DAWN Aug-Sept Edition

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Agriculture - Business - Commentary Development - Education - Governance History - Investment - Lifestyle/Culture Technology/Science

"For The Culture" page 12, 80, 92, 95

Awakening the African Giant Within July-August 2021

Contents JULY-AUGUST 2021

Communications Tech 77

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Publisher's Message

Business 8 11 12

15 24 26 28

Early Warning to Businesses - Act Now on Ransomware Defenses Botswana Diamond Could be World's Third Largest Nigeria’s Comic Republic Signs Production Deal “To Bring African Superheroes to the World” (Exclusive) Meet the Sisters Changing the Narrative Around Chocolate in Ghana Startup 2021: Pros and Cons of Bootstrapping Let’s Keep Meetings Virtual After Covid These 5 Branding Factors Will Take Your Business to the Next Level

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Ghana Fights Deforestation by Planting 5 Million Trees in 1 Day

Pandemic-Health 42

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Philanthropist Mo Ibrahim Tells Countries to 'Walk the Talk' in Supplying Africa COVID Vaccines South Africa's President Ramaphosa Urges G7 Nations to Plug COVID-19 Funding Gap Biden to Send 500 Million Doses of Pfizer Vaccine to 100 Countries Over a Year Kenya gets $750 Million World Bank Loan to Help Recovery from COVID-19 Effects EU’s New Vaccine Passport Scheme I.M.F. Presents Plan to Help Poor Countries During Pandemic Covid-19’s Third Wave Dashes Hope of Tourism Revival in East Africa

Opportunity

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Governance

Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows Program-deadline October 1, 2021

Development 30 33

How Goats Helped a Malawian Activist Win a Ban on Single-use Plastics It’s Time for International Development in Africa to be Decolonized

Agriculture 36 38

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Regenerative Ocean Farming: The (Least) Deadliest Catch Big Irrigation Projects in Africa Have Failed to Deliver. What’s Needed Next July-August 2021

54 56 61

After Economic Sanctions Crippled Mali, the AU and EU are Trying a New Tack Digital Africa: Leveling Up through Governance and Trade Jamaica Plans to Petition Queen for 'Overdue' Reparations for Caribbean

Investment 64 67

How Africa Could Become a World Leader in Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) Quartz: All You Need to Know About Africa's Four (Six?) Unicorns DAWN

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Development Activisin 30

68 70 71 72 74

How to Attract Private Finance to Africa’s Development President Samia Gives Cryptocurrency Markets a Boost, as Bitcoin Closes on $40,000 South Africa Opens up to Private Power to Ease Blackouts African Tech Startups Funding Report 2020 & Full Startup List Seven African Start-ups Shaking up the Global Tech Ecosystem

Technology/Science 77 78 79 80 82 84 86 87

Launch of the Mediacity Mauritius Hub in Africa SpaceX President says Starlink Global Satellite Broadbrand Service to be Live by September The Triumph of the Electric Motor Sundar Pichai Surprises Winner of Doodle for Google Contest with a Video Call Reuters' Hot List of Climate Scientists is Geographically Skewed - Why This Matters Glowing Bacteria May One Day Protect People From Landmines Africa is Blasting its way into the Space Race NASA Seeks Proposals for Commercial Space Station Development

Lifestyle/Culture 88 91 3

'Wrong Number? Let's Chat' Maasai Herders in East Africa use Misdials to Make Connections Kamba Cua: the Little Known Kenyan Tribe July-August 2021

Kamba Cua 91

Giannis Antetokounmpo NBA MVP 99

92 95 96

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Living in South America for 200 Years Senegal is Preserving its Oral History in a Podcast African Superhero Sema Aims to Inspire Kids Worldwide From Thatched Huts to Wakanda, a Massive New Architectural Guide Explores SubSaharan Africa Milwaukee Bucks' Giannis Antetokounmpo Caps Extraordinary Postseason as NBA Finals MVP

History 100 104

What Western Appraisals of Kenneth Kaunda Left Out The Portuguese Colonization of Cape Verde

Columns 60 62 108 109

News Bits African Stock Exchange/Bourse Events Around the African Continent and the World African Diaspora Independence Days

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Publisher's Message

people of Japan even under the most difficult health circumstances. To the people of Japan, we say thank you as well to all the countries that participated in the Olympics. A big congrats to Uganda and Kenya for leading Africa with most medals.

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ther news going on in Africa include the war eliminating rebels in the Mozambiquan northern corridor. A responsibility which the people of Rwanda have taken with grace to the aid Mozambique in helping bring some order in the northern region of Mozambique. This level of collaboration is what Africa should be encouraged to foster for fellow Africans.

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Ricky Muloweni

he protest and vandalism on public property in South Africa were unfortunate and clearly should not have happened. We are encouraged by the people that came out to clean up and restore the stores. This is not to negate the fact that

AS WE CONTINUE TO FIGHT this ravaging pandemic, we encourage all our readers who have access to the vaccine to get vaccinated.

According to the health experts, the only way to beat this pandemic is to get as many people vaccinated. Unfortunately, most parts of Africa still do not have available vaccines and the news on deaths is extremely devastating. Our hearts and prayers are with the all the families that have been affected by this virus. I personally lost two great friends, Mr. Chishimba Mulenga and Mr. Ahmed Simwaya. May they rest in eternal peace, and I am grateful to them for the time we had together here on this earth.

▲Kenya's Faith Kipyegon ◄ Uganda's Joshua Cheptegei and Jacob Kiplimo

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s all the pandemic news is covering the airwaves, our team at Africa Business Association want to remind our readers of the many transformational things that are happening around you; Let’s start with the 2020 Summer Olympics which have been executed with success by the

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South Africa has gone through a devasting covid attack that resulted into closures of cities which in essence left most of the poor in extreme economic hardship. Our hope is that the new finance minister will put in place policies that goes to address these gaps for the South African people.

regarding the need to build a religious infrastructure using public funds. Within this news the people of Ghana have also build a gold processing factory that will for the first time enable the largest producer of Gold in Africa process their own Gold.

This is major successful news, congratulations to

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ambians are going to the polls this week. We wish all the candidates the best, and above all the Zambian people wisdom to choose the leaders that will work with them to build a prosperous Zambia.

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he Ethiopian internal war is concerning. We encourage the African leaders and all parties concerned to work out the differences. Africa is one continent with one people. The city of Addis is the center of the African Union as such the internal differences of the Ethiopian people should concern all of the African people.

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angote Group is expanding sugar production to meet local demands and working collaboratively with the Nigerian government to grow local sugar production. We encourage more small-scale local sugar cane producers in Nigeria and other west African nations be accorded the same incentives and opportunities to grow this industry.

the people of Ghana and more African countries should clearly do the same.

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n United States we added one more black woman to the billionaire list; Rihanna. Congratulations to this successful lady and powerhouse. The one encouraging thing she said when asked about this new status she replied, “God is Good”. Yes, indeed God is good and happy reading.

Ricky Muloweni Publisher/President dawn@africabusinessassociation.org aba@africabisinessassociation.org www.africabusinessassociation.org Image credits: Firstpost, kfm.co.ug , asabametro. com, Modernghana.com, Marie Claire

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hana has been in the news with protests on demands for higher wages and the questions

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About the

Africa Business Association The Africa Business Association is an independent international business development organization. We offer access to the latest resources, information, and best practices in advocacy and communications for the African Diaspora and the African entrepreneurs in Africa.

We work to help you have access to news and events as starting points for constructive conversations and calls to action. We seek to cut through the froth of the political spin cycle to underlying truths and values. We want to be so focused on progress that together we can provide a credible and constructive generation of Africans that take seriously our previous generations and act upon all their wishes, our hopes and aspirations to make lasting change for all future generations.

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Africa Business Association

"DAWN"

PUBLISHER/PRESIDENT Ricky Muloweni

ADVISORY BOARD

Earl 'Skip' Cooper, II, CEO, Black Business Association H.E. Sheila Siwela, Ambassador H.E. Kone L. Tanou, Ambassador

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Ricky Muloweni

LAYOUT/TYPESETTING Lion Communications

AFRICA BUSINESS ASSOCIATION NEWS 6564 LOISDALE COURT, SUITE 600 Springfield, VA 22150 USA 1-240-467-6811 aba@africabisinessassociation.org dawn@africabusinessassociation.org www.africabusinessassociation.org

Copyright © 2020

by Africa Business Association News All Rights Reserved.

The posting of stories, commentaries, reports, documents and links (embedded or otherwise) on this site does not in any way, shape or form, implied or otherwise, necessarily express or suggest endorsement or support of any of such posted material or parts therein.

Image credits: Cover-http://creativafrica.blogspot.com, United States Department of Commerce

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Congratulations…

Zambia has spoken and democracy has won. The Board and Management of the Africa Business Association congratulates his Excellency President Hakainde Hichilema on your momentous victory becoming the 7th President of the Republic of Zambia.

We wish you success and good health.

Ricky Muloweni,

President Africa Business Association 7

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Business

Early Warning to Businesses - White House Warns Companies to Act Now on Ransomware Defenses

By David E. Sanger and Nicole Perlroth

THE WHITE HOUSE WARNED American businesses on Thursday, June 3, 2021 to take urgent security measures to protect against ransomware attacks, as hackers shift their tactics from stealing data to disrupting critical infrastructure.

The bluntly worded open letter followed a string of escalating ransomware attacks that stopped gasoline and jet fuel from flowing up the East Coast and closed off beef and pork production from one of the country’s leading food suppliers.

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Anne Neuberger, the deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies, wrote that the Biden administration was working with partners “to disrupt and deter” attacks that deployed ransomware, a form of malware that encrypts data until the victim pays.

But she urged companies to adopt many of the same defensive steps that it has recently required of federal agencies and companies that do business with the government.

The message amounted to a rush effort to construct the kind of defensive infrastructure for cyberattacks on the United States that has been broadly discussed for years — but that companies have been slow to adapt, because either the threat seemed distant or the cost far too high.

The recent attacks have propelled ransomware to the top of President Biden’s national security agenda. It is expected to be part of his discussions next week in Europe, during meetings with allies, and in his summit with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

The administration accuses Russia of both launching cyberattacks against the United States and harboring ransomware hackers.

Ms. Neuberger noted “a recent shift in ransomware attacks — from stealing data to disrupting operations.” She urged firms to make sure that their “corporate business functions and manufacturing/ production operation are separated,” so that an attack on business records, such as emails or billing operations, does not cut off critical production and supply lines.

The past month has shown that DAWN

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companies often do not understand the linkages between those two in their own systems — even if they previously insisted the functions were already separated. When Colonial Pipeline was hit with a ransomware attack last month, the attackers — a criminal group, DarkSide, with substantial operations in Russia — froze the business records side of the business, not the operational controls over the pipeline.

But Colonial, a privately held firm that supplies nearly half of the gas, jet fuel and diesel to the East Coast, took the added step of shutting the pipeline down because it could not get access to its billing systems or monitor the flow of petroleum to specific locations. And with billing systems out of reach, the company had no way to charge customers for deliveries.

The effects were immediate: Lines appeared at gasoline stations because of panic buying, airlines ran short of jet fuel and had to make stops on what were advertised as nonstop flights, and prices surged. Colonial failed to communicate effectively with government officials, and ultimately paid a $4.4 million ransom — against the usual advice of the F.B.I. Ms. Neuberger’s letter noted that the Biden administration was working to develop “cohesive and consistent policies toward ransom payments” and to enable “rapid tracing and interdiction of 9

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virtual currency proceeds.”

Yet Ms. Neuberger, who held several key posts at the National Security Agency, noted that although the White House was working to bring ransomware attacks to heel, government could do only so much.

“Much as our homes have locks and alarm systems and our office buildings have guards and security to meet the threat of theft, we urge you to take ransomware seriously and ensure your corporate cyberdefenses match the threat,” Ms. Neuberger wrote.

It was a telling analogy — because it was one U.S. officials have used for a decade. Yet for years, American businesses — which operate and maintain 85% of the nation’s critical infrastructure — have pushed back on regulations that would have mandated minimum levels of cybersecurity.

A 2012 cybersecurity bill that would have required stricter cybersecurity standards for businesses that operate critical sectors, like pipelines, dams and power plants, was ultimately watered down after the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s largest business lobby, argued that the regulations would be too burdensome and expensive for American companies.

Last week, Mr. Biden acted through executive order in an effort to force some of those changes see page 10

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Business CyberSecurity from page 9 on the pipeline industry, using the Transportation Safety Administration’s oversight powers on the pipeline industry.

In the absence of comprehensive government mandates, however, cybersecurity practices have been voluntary. The result is that many businesses and other organizations have been, in effect, left to fend for themselves. And the latest ransomware attacks have exposed the extent to which American cities, town governments, police departments and even the one of the ferry services between Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket have failed to erect sufficient defenses.

