Mereja.Forum

[sarcasm]

Africa’s tiger economy is shot (The Economist)

Feb 29th 2024

Ethiopia was once known as Africa's "Asian tiger". However, the article suggests that Ethiopia is now on an uncertain path and may be a warning to the rest of the continent.


https://www.economist.com/middle-east-a ... my-is-shot


Ethiopia’s ‘African tiger’ leaps towards middle income

22 October 2014


It is now three decades since Ethiopia experienced the infamous famine that cost the lives of more than a million people. The tragedy prompted the BBC’s Michael Buerk to describe it as “a biblical famine in the 20th century” and “the closest thing to hell on Earth”.

In sharp contrast with that devastating poverty, Ethiopia is now widely considered to be one of a pack of “African tigers”, with ambitious plans to become a middle-income country by 2025. The nation has, “like the proverbial phoenix, managed to rise from the ashes to become Africa’s fastest-growing non-energy-driven economy”, a senior tax adviser at KPMG Kenya recently noted.

The changes that have taken place in Ethiopia since the 1984 famine are commendable. Despite some dispute over the figures, there is consensus that Ethiopia has registered impressive economic growth for the past decade of somewhere between 8% and 10%. One effect of the progress is a greater capacity to cope with drought, preventing the descent into famine conditions that have occurred in the past. Ethiopia’s development efforts are also praised internationally for meeting some of the millennium development goals, particularly universal primary education and a reduction in infant mortality.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-deve ... dle-income

[Fiyameta]

I watched a documentary film where a young woman with gambling addiction was approached by a gang of criminals who praised her "lucky streaks" at the Casino tables and offered to loan her large sums money that she can gamble with and split the winnings with the gang.

The woman actually believed luck was on her side when the criminal gang expressed confidence in her gambling skills and made her feel that she could never lose.

After 3 days of gambling, however, the young woman lost all the money and fled to another city where she thought the gang wouldn't be able to find her. But it only took the gangs a few weeks to locate the woman and demanded that she cough up the money or they would kill her.

Realizing that killing the woman won't bring them the money, the gang decided to arm her with a hand gun and sent her to rob banks to pay back her debt.

The woman was only able to get a few thousands dollars from the 3 banks she robbed before she got caught and was sentenced to life in prison.

The moral of the story is, just because some international loan sharks like the World Bank and the IMF tell you that you have the potential to strike gold doesn't mean that you will. If anything, you will be up to your neck in foreign debt that they will provide you weapons to fight their wars and you wound up paying your debt in blood. IQ Matters!