Ethiopia- The Second Fastest Growing Economy in Sub-Saharan Africa!

Alright, I am in Ethiopia these days! My first impression about the country has been really good. Humble people; nice weather; from slow to moderately paced community; reasonably priced hotels; cheap food; and to all those beverage lovers like me it may seem money worth spent if we “chose” to drink a bottle of beer (US$1.40) instead that of a coke (US$1.10)!

So what does this landlocked country, also considered epitome of human evolution, with 85 million people, fluctuating inflation (CPI), unstable account balance (sum of net exports of goods, services etc.), has to offer to potential tourists, consultants, businessmen, contractors etc.?

                                             Source: World Bank Data, SISL

On tourism, I haven’t been much around and about apart from the capital city of Addis Ababa and a visit to see Blue Nile (Abay gorge). The most wonderful experience included seeing, potentially,  “ours” millions year old ancestor “Lucy” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australopithecus_afarensis) at National Museum of Ethiopia. Have you ever wondered the feeling after been through such an experience? It may be different for different people but, in general, one is speechless for atleast next half an hour or so! I wish I could also visit the places where all these fossil skeletons, including that of “Ardi” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardi) have been discovered - Archeologists/Paleontologists/Paleoanthropologists any takers please!

Moving on to business side of things, it seems Ethiopia has a massive potential for consultants/contractors etc. Having said that the World Bank data on “Doing Business 2012” ranks Ethiopia at 111 out of 183 economies (more info at http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/ethiopia/).

I am not sure how many of you are aware, I certainly wasn’t, but you know what Ethiopia is also the second fastest growing economy in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)! Take a look at figure below and see how well SSA also compares with other fast growing developing countries.

                                                                Source: World Bank, Global Economic Prospects 2011 Report, January 2011

Within SSA, the Republic of Congo was the fastest growing economy in 2010 with real GDP growth of 9.1 percent, followed by Ethiopia (8.1 percent, GDP current US$29.7bn), which is followed by Nigeria (7.8 percent) and Ghana (7.7 percent).

Unlike other fast growing Sub-Saharan African economies, where growth has been supported by the mining sector, Ethiopia’s strong growth has been driven by development in the agricultural sector (coffee plantation, oilseeds, flowers etc.) and the economy is projected further to grow between 7.2 and 7.8 percent over the 2011-2013 period the world bank report stated. It further states that productivity in the sector will benefit from the support provided to small-scale farmers via the expansion of road, power and market networks. However, the current unstable inflationary environment remains a risk to growth.

Right coming back to the above mentioned issue of what is in it for consultants, businessmen and contractors? Whatever I have seen so far, I think there are potentially big opportunities for work here. With economic melt down in the developed economies, the businesses can certainly look forward to projects here along with opportunities in the Middle East. The government’s attitude seems to be that of “Do-Something” rather than “Do-Nothing/Minimum”.

In the last few days, I have already seen few Indian businesses and consultants already working here or trying earnestly to establish their presence here. I haven’t had much interaction with the government staff but how so much ever I managed I think they are not only aware of the current development challenges but are also keen to get to address them! Significant red tape but things get done in the end. Most of the agency staff can converse in English. Road infrastructure projects are on rise. Out of 53,000 km of length of roads (excluding urban roads) in Ethiopia only 15% are asphalt roads, 25% are gravel and the remaining 60% are earth roads/tracks. Although most of the Ethiopian roads are low volume roads but traffic is on increase since last few years; and therefore pavement of all unpaved roads seems to be on its way. Albeit the Ethiopian Roads Authority is not sure if they want to toll it, but construction of a major road (part funded by Chinese) connecting the capital with Djibouti port has already started. On urban transport projects, I am aware that few firms are involved in quite a number of projects in Addis Ababa including a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project – more on it in the following thread!

So to all those potential consultants/contractors I would say get on with it guys! I am sure most of you would have heard it atleast once in your lifetime but once again, a strong stock to buy but DYOR as always!

Afghan Transition – Issues beyond Security!

I am quite confident that by now most of the readers must have read numerous stories on Afghan transition!

Here is a quick recap. On 22 March 2011 (on Nowruz- the Persian New Year and the first day of spring), Afghanistan’s president, Mr Hamid Karzai, announced the seven areas of Afghanistan [four provincial capitals of Herat (Herat city), Helmand (Lashkar Gah town), Laghman (Mehtar Lam town) and Balkh (Mazar-e-Sharif city); and three provinces of Bamiyan, Panjshir and Kabul (except for Surobi district)] would be included in the first phase of a gradual transition- aimed to be achieved by the end of 2014. Afghan transition implementation, in process now, was thus aimed to start in the following three areas:

•           Security;

•           Governance; and

•           Development.

For all those number crunchers, there are 34 provinces in Afghanistan with a population of around 25 million (Afghanistan Statistical Book 2009-10). The population affected by the proposed transition would thus be roughly 20% of the total population.