The latest attack on one of the world’s largest suppliers of beef, JBS, for example, was pulled off by a Russian group known as REvil, which has had great success breaking into companies using very simple means. The group typically gains access into large corporations through a combination of email phishing, in which it sends an employee an email that fools him or her into entering a password or clicking on a malicious link, and exploiting a company’s slowness to patch software.

REvil’s cybercriminals will often search for and exploit vulnerable computer servers or break in through a well-known flaw in Pulse Secure security devices, called a VPN, or virtual private network, that companies use in an effort to protect their data. The flaw was detected and patched two years ago, and flagged by American officials again last year after a series of cyberattacks by Chinese hackers. But many companies have still failed to patch it.

Yet a year later, many companies have still neglected to run the patch, essentially leaving an open window into their systems.

In the White House memo, titled “What We Urge You to Do Now,” Ms. Neuberger asked businesses to focus on the basics. One step is multifactor authentication, a process that forces employees to enter a second, one-time password from their phone, or a security token, when they log in from an unrecognized device.

It encouraged them to regularly back up data, 10

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and segregate those backup systems from the rest of their networks so that cybercriminals cannot easily find them. It urged companies to hire firms to conduct “penetration testing,’’ essentially dry runs in which an attack on a company’s systems is simulated, to find vulnerabilities. And Ms. Neuberger asked them to think ahead about how they would react should their networks and held hostage with ransomware.

Recorded Future, a security firm that tracks ransomware attacks, estimated that there were 65,000 successful ransomware attacks last year, or one every eight minutes. But as businesses automate their core operations, the risk of more consequential ransomware attacks only grows.

On Thursday, just as the White House was releasing its memo, new ransomware attacks surfaced, this time on Cox Media Group, which owns 57 radio and television stations across 20 American markets. Late Wednesday, the government of Mobile County, Ala., said its systems had been held hostage with ransomware.

“Ransomware attacks are only going to get worse and more pervasive into people’s lives, and they’re not disappearing anytime soon,” said Allan Liska, an intelligence analyst at Recorded Future.

“There’s a line of cybercriminals waiting to conduct these ransomware attacks. Anytime one goes down, you just see another group pop up.” www.nytimes.com/2021/06/03/us/politics/ ransomware-cybersecurity-infrastructure.html Image credit: claytodayonline.com, Ivanti, PECB

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Business

Botswana Diamond Could be World's Third Largest A DIAMOND BELIEVED to be the third largest ever found has been put on display in Botswana.

The stone - weighing 1,098 carats - was shown to President Mokgweetsi Masisi, two weeks after the diamond firm, Debswana, unearthed it.

The huge gem is only slightly less heavy than the world's second-largest diamond which was also found in Botswana in 2015.

Botswana is Africa's largest producer of diamonds.

"This is the largest diamond to be recovered

by Debswana in its history of over 50 years in operation," said Lynette Armstrong, Debswana Diamond Company's acting managing director.

"From our preliminary analysis it could be the world's third largest gem quality stone."

Debswana is a joint venture between the government and global diamond giant De Beers and up to 80% of the income from sales goes to state coffers through dividends, royalties and taxes.

An estimate of the stone's potential cost has not yet been released but in 2017, the second-largest diamond ever found, Lesedi La Rona, was sold for $53m (£39.5m).

The biggest diamond ever discovered was the 3,106 carat Cullinan diamond found in South Africa in 1905.

Botswana's Minerals Minister, Lefoko Moagi, said the latest find could not have come at a better time for Botswana after the pandemic caused diamond sales to slump last year.

The newly discovered stone, which was found at the Jwaneng mine, is yet to be named.

Ms. Armstrong said a decision had not yet been taken on whether to sell the "rare and extraordinary stone" through De Beers or through the state-owned Okavango Diamond Company.

Debswana says the diamond is 73mm long, 52mm wide and 27mm thick 11

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Business

Nigeria’s Comic Republic Signs Production Deal “To Bring African Superheroes to the World” (Exclusive)

By Scott Roxborough

The Vanguard

NIGERIA’S COMIC REPUBLIC, Africa’s largest publisher of independent comic books, has signed a production deal with Emagine Content and JackieBoy Entertainment to adapt its catalog of 12

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African superheroes for film and TV. Comic Republic publishes such African-based titles as Ireti, the story of a university student in Ibadan, Nigeria blessed with superpowers, Aje, a fantasy title inspired by Yoruba spirituality and mysticism, and The Vanguards, which focuses on an Avengers-style team of superheroes. Most of the publisher’s titles are rooted in traditional African mythology, folktales, and culture.

The companies said the goal of the new venture will be to “portray a positive global influence of Africa and negate previous misconceptions.”

“It’s a great time to be alive. We are in a world where diversity has taken center stage,” says Jide Martin, CEO of Comic Republic. “We are thrilled to be working with Emagine Content and Jackie Boy to bring our heroes and stories to the big screen but mostly because we get the chance to be a part of black history.”

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ds

cooperation b e t w e e n C o m i c Republic and J a c k i e B o y, a Marylandb a s e d entertainment group set up by music executive John Tillery, announced earlier this year.

“JackieBoy Entertainment is excited to bring the three companies together and embark on this watershed moment in comic book Ireti, which the companies c u l t u r e , bill as the first “African connecting female superhero.” the voices of “This deal is a major African stories push towards diversity on to universal the silver screen for black themes for superheroes,” says Emagine CEO Ben Phelps, who runs the L.A.-based group together with head all to enjoy,” said Tillery, together with JackieBoy of originals Kimberly Boyd, a producer on such EVP EA Brown. “We look forward to working with series as Into the Badlands and The Shannara the stellar teams of Emagine Content and Comic Chronicles. “The time is now to showcase heroes Republic to strengthen the alliance between of all different backgrounds…The ability to create African-based creatives and comic enthusiasts role models for future generations to come is a with genuine characters and storylines.” unique opportunity that comes with an important www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/nigeria-s-comicresponsibility to make sure the storytelling is republic-signs-production-deal-to-bringauthentic. For us, finding a partnership that is african-superheroes-to-the-world-exclusive/arlooking to be a disruptive force with good morals AALg7u1?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=W069 is everything.”

Image credit: grandmotherafrica.com, The new agreement with Emagine builds on the thecomicrepublic.com, demandafrica.com The first project planned under the partnership is a feature film adaptation of

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Business

M Ar By

CHOCOLATE MAKING WAS NOT originally part of the Addison sisters’ plan. Kimberly studied French and international relations at Boston College with a focus on social justice. Priscilla double majored in international development and French at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania with a concentration in food security. Both were working in Geneva, Switzerland in 2014 but contemplating a change.

“I was working in a nonprofit that dealt with women in education. I just began to get quite restless, being at a nine to five at a desk,” Kimberly shared with Travel Noire. “I remember speaking to my dad and telling him I feel like I want to create something. And he was like, ‘Well, why don’t you guys consider moving back to Ghana when I retire,’ because he had been planning on retiring soon. It sounded like a great idea. He spoke to us about entrepreneurship. I remember telling him, ‘okay, when you officially retire, then I will also resign, and we’ll plan to move back to Ghana.'”

Within three to five months, their father called 14

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their bluff and made good on his promise to retire.

The sisters prepared to return to Ghana with plans to start a still unknown business venture.

The answer would come unexpectedly two weeks before their departure, during a tour with some friends to Maison Cailler, a chocolate factory just outside of Geneva.

In a display showcasing the cocoa beans used and where they were sourced, the most prominent countries were Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. The Addisons were stunned.

“We had become very familiar with Swiss chocolate and just the chocolate culture in Switzerland, and it was quite shocking to realize that most of their beans were coming from West Africa,” recalled Kimberly. “Then the parallel side of that is, we would often go back to Ghana.

And though it’s the second-largest producer of cocoa, there wasn’t a chocolate culture here.

There wasn’t really chocolate production here, let alone quality chocolate. So together Priscilla and I decided that we wanted to change that and use DAWN

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Meet the Sisters Changing the Narrative round Chocolate in Ghana Nasha Smith

the natural resource, the cocoa grown here, to create a high quality chocolate product that would be available globally, and locally, as well.”

The result is ’57 Chocolate, an artisanal bean to bar chocolate business based in Accra, Ghana.

The name is a nod to the country’s independence as well as the revolutionary spirit of the people.

The beans are sourced from local farmers. All the confections are free of artificial flavors, colors, or preservatives and retain the integrity of the cocoa.

In addition to their signature chocolate bars, ’57 Chocolate also produces both dark and milk chocolate chips as well as bite-sized Adinkra bars featuring engraved symbols originally created by the Ashanti of Ghana. Priscilla is partial to milk chocolate with almonds and sea salt, but dabbles in their moringa chocolate with toasted coconut when she craves something “a little bit earthy and peppery.”

Kimberly’s tastes vary depending on her mood.

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She prefers a dark chocolate post-dinner or mocha latte coffee-flavored bar in the mornings. The company has retailers in France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and certain locations in the United States including New York and Texas.

But the process hasn’t been without its challenges. The two grew up in Senegal, were partly educated in the US and spent many years living in Switzerland. Before moving to Ghana in 2014, they visited once a year or every couple of years with their paraents. They needed to adjust to a new dynamic.

“One of the major challenges was just understanding the business environment in Ghana, learning the ropes, speaking to people and understanding how systems work,” said Priscilla.

“Another thing would be electricity. When we see page 16

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Business '57 Chocolate

from page 15

first arrived in Ghana, there was this thing called dumsor, which means light on light off. There are a lot of power outages, and in order to make chocolate, you need machines that constantly run on electricity. We’d be getting up at odd hours of the night, sometimes at three in the morning, to turn on machines to continue our chocolate making process.”

Another hurdle was finding equipment that was manufactured or available locally to avoid the heavy duties associated with importing machinery. And while feedback has been positive, the duo needed to overcome the stigma of inferiority surrounding locally produced goods.

“People were quite skeptical at first,” admitted Kimberly. “That’s something that we’re also trying to change because there has been a stigma towards ‘made in Ghana’ chocolate, or ‘made in Africa’ chocolate or even ‘made in Africa’ products. They typically are seen as being of lesser quality. When we first told people this is what we’re going to do, people were a little skeptical. But then when they tried the product, a lot of people were shocked and were surprised that this chocolate is actually being made in Ghana.”

Since the inception of ’57 Chocolate, their operation has grown from two to ten people in a larger space, producing an estimated 1,000 bars weekly. The sisters are working on launching an e-commerce site with greater ease of use and expanding their presence in other markets. Not everyone is able to work so intimately with a sibling but it works for the Addisons because they each bring a different skillset to the partnership.

“Kim and I, we make a really great team,” shared Priscilla. “We complement each other, and we have different strengths. But of course, we also have different weaknesses. So places where I’m weak, Kim is stronger, and vice versa.”

They also recognize that their business is a constant learning process and encourage other 16

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a s p i r i n g entrepreneurs to immerse themselves in their field. “ J u s t because you have a product doesn’t mean you can’t improve upon that product,” Kimberly chimed in. “And it doesn’t mean that you can’t learn more about it. Make sure you understand the industry you’re getting into. Entrepreneurship is a very fancy, luxurious word. But it’s not always all that fancy when you’re on the inside. So you have to spend a lot of time learning.”

She added, “A lot of people don’t realize this, but the idea came to us in 2014, and we only made our first batch of chocolate in 2016. So we spent a year and a half, almost two years, actually just learning everything we know about chocolate, learning the industry, learning the field, and that learning still hasn’t stopped today.”

Learn more about ’57 Chocolate and their products on the website or follow them on Instagram. https://travelnoire.com/sisters-changingnarrative-around-chocolate-ghanaImage credit: korantenglaw.com

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Women Can Add $14.58Bn to E-Commerce in Africa – Report

By Chike Onwuegbuchi A NEW REPORT, published yesterday by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in partnership with Africa’s leading e-commerce firm Jumia, has said Africa’s e-commerce market could grow by more than $14.5 billion between 2025 and 2030.

The report says this can be achieved by increasing the number of women selling on online platforms and by providing them with better training and financial support to help them match sales made by men.

The report shows that women comprise half of all active e-commerce vendors in Africa, though they tend to run smaller-scale businesses and feature prominently in high-competition, low-value segments like beauty. On the Jumia platform, just over a third of businesses in Côte d’Ivoire and over half in Kenya and Nigeria are owned by women.

Juliet Anammah, Chairwoman Jumia Nigeria and Group Head of Institutional Affairs, said, “It is absolutely essential for women to be factored in, given the future of e-commerce. Africa is just at the start of its e-commerce growth trajectory. Now is the time to ensure women entrepreneurs are the leaders of Africa’s digital journey.”

