Could you present the ministry of Capacity Building and its activities?

Ethiopia is intending to democratise the society in general. It is a poor country which wants to develop in the quickest possible time. So the question for the Ministry of capacity building is how we can make democratisation and development possible quickly?. So this is a little bit of an unconventional approach. That is the intention. The activities are generally based on three areas. The first one is that we want to identify the problems of capacities of the public sector, which means the government services, which is not, up to now, enhancing our intentions of fast democratisation and development. So we want to make our bureaucracy and the civil service as a whole efficient and effective. The second area is the private sector. Our private sector is not efficient, effective and competent. It is not competitive enough on the local and the international markets, because it lacks capacity. So we want to build the necessary capacity for the private sector, we want to identify the gaps and fill them. The third is the civic society in general. Without the civic society active in a productive involvement, democratisation and development, our intentions of democratisation and development cannot be achieved. Therefore we want to identify the problems and the gaps that should be filled to make civic societies effective enough in the process of democratisation and development. Now we want to answer a very important question. What is capacity? In our understanding, capacity is first of all knowledgeable human resource which is skilled for its duties, whatever level of duties. Secondly, it is an institutional arrangement designed and built up for a purpose. Thirdly, it refers to the working system of each institution, addressing the question of whether it is efficient and effective or not and whether it is transparent, accountable or not. These are viewed as combined and integrated elements of our conceptualisation of capacity. Capacity is not about machinery or finance, even though for these purpose we need finance. Following this line of conceptualisation, we have 14 national capacity building programs. These, for example, include the Civil Service Reform Program, Justice Service Reform Program, Higher Education Reform Program, Vocational Education and Technical and Training, District Level Decentralization Program and so on.

So you are mostly in charge of the administration?

Not only the broader administration. The Ministry also initiates policies and strategies for the Government and designs programs, first of all, and then implements some of them and also coordinates implementers of all the programs. All programs are not implemented through this Ministry, there are many agencies that implement our programs, including regional governments, several federal Ministries and other agencies. Therefore the Ministry plays the role of coordinating the implementation process and then of tracking second and third generation issues that will surface in the process.

Could you elaborate on the measures taken to attract investment in your country?

As far as our Ministry is concerned, we cannot go into direct activities in attracting foreign investors. But we provide the conditions in which other agencies will be able to work to attract foreign investments. For example, our capacity building program for private sector is enabling the private sector to go in partnership and so on to attract foreign investment. And our civil service reform program and its implementation, for example, for the Ministry of trade and industry or export promotion agencies and also municipalities on which we are working with our urban management capacity building program enables the institutions to be more effective and efficient in delivering public services with a view to attract foreign investment. Therefore it is not up to our Ministry to go directly into various activities on the ground and attract investment but we rather provide the instrument.

What are the major issues you are facing?

The first and the most important problem that we are facing is that the programs we have designed are very extensive and their implication are far reaching. What we are lacking is, first of all, the knowledge. And therefore we are trying to obtain and use knowledge by working closely with institutions including the World Bank, the European Union and many other agencies. Our interest in working with these institutions is not only for their financial support, but first of all for the knowledge that they gather from their experience in different countries. Secondly, to some extent, some are not understanding us as quickly as we expect them to understand what we mean by capacity building because it is a little bit different approach. So these are the difficulties. Of course beyond these, we need a huge amount of investment to implement our programs.

To what extent are you working with international institutions?

We are working very closely with international agencies, for example the World Bank and the European Union are immediate and critical partners for solving the problems I have just mentioned. These institutions try to help by providing the knowledge, expertise and as well as the financing. So we are working with them very closely. I forgot to mention that the UNDP is a very efficient and flexible agency which supports and addresses our programs and I can say it is our best partner, in that respect. And there are many others such as UNICEF.

What do you want to say to the investors who want to invest in your country?

First of all the perception about Ethiopia is not the right perception at the international level. So investors should know directly on their own whether this perception is right or wrong by seeing or visiting Ethiopia. That is my first advice. And the second advice is, Ethiopia has an immense potential whether for small scale investors or large scale investors in whatever field they may be interested to invest. That is important. Ethiopia is also a country with a great future. So whenever one is interested in investing in Ethiopia, he should not only see the present situation to invest in Ethiopia but also the future, the biggest opportunity. You can have a small investment today but after a while that can be a completely different investment.

Could you tell us about your personal background, what you did before you became a minister?

I cannot say I have a professional background in the formal sense of the work, and yet from my schoolhood up to now I can say that my profession has always been politics. As far as my background goes, 25 or 30 years ago, I was involved in a strong political movement in the country as a very young school boy. Because there was no opportunity to express myself democratically, I was forced to go to guerilla warfare. And I was a guerilla fighter for at least 15 years or more. 11 years ago, after the downfall of the military government, I have been here with my colleagues running the country and now I still am in that process at the top.

What is your biggest achievement at the Ministry?

My biggest achievement is first of all our correct conceptualisation of what capacity is. And the second point of our achievement is that we have designed about 14 large scale programs and the third achievement is that we have gone into implementation of some of our programs. For example decentralisation has gone down to the local level where localities can make their own decisions. So these are some of the achievements and I can go on citing some more achievements, but let me stop here.

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