In this article, I am trying to explore key transitional issues related with the Development aspect, which lie beyond the Security and the Governance aspect, that may have detrimental effects on country’s sustainability/stabilisation if not looked into now.

I must also mention here that the whole transitional process is currently being led by a prominent politician Dr. Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, who was also a nominee to succeed Mr Kofi Annan as the Secretary General of the United Nations at the end of 2006. A conference with an the aim to assess the current transition preparation, identifying the problems and coming up with solutions for better implementation of the transition process was held recently in Kabul in June 2011. At the close out Mr Ghani said, "I am very proud of our security ministers and governors. There is a full agreement on the transition process. The transition process will succeed no matter what (Source: ISAF Headquarters Office Kabul).” At the time of writing this article the Security transition has already taken place at Bamyan, Heart, Lashkar Gah, Mazar-e-Sharif and Mehtar Lam.

Right, coming back to Development aspect of transition and lumping it together with the other aspects, first of all I am not entirely sure how this area would be addressed and what exactly the Afghan government means by transitioning the Development aspect to Afghans. One possible explanation could be that from now onwards Afghans would be responsible for taking decisions on what development initiatives they need to introduce in those seven areas and possibly other areas in future. In other words the aim of a civil transition could be to set up a fully integrated and competent Afghan civic system in each province to administer everything from education to justice to healthcare to hard infrastructure. At present various contractors, consultants, non-government organisations, international development organisations, North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), International Security Assistance Office (ISAF) etc. provide these services.

My major concerns, however, are:

a)     Albeit that the Development and Security aspects are inter-related, more so in case of Afghanistan, I am not sure it should be part of the transition process per se;

b)     Competence - In line with the Security aspect, where Afghans now have their own forces, I do not believe there are enough competent resources in the country who can also take key decisions on the Development aspects all by themselves. In addition, even if there are some competent people present at the top, one will still require competent workers-won’t one? Therefore, is there any point in having an army of only Generals, in which there are no soldiers to fight for? In any case the news of Afghan security forces not being able to withstand pressure from insurgents (in the already transitioned areas) that have fought the well-equipped and trained troops from the NATO countries resurface every other day.

c)     Clarity – Are the officers who are going to assume these obligations clear about their roles and responsibilities?

d)     Readiness/Willingness- Are the current civic officers/workers ready for this transition? Have they been well trained to take the ownership?

To conclude I would say, even if one has to transfer the responsibilities of the Development aspects to the local nationals, it should be seen as a process rather than a mere launch and an end date i.e. I do not believe that mere transferring the development responsibilities within next three years to locals would solve the purpose of getting a stablised country. Infact every effort should be put in not only to stablise the country but also avoiding the recurrence of the situation in Afghanistan pre 2002. However that also does not mean that the civil transition process should not/cannot be initiated now. One needs to spend time and effort to build the capacity first, the call of the day, I think! Also the responsibility for a successful and sustained transition lies both with Afghan Nationals and International Community.

Kabul Stands Still!

27 June 2011. A more common feature these days in Kabul is that of numerous drivers and passengers sitting in the vehicles waiting desperately to move on- If only there were no long queues and massive delays!

Whether it is a small incident on the road or a big VIP movement, more often or not the outcome seems to be the same- Kabul coming to a grinding halt!

Various, but reliable, sources have set out that the current population of Kabul (area 300 sq km) is somewhere between 3-4 million and the same is growing at an alarming annual growth rate of 5%- some even expect the city population to get double soon.  On the other hand, there has been a massive surge in number of vehicles since the fall of Taliban in 2002 i.e. the vehicles in the city have grown by five times (circa from 100,000 to half a million).  The situation is going from bad to worse as the vehicle growth is further assumed to increase at a princely 10% per annum for the next ten years!

At the time when the big thing happening in the country is “Transition” (Kabul is one of the seven chosen areas for transition), I wonder if someone is also looking at the state of affairs in the country’s capital city- gateway of the country!

To put things in some context, the current speeds in this 5,000 years old city is more or less same as what there would have been 5,000 years back i.e. vehicles these days are merely able to attain journey speeds that people once would have been travelling in Kabul either by foot or by animal carts!

I think gone are the days when experts felt that traffic behaves like a liquid form. These days it has certainly taken the shape of gaseous form, more so in an urban environment. Wherever the users find some space they want to plug the gap in and the consequences are right in front of everybody.

Apart from the long delays, air pollution is another big issue that seems to be gripping Kabul. It is at record levels high causing anxiety and concerns among the people living in the city. Even though the government has recently taken an initiative of closing all the civic offices in the city on Thursdays but the same was never complemented with any other measure to address the issue of congestion and pollution in Kabul. If only one can look and start applying the principles of urban transport planning here!

