President Sahle-Work led the Ethiopian delegation to the EU-Africa High Level Forum held in Vienna this week, December 17-18 under the theme “Taking cooperation to the digital age`”, to promote innovation and digitalization as important enablers for future development.
President Sahle-Work addressed the Forum on Tuesday (December 18), underlining that the information age in which we live demands catching up with the rapidly changing developments in the digital sector. She said we were witnessing that fast growth in digital economy brought more opportunities for businesses and entrepreneurs, opened doors to international markets and allowed many more to participate in the global value chains. “Technology”, she said, “has indeed become an integral part of our national and global economic lives.” The critical question, however, was how fast countries in Africa and people in lower income bracket were embracing and applying this surge in scientific innovation and digital technology. She said she believed the Forum and its outcome would provide ways to benefit the growth and development of all nations.
In Ethiopia, she said, rapid economic growth and increasing flows of FDI underlined the need to embrace new technological applications and innovations to modernize the economy to become a better competitor in regional and global markets as well as addressing development challenges. Ethiopia was now implementing a 70/30 education policy with more students graduating in engineering and science fields. The government was putting in place different IT infrastructures to boost economic growth and development: Schoolnet, for Schools to receive video lessons broadcast for eight hours a day by satellite TV; Woredanet, connecting all 611 of Ethiopia’s woredas, districts, with the 11 regional capitals through internet telephone and video-conferencing; Lehulu, service centers providing people with single centers to pay including water, telephone, electricity and traffic penalties; and Telecenters, run by small and medium enterprises providing computers and internet facilities around the country. She noted there were more than 62 million mobile subscriptions and internet penetration was increasing with services expanding into rural areas.
President Sahle-Work stressed the country’s “new wave of transformation” had brought with it the need to liberalize some sectors of the economy, including telecom which would lead development of digitalization. She noted the plans to conduct the next Ethiopian Census by using Digital Registration and Geo-Referencing of Housing and Family Registrations. The next Ethiopian General Election, in May 2020, would also be conducted through digital applications for Voter’s Registration and Results Aggregations. The President underlined the importance of cooperation and partnership with development partners to fully benefit from the growth of the digital transformation, and emphasized Ethiopia’s commitment to work together with partners. She said highly trained professionals make all the difference in application of mobile payment system, ecommerce, egovernment services, internet and data security.
On the sidelines of the Forum, President Sahle-Work held a number of meetings. In addition to meeting a number of business representatives, she also met with the Prime Minister of Poland, Mr. Mateusz Morawiecki; the Prime Minister of Netherlands, Mr. Mark Rutte; the President of the European Parliament, Mr. Antonio Tajani, and France’s Minister of State for Europe and Foreign Affairs, M. Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne. Her discussions covered issues of common interest including strengthening bilateral relation, development cooperation and technical support. The President urged them to encourage investment in Ethiopia to expand trade ties.
