Strategic arenas for WTO accession:

Public Policy Trajectories that lure in the rewards of

Globalisation to Ethiopian Businesses

Public Lecture – Respublica Litereria - RL Vol XIII No 407 MMXIX

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD

Professor of Public Policy & Sustainable Institutional Reforms

https://addisababa.academia.edu/CostyCostantinos

Association of African Public Services Commissions’ General Assembly:

Human Resource Development and the Challenges of State Capacity for Service Delivery in Africa: Improving the

Administrative-Political Interface African Union Hall, Oct 28-29, 2014, Addis Ababa, Panel II

Abstract

While Ethiopia has recorded significant achievements in GDP growth, it faces predictable armour of trials rife in poor nations 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 manoeuvre 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 acceded to WTO accords, the lecture delves into impact of WTO accession on businesses and the requisite preparatory basis of a reform pedestal on which the nation can be a winner in this game. Findings of the research undergird eloquent testimony of complexity and uncertainty theories and func­tioning economic models that Ethiopia can emulate, not only to accede to WTO revised accession regimes, but also to compete successfully in the global arena; 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 for competing in the WTO arena to achieve higher allocative and productive efficiency, augmenting private sector share, improving public sector financial health and PPPs.

Key words: WTO, Ethiopia, state right sizing, PPP, meritocracy, markets, private sector, regulation

See paper here or https://www.academia.edu/38213587/Ethiopia_-_Strategic_trajectories_for_WTO_accession_-_AAPSC_Lecture_RL_Vol_XIII_No_407_MMXIX

Does Africa has the ability to Pay IFI’s & Bilateral Loans? RL Vol XIII No 395 MMXIX

Africa’s Debt Sustainability

Does Africa has the ability to Pay IFI’s & Bilateral Loans?

Public Lecture – Respublica Litereria - RL Vol XIII No 395 MMXIX

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD

Professor of Public Policy & Sustainable Institutional Reforms

https://addisababa.academia.edu/CostyCostantinos

Abstract

Africa is facing a looming debt crisis from International Financial Institutions (IFI) and bilateral lenders. Almost 40% of sub-Saharan African countries are in danger of slipping into a major debt crisis according to the ODI. The IMF has recently warned that Africa is heading towards a new debt crisis, with the number of countries at high risk doubling over the past five years. The World Bank now classifies 18 countries as at high risk of debt distress, where debt-to-GDP ratios surpass 50 %. Public debt dynamics, once an esoteric subject of interest only to macroeconomists, are suddenly in vogue. Two things matter in government-debt dynamics, the variance between real interest rates and GDP growth and the primary budget balance as a percentage of GDP. Afro-China rapport is often seen as a significant part of the problem. Its critics say that major projects carried out by China in Africa are too expensive, and burden the host countries with enormous debts they can't hope to repay. US official John Bolton went further by placing Cold War-style competition at the centre of US strategy in Africa, suggesting that Africa is being misled by China’s offers of hefty loans for infrastructure projects, luring Africans into debt traps, the Chinese regime is actually aiming to foster dependency relationships as part of its quest to achieve ‘global dominance.’ US insistence that it caters for Africa’s best interests strikes many as ‘paternalistic, patronising and unnecessary.’ Studies for the past four years finds “no evidence at all”.

The Chinese government is adamant that its economic relationships with African countries are mutually beneficial and rejects suggestions that it is using debt to expand global influence. So is China really responsible for Africa's growing debt burden? A new study based on the analysis of 4,300 Chinese-funded projects in 140 countries by AidData, paints a more complicated picture. African countries received the largest proportion, 59%, of projects financed by China between 2000 and 2014. But when it comes to the actual value of projects committed China’s African partners rank fairly low on the list. China’s funds to Africa are more than the combined total of the AfDB, the EU, IFC, the World Bank and the G8 countries. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi played down concern over Africa's debts with Beijing as he arrived in Addis Abeba at the start of a four-nation Africa tour. China has funnelled cash and loans into infrastructure projects across the continent, where many African leaders consider Beijing's terms a better deal that than those offered by bilateral Western nations (AFP, 2019). It is recommended that nations enhance free movement of capital and labour, improve the private sector’s access to credit facilities and reconsider some aspects of the investment laws, managed restructuring of public sector, privatising and commercialising activities and fulfilling requirements for fiscal sustainability.

Key words: debt sustainability, Africa, China, aid, loan, infrastructure,

See paper here or  https://www.academia.edu/38184694/Does_Africa_has_the_ability_to_Pay_IFI_s_and_Bilateral_Loans_RL_Vol_XIII_No_395_MMXIX

A Faustian Pact with Neo-patrimonial Regimes RL Vol XIII No 279 MMXIX

A Faustian Pact with Neo-patrimonial Regimes

The Ordeal African Political Challengers endure in a Constricted Political Space

Respublica Litereria Public Lecture - RL Vol XIII No 279 MMXIX

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD

Professor of Public Policy & Sustainable Institutional Reforms

https://addisababa.academia.edu/CostyCostantinos

Abstract

This think piece raises the tangential issues of the trajectories on the stewardship of African democratisation marked by uniquely austere organisational-strategic issues of neo-patrimonialism. Under patrimonialism there is no differentiation between the private and the public realm. Neo-patrimonialism is an amalgam of moderately coupled forms of state supremacy resulting from a coevolution of patrimonial and legal-rational bureaucratic state supremacy. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to study the key characteristics of neo-patrimonial regimes and derive methodological pathways for successful political transition into a pluralist society and polity. The research enquiry augurs on the knowledge gaps on African political transitions in nations under neo-patrimonial rule. While many African nations are bent on installing public administration and undertake regular elections the coordinates of the state are controlled to perpetuate the single party rule. Hence, the research questions augur on the following. What is the level of political culture development in Africa to ensure democratic development? What are the indicators that justify electoral quantity, quality and meaning in Africa? What can states; civil societies and the international community do to promote democracy in Africa?

