In partnership with
Top Stories of the Week
DBE Ousts Top Leadership after Boardroom Dispute Spills Over
Ethiopia Looking for Contractor to Supply 20M Pre-personalized Resident ID Cards
Ethiopia Plans to Allow Outbound Cross-border Payments in Proposed Digital Payments Strategy
Data Sovereignty, Tech-Savvy Civil Servants & 1 million IT jobs: Unpacking Ethiopia’s 2030 Digital Roadmap
US Ends Temporary Legal Status for Ethiopians amid Trump Crackdowns
A First Look at Shega Insights
Over the past few months, many of you have shared the same frustration. Work that depends on understanding Ethiopia’s markets still starts with hours spent searching across scattered data, reports, and documents, often without a clear or reliable place to begin.
Today, we are introducing Shega Insights https://insights.shega.co/
Shega Insights brings Ethiopia’s market information into one place, including banking and financial sector data, company and investor records, funding and FDI activity, regulations, proclamations, and research. It is built to give people a grounded, decision-relevant view of what is happening in the market, without relying on fragmented sources.
On top of this is Ask Shega, an AI research assistant built into Shega Insights. It helps you understand Ethiopia’s market faster by pulling together what matters across the platform and turning it into clear, usable answers, so you spend less time searching and more time making decisions.
A small group of founding users has been testing an early version, and their feedback is shaping what comes next. We are now gradually opening early access to people with real market questions who want to help guide the next phase.
DBE Ousts Top Leadership after Boardroom Dispute Spills Over
The Development Bank of Ethiopia (DBE) has changed its top leaders after a long-running disagreement among senior officials over key appointments and how the bank is managed.
Essayas Kassa has been named DBE president, and Brook Taye, the head of Ethiopian Investment Holdings (EIH), has been appointed chair of the bank’s board. Read more.
Ethiopia to Introduce Digital Voter and Candidate Registration Ahead of 2026 Election
NEBE Chairperson Melatwork Hailu announced that the new platforms were built in-house, with 64 political parties already assigning their respective "system administrators" to receive training on candidate registration from the Board. Read more.
ብርቱዎች ነገአቸውን ዛሬ ላይ ከሁነኛ አጋር ጋር ይገነባሉ! በቅርንጫፍም ሆነ በዲጂታል አማራጮቻችን አዲስ ሂሳብ በመክፈትና ተቀማጭ በማድረግ ምርጫዎ ሲያደርጉን - እኛ ደግሞ ለቤተሰባዊነትዎ እና ለትጋትዎ እንሸልምዎታለን!
ከአቢሲንያ ባንክ ጋር ይጀምሩ - ያድሱ - ይደጉ!
From Campus Idea to Satellite TV: Ethiopia Gets Its First Home Shopping Channel
Ethiopia has its first home shopping channel. Built by five college friends, Merkato TV brings live retail to satellite television, complete with price verification from Addis markets. Read more.
Ethiopia Looking for Contractor to Supply 20M Pre-personalized Resident ID Cards
Ethiopia’s National Identification Program (NIDP) has launched a call to tender for the delivery of 20 million secure pre-personalized resident identification cards.
Interested companies have until January 9, 2026, to bid for the contract, which is part of the Digital ID for Services and Inclusion Project sponsored by the World Bank. Read more.
ECWC Board Dismisses 14 Management Members after Leadership Review
The Ethiopian Construction Works Corporation (ECWC) has dismissed more than a dozen senior members of its management team following a comprehensive leadership performance review conducted by its board of directors, according to an internal memo obtained by The Reporter.
The memo, signed by CEO Robel Tsegaye, states that the review identified significant gaps in leadership performance and organizational management. Read more.
Ethiopia Plans to Allow Outbound Cross-border Payments in Proposed Digital Payments Strategy
Ethiopia’s second National Digital Payments Strategy for 2026–2030 includes plans to enable outbound cross-border payments.
The government will issue policy guidance on outbound retail payments and, if conditions allow, the central bank will authorize licensed banks, payment service operators, and microfinance institutions to offer low-value cross-border transfers via cards, mobile wallets, and digital banking. Read more.
Authority Orders Removal of Neighbourhood Road Gates
The Addis Abeba City Roads Authority has warned residents and groups blocking neighbourhood roads with gates, saying the obstructions are causing traffic delays, disrupting movement, and limiting access to essential services across parts of the city. Read more.
Data Sovereignty, Tech-Savvy Civil Servants & 1 million IT jobs: Unpacking Ethiopia’s 2030 Digital Roadmap
Ethiopia has approved the Digital Ethiopia Vision 2030 roadmap, marking a strategic shift from diagnostic planning to implementation-driven reform. The new framework introduces measurable targets across digital infrastructure, skills, jobs, data governance, AI, and sovereign cloud capabilities.
