Tag: Ethiopia

For Thousands of Years, Egypt Controlled the Nile. A New Dam Threatens That.

August 12, 2021

Ethiopia is staking its hopes on its $4.5 billion hydroelectric dam. Egypt fears it will cut into its water supplies. President Trump is mediating.

The dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia over the $4.5 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam — Africa’s largest, with a reservoir about the size of London — has become a national preoccupation in both countries, stoking patriotism, deep-seated fears and even murmurs of war.

Why the World Bank Should Embrace Human Rights

August 12, 2021

Embracing human rights also has implications beyond the bank. It could set the bar for other development banks and help build borrowing countries’ capacity and support for human rights. On the other hand, there is the risk that the bank’s dilution of human rights standards can weaken existing rights. As the case of the Ethiopian cash-for-work program illustrates, discrimination on the basis of political opinion – or a person’s language – violates human rights but apparently not bank policy. It is a grim sign that the definition of discrimination in the United Nations’ proposed Sustainable Development Goals does not explicitly include discrimination against people for their political opinions or language.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/-why-the-world-bank-shoul_b_7989002?utm_hp_ref=human-rights

Ethiopian Indigenous People Demand Accountability from World Bank for Contributing to Grave Human Rights Abuses

August 12, 2021

The complaint alleges that the Anuak people have been severely harmed by the World Bank-financed and administered Protection of Basic Services Project (PBS), which has provided 1.4 billion USD in sectoral budget support for the provision of basic services to the Ethiopian Government since 2006. A legal submission accompanying the complaint, prepared by Inclusive Development International (IDI), presents evidence that the PBS project is directly and substantially contributing to a program of forced villagization, which has been taking place in the Gambella Region since 2010.

https://www.inclusivedevelopment.net/ethiopia/ethiopian-indigenous-people-demand-accountability-from-the-world-bank-for-contribution-to-grave-human-rights-abuses/

Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan must learn how to share the Nile river

August 11, 2021

Once completed, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will be nearly twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty and as wide as the Brooklyn Bridge is long. The reservoir behind it is roughly the size of London. Sitting on the Blue Nile, the main tributary of the Nile river, the dam is the largest hydro-electric project in Africa. Soon it will produce 6,000 megawatts of electricity, more than double Ethiopia’s output today. With a little co-operation between Ethiopia and its downstream neighbours, Egypt and Sudan, the dam could be a boon for the whole region.

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/07/02/egypt-ethiopia-and-sudan-must-learn-how-to-share-the-nile-river

We are finally getting better at predicting organized conflict

August 10, 2021

New techniques have made predictions more useful, and we used one to look at violence in Ethiopia since the election of Abiy Ahmed, the new Nobel Peace Prize winner.

In the world of conflict prediction, there is a truism: the best predictor of violence is a history of violence. One illustration is the Early Warning Project’s 2019 predictions for the sites of new mass killings, defined as the death of over 1,000 civilians in a year due to the deliberate action of armed groups (2020 figures weren’t available at press time): the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, India, and Myanmar rank among the 30 highest-risk countries.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/10/24/238426/predicting-organized-conflict-ensemble-modeling-ethiopia-ahmed/?utm_source=engagement_email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=site_visitor.unpaid.engagement&utm_content=05.19.subs&mc_cid=aef8827775&mc_eid=902948ef8d