The paper further discusses democratic political culture development in Africa, under whose rubrics are discussed are developmental states, market failures and neo-patrimonial rent seeking, neo-patrimonial states and citizenship in Africa, electoral trajectories in Africa political parties & elections in Africa: elections and their outcomes. The discussion focuses on quo vadis democracy in Africa, state building and nation building. All endeavours to characterise African neo-patrimonialism hinge on a fusion of the patrimonial single parties that dominate African elections (legal-rationalism) and absolute dictatorships that seeks to make sense of the (more real than imaginary) contradictions to be found in the state in Africa. When African states gained their independence from European colonial disruption, the African state had to inherit both the public and private sphere, including national development and colonial businesses. The developmentalist state that ensued has become bewildering to many, as influential strands of radical scholarship continued to question whether the ‘peripheral’ parts of an increasingly inter-connected global economy could ever hope to escape the predations of the established industrial heartlands. The failure of central planning in socialist countries pointed to government failure as more insidious than the market failure that state policies had purportedly been designed to correct. States are heretically formed through wars to extend influence of certain powerful individuals but nation building is the action undertaken by national actors to forge a sense of common nationhood, usually in order to overcome ethnic, sectarian or communal differences, counter alternate sources of identity and loyalty and to mobilise a population behind a parallel state-building project.

Key words: Neo-patrimonialism, electoral quantity, electoral quality and electoral meaning, democratic political culture, developmental states, market failures, rent seeking, state building and nation building

See paper here or http://www.academia.edu/38175569/A_Faustian_Pact_with_Neo-patrimonial_Regimes_RL_Vol_XIII_No_279_MMXIX.pdf

Ratiocinating Ethiopia’s International Relations & National Security Policy & Practice RL Vol XIII No 400 MMXIX

Ratiocinating Ethiopia’s International

Relations & National Security Policy & Practice:

The Gulf & Horn of Africa

United Nations Conference Centre (UNCC) Addis Ababa

Public Lecture - Respublica Litereria RL Vol. XIII No 400 MMXIX

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos,

Professor of Public Policy & Sustainable Institutional Reforms

https://addisababa.academia.edu/CostyCostantinos

Abstract

New martial and security scenarios are evolving in the Greater Horn of Africa with Yemen as the epicentre. One may ask if the GCC incursion onto one of the most contested regions embolden the irredentist agenda of pariah states & terrorists. The philosophical underpinning of Ethiopia’s overseas, overland and national security policies must augur on activities trained at advancing a pluralist society as a prelude to structural transformation. Ethiopia needs to prime this policy in light of the turmoil in the Gulf, the Horn and internal dynamics. While the short-term de-escalation is a sine qua non, a counter narrative is obligatory that swings dialogues towards fostering viable peace that point to societies vs. states, harmony vs. animosity, assimilation vs. intolerance, rights vs. illusory stability, and hope vs. despair. The reworked foreign and national security policy must contain elements that wean the nation from an aid industry that is dying, heralding full or partial liberalisation of the economy, under adequate financial reform and regulatory environment, will spur investments and enable financ­ing the national security vision from within to ensure adequate preparedness. Locally, it will also find an answer to the growing unemployment trials for hundreds of thousands of school leaving youth, enabling a competitive, multi-channel private sector involvement in provision of major infrastructure that will provide more employment. We must adequately study the challenges stemming from Horn nations and develop with response policies, strategies & processes, developed. Threats oozing from the GCC-Yemen War are swelling to a wider trajectory that is engulfing Qatar, Iran & superpowers. Against these inscrutable humanitarian and martial imports, Ethiopia must develop strategy to cocoon itself from the fall outs. The UN Security Council must address the dangers of such an expanded conflict; using all diplomatic means to inform the GCC of the consequences of wider spark of conflict in the Horn, while stepping up the martial preparedness of Ethiopia. Finally, the Sunni-Shia divide genesis of the GCC conflict must be tempered not to creep into the Horn. Major structural reforms will undoubtedly enhance the utility of constitutional provisos. Nonetheless, to every human problem there is a tendency to find quick, nifty and wicked solutions; the answer like the glitches submits itself, seems within grasp only to elude, and appears readily doable only to resist fulfilment.

Key words: diplomacy, international relations, regional security, regional integration, GCC, Horn of Africa

See paper here or https://www.academia.edu/38172891/Ratiocinating_Ethiopia_s_Foreign_and_National_Security_Policy_and_Practice_RL_Vol_XIII_No_400_MMXIX