Dear readers,

Over the past years, Shega Weekly has aimed to keep you informed on the most important developments across Ethiopia’s markets, sectors, and policy landscape. As our work has evolved, so has our understanding of what is most valuable to you, not just knowing what happened, but understanding what truly matters and why.

Starting last week, we have evolved Shega Weekly. Instead of only covering several stories at a glance, each edition will focus on a small number of key developments, examined through clear, data-driven analysis and on-the-ground insight. Our goal is to help you see the patterns behind the headlines, understand their implications, and make better sense of the markets you are part of.

We hope you find this new format valuable, and we would love to hear your thoughts and feedback as we continue to refine it.

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Federal prosecutors are charging nearly nine individuals across nineteen counts, ranging from fraud to money laundering, in a high-profile case involving some of the biggest names in Ethiopia’s entertainment scene. Two co-conspirators who had previously been alleged to have defrauded hundreds of millions in widely publicized schemes are the primary actors in the 1.7 billion Birr Fintech Investment PLC debacle. With a name that should arouse suspicion from the outset, as it has no relation to its actual offering, the duo promised electric vehicles for relatively small down payments under a non-interest-bearing five-year arrangement. Propped up by famous actors and social media influencers, 1,430 people took the bait, forking up between 950,000 and 1.8 million Birr each.

While the case has drawn attention for its sheer scale and connections to cultural figures, it is certainly not the first time trusting Ethiopians have been defrauded in public, and on at least two occasions by the very same individuals. Even as the fintech court debacle unfolds, a slew of other businesses continue to operate in loosely legislated sectors, tapping into whoever can lend them credibility. Some adopt the guise of travel consultants, education advisors, or pooled investment schemes for housing and other arrangements that manage to lure large crowds. While conmen and snake oil salesmen date back millennia, social media has amplified both their reach and their pool of potential victims.

In Ethiopia, these dynamics are further exacerbated by the absence of robust consumer protection frameworks. Five years ago, the Trade Competition and Consumer Protection Authority was dissolved, with its remnants absorbed into the Ministry of Trade and Regional Integration. Within this regulatory void, several authorities have since established their own desks overseeing communications, finance, and other sectors.

Over the past decade, a slew of enterprises have launched campaigns that exploit legislative grey areas across multiple sectors to swindle Ethiopians out of their hard-earned wealth. Despite spanning everything from dreamlike real estate deals to promises of attending the World Cup live, most of these scams share a few distinct features: contracts with fine print that contradicts the main text, massive marketing budgets, and high-profile launch ceremonies attended by officials or public figures.

About four years ago, one seemingly quasi-pan-African enterprise dominated media coverage, promising one of the most alluring real estate arrangements in Addis Ababa’s history. Purpose Black Eth S.C., ostensibly established as a blend of agro-processing and retail ambitions focused on agriculture, announced a massive real estate project. Prospective shareholders were promised a high-end apartment in the heart of the capital as a “gift” if they could contribute 1.5 million or 3.5 million Birr, depending on the timing of payment. Despite the apparent absurdity of the proposition, many believed they were purchasing apartments rather than shares at the stated amount. Promotional campaigns across nearly every media outlet fueled a buying frenzy for what was framed as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that never materialized.

By March 2025, executives of Purpose Black were facing criminal charges, while the charismatic face of the enterprise, Fiseha Eshetu, had fled the country.

While the 115-story “Ke Geberew” tower never materialized, households that had sold their homes in hopes of securing a luxury apartment were left to rebuild their lives. No one scrutinized the contracts, and no government agency intervened until the scheme began to unravel as Purpose Black struggled to secure rights to its much-touted land. The scandal now appears to have faded from both public and government consciousness, even as other operators employing similar tactics quietly emerge in different sectors.

In sectors like banking, the National Bank of Ethiopia offers a layer of protection with a dedicated portal for customer complaints. Within the share offering landscape, the nascent Capital Market Authority can deter swindlers with its rigorous requirements. However, in nearly every other sector, desks tucked away within federal and city-level trade bureaus remain severely under-equipped and understaffed to adequately protect consumers.

As the dust settles over the fintech investment debacle, memories will grow fainter by the day. With civil society organizations like the Ethiopian Society for Consumer Protection dissolved, the watchdog role continues to rest on individuals, independent media, and community groups. Debates over the necessity of an independent consumer protection agency carry limited weight in a country like Ethiopia. Regulatory overlap is not the primary concern when billions are swindled annually through increasingly sophisticated schemes. Adult literacy rates hover around 60%, with digital literacy significantly lower. Information on company ownership or the true nature of their operations is rarely available for transparent public scrutiny. A large population, expanding digitization, and constrained institutional capacity create the perfect conditions for predatory actors to thrive.

Without deliberate intervention, these patterns are likely to repeat with greater scale and sophistication. The question is not whether another scheme will emerge, but whether institutions and the public will be better prepared when it does.

At the IFC–FIG Africa Agrifinance Client and Partners Event in Addis Ababa last week, African Union Commissioner Moses Vilakati made a pointed case: Africa’s agriculture sector cannot be stabilized by rhetoric alone. Resilience must be financed, engineered, and scaled.

That framing is critical to understanding IFC’s $1 million convertible loan to Lersha. On the surface, the investment is modest. In context, it is a signal that digital agriculture platforms are beginning to attract institutional confidence in a sector long constrained by fragmented markets, weak financing pipelines, and climate vulnerability. But it also underscores a deeper reality. Ethiopia’s agricultural transformation will depend less on individual startups and more on whether the broader system can support them.

