Worancha ወራንቻ

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia—A generation ago, this African nation was a magnet for Western charity. Today, some of America’s richest deal makers are delivering something new: investment. A number of high-profile investors have recently shown up here.  KKR  & Co., the New York-based private-equity firm, last summer  bought control of a rose farm , Afriflora, for about $200 million, its first investment in Africa.  Blackstone Group  plans to build a $1.35 billion pipeline to bring gasoline to the capital, Addis Ababa. Hedge-fund manager  Paul Tudor Jones  is backing a $2 billion geothermal power project. The investors are following in the footsteps of Irish punk rock singer turned activist Bob Geldof, whose Live Aid concerts 30 years ago this summer raised about $145 million for the victims of a devastating Ethiopian famine. Mr. Geldof now chairs 8 Miles LLP, a London-based private-equity firm that invests in Ethiopia. 8 Miles raised a $200 million fund in 2012; Mr. Geldof put in a f

By http://allafrica.com/stories/201503301644.html As we have mentioned in the previous article "Limelight on the Declaration of Principles on the Renaissance Dam " on March 25, 2015, the three member states of the Eastern Nile Basin, Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt, signed on Monday, March 23,2015, an agreement on the Renaissance Dam. The agreement was signed by the leaders- Haile Meriam Desalegn, Omar al-Bashir, Abdul Fattah Sisi- themselves, nor by the Water or Foreign Ministers, emphasizing the importance the three countries attach to the deal. In the previous article we have discussed the 10 points the agreement contained which mainly reflected full acceptance by Egypt and Sudan of construction of the Renaissance Dam after four years of sharp disputes and altercation. As we have promised in that article, we will try here to answer the question: How and why has the Ethiopian strategy on the Renaissance Dam succeeded? (1) Ethiopia has relied in its strategy on the fairnes

This is the story of how our friends & partners at  Intelligentsia Coffee  brought dozens of the world’s best coffee producers to Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee.  Back in October 2011, we were invited along with a few other journalists and observers to take part in Intelligentsia Coffee’s  Extraordinary Coffee Workshop in Los Angeles . The ECW is Intelligentsia’s annual, closed-door, origin conference; part hardcore policy session, part farmer summer camp, these events are as exclusive and cloistered as they are fascinating, and comprise an international who’s who of top coffee producers.  No outside journalists  were invited to participate at ECW 2014, which means information is only available directly from Intelligentsia Coffee.  Geoff Watts is one of the coffee industry’s most influential and revered green buyers. Much of how specialty coffee speaks now—microlots, direct trade, the expectation for knowledge of source—can be traced back to Watts and his fellow special