The report, Women and E-commerce in Africa, found that COVID-19 has accelerated the growth of e-commerce and digital entrepreneurship in Africa and that more women have embraced digital business.

However, it also noted that more can be done to promote women’s entrepreneurship and help women overcome e-commerce challenges. For example, e-commerce marketplace platforms are well-positioned to target women-owned businesses with training, and to encourage women’s participation in higher-value segments such as electronics.

Women could also strengthen their businesses 17

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by taking advantage of emerging f i n t e c h offerings, such as inplatform loans, which women currently access at much lower rates than men. The report leveraged data from leading e-commerce firm Jumia, as well as from surveys of vendors in Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, and Nigeria.

“E-commerce in Africa is thriving, yet we are already seeing a widening gender gap in the sector.

IFC’s report not only highlights the gap, but also shows how it might be addressed so that women entrepreneurs can succeed in this important and rapidly growing marketplace,” said Sérgio Pimenta, IFC Vice President for the Middle East and Africa.

Supporting women entrepreneurs has taken on renewed urgency since the outbreak of COVID-19.

In the first year of the pandemic, women-owned businesses in the three countries studied suffered reduced sales of 39%, compared to only a 28% drop for men-owned businesses.

The research was undertaken by Digital2Equal, an IFC-led initiative conducted in partnership with the European Commission, which brought together 17 leading technology companies operating across the global online marketplace to boost opportunities for women in emerging markets. Additional funding was provided by the Umbrella Fund for Gender Equality. The research was carried out by IFC in partnership with global advisory firm Kantar Public. www.msn.com/en-xl/africa/other/women-can-add1458bn-to-e-commerce-in-africa-report/ar-AAKswix Image credit: Women and E-commerce in Africa

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Business

Chair Summary Following “COVID-19 and Vaccine Equity: What Can the WTO Contribute?”

ONE THING THAT CAME OUT of today's (21-0608) discussions is that it was only through working together across borders that scientists developed safe and effective vaccines in record time. And it is only by working together, across borders, that we'll be able to solve the problems [of vaccine scarcity and equitable access] discussed today. This is a problem of the global commons, and we have to solve it together.

Our purpose today was to contribute to efforts to increase vaccine production and broaden access, starting with the immediate term.

Specifically we had three goals: The first was to pinpoint the obstacles, particularly the trade-related obstacles, to ramping up production, and to equitably distributing and administering vaccines — and we looked at how the WTO could contribute to these solutions.

The second was to bring together people who are able to increase and to scale up manufacturing, people in a position to share technology and knowhow, and people willing to finance additional manufacturing capacity.

And third, to think about the road ahead, including on the TRIPS waiver and incentives for research and development, so that we get the medical technologies we need, and no country is left at the back of the line waiting. If there is one refrain we heard continuously from everyone today it is that no one is safe until everyone is safe.

We heard first-hand from governments and vaccine manufacturers from developed, developing, and least developed countries, as well as a wide range of other stakeholders from international organizations, civil society and development finance institutions.

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And we heard good news: that supplies are ramping up and companies are learning by doing, that there have been major gains in productivity, and that there is still capacity. We also heard that there is a willingness to finance investment in vaccine manufacturing both in the shortDG O and long-term, and there are ideas and energy to do things differently.

However, we heard from many that we need to do more. It hasn't really been business as usual, so we may need to move on to “business unusual” to solve the problems before us.

In the discussions today we heard a great deal of agreement. We agree that it's not acceptable for people and countries to have to wait indefinitely for vaccines. We do not want to repeat experiences of the past.

We heard a consensus on the urgent need to scale up production and vaccinate everyone, because every day the shortage continues, scope for dangerous new variants will increase, and the number of preventable deaths will grow. The economic impact of these delays can and has been quantified by many institutions, including the IMF, the World Bank, and the WTO. It was agreed that production capacity needs to be expanded, particularly in developing and least developed countries and emerging markets. And that vaccine distribution needs to be more effective and more equitable.

We heard that open cross-border trade in raw materials, and other inputs, was essential for maintaining and scaling up production, and that DAWN

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I agree with the view that the WTO is a logical forum for finding a way forward on these issues, and I hope that the ideas raised here will contribute to convergence in the TRIPS Council on meaningful results that can contribute to the goals that we have.

I hope that the discussion today, listening to each other, seeing that we all share a common goal, and that we may not be so far apart, will lead to the willingness to come to the middle, and work out something that will be acceptable to all.

Participants were generally of the view that ramping up vaccine manufacturing capacity is a complex process. It requires large, long-term investment Okonjo-Iweala provided this summary at the end of the event. and sustainable business models. It relies on open international supply lines supply chains in these inputs must be maintained. for ingredients and equipment. We heard how Also widely shared was the view that innovation, shortages of even a single piece of equipment, research and development will be vital for dealing filters, can halt operations at a production facility. with COVID-19 variants and in other health crises.

Vaccine manufacturing necessitates collaboration, We had useful exchanges on issues where some and the movement of skilled labour, to facilitate perspectives were different, such as on the future transfer of technology and knowhow. shape of vaccine supply chains, on the appropriate Safety is a paramount consideration, and quality role for intellectual property protections, on issues is the other part of safety. This demands effective of vaccine contract transparency — which was regulatory capacity and stringent compliance, pointed to by many as an important factor in down to the factory floor. Indeed we heard this is a appropriate pricing and distribution and a critical big risk companies factor in when making decisions part of access and equity. as to where to produce, and how to produce. I Concerns expressed by some about crosshope that they've heard sufficient encouragement border supply chain operations, including export today, to enable us to move towards leveraging restrictions and shortages of skilled personnel the existing capacities in emerging markets and reinforced my view, and hopefully that of members, developing countries mentioned repeatedly today, that the WTO must and can play a central part in which could actually help to take care of the the response to this crisis. shortages talked about.

Various perspectives about the TRIPS Turning capacity around to produce COVID-19 Agreement, and whether the existing flexibilities vaccines is not only about the physical space are enough to address developing country alone. We heard repeatedly that it requires needs were put on the table. These echoed the transfer of technology and knowhow, together with discussions on the waiver proposal going on in the investment and support for quality assurance.

TRIPS Council, and I want to reiterate that today is a way of contributing to that discussion. see page 20 19

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Business WTO

from page 19

We also learned about how existing licensing arrangements have operated — including an example of how skills transfer was carried out in a few as six months. We also heard calls for support to build human capital, and to help build regulatory cooperation.

Some participants suggested more active matchmaking to connect companies that have the investment capacity with those that have potential for expanding production capacity, even in the short term.

We also heard about ongoing efforts to build new manufacturing capacity, and the lessons that can be learned from that.

We also began to see the aspects of the collaboration we need to make things happen. We had many international organizations show they are willing to work together to bring to fruition things like putting in place technical expertise, helping with capacity building and quality control, and investing directly in production.

I believe that today's exchanges have advanced our understanding of the challenges we face for scaling up vaccine production, and that working together is the only way ahead.

In the coming weeks and months, we expect concrete follow-up action. These issues are not easy, but the political will and engagement from the private sector displayed today, suggests it is possible.

As we move forward, I expect: From WTO members: Action to further reduce export restrictions and supply chain barriers, and to work with other organizations to facilitate logistics and customs procedures. We are monitoring this as part of our regular work, and we'll continue doing so to increase supplies and maintain robust supply chains. Trade has been underlined as a critical factor in production; it is incumbent upon WTO 20

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members to act.

Advance negotiations in the TRIPS Council on the waiver proposal and incentives for research and innovation. I hope that the ideas and the open dialogue heard will move us closer to agreement.

For vaccine manufacturers: Concrete moves to scale up vaccine manufacturing, both short-term turnaround of existing capacities, milking whatever productivity gains we can from current facilities, and taking steps to invest.

Increased technology and knowhow transfer, which many participants stressed would be necessary to make additional production work.

We need transparency in contract agreements and product pricing.

We hope to continue this dialogue and to help monitoring steps in that direction.

For international organisations and financial institutions: We noted your willingness to finance, both existing and new capacity, your willingness to work on capacity building for regulatory issues, not just for vaccines, but also for therapeutics and diagnostics, which are equally important.

I trust that we have found a good basis to deliver concrete action, and to continue this discussion that we've had today.

This should not be a one-off, we should continue to talk to each other, and make sure that we can deliver.

I hope that besides concrete action to increase capacity, this discussion has given us elements of a framework on trade and health that we can put together at the WTO, and that can be put before ministers at the 12th Ministerial Conference in mid-December. Such a framework should provide for trade-related preparedness to handle this pandemic, and the next one. www.wto.org/english/news_e/spno_e/spno7_e.htm Image credit: emonewsdm.com DAWN

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Report: Focus More on Facebook, Customer Service Efforts on Social in 2021

By Sophie Maerowitz

FACEBOOK IS CRITICIZED on many fronts.

Still, its importance for brands seems solid.

Unexpectedly, nearly 80% of consumers choose it as their go-to vehicle for following brands, according to a Sprout Social survey detailing consumer and marketer trends on social media. In addition, Facebook tops the charts as consumers' most-used platform (87%).

These findings serve as a reminder to social media communicators to revisit Facebook as a platform for driving business, despite a groundswell of buzz for newer platforms like TikTok and Clubhouse.

When consumers follow a brand on social, 91% say they are likely to visit its website or app. This high level of conversion is surprising, given social platforms' (particularly

Facebook) aim of keeping social media users onplatform.

For its survey, Sprout Social questioned 1,002 U.S. consumers and 1,001 U.S. marketers in early April 2020. Also included was an analysis of 782 million messages from 534,000 public social profiles that were active between January 1, 2020, and December 31, 2020.

Customers expect service In terms of customer service, consumer expectations for responses from brands on social to queries remain strong. When asked what they think makes a brand best-in-class on social, consumers ranked “they offer strong customer service” at the top of the list of criteria out of nine see page 23

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Business

Sprout listing of top social platforms consumers follow brands on in 2021 Source: Sprout Social

Listing of what consumers think makes a brand best in class on social vs. what marketers think Source: Sprout Social 22

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Social Media from page 21 categories. The rest of the list included storytelling, “distinct personality” and “the first to join a social network.”

This is in stark contrast to the survey’s marketer respondents, who ranked customer service sixth.

Higher on the priority list for marketers is brands that “engage their audience.”

While 'audience engagement' arguably is an umbrella term that includes customer service, 'engagement' usually refers to the good stuff—how often audiences interact with content in a positive way, through likes, views and comments.

But customer-support questions, which often drip negative sentiment, also are a good place to strengthen audience interest and loyalty.

"Whether someone is asking a question, requesting customer support or simply sharing their opinion or experience, every interaction represents an opportunity for brands to connect with their audience and build a deeper relationship,” Jamie Gilpen, CMO of Sprout Social, told PRNEWS.

Follow the followers Sprout’s analysis concludes follower counts are no longer a vanity metric, considering that most business-critical actions consumers take appear to result from following brands on social first.

Nine of ten consumers said they’d buy products or services from brands they follow on social, with 86 percent of respondents sharing that they would purchase from a brand they follow over a competitor. This would indicate that social media practitioners would do well to place a renewed emphasis on recruiting followers (or poaching them from the competition).

Upward momentum The report’s usage statistics are unsurprising.

Consumer use of social continues to increase (spurred on, no doubt, by the pandemic). Moreover, Sprout reported a 54 percent increase in Boomer usage of social media, and Gen Z upping usage a whopping 78%.

The survey makes a case for leaning on social media for competitive advantage. Nearly all (93%) marketers say social media accelerated competition in their industry. In other words, 23

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competitors’ social media strategy—from creative, to response time when a customer complains—is an open book, and with smart analysis, can help brands establish consumers’ baseline expectations and preferences. Studying competitors’ posts and metrics helps 86 percent of marketers “identify new business opportunities,” according to the survey.

Social, mental health and communication In addition to social media's prowess as a business tool and role in personal communication, social is associated with depression, anxiety and other mental health issues. Yet it’s more complicated than ‘too much social media leads to mental health problems,’ according to a survey of 1,000 U.S. adults.

Released last month, the survey from PR firm EvolveMKD and Ipsos includes some surprising findings. For example, half of Americans say social media doesn’t influence their mental health.

And of those who say it does, 3 in 4 believe social media is a positive influence.

There’s a gender gap, though. More women (30%) than men (18%) say social media impacts their mental health in a negative way. The survey suggests the culprit perhaps is how the sexes spend time on social. Men and women spend comparable time on social. Yet women (54%) devote more effort to scrolling through their feeds than men (40%).

One reason to look at social media and mental health is that women’s mental health has declined during the past decade, especially in the pandemic.

75% of women who reported changes in mental health said it got worse in 2020, compared to 49% of men.

