Economic EU-Africa Partnership

Ethiopia at the European Business Summit: Boosting Local Entrepreneurship for a Sustainable Economic EU-Africa Partnership

H.E Ambasssasdor Hirut Zemene underlined on the focus of the Ethiopian government in generating more job opportunities to the youth and women by giving emphasis to strengthening Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) as well as focusing on sectors such as light manufacturing, agriculture, tourism and information technology which are key to job creation.

Photo credit: The Embassy of Ethiopia in Brussels The European Business Summit (EBS) is a renowned organization that creates and supports networking and debating events which takes place in Brussels every year. Adapting to these challenging times, the European Business Summit and celebration of its 20th anniversary has been held virtually on the 16th and 17th of November 2020. This summit was entitled ‘Rebooting the European economy: Towards a green, sustainable, digital and more resilient union’.

Her Excellency Ambassador Hirut Zemene participated in one of the panel discussions of the summit under the theme “Boosting Local Entrepreneurship for a Sustainable Economic EU-Africa Partnership”. In this panel discussion H.E Ambassador Hirut was joined by Lora Borissova, Senior Expert, Cabinet of EU Commissioner Jutta Urpilainen; Sérgio Pimenta, Vice President of International Finance Corporation; Soraya Hakuziyaremye, Minister of Trade and Industry of Rwanda; Fabrizio Delage-Paganini, Co-Founder of Valeur-Tech; Anna Ekeledo, Executive Director of AfriLabs; and Celia Moore, EU-Africa Relations Consultant.

During the panel discussion, Ambassador Hirut underscored the important areas of alignments between the development polices and strategies of the government of Ethiopia and EU’s priorities in Africa such as job creation and, green growth. She spoke at length as to how the Ten-Year Development Plan (2020/21 to 2029/30), themed “Ethiopia: An African Beacon of Prosperity” has focused on the topic of discussion i.e, boosting local entrepreneurship by increasing the role of the private sector to the economy. She underlined on the focus of the Ethiopian government in generating more job opportunities to the youth and women by giving emphasis to strengthening Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) as well as focusing on sectors such as light manufacturing, agriculture, tourism and information technology which are key to job creation.

Further referring to the topic of the panel “boosting local entrepreneurship,” she explained how women contribute to the economy through SMEs. She also highlighted how women are forced to engage in the informal sector due to lack of access to finance and the need for them to be supported financially and technically. She also shaded light on how as a country of small holder farmers, Ethiopia projects a strong case for entrepreneurship. She brought the case of coffee in this regard.

Photo credit: The Embassy of Ethiopia in Brussels Coffee, the gift of Ethiopia to the world, is still exported as green beans. Turning around Ethiopia’s economy, among others, adding value to coffee export by developing the capacity, and expanding the market for Ethiopian originated processed coffee would be very crucial in terms of transforming the economy and accruing benefits to various sectors of the society. In this regard, H.E Ambassador Hirut has highlighted three key interventions that the EU could take part in boosting local entrepreneurship. These could be in strengthening support for women entrepreneurs, supporting the development of value chains that could create advanced agricultural production such as in the coffee sector and the development of incubation centers to create a bridge between Technical and Vocational Education Training centers and the job market.

Lora Borissova from the European Commission for International Partnerships, on her part, stated that the European Union is working to develop a new comprehensive cooperation and development strategy with Africa. She said the Union is working primarily to strengthen job creation, small and medium enterprises, and private start-up investors in Africa, adding that it will focus on increasing the participation of women and youths.

Other speakers contributed views on support needed to increase local entrepreneurs’ participation in expanding value chains and support to transform infrastructure and systems that will enable growth in trade across Africa and to external markets.

With hundreds of high-level speakers, different interactive debates, and exclusive networking opportunities, EBS has become a landmark event in Brussels attracting thousands of attendees each year.

The summit has created an opportunity for the Ethiopian side to show how value addition could transform the economy and to explain in detail focus and directions of Ethiopia’s 10-year development plan. It has also created an opportunity to highlight areas that could help forge cooperation between Ethiopia and the EU specially in enhancing local entrepreneurship.

The summit attended by more than 6000 businesses around the world, gave visibility to Ethiopia’s development plans and garnering possible partnership across public private partnership.