The Republic of South Sudan became the world's newest nation and Africa's 55th country on July 9, 2011. This brought renewed hope for peace and stability which had been prayer for its citizens for many decades.

The country, being rich in various natural resources, there was high expectation for growth and many believed they would not see another conflict in the country after fighting so hard and for so long to "gain independence."

However, it was not long before renewed civil wars, particularly; the latest one which has led to deaths, destruction of property, and displacement of people, disorganisation of the government and all systems.

The hopes to build a prosperous nation have yet again been dashed despite the peace accord which was signed between the two rival camps-government led by President Salva Kiir and the opposition led by Dr Riek Machar. The said peace deal is already in tatters given an internal party coup against Riek Machar following the replacement of First Vice President by his former chief negotiator with the government, Taban Deng on 23 July.

These political conflicts are not simply internal because their effects go beyond national borders and the region at large. Violence and instability create immediate impacts on local and nearby economies which happen in several ways. There is already a rife in refugees crossing borders to neighboring countries. As the war continues, this poses great humanitarian challenges to the East African countries, especially Kenya and Uganda who share a common border with South Sudan.

The challenges of refugee migration and interventions are a major concern whenever civil unrest occurs. Kenya is currently engrossed in the process of repatriating the Somalia refugees in Dabaab camp due to a number of challenges faced by the authorities. Some of these challenges are the possibility of small arms finding their way through the borders. There are also logistics and infrastructural support that requires phenomenal budgetary support and so forth.

The escalated conflict in South Sudan adds to the negative effects the region has faced since civil war broke out in Somalia in the 1990s. It is documented that Somalia has cost East African countries hundreds of millions of dollars in military spending, and Kenya is particularly suffering from increased insecurity from terrorist group al-Shabaab. The civil war creates more opposition and irregular forces which are environmental factors that favor international terrorism such as al-Qaida, which has already found fertile ground in Somalia.

The longer the violence continues to take in South Sudan, the further it spreads, and the more insidious it becomes, the more difficult the task will be for the country to undergo the kind of social, psychological and economic transformation needed to achieve lasting peace. There are also costs of foregone opportunities for regional development. There is huge business and political risks for foreign investors and neighboring governments. Some of the biggest trading partners with South Sudan have shied off due to the violence.
 

Regional companies and business people operating in the country had made great strides, some of them had their investments destroyed, or have been forced to scale down or halt their businesses because of the unsecured business environment.

Notably, South Sudan crisis is another setback befalling the East African region adding to the reigning political turmoil which has been going on in Burundi, another sick man of East Africa. This happens when there was supposed to be strengthened regional integration and linkages with the country which joined the East Africa Community early this year. The crisis in South Sudan will likely derail EAC multi-billion dollar projects, such as its plans to build an oil pipeline across the region; new roads and rail line through East Africa, the ambitious Northern Corridor projects linking the landlocked East African countries with Kenya's maritime port of Mombasa for their overseas trade, as well as the trade among themselves. If not dealt with in due course and in a meticulous manner, the current armed conflict in South Sudan has the potential to adversely affect the pending regional projects.

As a matter of great concern, the situation in this fragile country must be taken seriously before it indulges the entire region into other associated challenges. There is dire need to take swift and decisive action to resolve the crisis. Peace, security and conflict prevention are imperative pillars in all the projects the East African countries, neighboring countries or regions desire to sustainably achieve. Without due attention paid to these three key issues, our development goals are bound to receive negative impact resulting from conflicts. South Sudan conflict has simply gone out of hand and hence a regional peace process needs to be revitalised and rigorously pursued to bring a lasting settlement to the conflict.

n conclusion, ending all sorts of political conflicts in East Africa remains one of the daunting challenges of the region. Just like the region moved to establish East African Standby Force (EASF), peace building activities must continue in the same approach. Political, security, economic and humanitarian crisis in any member country will ultimately affect the regional economies.

South Sudan is pleading with Kenya and Uganda for economic support to avert a humanitarian crisis after a fresh conflict brought the country to its knees.

Mid last week, a delegation of Transitional Government of South Sudan officials led by First Vice-President Taban Deng Gai was in Kenya on a mission seeking a bailout.

