Shega Media
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Orginal Stories, Insights, Analysis, News and Events from the tech and startup ecosystem in Ethiopia and from all over the world. Visit our website shega.co. To send us news tips, question or comments, use hello@shega.org
Show more📈 Analytical overview of Telegram channel Shega Media
Channel Shega Media (@shegamediaet) in the English language segment is an active participant. Currently, the community unites 12 396 subscribers, ranking 15 938 in the News & Media category and 2 740 in the Ethiopia region.
📊 Audience metrics and dynamics
Since its creation on невідомо, the project has demonstrated rapid growth, gathering an audience of 12 396 subscribers.
According to the latest data from 07 September, 2026, the channel demonstrates stable activity. Although there has been a change in the number of participants by 39 over the last 30 days and by 2 over the last 24 hours, overall reach remains high.
- Verification status: Not verified
- Engagement rate (ER): The average audience engagement rate is 17.65%. Within the first 24 hours after publication, content typically collects 6.09% reactions from the total number of subscribers.
- Post reach: On average, each post receives 2 188 views. Within the first day, a publication typically gains 755 views.
- Reactions and interaction: The audience actively supports content: the average number of reactions per post is 7.
- Thematic interests: Content is focused on key topics such as ethiopia, ethiopian, addis, shega, telecom.
📝 Description and content policy
The author describes the resource as a platform for expressing subjective opinions:
“Orginal Stories, Insights, Analysis, News and Events from the tech and startup ecosystem in Ethiopia and from all over the world. Visit our website shega.co. To send us news tips, question or comments, use hello@shega.org”
Thanks to the high frequency of updates (latest data received on 08 September, 2026), the channel maintains relevance and a high level of publication reach. Analytics show that the audience actively interacts with content, making it an important point of influence in the News & Media category.
12 396
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Posts Archive
12 396
Ethio Telecom's new business plan is notably more conservative than last year's, and the gap between what it originally promised and what it actually delivered explains why.
Revenue growth assumptions were cut from 45.6% to 36.7%, following a year where the company missed its own revenue target. But the sharpest pullback is in Telebirr: user growth is targeted at 11.7% this year, less than half of what was even attempted last year.
Unpacking the 43.1 billion Birr dividend Ethio Telecom expects to pay this year, simple math shows the amount that may reach the retail investors who bought into last year's IPO versus the state holding company that still owns the other 99% of the business.
Full breakdown, with an interactive chart:https://shega.co/news/ethio-telecom-plays-it-safe-for-2026-27
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Hello Tractor and TEKHAF Trading PLC are extending their fleet-management partnership into pay-as-you-go (PAYG) tractor services, targeting Ethiopia's shortage of farm machinery.
The two companies began working together on fleet management about a year ago, according to Welid Abdul, Operations Director at Hello Tractor.
Under the expanded arrangement, tractors can be accessed and financed through the income they generate rather than paid for upfront.
Welid said the model has reached close to 4,000 farmers over the past year. Hello Tractor, he added, operates in more than 20 countries.
The gap the partnership is aiming at is wide. FAO puts Ethiopia's arable land at 18.4 million hectares, served by roughly 20,000 tractors.
The PAYG structure works by putting a single tractor to work across multiple farms, with the service revenue covering the machine's cost over time.
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Ethio telecom is urging the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE) to raise daily transaction limits on its mobile money service telebirr.
Firehiwot Tamiru, chief executive officer of Ethio telecom, said repeated customer complaints over transaction disruptions drove the request.
"We have asked the regulator to fast-track the process for us," Firehiwot told Shega.
She said macroeconomic shifts, inflation, and the expansion of payment services mean the existing ceilings will no longer be sufficient for customers.
The limits sit in the central bank's Licensing and Authorization of Payment Instrument Issuer (Amendment) Directive issued in May 2025. It caps aggregate daily electronic money transactions at 300,000 Birr and daily electronic money balances at 150,000 Birr.
Person-to-person transfers are separately capped at 75,000 Birr and merchant payments at 250,000 Birr, the first time the central bank has set distinct ceilings for the two.
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Issue 254: Pressure Points
This Week in Shega Weekly 📰
🌾 Ethiopia saw the drought coming. The money did not.
💰 The AU asks more of Ethiopia as its finances tighten
🚢 Modjo is getting a USD 200m upgrade
🏥 Critical care remains out of reach for millions
💳 PSS steps into PoS and payment gateways
✈️ Ethiopian Airlines adds a new China-Africa cargo link
Stay ahead with the weekly newsletter
https://shegaweekly.substack.com/p/issue-254-pressure-points
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Power up your decision-making with the fifth edition of Shega's policy monitor. It's thinner than usual but packed with consequential changes.
Parliament rose on 7 July. It does not sit again until October. No proclamation could pass in August, and none did. Five instruments moved anyway.
A 112-article rewrite of how Addis Ababa procures, against a 502.27 billion birr budget. A central register of who actually owns Ethiopian companies, with disclosure starting at 2%.
