Grand Challenges and Opportunities; Blue Ribbon Panel Report of ETHIOPIA2050

Grand Challenges and Opportunities which is a Blue Ribbon Panel Report of the ETHIOPIA2050 is officially published and submitted to Government of Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. This report is prepared by a Blue Ribbon Panel (BRP) consisting of an independent group of Ethiopian and Ethiopian-origin experts with diverse professional backgrounds. They bring deep expertise across fields as varied as economics, public health, statistics, education, population dynamics, technology, and urban planning. Together, they have formulated a transformative vision to proactively aid Ethiopia on its journey to a better future.

To proactively address what were identified as “Ten Grand Challenges and Opportunities” associated with this expected generational and historical demographic shift, an Initiative was launched to carefully examine, both the opportunities of demographic dividend and the associated risks. The approach in this Initiative was guided by the consideration of population as a central issue for both the challenges and opportunities side, because it is people who are the ultimate beneficiaries of development.

The BRP rests upon a collective vision that is part of the broader ETHIOPIA 2050 Initiative and focuses on the actions that policymakers can take, with broad support of the public. Their insights were generated after extensive and careful vetting of the transformative new ideas presented at an international conference held on December 19th and 20th, 2019 in Addis Ababa which included 450 Ethiopian/Ethiopian origin participants from 10 countries.

The report presents a series of bold, feasible, and actionable ideas with an execution plan - that will have multi-generational impacts. The report lays out a straightforward and powerful rationale for actions in the areas like, Rapid Urbanization, Water-Food-Health-Energy Nexus, Economic Growth, Institutional and Civic Development and Gender Equality just to list some. The full report is available here.