{"id":273435,"date":"2019-04-18T05:55:00","date_gmt":"2019-04-18T09:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/?guid=1692151c5e8b9801a115fd1beb98a93b"},"modified":"2026-09-12T11:23:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T15:23:13","slug":"ethiopias-digital-economy-boom-bang-and-unfinished-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/273435","title":{"rendered":"Ethiopia\u2019s digital economy: boom, bang, and unfinished reform"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Addis Standard published Getachew T. Alemu\u2019s April 2019 commentary on Ethiopia\u2019s <strong>digital economy<\/strong>: a boom narrative mixed with bangs of unfinished reform in telecom, payments, and data infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p><img class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-419464\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Ethio-telecom.jpg?fit=275%2C183&ssl=1\" alt=\"Ethiopia\u2019s digital economy: boom, bang, and unfinished reform\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The essay treated digital growth as a new feature of the reform-era economy, while warning that monopoly habits, skills gaps, and regulatory lag could blunt the upside. Mobile money and connectivity dreams needed more than slogans from Addis.<\/p>\n<p>Abiy Ahmed\u2019s government talked liberalization and tech hubs even as Ethio telecom\u2019s grip and forex scarcity shaped what startups could actually ship. Boom without open rails is mostly brochure language.<\/p>\n<p>Kept for researchers, the digital-economy file shows how early the unfinished-reform critique was. Later telecom tenders and fintech fights still echo that 2019 tension between promise and control.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sources:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/addisstandard.com\/economic-commentary-ethiopias-digital-economy-boom-bang-%EF%BB%BF\/\">Addis Standard<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Economic Commentary: Ethiopia\u2019s Digital Economy: Boom, bang \ufeff&nbsp;&nbsp;addisstandard.comGetachew T. Alemu, For Addis Standard. Addis Abeba, April 18\/2019 \u2013 A flourishing digital economy is a new feature in the dynamics of the new Ethiopia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":419464,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-273435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethiopian-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Ethio-telecom.jpg?fit=275%2C183&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-198f","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273435"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":600850,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273435\/revisions\/600850"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}