Moreover, there’s a connection to communication.

The survey found 7 in 10 respondents believe how they communicate is linked directly to their mental health.

Certainly, communicators will continue to follow links between communication, gender and social media.. www.prnewsonline.com/report-focus-more-onfacebook-customer-service-efforts-on-social-in2021/?oly_enc_id=7910C8518789D0B Image credit: 360africa.news DAWN

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Business

Startup 2021: Pros and Cons of Bootstrapping

By Danielle Fallon, Contributor In our Startup2021 series, we're helping aspiring entrepreneurs navigate the new business climate of the COVID-19 era.

Each week, we'll share an in-depth look at one step you can take toward launching your business in 2021.

Securing funding is often one of the biggest obstacles for new business owners. To solve this problem, some entrepreneurs opt to selffund their business venture, a practice known as bootstrapping.

While funding your own company can be challenging, many now-successful startups have gone down this path. Here's everything you should know about this financing method, including the pros and cons of bootstrapping.

What is bootstrapping?

Bootstrapping refers to the process of starting a company with only personal savings, including borrowed or invested funds from family or friends, as well as income from initial sales. Self-funded businesses do not rely on traditio`nal financing methods, such as the support of investors, crowdfunding or bank loans. Rather, as the name suggests, entrepreneurs must “pull themselves up by their bootstraps'' by using their own capital to launch.

Pros and cons of bootstrapping After reading about bootstrapping, you may be wondering whether it’s the best route for your startup. To help in the decision-making process, here are some pros and cons of bootstrapping: Pros of bootstrapping  It allows entrepreneurs to retain full ownership of their business. When investors support a business, they do so in exchange for a percentage of ownership.

Bootstrapping enables startup owners to retain their share of the equity.

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 It forces business owners to create a model that really works. Most failed businesses struggle due to a poor business model.

However, bootstrapping entrepreneurs are forced to develop processes that produce immediate, lasting cash flow, bypassing this outcome.  It provides a sense of accomplishment. For some entrepreneurs, building something from the ground up without outside help is its own reward.  It keeps control over direction in the owner’s hands. Taking on outside money also means taking on external pressure and responsibilities to satisfy those investors’ interests. While solutions to this exist within a traditional financing model, bootstrapping allows business owners to maintain full artistic direction and control over decisions.

Cons of bootstrapping  It can be risky. Self-funded businesses can run out of funds more quickly and struggle to scale as their needs are met. This can limit a startup’s ability to reach its full potential.  It limits support and opportunity. Traditional financing methods don’t just offer higher amounts of capital; they also unlock networking opportunities with top-level help, such as board members, shareholders and influencers. Bootstrapping a business limits that support and opportunity.  It requires significant organization.

Entrepreneurs who self-finance must be extremely meticulous about keeping their books in order, lest issues (or opportunities!) arise later on.  It is hard work. With potentially limited resources and connections in the beginning, bootstrapping entrepreneurs have to work harder and take on more roles. For some, this additional work can be well worth the effort.

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Examples of successfully bootstrapped businesses Many thriving startups have bootstrapped their way to success, including:  BiggerPockets. BiggerPockets, the largest online community for real estate investing, was launched without any venture capital money. Today, it boasts over one million members and a successful business podcast.  Mailchimp. Now driving nearly $700 million in annual revenue, this email marketing platform started from a self-funded dream and is still 100% founder-owned.  MyClean. The founders of MyClean, a New York-based on-demand cleaning service, convinced friends and family to loan them $267,000. With more than $9 million in annual revenue and an expansion into Chicago and Washington, D.C., the gamble certainly paid off.  SparkFun Electronics. The online retailer for hard-to-find circuit boards and gadgets has grown rapidly over the years, with annual revenue over $30 million.

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 Tough Mudder. Tough Mudder’s founders each put about $10,000 into their extreme obstacle course company. With over two million racers since its founding, Tough Mudder is now one of the giants of the obstacle racing industry.

As long as entrepreneurs are aware of the associated risks, bootstrapping can be an incredibly effective financing method for startups looking to get a foothold in the market. www.uschamber.com/co/start/startup/ bootstrap-funding-pros-and-cons?utm_ medium=40digest.7days3.20210607. carousel&utm_source=email&utm_ content=&utm_campaign=campaign Image credit: press.farm Additional Articles and Resources: Should I Bootstrap or Look for Investors?

5 Ways to Raise Money for Your Business Fast 4 Experts Share Their Business Funding Strategies www.instagram.com/thrivewithco/ DAWN

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Business - Commentary

Let’s Keep Meetings Virtual After Covid

By Katherine H. Freeman and Raymond Jeanloz

IN 2020, THE ANNUAL COMMITTEE meeting of the journal we edit was a bit of a mess. It took place in March, just days before the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic, so some attendees canceled their travel even as others were arriving at the meeting site.

At the last minute, we pivoted to a hybrid meeting, with half the attendees in-person and the other half virtual. While the meeting was successful in terms of editorial decisions, the mixed format hampered our normally free-flowing discussions.

The 2021 meeting of the journal, the Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, was entirely virtual. And it went much more smoothly.

By then, we all had a year’s experience working in an online environment. Everyone was remote, which made the means of communication equitable, and we made sure each member had a chance to participate. We included breaks to reduce video fatigue, and breakout rooms for parallel smallgroup discussions that helped increase efficiency.

We developed a more scripted schedule that we followed closely to ensure that everyone knew what to expect.

In many professions, business travel is part of the job. This is particularly true in science, where international collaborations are the norm. But as we look ahead to a post-Covid world, we’re not sure that we want to go back to spending so much of our professional lives in planes, hotels, restaurants and rental cars. There are obvious benefits to inperson meet-ups, but they don’t always outweigh the costs: time, money and the effects of travel on the climate. More professions — especially within science — should explicitly consider those costs, and the benefits of virtual meetings.

We’re not the only ones who don’t want a return to “normal”: More than 400 scientists have signed a

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letter urging US scientific organizations to explore more remote meetings in the future. A recent poll of more than 900 readers of the journal Nature found that nearly three-quarters want scientific meetings to be all virtual, or at least to have a remote option, even after Covid is over.

There are obvious benefits to in-person meetups, but they don’t always outweigh the costs: time, money and the effects of travel on the climate.

The benefits are obvious. A 2019 analysis from Runzheimer — part of the tech company Motus, which sells products for mobile workers — found that every business trip costs $1,300 per traveler. To US companies, that translated to roughly $112 billion in expenses in 2019 alone.

Those costs render in-person meetings off-limits to many companies and individuals, effectively widening existing gaps.

Even if people can afford to buy a plane ticket, they may have other limitations that make the trip impossible, such as illness or challenges with securing childcare. Some online accessibility features, such as real-time captioning, are not always available at in-person meetings. Virtual meetings can eliminate some of those barriers, and they may be more accessible: When the European Geosciences Union made its 2020 meeting virtual, attendance rose from a typical 16,000 to 26,000.

Travel also has an enormous impact on climate.

In one estimate published in Nature, air travel to a single scientific meeting — the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union, attended by 28,000 people from around the world — generated the equivalent of 80,000 tons of carbon dioxide, the average amount emitted by the entire city of Edinburgh over the course of a week.

We can’t just flip a switch to virtual meetings

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without working out some kinks. Our 2021 virtual editorial committee meeting started at 8 a.m.

California time, which was midnight for a colleague in Japan — who then had to stay awake for a further eight hours. It will be near impossible to pick a time that is convenient for everyone around the world, but we need to make sure that benefits outweigh inconveniences for each participant.

Virtual meetings also must provide ways for people to interact socially, particularly newcomers.

Dinners and receptions at in-person events can help attendees new to the scene get to know other board members and make invaluable work connections, but these are difficult to replicate over a screen. Work discussions (let alone socializing) can be particularly tricky during hybrid meetings, so ways must be found to ensure that remote participants — including those from underrepresented communities — can network as fully and freely as people who are able to attend in person. Small group meetings ahead of time can ensure that each individual’s insights are clearly heard, and breakout rooms designated for specific topics can help to constructively focus discussions.

Of course, virtual or hybrid meetings can’t replicate 27

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everything about the in-person experience.

Attendees may lose the opportunities for exquisite restaurant meals with colleagues, or the excuse for a family trip. And there are intangible benefits to gathering experts in a room to mutually educate each other, where you can easily interject or pull someone aside.

But given the potential benefits of virtual meetings to improve access, cut expenses and help the planet, we want to see more of them in the future.

Let’s not go back to the way things were before.

This article is part of Reset: The Science of Crisis & Recovery, an ongoing series exploring how the world is navigating the coronavirus pandemic, its consequences and the way forward.

Reset is supported by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. https://knowablemagazine.org/article/foodenvironment/2021/lets-keep-meetings-virtualafter-covid?utm_medium=10today.media. thur.20210617.436.1&utm_source=email&utm_ content=article&utm_campaign=10-for-today---4.0styling& Image credit: horndiplomat.com DAWN

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Business

These 5 Branding Factors Will Take Your Business to the Next Level

By Dillon Kivo THE IMPORTANCE OF BRANDING in business is undeniable. No matter what industry you are in, there will always be someone who offers the same product or service that you do. What sets your offering apart is the brand attached to it. Building a brand takes time and a lot of effort, but any business or entrepreneur who takes the brand-building process to heart will experience more success.

But we need to realize that branding is more than just a logo. It’s about the experience as a whole.

That includes the visual and tangible, and even the intangible aspects of your business experience.

Unfortunately, many business owners today neglect some of the most non-negotiable aspects of brandbuilding. When we know what these factors are and address them well, they can bring a lot of value to our business — recognition, influence and even profit.

Here are five branding factors that many businesses ignore and how we can start paying more attention to them.

1. Your value proposition What does your business sell? The chances are that if you’re a coffee shop, you might answer coffee. If you’re an author, you might say books. But people don’t simply buy the products you sell.

They buy the value they get out of it. Anyone can drink coffee in any coffee shop, but only Starbucks customers get a sense of community and comfort.

Any author can sell a book, but only Tony Robbins can sell life transformation in the way he does.

Discover what value and benefits your product gives people and communicate that.

l question ti we need d to t answer is i when h people l only talk about our level of customer service, will it build or destroy our reputation?

3. Personality Lastly, a brand needs to have a personality, and it has to be authentic: 8% of consumers say that authenticity is important when deciding what brand they’ll use. Create a personal brand that embodies the entrepreneur or the company culture, and communicate that.

4. Impact Another successful way to build a brand is to share impact stories. In line with the previous point, people love speaking about experiences. And when people have good experiences and share them, that can provide your company with vital social proofing. Ask happy clients to leave reviews on sites like Google Reviews, LinkedIn or TrustPilot, and post those testimonials on your website and social-media accounts.

5. Your audience’s story

A fundamental understanding of branding will tell you that a brand is a bridge between an offer and an audience. People will gravitate toward brands that they can relate to, and one effective way to make that happen is to tell your audience’s story.

Let them know that you understand their struggles, dreams and desires. Think about how Nike uses ads that connect with people’s limitations, such as disability, and turn them into an inspirational message. Those stories connect and deliver so 2. Customer service much value to an audience, building the brand Studies indicate that 73% of consumers love a experience immensely. brand because of helpful customer service. That www.entrepreneur.com/article/374928 means that a company with good customer service does a lot to uplift its brand. People love Image credit: 5WPR / 5W PR to talk about their experiences with a brand. The 28

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Opportunity

Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows Program --deadline October 1, 2021 The Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows Program is an international exchange program that offers five-month fellowships to leading democracy activists, journalists, civil society leaders, and scholars from around the world to conduct independent projects at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

During their time in residence at NED's International Forum for Democratic Studies, in Washington D.C., fellows reflect on their experiences and consider lessons learned; conduct independent research and writing; engage with colleagues and counterparts in the United States; build ties with a global network of democracy advocates.

Click here to view our promotional video!

Eligibility: The program is intended primarily for practitioners from developing and aspiring democracies, and those from nondemocratic countries. Distinguished scholars from the United States and other established democracies are also eligible to apply. Practitioners may include activists, journalists, human rights defenders, lawyers, artists, and civil society professionals who have substantial experience in their field. Scholars may include professors, researchers, and other writers who have a Ph.D. or academic equivalent at the time of application. Applicants should have a record of experience working to strengthen democracy and human rights in their countries of origin or interest. Working knowledge of English is required for participation in the program.

Support: Fellows receive monthly payments to cover living expenses, plus basic health insurance, travel reimbursement, and research support.

Fellowship Dates: Fall Session: October 1, 2022–February 28, 2023; Spring Session: March 1–July 31, 2023.

For more information, visit: www.ned.org/fellowships.

Applications must be submitted before October 1, 2021.

To apply, visit: https://www.nedfellowships.org/Start/ReaganFascell.

