Ethiopia receives funding to upgrade TRL - major roads - Latest Transport News - Transport News - TRL News Hub

Date: 15/2/2012

Ethiopia is set to upgrade its transport infrastructure with a $234.5 million (£149 million) loan from the African Development Bank.

The money will be used to reconstruct two roads that will connect the nation with neighbouring countries in a bid to improve trade, the Addis Fortune reports.

A 112km route from Bedele to Metu will be upgraded as this is part of a network that connects Addis Ababa with the South Sudan capital Juba.

The 197km road between Hawassa and Ageremariam - part of Mombassa-Nairobi-Addis Ababa Road Corridor - will also be improved using the funding, while $168 million will finance construction work on the Hawasssa-Ageremariam Road, which is part of the Trans-African Highway.

Gaps in transport infrastructure are currently preventing the development of trade links within Africa and this latest project aims to address this, the newspaper stated.

Currently, TRL is working in Ethiopia, advising the Ethiopian Road Authority (ERA) as part of a preparatory study towards the establishment of a Road Research Centre (RRC) in Addis Ababa. With assistance from the World Bank, ERA hopes that the centre will eventually employ up to 150 people and will undertake research into all aspects of road and transport engineering.

Posted by Nick Anderson

Ethiopians give lacklustre welcome to Kwame Nkrumah statue - Africa - World - The Independent

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• East Africa
• Ghana
• Diplomacy
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• Ethiopia
• Africa

The arrival of Ghanaian great Kwame Nkrumah in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa
40 years after his death has been met with notable local resistance.

Ethiopians are signing a petition demanding that a statue of the pan-Africanist leader which was recently unveiled outside the new African Union headquarters be joined by one of the late emperor Haile Selassie or removed.

As well as the signatures, a group of Ethiopian elders, opposition politicians and scholars have written to the AU Commission voicing their disappointment at its decision to "ignore" the deposed emperor.

The golden statue of Nkrumah was erected to commemorate his founding role in the Organisation of African Unity, the AU’s predecessor.

The late Ethiopian monarch’s supporters have argued that their man, who became internationally famous for his resistance against the Italians under Mussolini, was a longer-standing supporter of African liberation than Ghana’s founding president.

“It is Haile Selassie who is described by African leaders as the father of Africa not Nkrumah,” said Yacob Hailemariam, an opposition politician who has spoken out against the choice of the Ghanaian.

The campaign has, however, infuriated Ethiopia’s current leader Meles Zenawi who said it was “crass” to question Nkrumah’s choice as an African symbol and has repeatedly denounced Selassie, who died in 1975, as a “feudal dictator”.

“It is only Nkrumah who is remembered whenever we talk about pan Africanism,” Mr Meles told local media. “It is a shame not to accept his role.”

The AU confirmed that it had received a letter signed by prominent Ethiopians, many of them living abroad, but declined to comment. The protest letter says that Selassie who ruled Ethiopia for 40 years had “the legal, moral, historical and diplomatic legitimacy to have his statue erected next to Kwame Nkrumah.”

The inauguration of the new headquarters in Addis Ababa was meant to underline Ethiopia and Africa’s burgeoning friendship with China which funded the $200m construction. However, the summit served to remind the outside world of the AU’s reliance on foreign funding and on its propensity for squabbling as Cameroon’s Jean Ping and South Africa’s Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma fought each other to a draw over the leadership of the 54-nation club.

The revelation that the AU relies for two-thirds of its funding on Western donors and that many members had both failed to pay their dues or fulfil their aid promises made during last year’s Horn of Africa famine, dampened the occasion. The empty coffers reminded many observers that the main patron of pan-Africanism in recent years was the deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi who was killed last year.

The statue row has enabled Ethiopia’s downtrodden opposition to rally support and opposition blogs have started to refer to the AU’s new 100 metre tall marble home as the “sarcophagus of Africa”.

Under Prime Minister Meles, who backtracked on his promise to leave office and ran again at the last election, the country has become increasingly authoritarian, imprisoning opposition leaders, curtailing non-governmental organisations and harassing political opponents.

The two competing African champions might have found the whole row quite strange as they were close supporters of each other’s causes before the emperor was deposed by the Derg coup leaders in 1974.

18TH AU CONFAB ENDS...ELECTIONS FOR COMMISSIONERS SET FOR JUNE

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The 18th Ordinary Session of Heads of State and Government of the African Union (AU) have ended in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa with the adoption of 25 Decisions, one Resolution and two Declarations.

According to a Foreign Ministry release, the Session held under the theme “Boosting Intra-African Trade”, took place at the new AU Conference Center dedicated on Saturday, January 28th, 2012. The 18th Ordinary Session ran from January 29th – 30th, 2012 with Liberia's President Madam Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in attendance.

Amongst the decisions is the suspension of the elections of the Chairperson and Deputy Chairperson of the AU Commission along with that of the eight Commissioners. The decision was made after a long debate which saw none of the candidates for the chairmanship obtain the two-thirds vote as stipulated in the AU Constitution.

The summit resolved that an ad-hoc committee of Heads of State and Governments composed of one Member State per region together with the Republic of Benin as Chairperson of the Union and the Republics of Gabon and South Africa is mandated to look into the election matter ahead of the next AU summit scheduled for June 2012. The ad-hoc committee is expected to meet in March 2012. As such the Assembly extended the present mandate of the current Members of the Commission until the next AU Summit.

Also adopted is the decision on the election of ten members of the AU Peace and Security Council for a two-year term beginning March 2012. Those elected include Cameroon and DR Congo from the Central Region; Djibouti and Tanzania from the Eastern Region; Egypt from the Northern Region; Angola and Lesotho from the Southern Region and Cote d'Ivoire, Gambia and Guinea from the Western Region.

Other decisions adopted by the Session include the Establishment of the Pan African University, Decision on African Integration, Decision on the Global African Diaspora Summit, Decision on Boosting African Integration, Decision on Boosting Intra-African Trade and Fast Tracking the Continental Free Trade Area and the Decision on the Situation in Palestine and the Middle East.

Others are the Decision on the Progress Report of the Commission on the Implementation of the Assembly Decisions on the International Criminal Court, Decision on “Integration as a Factor for African

Renaissance”, Decision on the Establishment of an African Institute of International Law in Arusha, Tanzania, Decision on the 10th Report of the Committee of Ten on the United Nations Security Council Reform, as well as the Decision on the Contributions of Member States to the Budget of the AU, amongst others.

During the closing ceremony, the President of the Republic of Tunisia, Dr. Mohamed Moncef Marzouki presented the vote of thanks to the Assembly, calling on the need for peace and unity on the continent. To the Chinese Government he extended his gratitude for offering the AU a magnificent conference center which will enable the African Heads of State and Governments to meet and discuss issues of interest to the continent.

For his part, the new Chairperson of the AU, President Yayi Boni of Benin thanked the Heads of State and Government for the honor bestowed on him by conferring the responsibility of guiding the AU during the next 12 months.

He congratulated them for the contributions made during the Assembly in ensuring that they considered the different items on the Summit's agenda dealing with peace, security and stability that will lead the continent towards prosperity and development.

The new Chairperson noted that the discussions enabled them to consider the progress made as well as focus on the challenges faced in pursuing sustainable development on the continent. President Boni said that despite the brotherhood and solidarity that characterized the deliberations, he regretted that they were not able to proceed with the election of members of the Commission; but was of the conviction that the ad-hoc committee would conclude on the matter before the next AU Summit.

Meanwhile, the Assembly named Lilongwe, Malawi as the venue for the 19th Ordinary Session of the AU Heads of State and Government scheduled for June 2011.