The EastAfrican has learnt that Juba will also be reaching out to Uganda later this month to craft a bailout package that will see Kampala pay its traders the $35.2 million Juba owes them in a bid to have them resume supplies to the country.

"The vice president will go to Kampala to request the Ugandan government to pay traders who supplied cereals to Juba but haven't been paid. The money will then be converted into a loan, for which Juba and Kampala officials will work out a repayment plan," a diplomatic source with the knowledge of the matter said.

The delegation to Nairobi, which included four ministers, met with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, Cabinet Secretary for Foreign Affairs Amina Mohamed and a number of Kenya government officials.

A source privy to the discussions told The EastAfrican that Mr Gai informed President Kenyatta that the country's economy was in a perilous state and needed urgent help.

Mr Gai implored the Kenya government to give his country a soft loan to help it deal with its current problems.

"We have been facing difficulties in delivering services to the people and we briefed President Kenyatta about the current economic difficulties the country is facing. We are experiencing severe inflation because of the civil war, poor oil production and the low oil prices, which have basically drained us as we are not making money. We asked Kenya for help so that our economy does not grind to a halt," Mr Gai said when he addressed a press conference at the Nairobi Intercontinental Hotel after a meeting with President Kenyatta.

The delegation also requested Kenya's support for implementation of the peace agreement by the Transitional Government as currently formed. This would mean excluding former first vice president Riek Machar.

"The President's view was that he would not act outside Igad," said the source.

Economic bailout

On the requests for a soft loan and food supplies, President Kenyatta is reported to have advised the group to send their finance minister, their Central Bank Governor and agriculture minister to Nairobi with a clear proposal, including the amounts needed and the modalities for repayment.

Kenya can then determine its level of commitment "cognisant of the fact that we have interests in South Sudan and cannot be aloof to the suffering of its people."

The loan, the source said, could be worked out along the same lines as the economic bailout of Zimbabwe by South Africa a while back. South Sudan relies on Kenyan traders for key supplies including food, edible oils, pharmaceuticals, electronic products and manufactured goods.

Uganda is South Sudan's biggest trading partner and exports maize, vegetables, sugar, iron and steel, cement, beer, motor lubricants and detergents. However, following fresh fighting in the country in July, most foreign traders have returned to their countries for security reasons.

In an interview with The EastAfrican, South Sudan Finance Minister Stephen Dhieu Dau declined to provide details on how the proposal would be structured.

"I am yet to get a briefing on the discussions in Nairobi and any other that will take place. However we are pursuing fiscal, monetary and diplomatic routes in a bid to unlock the economic challenge the country has been facing," Mr Dau said.

Last week, Mr Dau cancelled all unpaid cheques to suppliers due to "lack of money." The country is also yet to pass a new budget for the 2016/17 financial year, with sources saying that the new budget will be tabled before the Council of Ministers in the first week of September and later forwarded to the National Assembly for approval.

Evacuation of traders

Figures released by South Sudan's National Bureau of Statistics (SSNBS) last week showed that inflation increased by 405 per cent in the past two months to peak at 661.3 per cent in July, due to low supplies of food following the evacuation of Kenyan and Ugandan traders.

The evacuation was a result of the mid July dispute between President Salva Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar that degenerated into fierce gun battles. South Sudan's presidential spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny said that the diplomatic overtures will Juba to stabilise the supplies of goods to the country.

"There will be more contacts with Kenya and Uganda as a follow up because we need to restore the supply in order to forestall food shortages. We have seen a massive reduction in supplies from these two countries, which has caused the current food crisis," Mr Ateny said.

It remains to be seen how the plea to Uganda will be received, given that in 2014, Juba entered into a mutual agreement with Uganda to pay the $45 million debt owed to the 22 Ugandan companies, in a deal that was to see Kampala seek compensation from South Sudan after its economy had stabilised.
 

The matter is under discussion by a subcommittee established at Uganda's Cabinet to decide on how money for traders held in South Sudan banks can be released. The Uganda Cabinet also asked Juba to form a joint co-operation commission that would engage its team on the matter.

Kenya and Uganda's move to evacuate their nationals, and the subsequent travel advisories on Juba have seen South Sudan's inflation more than double in July to reach an annual rate of over 650 per cent, the highest in Africa.

South Sudan President Salva Kiir has already asked his military to escort both Kenyan and Ugandan traders delivering goods to the nation in a bid to check the skyrocketing food prices.

