Worldfocus Radio: Entrepreneurship in Ethiopia

I produced this radio show for Worldfocus.org.

Last year, the Economist magazine slotted Ethiopia as the fourth fastest growing economy in the world, ahead of China. The World Bank report “Doing Business 2010” ranks Ethiopia in the top 10 African nations in terms of the ease of doing business. The Ethiopian government is trying to strengthen local and regional businesses and attract foreign direct investment.

Martin Savidge, Ethiopian businessman Ermyas Amelga and economics professor Phillip LeBel discuss how easy it is to do business in Ethiopia, who’s investing and what this means as Ethiopia moves from an agrarian society to a more urban society. The entrenched poverty hinders the robust investment environment, saddling the country with drought, food shortages and inadequate infrastructure.

Some highlights from the show:

  • Ethiopia is not a resource-based economy. The sectors that are thriving in Ethiopia are real estate, construction, services, manufacturing, textiles and commercial agriculture with arable land leasing
  • A growing population topping 80 million people make Ethiopia a strong consumer society
  • Major investors in Ethiopia: China, India, Turkey and Egypt — the U.S. is not a major investor
  • Ethiopia’s poverty-stricken image and government-controlled electronic communications and the Internet are potential hurdles to foreign investment
  • Ethiopia’s Diaspora community is driving Ethiopia’s real estate boom

Worldfocus Radio: Guatemala — behind the famine

I produced this radio show for Worldfocus.org.


Last month, Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom declared a “state of calamity” as Guatemala experiences the worst drought in 70 years. Approximately half of the population lives below the poverty line and 50 percent of children are suffering from chronic malnutrition. But these are only the surface casualties of a vulnerable nation ravaged by 36 years of civil war, genocide and now, the encroaching drug war spilling over from the northern border with Mexico.

Worldfocus special correspondent Martin Savidge hosts Anita Isaacs, Carlisle Johnson and Sam Lowenberg. Some highlights of the conversation include:

* Guatemala in 2009 looks a lot like Guatemala of the 1960s and 1970s
* Malnutrition is connected to poverty, which is connected to the ownership of land
* There is almost no basic infrastructure in rural areas, including access to clean water and sanitation
* The U.S. CIA-orchestrated coup in 1954 gave rise to 36 years of genocidal armed conflict
* Lawlessness on the streets, drug trafficking and rural violence have contributed to the deaths of 6,000 people in 2008
* Indigenous systems of justice punish by means of lynching and public humiliation
* The sitting vice president has called Guatemala a “failed state”
* There has been no justice for war crimes and the civil war hangs over everyday life in Guatemala
* Is Guatemala a feudal society that never stopped being a banana republic?
* Guatemala has the highest per-capita income in all of Central America at $4,000/person, but income distribution is woefully underreported
* As the capital of Central America with it’s entangled history with the U.S., Guatemala does matter

Worldfocus: Dancehall artist sings of poverty plaguing Jamaica’s ghettos

Correspondent Lisa Biagiotti reported on HIV, AIDS and homophobia in Jamaica for The Glass Closet, a multimedia project produced by the Pulitzer Center and Worldfocus. Lisa reported the signature story One island, two Jamaicas and a whole heap of difference with Micah Fink and Gabrielle Weiss.

Grace Hamilton, known as Spice, is one of Jamaica’s most prominent Dancehall artists. She and Vybz Kartel came under attack for their duet “Rampin’ Shop.” Not all of Spice’s songs are so sexually graphic. In the video below, Spice talks (and sings) about growing up in Jamaica’s ghettos.

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