Tánaiste marks 30 years of the Irish embassy in Ethiopia with visit to capital city 

Tanaiste Micheal Martin met with Ethiopian president Sahle-Work Zewde to discuss the long relationship between Ireland and Ethiopia. Picture: Phil Behan/DFA

Plans to replace schools with online education during the pandemic in Ethiopia were challenged by gaps in energy supplies and the impact continues, aid workers have warned.

Irish and Ethiopian aid workers met Tánaiste Micheal Martin in the capital Addis Ababa to discuss aid funding yesterday. 

ActionAid Ethiopia country director Tinebeb Berhane later told reporters while they did not have a complete shut-down, schools were closed.

“The government was trying to introduce online education, but (this was) depending on your household infrastructure of course,” she said.

She also said for women and girls: "We saw increases in gender based violence because people were at home." 

The economic impact also continues as large numbers work in the informal sector meaning very small unregistered businesses often run at home and rely on a daily income.

“It was very difficult for a country like ours,” she explained.

You cannot just freeze everything and put everything at home because there are many women and young people who are in the popular sector, the informal sector. They have to support themselves on daily subsidences.

Mr Dinkneh is now working with Gorta Self Help Africa, but during the pandemic worked with Goal Ethiopia.

“During that time there was a big crisis in Ethiopia, given that the country has already a lot of other pressures from the climate change and so on,” he said.

He agreed the small-scale business were “significantly impacted” then.

“That impact has still not gone away, the impact on the lives of those individuals has remained because they have no other means of support unless they are supported by either the government or international communities,” he said.

Irish Aid and the embassy helped with PPE for deprived communities. “There was a significant shortage of masks and sanitisers and everything,” he said.

People have been really worried about how they make (live) their lives, and whether they will be dying the next day if they catch covid.

He also said Ethiopia was one of the few African countries to start domestic covid-testing through development of government laboratories.

Mr Martin marked 30 years of the Irish embassy in Ethiopia and met Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and President Sahlework Zewde.

“Since 1994 our bi-lateral relationship has matured to cover a very broad range of political development cooperation, cultural and trade relations,” he said.

The “strength of those ties was apparent” during the meetings, he said.

Mr Martin earlier defended his decision to visit an brewery belonging to East African Breweries, a subsidiary of Diageo in Kenya on Wednesday. 

“I’m a strong believe in public health as a former minister of health, but we do need balance and perspective here,” he told the Irish Examiner.

“There’s also an economic dimension to this. What we witnessed yesterday was the very effective technology introduced by an Irish company, the Designer Group, to EABL’s processes which reduces its dependence on fossil fuels.” 

Energy is generated by bio-mass fuels including shells from macadamia nuts.