Year: 2018

Zimbabwe: Now Is the Time to Invest, Say U.S. Analysts

Readers of a prestigious American business publication have been told that now is the time to re-engage with Zimbabwe if investors want to get in on the ground floor ahead of a resurge in the economy.

“For companies willing to take on some risks, now is the time to buy local assets, which, though priced in U.S. dollars, are still fairly cheap because of the associated risk,” write analysts Anna Rosenberg and William Attwell in the Harvard Business Review.

They add: “This is also a good time to look for the best possible potential business partners – they are eager for investment but may not be available for long if interest in the market picks up. However, companies should stay clear of sectors with high levels of political interference, such as mining.”

Rosenberg is director and Attwell senior analyst for Sub-Saharan Africa Research at the Frontier Strategy Group, a firm which gives advice and intelligence to businesses operating in emerging markets.

“On a recent research trip to Harare,” they write, “we were struck by the business opportunities that still exist in the economy despite the difficulties the country faced in the past several years.”

President Emmerson Mnangagwa “knows he will need to meaningfully improve the business environment and living standards to secure his legitimacy,” they add. The country is at a crossroads and if Mnangagwa follows through with economic reforms, “multinationals that are willing to accept some risk and invest in the country could benefit from first-mover advantages…”

The analysts identify the lack of cash as the main challenge facing the economy and say progress in addressing this will be “slow and incremental”.

Mnangagwa has successfully negotiated support from the African Export and Import Bank for importers, as well as guarantees to allow the central bank to increase the printing of the country’s “bond notes”. But Zimbabwe will be able to access the credit it needs only once he convinces bodies such as the African Development Bank and the World Bank that the government is a reliable borrower.

“As Mnangagwa’s reforms begin to gradually stabilize the economy, significant opportunities will emerge across an array of sectors and segments – both formal and informal – for companies hoping to expand in this relatively under-served, but high-potential market,” Rosenberg and Attwell write.

They identify four “plus” factors for those wanting to do business in Zimbabwe. Verbatim excerpts from their report:

source: allafrica

Africa: Can Agriculture and the Climate Fix Their ‘Unhappy Marriage’ in 2018?

Rome — After René Castro-Salazar attended the first U.N.-led climate talks in Berlin in 1985 as Costa Rica’s environment and energy minister, he tried to talk about agriculture and climate change – but few wanted to join the conversation.

“There was always opposition – and we couldn’t understand why,” said Castro, now assistant director-general at the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

To him, the need to tackle the topic was clear.

Agriculture, forestry and other land uses together account for nearly a quarter of the greenhouse gas emissions heating up the planet, according to the FAO.

Cutting these is essential if the world is to keep global temperature rise to a manageable level, said Castro.

Farms and forests can also store large amounts of carbon, and simple actions by all countries could result in immediate environmental benefits, he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

In the early years, the climate negotiations focused on reducing emissions from the energy sector – the largest emitter – while the relationship between agriculture and climate change was not fully understood.

Later on, poor states feared discussing the linkage would result in obligations for them to curb emissions from farming. Rich nations worried they would have to pay for poor farmers to adapt to a changing climate.

Hunger is on the rise, biodiversity is being lost and poor diets now pose a bigger threat to human health than alcohol and tobacco, said Kjørven, a former senior U.N. official.

Educating consumers will be key to changing that, especially in developed economies where there is high consumption of red meat, responsible for more emissions than other types of food, he said.

“People vote three times a day for a food system they want, in terms of the food they buy. There is enormous power there,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

EAT has commissioned scientists to produce a report next spring about what constitutes a healthy diet in a sustainable food system.

FAO’s Castro said making water usage more efficient – 70 percent of the world’s freshwater goes into agriculture – and rehabilitating 2 billion hectares of degraded land could deliver quick wins.

Livestock, meanwhile, account for nearly two-thirds of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, but combining trees, crops and animals in “silvopastoral” systems can offset some of those emissions and boost the quality of pasture, he added.

In Brazil, a major beef exporter, state agricultural research agency Embrapa is testing this practice, he added.

Another challenge is to boost food production without damaging forests, said IFAD’s Astralaga.