A $150,000 floor for foreign homebuyers, routed through a blocked account.
A draft that would rebuild the strategic food reserve as a standalone institution. And cooperatives opened to outside capital, capped at 10%.
Four of the five set a precise number where a general principle used to be. That makes the numbers themselves the policy, and verification the constraint.
A ceiling no one can measure compliance against is a statement of intent.
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The most valuable forecast is one that arrives before the crisis. But it only matters if someone acts on it.
Ethiopia has spent years building the machinery for anticipatory action: impact-based forecasting, early-warning triggers and regional response plans. This season, that machinery is producing clear signals.
June and July brought rainfall deficits of 40 to 70 percent across much of the country. Drought triggers have fired in 114 woredas, affecting an estimated 9.3 million people.
But financing has not kept pace. Tigray’s drought framework had secured just USD 3.38 million against a USD 626.8 million requirement at the start of August.
Government and humanitarian agencies continue to dispute beneficiary numbers and agricultural data. But anticipatory action cannot wait for every number to be settled.
The window for cheap interventions closes quickly. Once crops fail, seed and livestock support become food assistance, and prevention becomes response.
Full Analysis.
https://shorturl.at/hVGwK
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How can technology reconnect young people who are outside the formal education system with learning, skills and jobs?
Tonight, EdTech Mondays Ethiopia explores how flexible, inclusive digital learning can create new pathways for out-of-school youth, including refugees and displaced learners.
🕗 8:10 p.m. EAT
📻 Fana FM 98.1 + 10 affiliated FM stations
Read more:https://shega.co/news/can-digital-learning-reach-ethiopia-s-out-of-school-youth
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Premier Switch Solutions spent nearly a decade and half building part of the infrastructure behind Ethiopia’s card payments.
Now rebranded and after securing a POS and payment gateway license from the NBE, it is expanding to the other side of the transaction.
Its SoftPOS product, PSS Pay, turns Android phones into card acceptance devices, targeting one of Ethiopia’s persistent digital-payment gaps: millions of digital payment accounts, but relatively few places to actually spend them.
PSS is expanding into a crowded merchant payments market, even as the NBE raises its ambitions for digital payments.
Full Story.
https://shega.co/news/premier-switch-expands-into-the-checkout-with-po-s-gateway-license
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Ethiopia’s EdTech sector is moving faster than the rules designed to govern it.
Startups are developing learning platforms, teacher-training tools and school-management systems, but there is still no dedicated approval process for EdTech products.
The challenge, as discussed in July’s EdTech Mondays episode, is not simply whether to regulate, but how to do so without slowing useful innovation.
Panelists argued for a risk-based regulatory approach, third-party verification and supervised regulatory sandboxes that could give innovators clearer pathways from testing to approval.
Full Recap.
https://shega.co/news/can-ethiopia-regulate-ed-tech-without-slowing-it-down
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Issue 253: Central Shudders
A week of institutional shifts, regulatory changes and emerging risks in Ethiopia:
🏦 Insurance regulation is being rewritten.
☪️ Interest-free banking is getting a new central oversight structure.
💳 One of the architects of Ethiopia’s payments overhaul is leaving NBE.
🌾 The country is preparing for a future of shrinking aid.
🌧 El Niño brings a fresh threat to agriculture.
🛢 Dangote is inviting East African states into a planned refinery.
🏛 And the Foreign Ministry wants diplomatic missions to account for their staff and property.
These are the stories shaping this week’s Shega Weekly. Stay ahead. https://substack.com/home/post/p-212686365
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Ethiopia is trying to do something few aid-dependent states attempt: build a disaster reserve without new donor money.
A draft regulation now with the Council of Ministers would create a domestically financed strategic reserve, stockpiling grain from farmers across ten regions, run by needs assessment rather than blanket appeals.
It's a real break from a 65-year pattern. USAID has operated in Ethiopia continuously since 1961. Foreign aid to the country has grown more than 300-fold since 1960. And the tax base meant to fund the alternative collects about 8% of GDP.
The ambition is genuine. So is the math problem underneath. El Niño may test it all out before the tax reform behind it has time to work.
Read more:https://shega.co/news/ethiopia-s-hedge-against-shrinking-aid
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An Acid Test for Industrial Policy?
Ethiopia wants its manufacturers to build the industrial base that cuts import dependence. It also wants them to help fund the country's disaster response as foreign aid dries up.
Those two goals just collided. Over 625 chemical manufacturers, producers of detergents, soaps, and paints, are now required to contribute 1% of monthly sales to a new Disaster Risk Response Fund. They argue the levy groups them with tobacco and alcohol producers, works against the same import-substitution policy the government has spent years promoting, and arrives as the sector's production has fallen 73% since 2022/23 even as revenue has more than doubled.
The Ministry of Industry backed their exemption request. The Disaster Risk Management Commission has continued to enforce it.
Shega has tracked the paper trail. Read the full story:https://shorturl.at/F1QVf
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Ethiopia’s banks are being asked to process more payments, across more rails, with systems that were often built for a different era.
