Ethiopia: Financial & Telecom Liberalization- Prospects & Hazards

While Ethiopia has recorded significant achievements in GDP growth, it faces predictable armor of trials with too few mechanism and wherewithal, while also wrestling with the perennial problem of sequencing policy reforms, all subject to doctrinal reins. Given the very slim boundaries for maneuver imposed by abject poverty, deficits and a complex interlace in its political fabric, getting the priorities right are the central issues to be addressed. Using comparative analyses with other African nations that have liberalized their economy, the research delves into the impact of liberalization and the requisite preparatory basis of a reform pedestal on which the nation can be a winner in this game. The financial sector is underdeveloped in comparison to some neighbors where part of the population operates in a cashless society. Financial and telecom liberalization is an integral part of the overall economic liberalization, a set of policy measures designed to deregulate and transform the system with the view to achieving a liberalized market-oriented system within an appropriate regulatory framework. Findings of the research undergird eloquent testimony of complexity and uncertainty theories and functioning economic models that Ethiopia can emulate, underpinning the fact that this can be complex, when reforms are subject to ideological therapy. Hence, managed restructuring of the public sector, establishing institutional capacity for policy analysis, formulation and coordination, regulatory capacity, advancing fiscal sustainability are gleaned as a panacea for change and transformation. Creating a merit based and metric civil service is a basic requirement to achieve higher ‘allocative’ and ‘productive’ efficiency, augmenting private sector share and improving public sector financial health. African countries have now deregulated their ICT industry and wooing investors to the economy, with significant impacts to show, driving rapid growth with the exception of state monopolies - Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti.
Key words: liberalization, right sizing, meritocracy, telecom, private sector, regulation
See paper here or https://www.academia.edu/12407588/Ethiopia_-_Financial_and_Telecom_Liberalization_Potential_Prospects_and_Hazards