Issue 204: Clicking Into Compliance

September 15, 2025

Top Stories of the Week

  1. Federal Supreme Court Approves Digital Appeals Directive

  2. Equity Becomes Second Kenyan Bank to Make Push for Ethiopian Market Entry

  3. US Renews National Emergency Sanctions on Ethiopia

  4. A Practical New Year Wishlist: What Ethiopia’s Innovation Leaders Want in 2018 E.C

  5. Africa Looks to Raise $50 bln a Year for New Climate Solutions Initiative

For the past 5 years, Shega has worked to provide clear, contextual coverage of Ethiopia’s innovation economy. As the market has evolved, so have the needs of the people shaping it.

Decision-makers need more context, better data, and tools built for the complexity of Ethiopia’s market.

That’s why we’ve evolved. We’re entering a new chapter focused on delivering exactly that. Behind the scenes, we’ve been building something that goes further: a new way to help investors, founders, financial decision makers, program designers, market analysts, and policy advisors navigate what’s next.

Be the first to experience what’s coming next!

Federal Supreme Court Approves Digital Appeals Directive

Supreme Court President Tewodros Mihret has approved a directive aimed at digitizing the Ethiopian judicial system in an effort to reduce spending and enhance efficiency.

The ‘Electronic Appeals and Litigation Format’ directive will come into effect in November and applies to all federal courts and regional courts that handle federal cases.

The directive officially authorizes the use of a digital platform to handle court cases. Parties to a given case, including judges, attorneys, litigants, or other stakeholders, will be required to submit case documents and signatures electronically. Read more.

From Haile Selassie to Crowdfunding, How Ethiopia’s GERD Dam Was Born

After decades of work, funding delays, political upheaval, and regional pushback, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is inaugurated. GERD was pitched as Ethiopia’s most ambitious infrastructure venture, which promised to harness the river’s power to propel Ethiopia to reliable energy access and prosperity. Read more.

Equity Becomes Second Kenyan Bank to Make Push for Ethiopian Market Entry

Kenya-based Equity Group Holdings Limited has officially begun discussions with Ethiopian authorities as it seeks entry into the country’s financial sector.

It joins KCB Group Limited, another Kenyan bank that initiated talks with Ethiopian officials earlier this year, in the race to access a vast, previously untapped market that has only recently opened up. Read more.

Guest Contribution: The Test Ethiopia’s Banks Can’t Afford to Fail

Remittances are keeping thousands of Ethiopian families afloat, but they rarely become the reserves the country needs. Last year, just over $5 billion flowed in through more than 90 licensed operators, useful for households, fleeting for the macroeconomy.

According to Eyasu Theodros, a U.S.-licensed financial advisor serving global diaspora clients, the real test is whether local banks can earn enough credibility for the diaspora to leave even modest savings ($200 or $2,000) on deposit. Read more.

US Renews National Emergency Sanctions on Ethiopia

The United States has extended the national emergency and sanctions on Ethiopia for another year under the African Growth & Opportunity Act (AGOA). The extension, effective until September 17, 2026, keeps in place restrictions targeting individuals and entities linked to the crisis.

Signed by President Donald J. Trump, the measure was first declared on September 17, 2021, through an executive order citing the conflict in the northern region of the country as an "unusual and extraordinary" threat to U.S. national security and foreign policy. Read more.

Ethiopia Drastically Raises Capital Requirements for Coffee Exporters

The Ethiopian Coffee and Tea Authority (ECTA) has issued Directive 1106/2025, revising the minimum capital requirements for coffee exporters. Private exporters must now hold a starting capital of 15 million birr, up from 1 million birr. Trade associations, joint stock companies, and limited liability firms are required to maintain 20 million birr, compared to the previous 1.5 million birr. Read more.

A Practical New Year Wishlist: What Ethiopia’s Innovation Leaders Want in 2018 E.C

2017 E.C. delivered a ratified Startup Proclamation, a data-protection law, and the GERD inauguration signaling decisive national momentum. After a year of policy shifts and landmark milestones, Ethiopia’s business ecosystem faces both promise and practical tests.

Novel prospects and pitfalls abound in finance, technology, and logistics. We asked innovation community leaders from EdTech, startups, blockchain, and digital advocacy to lay out what they wish to see in the coming year. Read more.

How Ethiopia is Becoming an Unlikely Leader in the Electric Vehicle Revolution

A country plagued by power cuts has become the first to ban imports of petrol and diesel cars, as a new dam brings hopes of cheap green energy. Read more.