Sourced by: Jeannine B. Scott, Principal America to Africa Consulting (A2A), LLC Email:

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jbscott@america2africaconsulting.com

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Development

How Goats Helped a Malawian Activist Win a Ban on Single-use Plastics

By Tim McDonnell

Malawian environmentalist Gloria-Majiga-Kamoto was awarded a Goldman Environmental Prize for taking on her country's powerful plastics industry, and winning.

GLORIA MAJIGA-KAMOTO never intended to lead an environmental revolution in Malawi. Her focus was on agriculture, and helping farmers adapt to climate change in one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to drought and other impacts. But during her time on farms, an even more immediate concern became unavoidable: A tidal wave of plastic trash covering the landscape.

Malawi is home to a number of plastics factories, and in 2016, when Majiga-Kamoto first noticed the problem, they were churning out 75,000 tons of plastic every year, 80% of which was single-use.

Plastic waste choked waterways, created breeding grounds for malaria-carrying mosquitoes, and could be deadly to roving livestock.

“We had people sending in pictures from all different areas of Malawi, and they were all just 30

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so heavily polluted,” she said. “It was really quite shocking for me.”

What was especially shocking was that none of this should have been a problem. In 2015, Malawi joined dozens of its peers across the African continent in cracking down on single-use plastics by banning them outright. But under opposition from industry groups, Malawi’s ban was tied up in court. So Majiga-Kamoto started networking with other concerned activists. Together, they organized protest marches, debated industry representatives on television, and raised money for a legal campaign. All that work paid off: In July 2019, Malawi’s top court upheld the ban. A year later, it had shut down three factories illegally producing single-use plastics and impounded the equipment of a fourth.

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On June 15, Majiga-Kamoto was one of six environmentalists from around the globe honored with the prestigious, Goldman Environmental Prize, an annual award for grassroots activists nicknamed the “Green Nobel.” She spoke with Quartz about her strategy for taking on Malawi’s plastics industry, drumming up public support for slow-burn environmental issues, and what she hopes to see from the industry in the future. This conversation was edited for length and clarity.

people need plastic.” But that taught me that the things they care about are not the things we care about in our communities. You want to be able to create an environment where everyone thrives. If it’s just one person or one company thriving, it’s not the kind of world we should aspire to be building.

So we got a lawyer, we organized a Go-FundMe. And then we organized a march on the courts, because we felt that the government just wasn’t hearing us. We were saying that we shouldn’t just think about this from the economic perspective, How did you first come to focus on plastics?

I was working on a sustainable agriculture project, which is what the companies wanted to do. and we kept having this experience where quite It took several years, and a series of setbacks a few of the goats would ingest plastics. They and false starts, for the ban to finally be were left out in the field to graze, and they would upheld in court. How did you maintain die. That was one of the biggest problems we had. momentum and the attention of the public I realized there wouldn’t be a way to address this during that time? challenge only through our advocacy on livestock.

It was really frustrating, and we had many So that’s how I became interested in the work that moments where I thought this is never going to was being done at the time on single-use plastics. happen. You think, “Oh, it’s just me, or it’s just ten of And at that time, there was a ban [on the books us, in a country of 70 million people, and I don’t care in Malawi], and we thought, “Oh yeah, we have anymore.” And I definitely felt very guilty, because a ban, so this problem is going to end.” But then I’m also someone who uses plastic. So first I had everyone realized the ban wouldn’t work because to think about how I could change my own lifestyle the plastics companies are against it, and it wasn’t and become more aware of the choices I make. being enforced. [The companies] were trying to You can realize you’re part of the problem, but you say that they make a huge economic contribution have a part to play in the solution. and that this ban was a violation of their economic I’ve always had a problem with being labeled rights. as an environmentalist, because it’s really about people and understanding what people need.

Plastics form a large part of the economy of Then it’s about showing people the challenge in many African countries, even if their use is a way they can relate to. A lot of farmers could restricted. What was your strategy for taking absolutely relate to having lost a goat or finding on those companies in Malawi? You joined a plastic ingested by their livestock. If we talk legal case to get the ban enforced, right?

I’m not a huge fan of protests. I tend to prefer about carbon emissions, they won’t relate. I’ve conversation, trying to reason together, but in always had a problem with being labeled as an this case, it was clear that wasn’t going to work. environmentalist, because it’s really about people Throughout the campaign, we tried to talk with and understanding what people need. They need companies and hear what they think we should be plastic, so how do you help them understand that doing as a country. And we just couldn’t get through this is a problem that affects not only you but a to them. They say, “We’re a huge contributor to the lot of people, and not just today but in the long economy, we pay taxes, we’re providing a service, 31

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Development Plastics Ban from page 31 run? Finally, people need to appreciate that their voice is the only one that matters.

What’s missing for us to make the change that we need is just to recognize the power we have.

Even as more African countries adopt bans on single-use plastics, plastic pollution remains a major problem, in part because there yet many good alternatives to common sources of pollution like water sachets. What needs No digestive enzyme – not even gastric acid – is powerful to break to happen next? down plastics, no matter how long the material is subjected to this When people see they have natural solvent. a role to play, there’s a cultural shift that happens. We need to get to a place where we’re not just changing taking companies to task on being part of the consumer patterns but promoting more sustainable solution, because ultimately the cost of reversing alternatives. The ban is only as effective as we as the damage is so much more than what they pay citizens allow it to be, and it’s just the tip of the in taxes. iceberg. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/goats-helpedWe can do a lot more to get bigger corporations malawian-activist-win-070036988.html to commit to extended responsibility for their part Source: https://qz.com/africa/2022249/goldmanof the mess. It’s going to be costly to clean up this winner-gloria-majiga-kamoto-and-malawismess, and right now it’s the citizens who have to plastic-problem pay that cost. I’m not willing to stand by and watch Image credit: https://avrotor.blogspot. that happen. There needs to be more action on com/2012/06/case-of-goat-that-ate-plastic.html

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Development

It’s Time for International Development in Africa to be Decolonized

By Amma Gyampo IN RECENT YEARS, there have been growing calls for more diversity in international funding destined for Africa. There has also been debate over how the continent can encourage more local African asset owners to invest in impactful, sustainable, and profitable sectors of the productive economy, like its burgeoning tech ecosystem.

According to Devex, “organizations led by Africans tend to get less money—with more strings attached—compared with those led by others.” For the African tech sector alone, insights from TechCabal illustrate that “only two out of 10 investors who participated in VC deals in Africa between 2014 and 2019 were local.”

This rolling conversation has been sparked by the notoriously high proportion of venture capital that goes to white founders operating in Kenya, for example, and due to the controversial positioning of companies like Jumia, as “African.” Furthermore, there has been a lot of pushback against a heavy-handed reporting culture of mistrust which, in practice, constrains rather than enables the recipients of international grant funding from big philanthropy and development financing, hindering their ability to run their innovative initiatives and interventions.

Despite the essential nature of the services provided by African NGOs—which themselves often lack the business capacity to execute sustainable projects – and local private sector intermediary firms, such organizations are unknowingly exposed to highly politicized and opaque bid processes which result in applications that have little to no chance of succeeding.

What we see is a huge disparity of funding in favor of advisory firms from the Global North, to the detriment of local expertise from the Global South, with a clear proximity advantage.

During a recent event discussing angel investing, Frank Aswani, CEO of the African Venture Philanthropy Alliance (AVPA), made a case 33

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for foundations and donor agencies to become more “innovative, catalytic investors—instead of just giving money away as grants.” AVPA has been at the forefront of promoting innovative new approaches to development finance such as venture philanthropy and blended finance.

Countries that have achieved middle income status, like Ghana, have seen international funding cuts but have not been immune to the economic shocks of the pandemic as such leaders from the worlds of philanthropy, development finance and corporate sustainability are under pressure to do more to help regions like Africa on their way to economic recovery. This is an opportunity for leaders in these fields to take on a more entrepreneurial and radical approach to funding ambitious, radical, creative and self-sustaining development initiatives.

A good starting point would be to adopt the role of social investor, supporting the local private sector to build capacity and prosperity through what microfinance pioneer, Nobel prize Laureate, Muhammad Yunus calls “social businesses.”

International development funding would go further by, in effect, seeding viable social business models that can be scaled to sustain hundreds of thousands of women and youth.

Furthermore, if Africa is to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, there must be more intentionality around getting global funding resources to filter down to intermediaries, experts, and advisors on the ground and close to the action—not thousands of miles away from developing regions. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/time-internationaldevelopment-africa-decolonized-084027668.html Source: https://qz.com/africa/2024100/its-time-todecolonizing-african-international-development-aid Image credit: smallbizgeek.co.uk

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Development

Kenya’s Long-awaited Lamu Port Becoming Operational

BEING BUILT BY China Communications CCCC’s contract was to build the first three of 32 Construction Company (CCCC), the port is part berths for $480m, although the outturn cost was of Kenya’s bid to become the principal trade hub in reported earlier this month to be $370m.

East Africa.

It is also part of LAPSSET, which stands for the Lamu Port South Sudan Sudan-Ethiopia Transport Ethiopia Corridor. If all the proposed schemes are built, this will include roads, oil and fibre-optic lines, a 1,500km railway, an airport and a refinery, and will require investment of around $24bn.

Bernard Osero, KPA’s head of corporate affairs, said the Uganda government had prioritised Lamu as the means of linking east and west Africa by road and rail.

“Lamu port will specialise in handling containers and oil cargo between the east African hinterland and the rest of the world … and will enable Kenya to become a gateway of choice for Ethiopia, South Sudan and Somalia,” he said.

When originally conceived in 2012, Lamu was to be a massive, 16-year scheme that would require around $3bn in investment to ►► Tanzania produce one of the biggest ports in the world (see further reading).

It was to be able to handle 24 million containers a year, which would make it the fourth busiest port in the world in 2020, after Shenzhen, Singapore and The route of the LAPSSET corridors (Nairobi123/public domain) Shanghai.

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Somalia

By GCR Staff

Lamu Port

The first berth was completed in August 2019, and work was to have been completed last year, a timetable that was put back by the Covid-19 pandemic. Work is under way now to install cranage and other equipment.

KPA now has to find investors for the other 29 berths. According to the Kenyan Star news site, Danish shipping giant Maersk is among the carriers interested in playing a role in future expansions, including a special economic zone for manufacturers.

Meanwhile, work is continuing on building LAPSSET’s road links. The port will rely on links with Ethiopia, the most dynamic of the regional 35

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economies, and this will in turn depend on a 1,425km highway between Lamu and Moyale, on the Kenyan–Ethiopian border.

Work is now taking place on the 257km section between Lamu and Garissa (see map), which is expected to be finished in 12 months. A 157km section between Garissa and Modogashe is complete and a 165km stretch between Modogashe and Wajir is out to tender. www.media4africa.com/kenyas-long-awaitedlamu-port-to-become-operational-in-june Image credits: globalconstructionreview.com

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Agriculture - Commentary

Regenerative Ocean Farming: The (Least) Deadlies

By Bren Smith

New Generation of Fishermen My journey is one of ecological redemption.

After the cod stocks crashed in my home of Newfoundland in the early ‘90s, I joined the ranks of fishermen working the salmon farms in Northern Canada. We were promised that aquaculture was the answer to overfishing and unemployment. We were told that we were a new generation of fish farmers that were going to help feed the world.

Our dreams became ashes in our mouths. The salmon farms were the equivalent of industrial pig farms at sea, pumping fish full of antibiotics and food coloring, polluting waterways, and growing livestock that were neither fish nor food.

Disillusioned, I kept searching for a way to remain on the water, to make a living but not at the expense ocean ecosystems. I ended up in Long Island Sound where forward thinking regulators opened up shell-fishing grounds for the first time in decades to attract young fishermen into a new industry. There began my 15-year journey into regenerative ocean farming.

Discovering Mussels Shellfish like mussels taught me that we can farm to restore rather than deplete. As farmers, our crops can breathe life back into the oceans while feeding local communities. Our mussels filter nitrogen and carbon out of the water column, while providing vital habitats for hundreds of species.

In terms of sustainability, mussels and other shellfish blow land-based food out of the water.

They require zero inputs—no feeds, no fertilizers, no fresh water—making them the most sustainable form of food production on earth.

Restorative ocean farming is a trade both old and new. Mussel cultivation began as early as the 13th century, supposedly invented by an Irishman who was shipwrecked in the Baie de l’Aiguillon 36

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Mussels

on the west coast of France. He originally tied nets to tall stakes to catch birds, but quickly those stakes were covered with mussel seed. Mussel cultivation became immensely popular and is the reason the bay is known as the “Bay of the Stick”. Fast forward centuries later and dotting U.S. coastlines are companies like Bang’s Island Mussels in Maine, Catalina Ranch in California and American Mussel in Rhode Island, who keep the tradition alive through relentless innovation and good old-fashioned hard work.