Kenya's Long Distance Truck Drivers and Allied Workers Union secretary-general Nicholas Mbugua welcomed the move but remained sceptical of Juba's reassurances on security.

"In July, we saw a lot of transporters pull out of South Sudan, with some choosing to deliver the goods to Elegu, the Uganda-South Sudan border town. If we can have discussions between the Kenyan and Ugandan governments, then we believe we can work out an amicable solution to this," said Mr Mbugua.

Nairobi — Kenya's CFC Stanbic Bank plans to expand its trading facility for the yuan in order to meet the growing demand for the Chinese currency.

CFC Stanbic Bank Chief Executive Philip Odera told Xinhua on Friday that the growing volumes of Sino-Kenyan trade was fueling the demand for yuan.

"We are looking to expand the holding of yuan currency notes which will be available in all branches by the end of the month," Odera said as the bank released a statement on its financial performance for the half year period ending June this year.

Odera said that having the physical currency in Kenya would reduce exchange rate losses incurred by international traders.

"Previously, the business community trading with China had to take the Kenyan shilling and convert it to the U.S. dollar which is then converted to the Chinese yuan," he said.

The CFC Stanbic Bank is headquartered in the Kenyan capital Nairobi with branches in Kenya and South Sudan.

In the financial statement, the bank says it plans to convert its branch in South Sudan into a subsidiary in order to improve operations efficiency.

The bank also reveals that it made a pre-tax profit of 28 million U.S. dollars for the six month ending June, a 27 percent decrease from a year ago, which is blamed on increased expenses and the conflict in South Sudan.

Cairo — A total of 53 foreign exchange bureaus have been closed since the start of the year, deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) Gamal Negm said on Friday.

The CBE has accelerated a crackdown against black market traders, closing a large number of the countries' foreign exchange offices, which it blames for growing pressure to devalue the currency.

Egypt is facing a dollar shortage with sources of hard currency inflows like tourism and investment slowing down. Driven by the shortage, rates on the black market exceed 12.65 to the dollar while banks kept the pound steady at 8.88.

Negm said during the Union of Arab Banks Forum currently held in Sharm El-Sheikh that penalties are directed towards companies that were found guilty of manipulating and speculating on the price of the US dollar in the country's parallel currency market.

The CBE's governor said that they hold daily inspection campaigns on exchange bureaus to detect violations.

"A total of 53 exchange offices have been shut since the beginning of the year; licenses of 26 companies were revoked while 27 offices were suspended for a period between three months to a year," Negm said.

On Aug. 9, parliament set prison sentences of up to 10 years and fines of up to 5 million pounds for traders selling foreign currency at black market rates.

The total number of foreign exchange bureaus licensed to operate in Egypt was 115 at the end of last year, but now there are only 62.

The CBE devalued the pound by about 14 per cent to reach EGP 8.78 against the dollar in March in an effort to close the gap between the official and parallel rates but the move failed to boost dollar liquidity or close the gap.

Years of political turmoil led to a drop by more than a half of Egypt's foreign reserves ($15.536 billion in July) in the years following the popular uprising in January 2011, which ended the rule of President Hosni Mubarak. The instability that ensued has driven tourists and investors away.

Dunkwa — The 2011 National Best farmer, Mr. Ignatius Agbo, has indicated that Ghana stands to lose volumes of tonnes in cocoa if the mass spraying exercise is not intensified.

He wants government to take pragmatic steps to augment cocoa production and maintain growth in the cocoa industry. Mr Agbo suggested that the government should consider assisting farmers to spray their cocoa farms three times in a year, as a way of ensuring that cocoa yields are maintained.

The chief farmer said the government should not play politics with the cocoa industry and make spraying insecticides accessible to farmers.

He told The Chronicle in an interview that farmers are finding it difficult to get the right insecticide to spray their farms for more yields and complained that the government is not making any effort to improve upon the situation.

The farmer chief pointed out that the brand of fertilizer imported for cocoa farmer during the regime of former President Kufuor was far better than what is being supplied to farmers now.

In a related development, the chief of Dunkwa, Nana Obeng Nuako II has called for the involvement of farmers in the growth of the agricultural sector.

