FSD Ethiopia CEO Joins INPRF Board to Shape NGO Reporting

Hikmet Abdella, CEO of Financial Sector Deepening (FSD) Ethiopia, now sits on the board of the International Non-Profit Reporting Foundation (INPRF). The foundation is rolling out the first International Non-Profit Accounting Guidance (INPAG). That sounds like a niche governance decision. It is not.

For investors in Ethiopia markets, this is a signal. The country’s non-profit sector channels billions in aid, development finance, and philanthropic capital without standardised accounting. Donors have long asked: where does the money go? INPAG promises a common language. Having an Ethiopian voice on the board that writes those rules gives Addis Ababa influence over standards that will shape how every non-profit organization reports its finances.

What INPAG means for Ethiopia and the risks

INPAG is the first global accounting framework built specifically for non-profits. Until now, most non-profits in Africa used either full IFRS (too complex) or cash-based accounting (too opaque). INPAG sits in between, simpler than IFRS but rigorous enough to satisfy auditors and tax authorities. Ethiopia’s Ministry of Finance and the Ethiopian Revenue and Customs Authority will eventually need to decide whether to adopt it as the local standard.

Hikmet’s appointment puts FSD Ethiopia at the centre of that conversation. FSD Ethiopia is a financial sector development organisation backed by international donors including the UK and the World Bank. It already works with the National Bank of Ethiopia on financial inclusion policy. The INPRF board role extends that influence into transparency standards.

INPAG is a global guideline, not a binding regulation. Ethiopia has a history of slow adoption of international standards. The country only fully adopted IFRS for public interest entities in 2019, years after the rest of East Africa. The risk is that INPAG gets endorsed but not enforced. Local NGOs with weak accounting teams, especially those operating outside Addis Ababa, may remain outside the framework.

Capacity is another risk. INPAG requires trained accountants. Ethiopia has roughly 6,000 licensed accountants for a population of over 120 million. Training the non-profit sector to apply the new guidance will take years. Without enforcement, the standard becomes a box-ticking exercise. Investors should ask: is INPAG adoption tied to donor funding conditions? If yes, uptake will be faster. If not, expect a paper exercise.

Winners, losers, and the pan-African context

Donors win. They get comparable financial data across projects. Ethiopian NGOs that invest early in INPAG-compliant reporting will have a competitive advantage in winning international grants. The losers are opaque NGOs that depend on informal accounting. They will be squeezed out of formal funding channels. That is probably a good thing for accountability, but it concentrates power in a few large organisations.

For investors, this is a long-term governance improvement. Better accounting reduces fraud risk. It also makes impact measurement easier for development finance institutions and impact funds. The immediate move is nothing: no regulatory change, no deadline. But the appointment gives Ethiopia influence over a standard that will eventually touch every donor-funded project in the country.

Hikmet is one of the first African board members of INPRF. That matters because non-profit accounting standards align with cross-border philanthropy and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Regional NGOs operating in multiple AfCFTA signatory states will need consistent reporting. INPAG could become that baseline. Ethiopia’s early involvement, through FSD Ethiopia, positions it to shape that conversation, assuming it moves from board membership to actual domestic adoption.

The real test is not the appointment. It is whether Ethiopia’s regulators and donor partners turn INPAG from a global guideline into a local requirement. That is where investors should focus.