Diversity is the Future The future of restorative ocean farming is polyculture—not monoculture. There are thousands of species of edible shellfish and seaweeds in our oceans, but only a handful are farmed around the world. At GreenWave, we’ve been hellbent on developing integrated farming methods. Most recently we teamed up with Wood’s Hole Oceanographic Institute, University of Connecticut and NOAA to further integrate mussel, oyster and kelp farming into vertical systems in order to grow an increasingly diverse mix of species on our 20 acre farms.

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st Catch

As ocean farmers, this is the first opportunity in generations to build a food system from the bottom up. In 1979, Jacques Cousteau, the father of ocean conservation, predicted this opportunity: “We must plant the sea...using the ocean as farmers instead of hunters. That is what civilization is all about — farming replacing hunting.”

This is our chance to avoid the mistakes made by industrial fishing, agriculture and aquaculture.

We can push GMO-spiked salmon, seafood mislabeling and factory trawlers off the table.

Together let’s move bivalves and sea greens to the center of the plate. Let’s cultivate blue-green jobs, tackle the climate crisis and feed the planet.

Restorative ocean farming represents our chance to do food right, and ensure that those working at sea can make a living on a living planet.

But good food grown for both people and the 37

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Kelp Farming - Zanzibar

planet must also be delicious! One of the most enjoyable meals of my life was an afternoon spent with a gaggle of culinary wizards at Yvon’s home tasting literally dozens of different mussel recipes.

The creativity of each dish was proof that, in the right hands, mussels have the potency to be the gateway drug to a new “climate cuisine” that is both delightful and hopeful. www.patagoniaprovisions.com/blogs/stories/ regenerative-ocean-farming-the-least-deadliestcatch Image credit: Science Photo Library DAWN

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Agriculture

Big Irrigation Projects in Africa Have Failed to Deliver. What’s Needed Next By

IN 1938, FRENCH COLONIAL AUTHORITIES in what is today Mali started on an ambitious infrastructure plan to transform the desert into an area of agricultural production. Water was diverted from the Niger River through a canal system to enable irrigation on over one million hectares of fertile land. Eventually covering over 100,000 hectares, this project is still one of the largest irrigation schemes in Africa.

The Malian project, known as “Office Du Niger”, has had a profound influence on agricultural water management and planning across Africa since the mid-20th century. By the 1960s African governments saw it as a model for rural development.

With World Bank funding, hundreds of dams and large irrigation schemes were set up across Africa. The intended goals were increasing food security, reducing poverty, and stimulating economic growth. Unfortunately, the reality of many of these irrigation projects has been quite different.

Since 2008, in response to rising food prices, governments across Africa have announced plans for a new era of irrigation scheme development.

Yet, it remains unclear why earlier schemes fell so short of expectations. To answer this question, we evaluated the performance of 79 schemes constructed across sub-Saharan Africa between the 1940s and 2010.

schemes deliver on average only 18% of the irrigated production area they originally propose. And many schemes are now completely inactive – some only a few years after construction. There appears to be little evidence of scheme performance improving over more than 60 years.

Cycle of failure

Research on individual schemes has blamed a number of factors for irrigation project failures.

These include scheme size and climate. Arguing that larger schemes that experience more variable climates fail more often. This was largely not the case in our analysis of 79 projects.

Instead, we found the main causes of failure to be political and management frameworks underpinning irrigation project development.

First the political. For governments, a key motivation for scheme development was to produce more food. This would also reduce dependence on imports while generating exports.

But the resulting focus on production of low-value staple crops – such as rice and maize – often led to poor financial performance.

Low-value crops undermine the financial sustainability of capital intensive irrigation projects in the long term. This is because these crops don’t Unbiased. Nonpartisan. Factual. always generate reliable and substantial profits Our research reviewed original targets for from land allocated within schemes. And that agricultural production areas, as reported in project makes it harder for farmers to contribute to the planning documents. These were compared with maintenance and upkeep of infrastructure.

The result is a cycle of dependence on external estimates of how much irrigated land projects currently support. The estimates were derived investment and subsidies. Once this initial investment runs out, many schemes deteriorate from high-resolution satellite imagery.

Our findings show that these irrigation rapidly.

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Second, donors have tended to prefer large, centrally-managed infrastructure projects. They seem to be less complex technically and logistically than a multiplicity of smaller scale initiatives.

Unfortunately, many centralised government agencies in sub-Saharan Africa are underfunded and poorly resourced. Many lack the technical and institutional capacity needed to manage such large-scale projects.

At the same time, donor preferences for scale stimulate government appetite for optimistic plans to tap financial support. As a result, proposed irrigated areas and scheme returns are often unrealistic. For example, the Office Du Niger only recently achieved 10% of the 1 million hectares planned in 1938. On the other hand, schemes designed to irrigate 127,000 hectares around Lake Chad are now completely inactive.

Planners, too, understate costs and overstate benefits. Our research argues that without changes to the way projects are envisaged, implemented and managed, African governments risk repeating mistakes of the 20th century development. This could have damaging consequences for poverty, food security and economic development.

Ways forward Failures of large-scale irrigation in sub-Saharan Africa have been acknowledged for several decades. But our research suggests that this has had little impact on the way planners or governments approach such projects.

Given actual outcomes achieved, it is arguable that many large-scale irrigation projects have not 39

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delivered a return on investment. Even those that were initially viable have since gobbled up funds for maintenance and rehabilitation. Greater and more systematic monitoring and accounting of performance is needed to address these issues.

To do this, governments, donors and researchers can use new data sources such as satellite imagery. Just as important are reforms to planning processes to ensure investments are made contingent on successful and sustainable outcomes for farmers and communities.

In parallel, we also suggest a rethink of the historical preference for large projects. Are they the best or only means of increasing either food security or farmer incomes?

There is a growing recognition that farmers across Africa are highly entrepreneurial. This is evidenced, for example, by the recent increase in focus within the World Bank and other agencies on farmer-led irrigation. Small-scale farmers have for many decades and even centuries been developing a wide range of irrigation systems independent of development agencies or governments.

Evidence suggests that these investments may be several orders of magnitude cheaper than large schemes. These may offer better returns in terms of farmer incomes and rural livelihoods.

Continuing investment Investments in large-scale water infrastructure will continue to an important means of agricultural see page 40 DAWN

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Agriculture

Ghana Fights Deforestation by Planting 5 Million Trees in 1 Day

By Catherine Garcia STUDENTS, COMMUNITY LEADERS, celebrities, and politicians in Ghana all came together to revitalize the country's forests.

As part of the Green Ghana program, 5 million trees were planted on Friday (June 11th), with the government giving free seedlings to individuals, schools, and organizations.

Government statistics show that in 1900, Ghana had 20 million acres of forest cover, and today, that has dropped to about 4 million acres.

The forests are being ravaged due to smallscale mining and rampant illegal logging, and now is the "time for action," Ghana's Minister for Lands and Natural Resources Samuel Abu Jinapor told Agence France-Presse. "The aim of Green Ghana is to save us now and our future generations. We can't fail our future leaders."

The government, which will sustain this program for the next five years, gave extra seedlings out to students like Rosemond Asante, 12, so they could also plant with their parents at home. Asante told Al Jazeera they were "happy to be part of this beautiful event," adding, "I love trees." www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ghana-fightsdeforestation-by-planting-5-million-trees-in-1-day/ ar-AAL3mXJ?ocid=msedgntp

IIrrigation i ti

Image credit: UCLA, legonconnect.com, issuu, ghanayello.com

Thisalsocallsfornewapproachestohowirrigation This also calls for new approaches to how irrigation development is financed and implemented in production. This is more so as water availability Africa. There’s a need to combine both large and becomes increasingly erratic in many regions due small scale approaches to irrigation development to climate change and pressures from population to meet the twin goals of improving food and water growth. security.

This calls for investments in storage https://theconversation.com/big-irrigation-projectsinfrastructure – both built and natural – to ensure in-africa-have-failed-to-deliver-whats-neededreliable access to water. This in turn provides a next-160360 basis for encouraging farmers to invest in irrigated Image credit: Flinders University, blogs.ei.columbia. agriculture, thus reducing risks associated with edu, ces.de, upworthy adoption of new technologies or practices.

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Pandemic

Philanthropist Mo Ibrahim Tells Countries to 'Walk the Talk' in Supplying Africa COVID Vaccines

By Julia Marnin

PHILANTHROPIST MO IBRAHIM, 75, tells countries to "walk the talk" in supplying Africa much-needed COVID-19 vaccines during a Tuesday interview with the Associated Press.

Ibrahim, a British billionaire born in Sudan, denounced the unequal global distribution of vaccines, as only 7 million of Africa's 1.3 billion people are fully vaccinated, according to the World Health Organization's (WHO) director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti.

Regarding the popular pandemic slogan, "nobody is safe until everybody is safe," Ibrahim said wealthy nations "say that while they are hoarding the vaccine. Can you walk the talk?

Stop just talking like parrots, you know, and do you really mean what you said?"

The WHO announced last week that there is "a near halt" in vaccine shipments for Africa.

Ibrahim believes that Africa's frontline workers should receive "at least a reasonable portion" of available vaccines.

Ibrahim, a British mobile phone magnate, is hailed as a voice of moral authority across Africa.

He earned his fortune by establishing the Celtel mobile phone network across Africa in the 1990s.

He is now using that fortune to promote democracy and political accountability on the continent, including through his sponsorship of the $5 million Ibrahim Prize for African leaders who govern responsibly and who give up their power peacefully.

He lamented the global "competition" for vaccines in an interview with AP. His comments came in a Zoom call from London, where he is based.

Some African countries face a spike in cases.

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Africa has administered vaccine doses to 31 million of its 1.3 billion people.

Sub-Saharan Africa has on average administered only one vaccine dose per 100 people, compared to a global average of 23 doses per 100 people, she said, reiterating Africa's ongoing plea for richer countries with significant vaccination coverage to share some of their remaining doses.

President Joe Biden has said the United States would share some of its vaccines.

Ibrahim warned also that Africa cannot afford to sit back, citing a need for greater accountability by governments which pledged in 2001 to spend at least 15% of their national budgets on public health. Economic integration that widens trade among nations is key, he said.

While support from abroad is welcome, he said, "we should rely much more on ourselves. I always thought self-reliance is something important in Africa."

"We really need to build resilient health service in our countries," he said.

Citing Tanzania under former leader John Magufuli, who died in March, Ibrahim said he was disappointed that some presidents appeared to dismiss the threat from COVID-19.

"We need to hold our leaders accountable," he said. "You deny and you pay the price....

Unfortunately, your people also pay the price. So we need to hold our people accountable for their behavior, for the way they allocate resources. And it is for us in civil society to keep raising this issue."

Africa has confirmed more than 4.9 million COVID-19 cases, including 132,000 deaths, representing a tiny fraction of the global caseload.

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Mo Ibrahim Foundation Founder and Chair, Mo Ibrahim, speaks during an interview with AFP at his office in London on November 16, 2020. Ibrahim fired at wealthy countries and said they should "walk the talk" in supplying Africa with COVID-19 vaccines. © Hollie Adams/AFP via Getty Images

suffer greatly in the long term if more of its people vaccine, often the main shot available under the are not vaccinated in efforts to achieve herd donor-backed COVAX program to ensure access immunity, when enough people are protected for developing countries. through infection or vaccination to make it difficult www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/philanthropistfor a virus to continue to spread. mo-ibrahim-tells-countries-to-walk-theAchieving that goal will require about 1.5 talk-in-supplying-africa-covid-vaccines/arbillion vaccine doses for Africa if there is AAKS85f?ocid=msedgntp widespread use of the two-shot AstraZeneca 43

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Pandemic

South Africa's President Ramaphosa Urges G7 Nations to Plug COVID-19 Funding Gap

By Tanisha Heiberg; Editing by Gareth Jones, Reuters

SOUTH AFRICAN PRESIDENT CYRIL RAMAPHOSA has urged the Group of Seven countries to help finance the World Health Organization's programme to boost COVID-19 testing, diagnostics and vaccines, the presidency said on Sunday.

Ramaphosa, who has joined a summit of the club of rich democracies in England and addressed them on Saturday, June 12th, said the G7 countries, which together account for more than half of global output, should support the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator to plug the $16.8 billion funding gap for this year.

"We need to address the substantial financing gap for tests, treatments, critical supplies like oxygen and the health systems that enable testing, treatment and vaccination," Ramaphosa said in the presidency statement.

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to tests, treatments, and vaccines in the fight against COVID-19.

"If all G7 countries met their fair share target, this initiative would be twothirds funded – and it would be 90% funded if all G20 countries made their fair share contributions," Ramaphosa said.