Yet the roadmap also acknowledges a recurring challenge: execution. With internet penetration stalled at 45%, energy access uneven, and institutional silos persistent, delivery will require unprecedented coordination, stronger monitoring systems, and sustained political commitment. Read more.
Sharia-Compliant ZamZam Bank Reports 940.8 Million Birr Net Profits
ZamZam Bank posted a net profit of 940.8 million Birr in FY 2024/25, as Earnings Per Share surged nearly eightfold to 41% from the previous year. The Sharia-compliant bank also grew total assets to 16.6 billion Birr and deposits to 11.6 billion Birr. Read more.
The Year-End Moves No One’s Watching
Markets don’t wait — and year-end waits even less.
In the final stretch, money rotates, funds window-dress, tax-loss selling meets bottom-fishing, and “Santa Rally” chatter turns into real tape. Most people notice after the move.
Elite Trade Club is your morning shortcut: a curated selection of the setups that still matter this year — the headlines that move stocks, catalysts on deck, and where smart money is positioning before New Year’s. One read. Five minutes. Actionable clarity.
If you want to start 2026 from a stronger spot, finish 2025 prepared. Join 200K+ traders who open our premarket briefing, place their plan, and let the open come to them.
By joining, you’ll receive Elite Trade Club emails and select partner insights. See Privacy Policy.
What’s on Our Mind
How Many Hats Are Too Many for One Man?
This week Ethiopia’s policy bank, the Development Bank of Ethiopia (DBE), reshuffled its leadership, with Brook Taye (PhD) appointed as board chair while he continues to lead Ethiopian Investment Holding (EIH) as CEO, Ethiopia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund that owns DBE. Brook already chairs the board of Ethiopian Securities Exchange (ESX) and sits on the Capital Markets Authority’s board.
While Ethiopia’s corporate-governance framework does not place formal limits on the number of state-board mandates an individual may hold. The arrangement therefore is legal. Prudence, however, is a separate question. The concern hence lies not with any single role, but with their accumulation.
EIH’s mandate centers on maximizing asset value, restructuring state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and pursuing privatization or partnerships. DBE, by contrast, allocates long-term, often subsidized credit for development goals, with an independent board meant to challenge management on risks, concentrations, and related-party exposures especially critical after past governance lapses.
When the same person leads EIH and chairs DBE’s board, the “principal” (owner) and “monitor” (board) can, in some cases, be embodied in a single figure, weakening the internal tension that should protect the bank from political or portfolio‑protection pressures. Even assuming impeccable personal integrity, this concentration of information and influence blurs lines between rule‑maker, referee and player in a way that modern regulatory practice generally tries to avoid.
For DBE, risks mount in lending, restructuring, or bad-asset decisions involving EIH firms. Non-performing loans or failed projects could face delayed or softened treatment to shield the holding company’s balance sheet or political aims, rather than prioritizing the bank’s health and mandate.
Brook’s ESX chairmanship compounds this. He now straddles market infrastructure, regulation, and major issuance/investment via DBE and EIH assets. International bank governance norms warn against such “overboarding” due to time constraints, groupthink, and directors’ reluctance to challenge.
For a policy bank that has historically struggled with governance, high non‑performing loans and perceptions of politicized credit, this governance design might risks repeating old patterns under a new institutional wrapper.
Another glaring concern is the departure of Emebet Melese ( PhD) the outgoing president, who was replaced by a former executive of the Ethiopian Capital Market Authority an institution Brook oversaw as Founding Director General.
As one of the very few women to lead a top-tier financial institution in Ethiopia, her exit represents a significant setback for gender representation in a sector overwhelmingly dominated by men. If the objective was to inject fresh energy, the replacement strategy appears to have overlooked the demographic and symbolic optics. Replacing a rare female leader with a male colleague drawn from the new board chair’s immediate professional circle reinforces an “old boys’ club” dynamic, even if the actors are young technocrats rather than entrenched political elites.
High Documentation Fees Put Chill on Reefer Exports
Ethiopia’s push to shift fresh-produce exports from air to sea freight is running into serious headwinds, with exporters warning that high documentation charges and cumbersome procedures for importing empty refrigerated containers are undermining the competitiveness of sea-based logistics. Read more.
US Ends Temporary Legal Status for Ethiopians amid Trump Crackdowns
The US is ending temporary legal status for citizens of Ethiopia in the United States, according to a government notice on Friday, as the Trump administration continues its crackdown on legal and illegal immigration.
“After reviewing country conditions and consulting with appropriate US government agencies, the secretary determined that Ethiopia no longer continues to meet the conditions for the designation for Temporary Protected Status,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a notice posted in the Federal Register. Read more.
Heads Up: What’s Coming & What to Catch
From Our Bookmarks