Agriculture is responsible for more than three-quarters of global deforestation, and if the trend continues, about 10 million square km of land will likely be cleared by 2050, she noted.

A 2016 report from the FAO said it would be possible to increase food security while maintaining or increasing forest cover, identifying 22 countries – including Gambia, Chile, Tunisia and Vietnam – that have managed to do so.

IN THE KNOW?

To duplicate such practices, especially in the developing world, will require sharing of knowledge, experts say.

Yet many nations still lack meteorological information that can improve crop and livestock production, said FAO’s Castro.

“They don’t know if the rain is coming … if a drought is coming. They’re blind in terms of agricultural planning,” he said.

Much of the information they need is available, said Jarvis. CIAT and the International Food Policy Research Institute are leading a push to use “big data” in agriculture, and get it into the hands of poor farmers in places like Colombia and Honduras.

“As a result of that information, (you can) make much more strategic decisions in terms of when to plant, how to plant, what variety to plant,” he said.

Another pilot run by Microsoft and the International Crop Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics sends text messages and automated calls to tell Indian farmers when to sow their seeds or warn them of a pest attack.

But more investment and political will are needed to expand such projects, Jarvis said.

EAT Foundation’s Kjørven said the world has “barely started to fight this battle” to make agriculture greener – and the coming few years will be decisive.

“The real test is whether we start to see countries passing different legislation, businesses and industries coming up with different ways of doing business in the food sector, and changes in consumer preferences and choices,” he said.

– Reporting By Thin Lei Win, Editing by Megan Rowling and Belinda Goldsmith

source: allafrica.com

Israel: African migrants told to leave or face imprisonment

The Israeli government has issued a notice for thousands of African migrants to leave the country or face imprisonment.

The migrants will be given up to $3,500 (£2,600) for leaving within the next 90 days.

They will be given the option of going to their home country or third countries.

If they do not leave, the Israeli authorities have threatened that they will start jailing them from April.

The UN refugee agency said the controversial plan violated international and Israeli laws.

The Israeli government says their return will be humane and “voluntary”.

The order exempts children, elderly people, and victims of slavery and human trafficking.

A spokesperson for Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority told the BBC there were currently 38,000 “infiltrators” in Israel, of whom just 1,420 were being held in detention facilities.

Israel uses the term “infiltrators” to describe people who did not enter the country through an official border crossing.

Many of the migrants – who are mostly from Eritrea and Sudan – say they came to Israel to seek asylum after fleeing persecution and conflict, but the authorities regard them as economic migrants.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed that an unchecked influx of African migrants could threaten Israel’s Jewish character.

Source: BBC Africa

6MW Solar Park opens in Sierra Leone

Minister of Energy of Sierra Leone, Henry Macauley, alongside the project management team on the site for the solar plantAbu Dhabi Fund for Development and Renewable Energy Agency provide financing facility for the renewable project

A new solar park project in Freetown, Sierra Leone was launched earlier this week. This is a landmark project in Sierra Leone and financed by the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD) and the Renewable Energy Agency.

The park is a landmark project for many reasons. Together with the Project Manager and EPC Contractor, the project total costs have been reduced from the initial USD18 million allocation to only USD12.6 million for all project components, including certain critical infrastructure additions. It is the first such project that the ADFD has embarked in the country.

It was initiated and coordinated by late Ambassador Siray Alpha Timbo and Dr. Bahige Annan, the Consul General of Sierra Leone in Dubai, UAE, then developed with the Project Manager, Filip Matwin, CEO of ASIC.

The Solar Park Project will provide a substantial access to clean renewable and sustainable electricity to both urban and western rural districts around the capital, Freetown, a first in the history of the country.

The Solar Park Freetown Project has been designed to include a number of institutional and human resource arrangements for sustainable management and international best practices of the project facility. The Project has been specifically structured to ensure a clear knowledge transfer element, both in terms of maintenance but also to carry out similar projects in the future, in line with the government’s goal of sustainable electrification in Sierra Leone.

The total cost of the project, which budget has been considerably reduced over the year by the Project Consortium (PM & EPC), include other assets such as an upgrade of road and grid-power infrastructure, with a necessary extension of the grid power line and a distribution substation all forming part of the total project.