What’s on Our Mind

Failed Aspirations?

For the fourth year in a row Ethiopia’s national university entrance results have returned a number that should unsettle us: only a tiny fraction of students are reaching the 50% threshold required for admission. This year Education Minister Birhanu Nega reported that 48,929 of 585,962 exam takers just 8.4 percent met the pass mark. That slight uptick from earlier years is small consolation given the scale of the collapse.

It might be tempting, convenient even to flatten this crisis into a single explanation: the curriculum is bad; teachers are poorly trained; the exam is poorly designed. Those critiques are real and useful. But they are incomplete. To understand why whole cohorts are failing, we must expand the frame: the crisis is as much social and political as pedagogical.

Studies of aspiration in poor and fragile contexts show that the ability to aspire is socially distributed. Marta Favara’s work with the Young Lives dataset titled: Do dreams come true? Aspirations and educational attainments of Ethiopian boys and girls provides a clear empirical statement on aspiration and attainment in Ethiopia. The study demonstrates that early aspirations correlate strongly with later schooling outcomes, and that these aspirations themselves are shaped by parental models, community resources, and opportunity structures. In short: when environments narrow what people imagine as possible, investment in education tends to follow.

Ethiopia’s education results mirror this crisis of hope. Repeated disruptions have stripped seven million young Ethiopians of normal school experiences. With millions of children out of school due to ongoing instability and before that a pandemic, the education system’s failure is inseparable from the country’s fractured social fabric and a collective sense of powerlessness.

According Favara, aspirations are not purely individual; they are transmitted and amplified (or crushed) by families, schools, and societies. A child whose parents and community cannot see stable pathways to higher education is less likely to invest attention, time or risk in schooling.

So yeah, Ethiopia’s education has a curriculum problem. But if Birhanu Nega keeps treating low pass rates as merely a capacity issue, we’ll keep tinkering at the edges while entire generations wither away from aspiration and the promise of education. That would be a different kind of exam one in which the country fails not just its students, but its own future.

Etenat Awol, Assignment Editor, Shega

Exclusive Interview- The Prosperity Paradox: Efosa Ojomo on Why Africa Needs Market-Creating Innovation, Not Aid

"I walked into a bookstore and my life changed." For Efosa Ojomo (Prof), reading The Bottom Billion and other works made poverty tangible in a way comfort and career never had. He started an NGO, ran it for a decade, and then faced an uncomfortable truth: well-intentioned projects often fail when there is no sustainable model behind them. “The need was so urgent, we had to act,” he says in an Exclusive Interview with 𝘚𝘩𝘦𝘨𝘢. Read more.

Africa Looks to Raise $50 Bn a Year for New Climate Solutions Initiative

Africa is aiming to secure $50 billion a year for a new continental climate solutions initiative sponsored by Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, a draft declaration after a leaders' climate summit in Addis Ababa showed on Wednesday.

Leaders of the 54-nation continent, which has been pounded by landslides, floods, and droughts this year, want to press on with their climate commitments in spite of the United States' withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement. Read more.

Ethiopia Pilots One-Stop Digital Platform for Paperless Company Registration

Ethiopia has piloted the Integrated Company Creation Journey (ICCJ), a one-stop digital platform designed to enable paperless company registration. By linking key institutions like the National ID, Ministry of Revenue, DARS, and banks, the system aims to reduce registration from 32 days to as little as two. Read more.

Ethiopia’s Student Remedial Program Sees Database Errors, Power Cuts, Broken Promises

Ethiopia’s remedial program was designed to give students a second chance at university admission. But this year’s rollout was marred by power cuts, “database errors,” and shifting scoring rules.

At some campuses, fewer than one in four students passed. Frustrated, students organized online, wrote letters, and appealed directly to the Ministry. Even the Ombudsman intervened, demanding answers.

The Ministry, however, dismissed the claims, saying all students were tested “uniformly.” Read more.

Financial Inclusion: Urban Perspectives on Rural Realities

As part of the AKOFADA (Advancing Knowledge on Financial Accessibility and DFS Adoption) project, this survey seeks to understand how urban residents experience digital financial services, how their families in rural areas navigate financial access, and what role innovative tools like prepaid wallet cards could play in bridging these gaps. Your responses will inform upcoming reports designed to guide more inclusive digital finance service solutions in Ethiopia

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