Yegna: What advertising strategy can teach development

Ethiopia-based multimedia brand Yegna was at the centre of a media storm after criticism from UK tabloids, but despite the noise, the band, talk-show, and drama has the ambitious aim of changing the way girls in the East African country think of themselves.

For UK readers, the name Yegna registered briefly in January 2017, when a series of aggressive reports by the British tabloid newspaper the Daily Mail forced the hand of the first-term secretary of state at the Department for International Development (DfID). Amid the extravagances of the department's large and longstanding international aid budget, one of the most egregious examples, the Mail seethed, was "Ethiopia's Spice Girls." An easy story, the reports confirmed a narrative that many found compelling: why, when there are problems in the UK, problems requiring money, would the government fund such a nebulous and lightweight...

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