Op-ed

Ethiopia’s economy may expand rapidly while households lose purchasing power, young people struggle to find productive work, and the country depletes the foundations of future prosperity. The answer is not to abandon GDP, but to stop mistaking it for development. For years, Ethiopia was presented as one of Africa’s great...

Ethiopia’s decision to float the birr was one of the most consequential economic reforms in the country’s recent history. But it should not be misunderstood. The float was not, by itself, a development strategy. It was a correction of a price that had been administratively suppressed for too long. For...

There is a costly misunderstanding at the heart of many economic debates: the belief that when inflation falls, life becomes affordable again. It does not. Lower inflation means prices are rising more slowly. It does not mean prices have returned to where they were. It does not mean wages have...

By invoking the lived experience of a simple three-kilometre ride costing 300 birr – and another 350 birr to return to the same point – one is forced to confront a deeper question: what exactly are consumers paying for? Urgency may justify the decision to ride rather than walk. It...

At the end of last month, global investors, development partners, and policymakers converged on the Skylight Hotel for the fourth Invest in Ethiopia Forum. The Ethiopian Investment Commission had set an ambitious target: more than 2.4 billion US dollars in new investment agreements over just two days. Ethiopia already ranks...

In the highlands of Ethiopia, where coffee first entered the world’s imagination more than a millennium ago, the crop that fuels global mornings now confronts a familiar paradox of development. Ethiopia is on track for a record harvest in 2025/26 — 11.56 million 60-kilogram bags, roughly 694,000 metric tons, a...

For most investors, media has never been an obvious destination for capital. It is a sector defined less by predictable returns than by uncertainty, confrontation, and public scrutiny. Print media, in particular, sits at the bottom of the investment hierarchy, crowded out by faster-growing industries and burdened by declining global...

Ethiopia is confronting a new and unexpected health crisis: the simultaneous rise of obesity alongside persistent undernutrition. This dual challenge is emblematic of a deeper transformation, one driven by rapid urbanization, shifting diets, and the uneven distribution of economic gains. Recent data show that overweight prevalence among women of reproductive...

In Ethiopia today, gold tells a story that no statistic alone could capture. It is at once a measure of wealth, a hedge against uncertainty, and a mirror reflecting the economy’s most pressing vulnerabilities. Over the past two years, the domestic price of gold has surged more than fourfold in...

Some years ago, while working in the private sector, a senior colleague once told me that “good intentions do not always yield good outcomes.” At the time, I downplayed it as the sort of pessimism that comes with experience. After all, we are often taught that passion and commitment—the willingness...