Issue 221: Arrivals, Departures

Digital Financial Services (DFS) are rapidly expanding in Ethiopia, but language barriers and cultural nuance still limit understanding and adoption. Shega, as part of the AKOADA Project, has been working on the localization and translation of Digital Financial Services (DFS) terminology into Amharic and Afan Oromo.

This work is about turning complex finance and tech terms into clear, culturally relevant language that helps improve financial literacy and makes DFS more accessible for everyone.

We are sharing some of these translated Amharic terms to get your feedback. We would appreciate it if you could give them a review and tell us what works, what feels off, and what you would say instead.

Ethiopian Airlines on Saturday officially started a $12.5 billion construction project for what officials say will be Africa's biggest airport when completed in 2030 in the Ethiopian town of Bishoftu.

The state-owned airline got the contract to design the four-runway airport in the town located around 45 km (28 miles) southeast of Addis Ababa. "Bishoftu International Airport will be the largest aviation infrastructure project in Africa's history," Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali said on X. The airport will have space to park 270 planes and capacity for 110 million passengers a year. Read more.

TikTok is quietly becoming a new matchmaking ecosystem for young Ethiopians. From hotel workers and construction laborers to students and diaspora hosts, livestream dating rooms are creating real-time spaces for connection, conversation, and courtship, all in front of thousands of viewers. Read more.

The number of federally registered business licenses in Ethiopia plummeted by more than 80 percent last year, reversing a decade of exponential growth and leaving the country with a little more than 100,000 licensed businesses.

The fifth edition of the Labor Market Intelligence report compiled by experts at the Ministry of Labor and Skills indicates that more than 470,000 licenses across all sectors and size categories fell out of the official register in 2024. Read more.

Vibe code by voice. Wispr Flow lets you dictate prompts, PRDs, bug reproductions, and code review notes directly in Cursor, Warp, or your editor of choice. Speak instructions and Flow will auto-tag file names, preserve variable names and inline identifiers, and format lists and steps for immediate pasting into GitHub, Jira, or Docs. That means less retyping, fewer copy and paste errors, and faster triage. Use voice to dictate prompts and directions inside Cursor or Warp and get developer-ready text with file name recognition and variable recognition built in. For deeper context and examples, see our Vibe Coding article on wisprflow.ai. Try Wispr Flow for engineers.

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Ye-Buna, a local monetization platform built for content creators, has generated 13 million Birr for creators and other sellers in just over two years, as global tools like Patreon remain difficult to access in Ethiopia. Read more.

In just six months, Addis Ababa paid more than 7.4 billion Birr in compensation for resettlement linked to redevelopment.

Still, land governance remains institutionally fragmented between urban and rural authorities, complicating coordination, data integration, and long-term land-use planning. Comparative experience from Rwanda, Kenya, and Tanzania suggests unified land institutions can improve accountability and system coherence. Read more.

The Ethiopian Food & Drug Authority (EFDA) said it has not authorized or licensed the distribution of any Nestlé-branded products in the country. The regulator ordered the immediate suspension of a Nestlé infant formula product, NAN Special Pro HA 0–12, after confirming a production malfunction. Read more.

Traders across Ethiopia are voicing strong discontent over the Ministry of Revenue’s (MoR) recent decision to strictly enforce the use of sales receipts featuring QR codes, effective January 9, 2026, despite widespread shortages of the new documents.

The directive, part of the Ministry’s effort to modernize tax collection and curb invoice fraud, has drawn sharp criticism from businesses that say they have been unable to obtain the new receipts from the state‑owned Berhanena Selam Printing Enterprise, the exclusive producer authorized to print them. Read more.

Ethiopian Investment Holdings (EIH) has secured a large potash mining site in the Afar Regional State, advancing plans to build a world-class fertilizer production plant in partnership with Nigerian multinational Dangote Industries Limited.

It has obtained rights to a 365-square-kilometer potash reserve on the northeastern edge of Dalul Woreda in Afar. Located about 200 kilometers from Assab, the site is believed to hold substantial potash deposits, a key input for artificial fertilizer production, according to the Ministry of Mines. Read more

Carrefour has announced a franchise and supply partnership with Queens Supermarket PLC, a subsidiary of Midroc Investment Group, paving the way for the roll-out of Carrefour-branded stores, expertise, and products in Ethiopia. Read more.