The ongoing comprehensive reforms under the leadership of Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed aim at far-reaching impacts on the economic, social and political life of this nation.
As part of the reform measures, the government has been undertaking diverse measures and readjustments to correct the macro-economic imbalance which hindered the nation from generating sufficient finance and that has led to foreign currency crunch and debt distress.
Accordingly, the government’s recent announcement of homegrown economic reform that would enable the nation to uphold the previous achievements and solve the current challenges is a timely important step.
To begin with, it is a decisive step to introduce home-grown measures than imported solutions so as to address Ethiopia’s problems: as the translated Oromo proverb goes: “An individual is responsible for own affairs”.
As Premier Dr. Abiy briefed on a recent forum, the reform would link Ethiopia to prosperity, enabling it to become a middle-income economy and, ensuring sustainable and stable development across the nation. Solving Ethiopia’s economic problems through home grown solutions is by virtue geared towards that goal.
No doubt, the homegrown economic reform will propel Ethiopia to become the African icon of prosperity by 2030 if the government and the stakeholders play their roles with maximum commitment, focusing on the main pillars of the economic reform.
Due to the fact that the next Ethiopia’s growth and development require more active private sector, the government should continue opening up key economic activities to the private investment. It has to walk the talk and privatize some of the public owned enterprises it has pledged to.
As well, it has to prioritize the success of key sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing, mining, tourism and information communication technology as they are anchors in the vision to build a prosperous nation.
And although the previous achievements should be upheld, the macro-economic imbalance manifested by the inequity between revenue and expenditure, and the serious disparity in the foreign trade sector must be focused on.
Consequently, priority should be to create economic environment that closes income inequality gap by creating job opportunity and access of sources to all youth and women. And capacity building must be considered to make the youth and women economically effective and efficient.
Similarly, paying attention to the tourism sector is necessary. And the government has to focus on utilizing the untapped tourism potential Ethiopia owns to get a move on the economic growth. Plus to this, creating conducive tourist destination and ensuring peace and security is essential to attract more tourists.
Equally, all development partners have to contribute their share and continue strengthening their supports on the reform activities to reduce poverty and to make the economic growth sustainable and stable.
Overall, if government and stakeholders collaboratively exert their complete efforts on it, the homegrown economic reform would enable Ethiopia to uphold the previous achievements and solve the current economic challenges making the nation an icon of Africa in economy.
The Ethiopian Herald Sept 13/2019