Ramaphosa also urged G7 members to support the TRIPS waiver on patents for COVID-19 vaccines and engage in negotiations that could help boost vaccine production.

Around 90% of African countries will miss a September target to vaccinate at least 10% of their populations against the virus as a third wave of the pandemic looms on the continent, the WHO has said.

Africa has now registered five million COVID-19 cases, with the southern Africa region the worst affected, a Reuters tally has shown.

"If the world is to emerge from this grave crisis, it is essential that we work together to mobilise and direct resources to those countries in the greatest need – and that we do so now," said Ramaphosa.

The G7 group includes the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada. www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/safrica-s-president-ramaphosa-urges-g7nations-to-plug-covid-19-funding-gap/arAAKZUbm?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=W069 DAWN

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Pandemic

Biden to Send 500 Million Doses of Pfizer Vaccine to 100 Countries Over a Year

By Sharon LaFraniere, Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Noah Weiland

PRESIDENT BIDEN, UNDER PRESSURE to aggressively address the global coronavirus vaccine shortage, will announce as early as Thursday, June 10th, that his administration will buy 500 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and donate them among about 100 countries over the next year, according to people familiar with the plan.

The White House reached the deal just in time for Mr. Biden’s eight-day European trip, which is his first opportunity to reassert the United States as a world leader and restore relations that were badly frayed by President Donald J. Trump.

“We have to end Covid-19, not just at home,

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which we’re doing, but everywhere,” Mr. Biden told American troops after landing at R.A.F. Mildenhall in Suffolk, England. “There’s no wall high enough to keep us safe from this pandemic or the next biological threat we face, and there will be others. It requires coordinated multilateral action.”

People familiar with the Pfizer deal said the United States would pay for the doses at a “not for profit” price. The first 200 million doses will be distributed by the end of this year, followed by 300 million by next June, they said. The doses will be distributed through Covax, the international vaccine-sharing initiative. see page 46

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Pandemic and end the pandemic.”

The deal with Pfizer has the potential to open the door to similar agreements with other vaccine Mr. Biden is in Europe for a week to attend the NATO and Group of 7 summits and to meet with manufacturers, including Moderna, whose vaccine President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in Geneva. He was developed with American tax dollars — unlike is likely to use the trip to call on other nations to step Pfizer’s. In addition, the Biden administration has brokered a deal in which Merck will help produce up vaccine distribution.

In a statement on Wednesday, Jeffrey D. Zients, Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine, and those doses the White House official in charge of devising a might be available for overseas use.

The United States has already contracted to buy global vaccination strategy, said Mr. Biden would 300 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, “rally the world’s democracies around solving this crisis globally, with America leading the way to which requires two shots, for distribution in the create the arsenal of vaccines that will be critical in United States; the 500 million doses are in addition to that, according to people familiar with the deal. our global fight against Covid-19.”

Neither Pfizer nor administration officials would The White House is trying to spotlight its say what the company is charging the government success in fighting the pandemic — particularly its vaccination campaign — and use that success as for the doses. Pfizer is also offering the Biden a diplomatic tool, especially as China and Russia administration an option to buy another 200 million seek to do the same. Mr. Biden has been insistent doses at cost to be donated overseas.

For Pfizer, the decision to sell the Biden that, unlike China and Russia, which have been administration so much supply without making a sharing their vaccines with dozens of countries, the United States will not seek to extract promises from profit is a significant step.

Its vaccine accounted for $3.5 billion in revenue in countries receiving American-made vaccines.

The 500 million doses still fall far short of the first three months of this year, nearly a quarter the 11 billion the World Health Organization of Pfizer’s total revenue. By some estimates, the estimates are needed to vaccinate the world, firm earned roughly $900 million in pretax profits but significantly exceed what the United States has from the vaccine during the first quarter.

But the company also faced criticism that it was committed to share so far. Other nations have been pleading with the United States to give up some disproportionately aiding wealthy nations, even of its abundant vaccine supplies. Less than 1% of though Pfizer’s chief executive, Albert Bourla, had people are fully vaccinated in a number of African promised in January to help ensure that “developing countries, compared with 42% in the United States countries have the same access as the rest of the world.” and the United Kingdom.

The 200 million Pfizer doses that the Biden Advocates for global health welcomed the news, but reiterated their stance that it is not enough for the administration plans to donate this year amount to United States to simply give vaccine away. They say about 7% of the three billion doses that the company the Biden administration must create the conditions is expected to produce. Pfizer expects to provide for other countries to manufacture vaccines on their another 800 million doses to lower- or lower-middleown, including transferring technology to make the income countries through other agreements with individual countries or Covax, a spokeswoman doses.

“The world needs urgent new manufacturing said.

For Mr. Biden, the agreement shows that his to produce billions more doses within a year, not administration is willing to dip more deeply into the just commitments to buy the planned inadequate supply,” Peter Maybarduk, the director of Public nation’s treasury to help out poorer countries.

Last week, Mr. Biden said the United States Citizen’s Access to Medicines program, said in a would distribute 25 million doses this month to statement. He added, “We have yet to see a plan from the U.S. government or the G7 of the needed countries in the Caribbean and Latin America; ambition or urgency to make billions more doses South and Southeast Asia; Africa; and the

Vaccine

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Palestinian territories, Gaza and the West Bank.

Those doses are the first of 80 million that Mr. Biden pledged to send abroad by the end of June; three-quarters of them will be distributed by Covax. The rest will go toward addressing pressing and urgent crises in places like India and the West Bank and Gaza, administration officials have said. Many of the 80 million doses were made by AstraZeneca and are still tied up in a complex review by the Food Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director General of the and Drug Administration.

World Health Organization UICC Mr. Biden has also committed to supporting a waiver of an international intellectual property agreement, which doses that could go to waste. Once thawed, doses would make it harder for companies to refuse to have a limited shelf life and millions could begin share their technology. But European leaders are expiring within two weeks, according to federal blocking the proposed waiver, and pharmaceutical officials. companies are strongly opposed to it. The World Providing equitable access to vaccines has Trade Organization’s Council for Trade-Related become one of the most intractable challenges Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights is meeting to reining in the pandemic. Wealthier nations and this week to consider the waiver. private entities have pledged tens of millions of The president’s promise of vaccines for the global doses and billions of dollars to shore up global market comes as he prepares to meet on Thursday supplies, but the disparity in vaccine allocations so with Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain, who far has been stark. has called on leaders to commit to vaccinating Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director everyone in the world by the end of 2022. Mr. Biden’s General of the World Health Organization, warned announcement is likely to be welcome news for Mr. this week that the world was facing a “two-track Johnson, whose critics have questioned where the pandemic,” in which countries where vaccines are money will come from to meet his pledge. scarce will struggle with virus cases even as better“The truth is that world leaders have been kicking supplied nations return to normal. the can down the road for months — to the point Those lower-income countries will be largely where they have run out of road,” Edwin Ikhouria, the dependent on wealthier ones until vaccines can executive director for Africa at the ONE Campaign, be distributed and produced on a more equitable a nonprofit aimed at eradicating global poverty, said basis, he said. in a statement on Wednesday.

About 64% of adults in the United States are at www.nytimes.com/2021/06/09/us/politics/ least partly vaccinated, and the president has set a biden-pfizer-vaccine-doses.html?campaign_ goal of bringing that number up to 70% by July 4. id=4&emc=edit_dk_20210610&instance_ The pace of vaccination has dropped sharply since id=32673&nl=dealbook&regi_ mid-April, leading the Biden administration to pursue id=90572525&segment_id=60340&te=1&user_id=4 a strategy of greater accessibility and incentives to a21b9167bf658408191e7c49140a9aa reach Americans who have not yet gotten shots.

Image credit: ontheworldmap.com In spite of those efforts, there are unused vaccine 47

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Pandemic

Kenya gets $750 Million World Bank Loan to Help Recovery from COVID-19 Effects

By Duncan Miriri

Bank loans have zero or very low interest rates and have repayment periods of 25 to 40 years, with a five- or 10-year grace period.

On Thursday, Finance Minister Ukur Yatani presented to parliament the 2021/22 budget, with a deficit of 7.5% of gross domestic product, reduced from 8.7% for the current fiscal year ending this month.

The finance ministry forecasts a economic growth of 6.6% this year, recovering Kenya kicks off coronavirus vaccination campaign with COVAX shots from 0.6% in 2020 when in Nairobi © Reuters/MONICAH MWANG sectors like tourism and related services collapsed due to restrictions imposed to curb the spread of COVID-19.

KENYA HAS RECEIVED a $750 million loan from The World Bank forecasts Kenya's economy will the World Bank to support its budget and help the East African economy recover from the effects of grow 4.5% this year, and 4.7% in 2022.

President Uhuru Kenyatta, who took the helm in the COVID-19 pandemic, the multilateral lender 2013, has overseen a jump in public borrowing. said on recently.

The Kenyan government has been pushing hard Total debt stands at 70% of GDP, up from about 45% to secure foreign funding to fill a wide budget deficit when he took over - a surge that some politicians before its financial year closes at the end of this and economists say is saddling future generations with too much debt. month.

The government has defended the increased The $750 million disbursement is part of World borrowing, saying the country must invest in its Bank's Development Policy Operations (DPO), which lends cash for budget support instead of infrastructure, including roads and railways. financing specific projects.

The bank said some of the funds would go towards setting up an electronic procurement system for government goods and services to improve transparency.

The World Bank said the concessional loan will have a 3.1% annual interest rate. Typically, World 48

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EU’s New Vaccine Passport Scheme

By Quartz Daily Brief

THE EU’S NEW VACCINE PASSPORT scheme started on July 1st. The EU Digital COVID Certificate proves that the traveler has been vaccinated against Covid-19, received a negative test result, or recovered from the disease.

But travelers can only use one of four approved vaccines: • BioNTech/Pfizer (Comirnaty) • Moderna (Spikevax) • AstraZeneca (Vaxzevria) • Johnson & Johnson (Janssen Covid-19 vaccine) Covishield, which is biologically identical to Vaxzevria, but made in India and distributed widely there and in Africa, does not have market authorization in the EU. This means that millions of fully vaccinated Africans and Indians, who have taken the same vaccine as millions of Europeans, could remain locked out of the EU unless the rules change. On Wednesday, June 30th, India put in a formal request for the bloc to accept vaccination certificates for recipients of Covishield and Covaxin, a homegrown jab made by Bharat Biotech.

How will the certificate work?

• QR code icon: The EU Digital COVID Certificate contains a QR code with a digital signature to protect it against falsification.

• Scan icon: When the certificate is checked, the QR code is scanned and the signature verified.

• Digital Signature icon: Each issuing body (e.g. a hospital, a test centre, a health authority) has its own digital signature key. All of these are stored in a secure database in each country.

• Validation icon: The European Commission has built a gateway through which all certificate signatures can be verified across the EU. The personal data of the certificate holder does not pass through the gateway, as this is not necessary to verify the digital signature. The European Commission also helped Member States to develop national software and apps to issue, store and verify certificates and supported them in the necessary tests to on-board the gateway. www.qz.com Image credit: politiko.al

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Pandemic

I.M.F. Presents Plan to Help Poor Countries During Pandemic

By Peter S. Goodman and Alan Rappeport

IN A GLOBAL ECONOMY defined by extreme forms of inequality, the pandemic has widened the divide. The richest nations in North America and Europe are poised for robust recoveries, having used their wealth to rescue their economies and secure vast stocks of Covid vaccines. Poor countries are confronting the continued ravages of the coronavirus largely unprotected, and with their resources strained by growing debts.

Now, fears that the world may emerge from the pandemic more unequal than ever have prompted a substantial effort to close the gap: Under a proposal nearing completion, the International Monetary Fund would issue $650 billion worth of reserve

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funds, essentially creating money that troubled countries could use to purchase vaccines, finance health care and pay down debt.

Such a step would deliver “potentially the largest capital allocation since the end of World War II,” declared the administrator of the United Nations Development Program, Achim Steiner, speaking during a press briefing this week.

But international development experts say that simply creating new reserves would be of limited benefit to poor countries unless wealthy nations voluntarily transfer some of their holdings to them — a course that I.M.F. officials are seeking to bring about.

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only $54.5 billion, or about 8% of the total. That amounts to only 5% of their total external debt.

Fund officials are crafting a plan under which wealthier member countries would transfer some of their reserves to poorer countries to allow an expansion of debt reduction and povertyThe I.M.F.’s executive board is expected to advance the proposal during a meeting on Friday, fighting programs.

“We are working towards magnifying the impact of before forwarding it for final approval to its board of governors, which comprises representatives of the new allocation,” the I.M.F.’s managing director, the fund’s 190 member nations. Officials hope it will Kristalina Georgieva, said in a speech to the African Development Bank on Wednesday. gain final passage by August.