This article was written in collaboration with the Africa Press Organisation – APO news organisition

Tanzania threatens to shut churches after Magufuli criticism

Tanzanian authorities have threatened to shut down churches which mix religion and politics after a cleric criticised President John Magufuli.

The cleric, Zachary Kakobe, used a Christmas sermon to say the country was “turning into a one party state”.

Days later, the Home Affairs Ministry warned religious organisations which dabbled in political issues would have their licence revoked.

Critics complain of growing intolerance towards dissent in Tanzania.

Some critics accuse President Magufuli, nicknamed “the Bulldozer”, of becoming increasingly authoritarian – a charge he strongly denies.

Several newspapers have been shut down and individuals have been prosecuted for allegedly insulting the president on social media, while last year Tanzanian police indefinitely suspended political protests and rallies, only permitting political campaigning during elections.

The constitution of Tanzania protects freedom of worship – although religious organisations must register for a licence with the country’s Home Affairs Ministry to operate legally.

But Mr Kabobe, who leads a Pentecostal church in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam, used his Christmas sermon to tell congregants Tanzania was “quietly turning into a one-state rule by systematically banning political activity”.

On Thursday, Projest Rwegasira, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs, warned religious leaders talking about political issues “could lead to cancellation of the registration of the concerned religious society”, news agency Reuters reports.

He said religious leaders “using their sermons to analyse political issues is contrary to the law”.

Source: BBC.com

South African court delivers Zuma impeachment blow

South Africa’s top court has found that parliament failed to comply with its duties in holding President Jacob Zuma accountable over a public funding case.

The ruling said parliament must now set out rules for impeachment proceedings, but it remains unclear whether this will lead to any impeachment.

The court was hearing a case brought by opposition groups who wanted parliament to be compelled to begin impeachment.

It relates to Mr Zuma’s use of state funds to upgrade his private home.

Handing down the Constitutional Court ruling, Judge Chris Jafta said: “We conclude that the assembly did not hold the president to account.

“The assembly must put in place a mechanism that could be used for the removal of the president from office.”

But the court said it could not intervene on how parliament determined the mechanism and that it had no power to order an impeachment

The court awarded costs against Mr Zuma and parliament.

The court ruling was by majority. Dissenting Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng said the ruling was a clear case of “judicial overreach”.

Some $15m (£11.1m) in state money was spent upgrading Mr Zuma’s home.

In March 2016, the court ruled he had ignored a watchdog’s findings and said he must pay some of the money back. The president has reimbursed $631,000, deemed by the Treasury to be “reasonable”.

Parliament then debated the matter and he survived a no-confidence vote, but Friday’s court ruling said that the procedures it followed were insufficient.

Mr Zuma has been weakened by a number of corruption allegations and by his recent replacement by Cyril Ramaphosa as head of the ruling ANC.

Mr Zuma, 75, is scheduled to remain president until general elections in 2019.

He has faced a number of corruption allegations, all of which he denies.

source: BBC.COM

Nigeria: Blame Game Continues As Fuel Scarcity Persists in Abuja

Abuja — The relief felt in Lagos is yet to extend to Abuja as shortage of fuel persisted in the nation’s federal capital territory wednesday.

Long queues remained the main feature of most part of the capital motorists spent hours waiting to be served the now essential commodity.

In the meantime, the blame game on the cause of the acute shortage of the commodity continued yesterday with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) describing as ‘very unfortunate’ claims by the Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association (DAPPMA) that it (NNPC) was largely responsible for the scarcity of petrol in the country.

This occurs just as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) demanded that the federal government should speak out on reports of alleged fraud in the oil regime whereupon 18 unregistered companies were said to have been used to lift and divert $1.1 trillion worth of crude oil in the last one year.

In a statement by its Group General Manager, Public Affairs, Mr. Ndu Ughamadu, in Abuja, the NNPC exonerated itself from DAPPMA’s accusations that it had not supplied its members petrol, and that its Direct Sale Direct Purchase (DSDP) products supply scheme had broken down, hence, the supply glitches that led to the scarcity.

source:  Chineme Okafor and Onyebuchi Ezigbo/ allafrica.com