The International Finance Corporation announced a $1 million convertible loan to Lersha, marking the company’s first institutional funding. The investment is intended to help the platform scale toward one million farmers by 2030, up from more than 340,000 today. Lersha operates a “phygital” model that combines digital tools with a network of agents, a call center, and on-the-ground service delivery to connect farmers with inputs, mechanization, advisory services, financial products, and markets.

Alongside this investment, IFC also signed a risk-sharing facility with Dashen Bank to encourage agricultural lending, reflecting a broader push to reduce the risk exposure that has historically kept banks away from the sector. These moves point toward a gradual shift from isolated agricultural finance interventions to more integrated, data-driven ecosystems.

The appeal is clear. Agriculture remains the backbone of Ethiopia’s economy, yet it has consistently been underserved by formal finance. Despite employing the majority of the population and driving exports, the sector has received only a fraction of available credit. This mismatch has long-limited productivity, constrained commercialization, and reinforced vulnerability to shocks. Digital platforms like Lersha have emerged as intermediaries that can bridge this gap by organizing data, aggregating demand, and lowering the cost-of-service delivery.

But the significance of Lersha’s funding lies as much in timing as in scale. Years into its operations, one of Ethiopia’s more prominent agtech platforms is only now securing institutional backing. That reflects both the promise of the model and the difficulty of building sustainable businesses in a sector where margins are thin, risks are high, and infrastructure gaps remain pervasive.

The enthusiasm around agritech in Ethiopia is rooted in real structural challenges. Agriculture continues to underpin livelihoods and economic stability, but productivity remains uneven and highly exposed to climate variability, input costs, and market inefficiencies. Commissioner Moses’s remarks highlighted these pressures directly, pointing to climate shocks, supply chain disruptions, and rising costs as persistent threats to African agriculture. His prescription was equally direct: expand climate-smart credit, index-based insurance, digital financing, and risk-sharing mechanisms to build resilience at scale.

These priorities align closely with Ethiopia’s own realities. Climate risks are already translating into economic losses, while fragmented value chains and weak logistics continue to limit market access. For farmers, the problem is rarely a single constraint. It is the combination of delayed inputs, limited mechanization, and restricted access to affordable credit.

Agritech platforms attempt to address these bottlenecks simultaneously. By bundling services, digitizing farmer data, and extending last-mile delivery through agent networks, they promise to improve efficiency across the agricultural value chain. In theory, this reduces transaction costs, improves loan assessment, and enables financial institutions to serve farmers at scale. In practice, however, the challenge is far more complex.

Finance remains the most binding constraint. Agricultural lending carries inherent risks tied to weather, price volatility, and informality. Financial institutions, already cautious, often lack the data and risk management tools needed to expand into the sector. Even where services exist, access is uneven. Physical distance, low digital literacy, and limited trust in formal systems continue to shape how farmers interact with financial services.

This is where the limits of digital optimism become apparent. Technology can improve coordination and reduce friction, but it cannot fully compensate for structural gaps in infrastructure, policy, and institutional capacity. Roads, storage facilities, extension services, and regulatory clarity remain just as critical as platforms and apps. Without them, even the most sophisticated digital solutions struggle to scale sustainably.

The trajectory of Ethiopia’s agritech sector will depend on whether current momentum translates into systemic change. Investments like IFC’s support for Lersha are important, but they are only one piece of a much larger puzzle. The real test lies in whether financial institutions expand their exposure to agriculture, whether policymakers create enabling environments, and whether infrastructure gaps are addressed in parallel.

For agritech companies, the path forward is equally demanding. Success will require more than conventional startup benchmarks. It will depend on building durable models that can integrate finance, logistics, advisory services, and market access in a way that delivers consistent value to farmers while remaining commercially viable. This is particularly challenging in rural contexts where service delivery is costly, and returns are slow to materialize.

For the broader ecosystem, coordination will be key. Risk-sharing mechanisms, blended finance structures, and data-driven approaches to credit assessment can help unlock capital, but only if they are embedded within functioning value chains. Digital tools must be complemented by investments in physical infrastructure and institutional capacity. Otherwise, they risk becoming isolated solutions in a system that cannot fully support them.

For farmers, the outcome of these dynamics will be felt in practical terms: whether they can access inputs on time, secure affordable credit, and connect to reliable markets. For the country, the implications extend to productivity, food security, and economic resilience

The Ministry of Trade and Regional Integration reports that contraband trade and taxes levied by regional administrations have cut into earnings from the export of khat and oilseeds.

Reporting to Parliament this week, officials told lawmakers that despite a record USD 6.7 billion in export revenues over the first eight months of the financial year, income from khat, oilseed, cereal, and livestock exports have declined owing to illicit trade and double taxation.

The figure is 11 percent lower than earnings from February 2025. Read more.

Ethiopia’s Ministry of Trade and Regional Integration has announced that three ships carrying a combined 180,000 metric tons of fuel destined for the country are stranded in the Arabian Gulf following the closure of the Strait of Hormuz amid escalating war in the Middle East.

The disruption halted 60% of Ethiopia’s white diesel imports and 100% of its jet fuel supply, forcing the government to turn to the costly spot market, the ministry said. Read more.

The Ministry of Agriculture has acknowledged ongoing challenges in fertilizer supply, even as its officials laud progress in productivity.

Speaking at a press briefing on April 2, 2026, State Minister for Agriculture and Horticulture Development, Meles Mekonnen (PhD), said fertilizer provision has faced sustained pressure since the COVID-19 pandemic, compounded by global conflicts, including the Russia–Ukraine war and tensions in the Gulf. Read more.