Africa

What’s next for EPRDF?

The worst enemy threatening Ethiopia’s otherwise well-built looking ruling party comes from within

 Tesfalem Waldyes and Tsedale Lemma

In mid April 2012, Bahir Dar, a lakeside city 578 km north of Addis Ababa and the capital of the Amhara regional state, has comfortably hosted the Tana High Level Security Forum in Africa, the first of its kind international conference attended by a few former and serving African head of states including Ethiopia’s late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and former Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo. Nearly a year later, it hosted the 9^th Congress of the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), a league of four regional and ethnic based parties that make up Ethiopia’s ruling government. More than 2,500 people including Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, members of the military, veterans of the armed struggle and senior politicians (who were all speeding through the city with identical, tinted Toyota Land Cruisers), foreign delegates of sister parties and representatives of civil society organizations have swamped the city for four consecutive days from 23^rd – 26^th March.

Africa

AU-EU commissioners to meet

Emnet Assefa

The African Union (AU) and its European equivalent the European Union (EU) will hold their sixth commission to commission (C2C) meeting on the 25^th and 26^th of April here at the AUC compound.

The meeting will be co-chaired by the AUC Chairperson Dr. Nkosazana Clarice Dlamini-Zuma and her European counterpart José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, and will be attended by Commissioners from both sides. It is expected that the two sides will review the results of the cooperation between the two unions since June 2011 and provide the necessary political input in new areas of mutual interests.

Africa

New SME supporting platform underway

Emnet Assefa

DHL, global express operator announced a business platform that it said will assist local Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to penetrate the global market. The company made the announcement in Addis Ababa on 18^th April during a national Micro and Small Enterprise business forum co-organized by AXIOS Business Services Pvt. Ltd. Co.