I was intrigued to write this piece because for the last few months I am seeing that Kabul is invariably covered with dust and it has started taking me atleast three quarters of an hour for a usual five-ten minutes journey. Last year I (potentially others too) suffered one of the biggest delays of my life. A normal travel journey (on 28th August 2010) of 15 minutes (2-3 km) took a massive four and half hours to complete- until today, no one in the city could explain the reason for that gridlock! See underneath some of the moments I had captured then to treasure!

NB: This article was written when I was stuck “again” in traffic in Kabul on 27^th June 2011.

Capacity Building Program Afghanistan - Lessons Learnt

6 May 2011

It is quite some time since I updated the blog. It wasn’t the case that I forgot all about it but it was more to do with my busy schedule on the current piece of assignments I am involved in! Unlike the other blogs, which are updated every now and then, the whole idea behind starting this blog was: a) to update the readers as and when I get the opportunity; and more importantly b) I could summaries/share my experience once a project is finished, which in general takes 3-6 months at a minimum.  

I am hoping the readers will enjoy (potentially may use it as well) reading this piece. Capacity building is integral to most of donors’ pledges/development aspirations. Working here in Afghanistan, I learnt a lot of lessons from the capacity building program (for Ministry of Public Works) that I was involved in. The purpose of this article is to bring together and highlight some of the key lessons, which are:

1.     Taking Onus  – Senior staff who is responsible for initiating capacity building program should also take onus by providing their full support to the program. If possible they should aim to make themselves available all the time during the conduct of the program. It was seen that if the top person at transport agency is not 100% behind the program then it is difficult to achieve an effective outcome!

2.     Training Methods - Short-term training as an exercise in transferring technical knowledge without giving enough attention to ensuring that the methodologies used will be effective in ensuring sustainable learning outcomes is not recommended i.e. the trainers should design the course in a holistic manner (preparing the contents, delivering the course, following up etc.) right from the beginning with an aim to maximize the learning opportunities of the agencies staff. The trainer is recommended to enter the training room with an open mind rather than with any pre conceived notions. Invariably he will come across the trainees having broad spectrum (from little to considerable) of subject knowledge. It was found that conducting pre and post tests (multiple choice, numerical/practical problems if applicable etc.) on the subjects trained also helped the trainees appreciating the fact how much knowledge they have gained or has their competence increased to where it was before. This is also a good tool as it shows tangible results to the donors.

Other related aspect that I would also like to mention here is that the trainer should also aim to deliver the training program with an aim that he is actually training the “future trainers” of the agency i.e. apply “Train the Trainer” approach. In the world of transport planning capacity building programs, the role and value of “local future trainers” is incalculable. In particular when a similar outcome can be achieved without donor’s assistance e.g. a motivated and competent “local future trainer” will be able to train his/her colleagues thereby saving donor’s assistance, which can be put for effective use on some other program.

3.     Incentives– There is no doubt that commitment and efforts of the trainees will be critical to the success of a capacity building program. In volatile economies like Afghanistan, setting out the incentives for the trainees therefore becomes all the more relevant before the start of the program.  The same should be set out at the outset i.e. the trainees should clearly know about the gains (apart from being more knowledgeable and competent in their work i.e. the good of the country) they are making from attending this program.

The key thing here to remember is “what’s in it for the staff at Agency?” Not providing incentives, which should certainly be tangible, may result in adverse impacts on the program e.g. trainees’ attendance may be poor, they are not motivated enough etc. On a smaller scale some examples of such incentives may include; providing tea/food during the conduct of program, certificates, travel allowance etc. However the bigger incentives may include: provision of scholarships towards advanced studies, more resources in the work area, more satisfying work etc.

4.     Gender Bias – It was seen that for certain times/places, the agency might find it difficult to encourage women engineers to visit project sites. However, that should not deter the senior staff for not allowing them to join the program. The may not visit the sites but could still be involved in the project work e.g. carrying out traffic data analysis etc.

5.     Finding Right Advisers – Well, I need not write much here. There is no doubt that finding the right adviser will be the key difference between success and failure of the capacity building program. The person will either make it or will break it. There is always a risk in hiring someone. However the key here is to make every effort to find the person with the right experience, skills, attitude and cultural awareness (extremely important for countries like Afghanistan). Whilst there aren’t any set guidelines on how to find the right person but the following may help:

·       Is there any expert available in the relevant filed- probably the most important issue;

·       What is his educational background- the second most important issue I observed in Afghanistan? Some of the advisers didn’t even have the right education and they were imparting training program (a social planner should not be hired to impart training on road construction);

·       What is his/her past experience in terms of delivering such programs;

·       Double checking with the adviser on how will he mange to buy his customers i.e. how will he motivate the trainees;

·       Can someone (including his trainees) endorse his/her work; and

·       Has he/she worked/ready to work in adverse conditions.