In Ethiopia they say that the grandparents speak Italian, the parents speak Russian and the kids speak English, based on the world ‘powers’ that have influenced this country for three generations.
Earlier this week on Wednesday saw the 76th anniversary of the country’s annexation by Mussolini’s Italy… on the same day that the World Economic Forum on Africa opened in the country’s capital, Addis Ababa. It seems a propitious week to explore how things have changed for Africa’s second-most populous country.
Forget Live Aid and Peaches Geldof’s father’s noble efforts in the mid-1980s. Ethiopia is not starving, it is green and luch and amazing. Whether it’s the source of the Nile at the stunning Lake Tana, the buried churches of Lalibela or the town of runners where Olympic athletes train, this country is astonishing.
Travellers, and latterly tourists, have known this for years. Now, investors are following suit and the launch of a new $100 million private-equity fund on the same day as the Italian annexation in 1936 again seems karmic.
Schulze Global Investments is a US investment company and its fund is the first one focused exclusively on the country, supported by $15m from the UK’s CDC, a government-owned provider of development finance. It’s a family business that is based on its Wild West frontier history and one it appears will be based on the African frontier future.
This is a welcome change from the perception that Africa is all about lions, diamonds, war and, recently, mobile. But there are challenges in doing business in a country such as Ethiopia. At the country’s last ‘election’ the ruling party of Meles Zanawi won 99.6% of the votes and Ethiopia is avidly following the model of China’s state capitalism.
Still, the Chinese model isn’t exactly failing at the moment and investors don’t put $100 million into a private-equity fund without knowing the risks. Once the Chinese finally finish the moribund railway line to the Gulf of Aden and Ethiopia’s pesky border war with Eritrea (the Horn of Africa’s North Korea) is finished, that fund will be worth significantly more than $100 million.
I was in the country almost two years ago when I made the best decision of my travelling life to eschew a ticket to England’s game against Germany in the 2010 World Cup to spend three weeks travelling by bus through Ethiopia to Somaliland.
Something tells me that if I invest in this fund then in five years’ time I might be travelling again through Ethiopia. However, this time it will by helicopter, not bus, and I’ll be checking out my investments, not the mysteries of Harar and Rimbauld.
In the interim I suggest you change your holiday plans and check it out for yourself. Ethiopia is the best country in the world, you heard it here first.
Monty Munford has more than 15 years' experience in mobile, digital media, web and journalism. He is the founder of Mob76, a company that helps tech companies raise money and exit. He speaks regularly at global media events with a focus on Africa, writes a weekly column for The Telegraph, is a regular contributor to The Economist, Wired, Mashable and speaks regularly on the BBC World Service.
