Miss Ethiopia is the name of a pageant that no recent organisation or individual quite clearly owns the established rights to, due to the gross lack of respect and willful infringments of Intellectual property and Tradmarks that are very common place in Ethiopia, where individuals simply and routinely copy and use confusingly similar business names as and when they want to. The Official Miss Ethiopia contest used to be organised durring the Emperors reign, but it was stopped during the Derge regime.

In 2003 Miss Ethiopia World the first national contest in Ethiopia where the winners went to international beauty contests was organized for the first time in many years in Ethiopia,^[1] prior to that the largest contest was the Miss Addis Ababa contest which the winner did not attend any international pageant. Since the Miss Ethiopia World contest began in 2003 many individuals in Ethiopia have tried to emulate this idea and organize various Beauty pageants in Ethiopia and thus falsely claim exclusive ownership of the name Miss Ethiopia. As a result the name Miss Ethiopia has become generic, and refers to any girl representing Ethiopi at an international beauty pageant.

The Miss Ethiopia World beauty pageant started in 2003 was the most recognised and pionering national pageant in Ethiopia with a clear objective, it is owned and organized by London-based Ethiopian Life Foundation, which is the largest producer of beauty pageants in Ethiopia ^[2] which aimed to use Miss Ethiopia World to promote community based outreach programmmes in Ethiopia dealing with HIV/Aids, however it did not get support from any of the NGO and Government organisations in Ethiopia it sought support from, never the less Miss Ethiopia World 2003 was the first Ethiopian Beauty queen to participate in Miss International 2003 and Miss Tourism of the Globe 2003.

In recent years following that 2003 event, beauty pageants have florished in Ethiopia and are now very common place.

According to reliable information the official government license issued to conduct Miss Ethiopia is owned by Wossenne Hailu the last Miss Ethiopia to be crowned in Emperor Haillie Selassies reign.

Ethiopian Village Adventure a psudo holiday company based in Addis Ababa recently claimed that it is now also the organizer and was "responsible" for a version of a Miss Ethiopia pageant, but fails to provide any independent or verifiable information regarding it's claims to ownership, legality, aims, objectives and responsibilities for its winner, thus it's status validity and ownership is challenged by many individuals in Ethiopia.

This version of Miss Ethiopia also lacks the national and traditional international recognition and legitimacy associated with national Miss ......pageants, as she does not represent Ethiopia at any Grandslam International Beauty pageant, the first edition of this version of the pageant was held in January 2008 In Addis Ababa, Chunna Okok Ujulu was crowned in a pageant that was seen by many in Ethiopia as lacking tranparency and meeting established standards of quality due to the strong critism and resentment by the public that the eventual winner did not appear to be the most beautiful girl on the night.^[3] Her duties and responsibility remains undefined.

Just as in most countries, several local and national beauty pagents are organised every year in Ethiopia some for the purpose of sending delegates to the many international beauty pageants and most carry different permunations of Miss Ethiopia.

Verified National-level beauty contests organised in Ethiopia include:

• Miss Universe Ethiopia
• Miss Millennium Queen
• Miss Millennium Teen
• Miss Ethiopia World
• Miss Tourism Ethiopia
• Miss World Ethiopia

Verified International beauty contests organised in Ethiopia include:

• Miss Tourism of the Millennium

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