ProgressSoft is betting banks will pay for better routing, monitoring and dispute workflows as payment systems become more complex.
Symbol Technologies is targeting merchant acceptance with a SoftPOS technology that turns Android phones into payment-acceptance devices, potentially lowering the cost of deploying POS infrastructure.
Read more.
https://shega.co/news/payment-vendors-court-ethiopian-banks-ahead-of-2027-swift-deadline
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ISSUE 252: Show, Don't Tell
What are the biggest signals from Ethiopia this week? 👇
📉 GDP: Nominal GDP fell by USD 50 billion after the birr float, according to a new EU Chamber report.
⚠️ Corruption: A national survey finds widespread concern that corruption has worsened.
🏥 Healthcare: Less than 1 in 5 health institutions assessed meet national standards.
⛽️ Fuel taxes: The government moves to enforce full statutory fuel-tax collection.
💰 World Bank: Ethiopia plans to seek up to USD 13.4 billion in financing over the coming decade.
📲 MESOB: Our latest analysis examines the harder half of building a unified digital public-service system, from weak digitization to institutional resistance.
Read the latest Shega Weekly for the stories behind the numbers and the signals beneath the headlines.
https://shegaweekly.substack.com/p/issue-252-show-dont-tell
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MESOB has expanded from 12 institutions and 41 services to a nationwide digital public-service platform with more than 185 services.
But its biggest challenge may not be digitization. It is likely institutional power.
MESOB is mandated to oversee frontline staff, handle complaints, and monitor service delivery. Yet bringing parent institutions onto the platform largely depends on negotiated agreements.
That creates an unusual problem: a government platform designed to integrate government still has to persuade parts of government to join.
The conundrum appears to be whether MESOB's formal powers will be used to turn rapid expansion into genuine institutional integration at a national scale.
Read the full piece.
https://shorturl.at/o8DkB
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In 2010, Solomon Damtew joined the National Bank of Ethiopia as a young payment-systems expert.
The system he entered barely resembles the one he leaves behind.
Mobile banking was a novelty. Ethiopia had no real-time settlement backbone and no national digital payments strategy.
Sixteen years later, mobile money accounts have grown to above 150 million, mobile banking accounts to over 50 million, and annual digital transaction values reached 18.5 trillion Birr last year.
Solomon was there for much of that transformation.
Now, at 37, he is leaving the NBE.
But the harder part of Ethiopia's digital payments story may only be beginning.
Read the full article.
https://shorturl.at/fO4hR
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Ethiopia's 2026/27 federal budget came to 2.34tn Birr, a fifth larger than last year. Not every institution shared equally in that growth.
Here are the eleven that gained the most.
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Issue 251 of Shega Weekly, “Official Carousels,” is here.
A week of institutional resets, and a question running beneath them: when Ethiopia rewrites the rules, what actually changes?
This week:
• 🛡 New cybersecurity requirements for critical infrastructure
• 📈 ESX founding CEO Tilahun Esmael Kassahun steps down
• 🏛 Addis Ababa moves to rewrite its procurement rules
• 💳 CNETPay receives an NBE payment operator licence
• ⚖️ 91 people detained in a widening economic crime investigation
• 🌍 EthSwitch opens an international settlement account for global card services
Plus:
📍 Signal: Ethiopia prepares to rewrite three ageing IP laws, but the harder problem may be enforcement
Across the board, a familiar tension: new rules, new institutions, new infrastructure and enduring questions about enforcement capacity.
Read the full issue:https://shegaweekly.substack.com/p/issue-251-official-carousels
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Ethiopia is preparing to rewrite three of its core intellectual property laws, some of which were drafted before smartphones, mobile money and the digital economy existed.
The reforms are overdue. But the more interesting question is whether outdated legislation is actually the main constraint on innovation.
Founders often point to something harder to legislate: weak enforcement. Rights may exist on paper, but if infringement cases rarely reach court, judges lack specialist expertise and remedies take too long, stronger laws will only go so far.
Ethiopia has also joined the Madrid Protocol and Paris Convention, bringing its IP framework closer to the international system it hopes to join through the WTO.
The challenge now is making the machinery work.
A better proclamation can create a right. It cannot, by itself, create the institution capable of enforcing it.
Read this week's Signal :https://shorturl.at/XLp2C
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The Ethiopian Bankers Association’s Credit Committee spent 41 pages arguing manufacturers are not being denied credit.
Yet NBE data shows manufacturing at just 16.2% of lending, while trade takes 41.5%.
Both can be true.
The Committee points to a one-off accounting shift at CBE and real issues—weak studies, borrowed equity, and misused loans. It even admits credit officers reject viable projects they don’t understand.
But the deeper question remains: do banks see manufacturing as worth the risk?
Lifting the credit cap doesn’t answer that. Private credit was already growing at ~50% a year.
Read the full analysis for some answers:
https://shega.co/news/ethiopia-wants-factories-what-s-holding-the-money-back
