Internet in Ethiopia Revisited – A Mixed Bag of Progress and Opportunities on-Hold
Samuel Kinde, PhD, April 2002
Samuel Kinde, PhD, April 2002
Two developments over the past 12 months capture the nature of progress and challenge in IT in Ethiopia. The eventual completion of the UNDP financed project in Spring 2001 that now added eight POPs (Points-of-Presence) in the provincial cities of Jimma, Awassa, Bahir Dar*, Nazreth, Mekele, Dessie, Shashemene, and Dire Dawa and increased bandwidth available to Internet users in Addis Ababa was a significant progress that was welcome by many IT enthusiasts in the country. On the other hand, the selective clamp down on Internet cafes by the Ethiopian Telecom Corporation (ETC) that went on for most of 2001, effectively neutralizing what had seemed to be a rapidly growing IT cottage industry only a year ago is, in many ways, indicative of the progress of IT in the country-one wrought with challenges and a slow pace. A year from the first article that reviewed the state of IT progress in the country, it is a mixed bag of progress and frustration that what we found. But, given how the rest of the country’s economy is doing, it must be added that there is a clear bias towards progress in IT that should be taken as encouraging.
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