SMNE Forum Agenda

Saturday, November 15, 2014

Morning Session: Dysfunctional Institutions in Ethiopia

10:00               Welcome: Obang Metho, Executive Director, Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia

10:05               Comments from the Moderator: Hamrawit Tesfa 

10:10               The Art of Propaganda and the Hidden Mechanics of TPLF/EPRDF Institutional Control: Ermias Legesse; Former Ethiopian Deputy Minister of Communications for the EPRDF

10:25               How the Justice System Manipulates its Laws, Advances Injustice, Perpetrates Terrorism in the Name of Others, and Creates Instability in Ethiopia: What Can Be Done to Reform the Justice System?: Fayisa Israel Itansa; Former Supreme Court Judge in Oromia Regional State of Ethiopia, previously involved in leading many judicial reform initiatives

10:40               The Silencing of Civil Society through the Charities and Societies Proclamation: How Do we Reclaim Our Voice?: Soleyana Shimeles, LLB, MA: Lawyer, Human Rights Activist and founding member of Zone9

10:55               Ethiopia’s Double Digit Economic Growth: what’s Real, What’s Fantasy? How Can Good Governance and Accountability Encourage Authentic Economic Growth and Foreign Investment?: Dr. Fekadu Bekele, PhD, Economics and Development Economics, lecturer at the Free University, the School of Economics and at the University of Applied Sciences: area of expertise: International Economic Relations, world market and currency, and development theory/policy (via Skype)

11:10               The Inter-Relationship between a Free and Independent Media and Respect for Human Rights: Felix Horne, Human Rights Watch, Researcher for Ethiopia, Eritrea, and the Horn of Africa

11:25               Q & A Panel Discussion

12:00               Lunch Break