Since Ethiopia is a home for more than 80 nations and nationalities, the country is a place for a number of values and norms, iconic and colorful costumes, impressive hair styles. However, for decades, these nations, nationalities tangible heritages were not promoted well.
Following the 1991political change in the country along with other core changes nations and nationalities got a chance to promote and magnify their cultural values norms and customs.
Ahmed Mohammed, Directorate General with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism said that though Ethiopia is a country that has its own unique reflection of cultural identity. Among the others that reflect individual’s identity, rank and social status, traditional clothes are one. The costumes are taken by Ethiopians a source of beauty and pride for that specific group.
However, as to him, due to failure to pay great attention for the costumes, many-sided problems including the violation of patent right is challenging it.
Particularly, in this period of globalization where the world is highly interconnected and trade among global countries is becoming more integrated, preserving and passing this special dressing style to the next generation through keeping its originality is becoming a demanding task.
The Ministry, realizing this challenge and with the aim to close the gaps that can be source of patent violation above all to enhance the income of the country and create mass job opportunities for citizens, is working jointly with different stakeholders, he said.
“Our cultural clothes have their own elegance and are the manifestation of identity. They are also source of pride for Ethiopian delegations travelling into different countries of the world. Thus, we should promote them more in global arena.”
Negash Asfaw, Art Development and Marketing Directorate Acting Director with the Ministry on his part said that in overseas, some individuals and companies are producing fake Ethiopian cultural clothes that do not represent the original culture of Ethiopians.
“To address such problem and curb it, we need to stand as advocator of our cultural clothes to protect it from fake production,” he stressed.
As to him during this globalization era to become competent enough in marketing, it needs to follow market principle through identifying market demand. Mentioning that the limitation to supply the products at the required quantity and quality as the market needs he said that this has to be considered well.
He added that to protect the products from the violation of patent right it needs giving a brand mark for each product. And to achieve this, the Ministry has been working with the Ethiopian Intellectual Property Office to solve the problem depending on study.
Senait Tadase is resident of Addis Ababa Gulelle Sub City. Senait engages on production and marketing of traditional clothes, in her small shop situated around Addisu Gebeya. On her part she said that though the demand for cultural clothes has been increasing from time to time, the support that has been given by the government to the sector is not enough.
“Our cultural clothes are liked by both native Ethiopians and foreigners and the government should work to enhance the producing capacity of the producers,” she opined.
The Ethiopian Herald, November 20/2019
BY TAMERU REGASA
