often funneled through remittances—can be shifted toward “legacy-building” projects: the Adwa Pan-African University (APAU): there is a growing call for the Americas Diaspora to fund the completion and staffing of the Pan-African University in Adwa. This would move the celebration from a “one-day parade” to a “year-round engine” for African research and innovation.

 Adwa Victory Memorial Hub: financial contributions can support the recently inaugurated Adwa Victory Memorial in Addis Ababa, turning it into a global research hub where Americas Diaspora youth can study their roots.

 “Adwa-Bond” for infrastructure: in the current economic climate, the Americas Diaspora could advocate for “Adwa Victory Bonds”—investment vehicles where funds are used specifically for sustainable development in Tigray and the surrounding regions, honoring the site of the victory with modern prosperity.

Diplomatic and Cultural Soft Power

The Americas Diaspora in the Americas serves as the “informal ambassadors” of the Adwa spirit. The #RaceToAdwa & global festivals: promoting cultural festivals and sporting events (like the #RaceToAdwa) in cities with large Diaspora populations like Toronto, Washington D.C., etc.

Policy Influence: Intellectuals in think tanks can use the “Spirit of Adwa” (unity in diversity) to advocate for policies that support African sovereignty in modern geopolitics, such as the current debate over the Nile (GERD).

The Diaspora in the Americas is the “bridge” that turns Adwa from a localized memory into a global strategy. By shifting from commemoration (looking back) to investment (looking forward), the Americas Diaspora ensures that the “Victory of the Black People” continues to fund the “Renaissance of the Black People.”

(Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos (PhD) is former AU Anti-Corruption Board, public policy advisor and political-economy commentator.)

Contributed by Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos (PhD)