He observed that the weather coupled with inadequate spraying machines have affected cocoa yield this year as compared to one million tonnes of cocoa produced in Ghana in previous years.

The chief suggested that the government should import farming inputs for supply to farmers at subsidized prices.

Citrus International Trading Plc. has begun distributing twenty million tablets that can disinfect 400 million litter water nationwide.

In a joint press conference with the Ministry of Health and Addis Ababa City Health Bureau yesterday, Company General Manager Minase Kifle said though there is a visible change in clean water delivery both in rural and urban areas, there is still a huge gap which needs further public and private investment.

Thus, he said, there is a huge need of using the scarce resources of clean water for avoiding contamination and misuse.

According to Minase, the tablets have been in use in the European market since the last 30 years. “It is easily available and affordable with only 0.62 cents for a single tablet that can purify 20 litters. It is certified by the WHO.”

Ministry Health Prevention and Promotion Case Team Leader Samuel Hailu on his part said besides to government interventions, such private intervention is crucial in providing potable water.

The team leader said the water cleaning tablets have been certified by the Ethiopian Food, Medicine and Health Care Administration and Control Authority and called upon the public to use and protect water contamination for drinking and food preparation.

The Nation planned to irrigate 4.1 million hectares of land.

Ethiopia’s economy is largely based on agriculture. Of course, for several years, agriculture has been getting special attention from the government; as a result, the sector has shown a tremendous increase. Moreover, the nation is on the verge of achieving food security. But, so far, it has not come out of rain-fed agriculture.

In fact,on several occasions, the government has been exerting efforts in reducing farmers’ dependence on rains by introducing various small-scale irrigation schemes. During the first Growth and Transformation Plan ( GTP-I ), farmers had irrigated 1.8 million hectares of land. They also had cultivated the land twice or more in a year.

Likewise, in the second Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP -II), the nation planned to irrigate 4.1 million hectares of land. In the first year of this Plan, the farmlands that have been under irrigation estimated to be over 2.6 million hectares. By the same token, 3.1 million of land will be cultivated at the end of 2017 by farmers engaged in small-scale irrigation.

Very recently, the Ministry of Farming and Natural Resource has organized consultative meeting on resource mobilization for sustainable irrigation system in the premises of Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research (EIAR). During a day-long meeting, the participants held extensive discussion on 2015/16 performance review of small-scale irrigation schemes in all over the country.

At the event, they also underlined that small-scale irrigation schemes have played a big role in reducing El-Nino induced drought effects. This is because the nation has managed to increase agricultural productivity using various micro-irrigation technologies particularly during the dry season (Bega) .

Hence, all of the participants agreed that the agricultural activities, that had shown a decrease in production in last rainy season due to El Nino induced drought, have been made to increase through small-scale irrigation activities in the dry season.

Speaking at consultative meeting the Ministry of Farming and Natural Resource State Minister Frenesh Mekuria said that the nation’s overall small scale irrigation activities in last dry season (bega) were encouraging. Moreover, she said that despite El-Nino impacts, the nation managed to meet set goals irrigating over 2.6 million hectares last fiscal year alone.

According to Frenesh, every farmer needs to have at least an alternative water resource in a bid to cultivate twice or more annually and ensure food security in the near future as well.

Presenting last year’s performance review, Small -Scale Irrigation Development Director for the Ministry Elias Awol said that the unsatisfactory utilization of fertilizer on irrigated plots, lack of spareparts for water pumps, failure to create market access for farmers engaged in small-scale irrigation and others were the major challenges in the agricultural activities.

He also noted that compared to other states of the country, Afar , Gambela and Somalia States need to intensify efforts to effectively utilize the groundwater resources applying various irrigation techniques.

As to the market access for farmers engaged in small-scale irrigation activities,he said that they do not often get fair price for their agricultural products as they do not have modern direct market access. Therefore, he said that the farmers must sell the agricultural products to the cooperative unions and use improved seeds to boost the agricultural productivity.

At the end of the meeting, Farming and Natural Resource State Minister Wondirad Mandefro told participants that everyone engaging in small-scale irrigation activities needs to work based on the set goals with a view to narrowing down the gaps in such agricultural activities and to realizing food security in the near future.

Moreover, the State Minister noted that apart from working in unison at all levels, the use of new irrigation technologies is a must to gain the desired results from irrigated plots as a whole