She said the fund’s plan would rely on “encouraging A famously inscrutable institution ruled by voluntary channeling of some of the S.D.R.s,” with unique conventions and unabashed reverence for technocratic jargon, the International Monetary a goal of yielding “$100 billion for the poorest and Fund’s approach involves not money but so-called most vulnerable countries.”

The United States is prepared to make available Special Drawing Rights — reserve funds that the institution credits to the accounts of its member about one-fifth of its allocation, worth approximately nations. Governments can swap these S.D.R.s for $20 billion, said a Treasury official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The Biden administration is regular currency, to spend as needed.

Under the rules governing the I.M.F., member seeking to persuade other members of the Group of nations contribute to the institution’s coffers, 7 to contribute similar shares.

Poor countries that take loans from the fund could with their obligations determined largely by the use the money to expand health care systems or size of their economies, and their voting power commensurate to what they pay. The new reserves address climate change in conjunction with existing would be distributed according to this ranking, I.M.F. programs. The trust fund is expected to be meaning that the largest economic powers like the a topic of discussion at the Group of 20 finance ministers meeting in Italy next month.

United States would gain the biggest tranche.

In Washington, the universal nature of the Absent a mechanism for wealthy countries to redirect some of their holdings, 58 high income proposed allocation has stirred up opposition from nations would capture $438 billion worth of the new Republicans, who argue that it would burnish the reserves — more than two-thirds of the total — finances of American adversaries like China, Russia according to an analysis released on Thursday by and Iran while doing little to help poor countries. https://news.bnhinsider.com/i-m-f-presents-plan-tothe U.N. Development Program. help-poor-countries-during-pandemic/ By contrast, a group of 82 countries assessed as “highly debt-vulnerable” — among them, two dozen Image credit: YAHOO!, Abs-Cbn of the poorest countries on earth — would receive 51

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Pandemic

Covid-19’s Third Wave Dashes Hope of Tourism Revival in

By Albert Kasembeli

IT IS THE HIGH SEASON across east Africa’s national parks. But for the second year in a row, the plains remain unusually quiet.

Despite hopes of a revival in the tourism sector after a difficult 2020, the region’s industry is still struggling to get back on its feet due to a third wave of Covid-19 sweeping across the continent.

A recent UN report shows that East Africa’s tourism decline will contribute to a loss of 9.3% to the region’s economy this year. It will be the second most impacted region in the world, after Central America, and the worst affected in Africa.

East Africa’s tourism hotspots are open to visitors, but Covid-19 measures are keeping them at bay In June 2021, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, World Health Organization (WHO) regional director for Africa said that the continent had seen “a rapid increase in the number of cases.” Uganda and Rwanda have implemented lockdowns, while a curfew remains in place in Kenya.

Despite this, East Africa remains open to international travel. However, news of the lockdown has kept tourists at bay. The Hotel Owners Association in Uganda said nearly 90% 52

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o bookings were canceled of ssince it was announced. The ccountry has also banned intrad district travel and put in place a additional measures that will essentially curb domestic e ttourism.

We vaccinated all our key sstaff. We have created safe zzones within the tourism industry. Tourists are telling u us they want to come but their ccountries are telling them not tto.

Governments across Europe have enforced strict travel rrestrictions to East Africa. The entire region features on the e UK’s ‘red list’, meaning tourists returning from East Africa must undertake a mandatory hotel quarantine for 10 days. The UK is a significant market for the region’s tourism industry.

“We need Kenya to be removed from those red lists because people are scared there is a serious outbreak,” Mike Macharia, the chairman of the Kenya Association of Hotelkeepers and Caterers, told Quartz. “We vaccinated all our key staff. We have created safe zones within the tourism industry. Tourists are telling us they want to come but their countries are telling them not to.”

East Africa’s tourism workers are struggling to survive This recent wave is another blow for the sector, which suffered heavily during the first outbreak in 2020.

A report by the East African Business Community (EABC) revealed that 2.1 million jobs were lost, while partner states estimate they lost international tourism receipts to the tune of $4.8 billion.

This has a significant impact on the region’s overall economy, which relies heavily on tourism. It

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contributes on average 10% to the GDP of the six East African Community (EAC) partner states and 7% to employment.

While many hoped that 2020 would spell the end of the slump, the third wave has dashed hopes of a resurgence in 2021.

Meanwhile in Europe, a faster vaccine campaign has opened borders and countries are cashing in from inter-continental travel, with intra-European trips expected to account for over 80% of Europe’s travel in 2021.

It’s been challenging. Covid-19 has brought a lot of poverty. Many people were getting money directly and indirectly from tourism. But for the past year and a half, there has been nothing.

After 18 months of slow business, East Africa’s tourism workers are now struggling to survive.

“It is the high season now, but it does not feel like it,” said Ivan Kakooza, the director of Fravan Safaris, a tour company in Uganda. “Last year, we were in high spirits that 2021 would bring good business. It took us by surprise that things turned upside down again.”

In Tanzania, low visitor numbers since March 2020 has led to many tourism businesses closing. “I saw many companies sell off their assets and others have struggled to make their loan repayments,” shares Edward Ndakie, the owner of Safari Partners, based in Morogoro, Tanzania.

“It’s been challenging,” he said. “Covid-19 has brought a lot of poverty. Many people were getting money directly and indirectly from tourism. But for the past year and a half, there has been nothing.”

East Africa

There are some slow signs of revival in East Africa’s tourism industry However, despite the industry lagging, numbers are higher than 2020 due to the global vaccine rollout. The Bank of Tanzania said that services receipts increased to $189.6 million in May 2021, compared to $109.7 million in the previous year – attributed to an increase in tourism.

In Kenya, a faster vaccination drive, which has seen over 1.5 million people vaccinated, and an early lockdown from March to May 2021, has brought hope for this year’s high season.

“Two months ago, things looked bad, but bookings

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are coming in fast for August and September. Some hotels are full,” said Glen Rawlings, Director of Southern Cross Safaris in Kenya. “In 2020, we had to reduce our staff numbers by half but now we are starting to call them back.”

Although there are signs of recovery, the economic impact of the tourism industry has also left the wildlife and conservation sector in a vulnerable state.

A combination of reduced funding from tourists and lower management capacity from budget cuts and restrictions have created a “perfect storm” to harm conversation efforts. As a result the region has seen steady trafficking rates.

Vaccine rollout will impact East Africa’s tourism numbers The vaccine rollout will play a key role in the recovery of the sector. The UNWTO assumes that countries with low vaccination rates will likely see a 75% reduction in tourism, while countries with high vaccination rates will see a 37% reduction.

Vaccination schemes across Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda are well underway. While in Tanzania, the new president’s recent U-turn on the Covid-19 policy will instill more confidence in travelers. Under President Hassan, Tanzania has started reporting statistics on the virus for the first time in over a year and has ordered vaccines.

East African governments are introducing incentives to attract holidaymakers. In Tanzania, the national park authority, TANAPA, has halted the plans to increase park entrance fees, while Uganda reduced their prices for gorilla trekking permits.

In July 2021, The East African Community (EAC) revealed their plan to revitalize the sector, which includes bolstering domestic and regional tourism. “The signs this year are still bleak given the recurrent waves of the pandemic,” said Dr. Peter Mathuki, the EAC Secretary General. “It has resulted in unpredictable measures and restrictions by governments around the world.” https://techio.co/covid-19s-third-wave-dasheshope-of-tourism-revival-in-east-africa/ Source: https://qz.com/africa/2037944/eastafricas-tourism-sector-struggles-during-covid-19third-wave Image credit: Black Hair

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Governance

After Economic Sanctions Crippled Mali, the AU and EU are Trying a New Tack

By Stephen Kafeero LONG BEFORE LAST WEEK’S SUSPENSION of Mali by the African Union (AU) and other partners over its second coup in nine months, the west African country was already struggling with a failing economy, rampant corruption, and a brutal jihadist conflict. Now the eighth-largest country in Africa risks being shut out from some of the continent’s most promising growth opportunities.

The land-locked country of 20 million is one of the poorest in the world, and largely dependent on imports. For now, the country’s military regime has escaped the type of economic sanctions imposed after last year’s August military takeover. But they could be reimposed, unless its military regime heeds to pressure from its trading partners to return to civilian rule.

Even without economic sanctions, Mali’s suspension from the AU means that country’s representatives are restricted in their ability to participate in initiatives like the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), the free trade agreement which aims to accelerate intra-African trade and boosting Africa’s trading position in the global market. And even the threat of repeated sanctions could dampen any existing investor interest, says Dr Sanoussi Bilal, a senior executive at the European Centre for Development Policy Management.

“The fear of sanctions itself might lead some domestic and foreign investors to think twice before engaging in new businesses in Mali, or trading with the country,” Bilal says. “Social unrest, possible strikes, demonstrations etc. have a negative effect on consumption, and thus trade. [And] when the military takes over the power, the prospects of domestic reforms and openness are reduced.”

president Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, and followed calls from protestors for his resignation, citing government corruption, mismanagement of the ongoing insurgency, the Covid-19 pandemic, and a failing economy.

Immediately after the August 2020 military takeover, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the regional bloc of west African states, imposed tough trade restrictions on the country, including limits on financial flows and commercial trade, with the exception of basic supplies like food, medicines, fuel and electricity.

The country’s imports dropped by 30% in less than two months. The restrictions are credited with accelerating the creation of a short-lived civilianmilitary government, led by the now deposed former defense minister, Bah Ndaw, as interim president.

That administration was removed from power last month by the military, citing violation of a political transition charter. (Specifically, not informing Goita about the details of a cabinet reshuffle.) Both the president and prime minister later resigned while in military custody.

Amid concerns by the international community, Goita was formally sworn in as interim president on June 7 in the capital Bamako. The AU and ECOWAS had warned that Goita and other members of the transition, including the president and prime minister he ousted, “should not, under any circumstances, be candidates” for the presidential election envisaged in the agreement after the 2020 coup.

A focus on Mali’s governance Cheikh Tidiane Dieye, the executive director of the African Center for Trade, Integration and Development said this time around, economic Mali’s second coup sees different sanctions Both coups in the last year have been led by restrictions have been replaced by sanctions Colonel Assimi Goita, a 38-year-old special forces related to “democracy and good governance.”

These include refusal to support the candidates commander. Last year’s resulted in the ousting of

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Colonel Assimi Goita, leader of two military coups, is sworn in as interim president during his inauguration ceremony in Bamako, on June 7. presented by Mali in international organizations, and blocking the country from hosting any ECOWAS meetings— although the country remains liable for the payment of dues accruing to the regional body for the period of suspension.

The country has also been suspended by the International Organisation of La Francophonie, a cooperative body that represents mostly Frenchspeaking states around the world. The UN’s Security Council issued a “firm” denunciation. And on June 3, the French government announced the temporary suspension of its military cooperation with the Malian authorities.

“The threat by France to withdraw from Mali should the democratic process be stopped [has] increased uncertainty and risk of chaos in the country, [dampening] business opportunities and prospects,” Bilal says.

While Mali’s second coup has seen “very limited hard pressure” on the military junta, prospects of debilitating trade sanctions from ECOWAS, the AU and the EU and other players are not off the table.

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influence in the country and region has also threatened action against those standing the way of civilian rule.

“The EU seems to prefer diplomatic pressure to keep Mali as a strong ally in its fight against terrorism in the region and to keep the stability of the Sahel,” Bilal adds.

But in a signal of what may come, the World Bank, which at present finances more than $1.5 billion projects in Mali, halted payments to operations in the country on June 4. The bank said it was closely monitoring and assessing the situation.

The primary goal of all the major players appears to force Mali back to some form of civilian rule without allowing the country to fall apart. Trade is key but unlike last year (and in 2012 when a diplomatic, financial, and trade embargo was imposed on the country following a coup), this is a card the players are saving for the last. https://qz.com/africa/2018287/after-malissecond-coup-au-and-eu-try-a-new-sanctionsapproach/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=dailybrief&utm_content=f45d3c93-c9b6-11eb-893c0257f6a25485 DAWN

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Governance - Commentary

By Judd Devermont, Director, Africa Program & Marielle Harris, Research Associate, Af

SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA is sprinting toward digitization and has the potential to reach new heights as long as it addresses shortfalls in physical and human capital, as well as weaknesses and gaps in digital governance and regional trade agreements. While all four elements are critical, there has been less focus on digital governance and trade. This is a serious oversight.

Sub-Saharan Africa is unlikely to “level up” its digital game unless governments develop and update their national digitization strategies, ensure regional interoperability of these strategies, and work with foreign partners to add digital provisions to their trade agreements. As global digitization and trade become increasingly connected and interoperable, the lack of national digital strategies and dearth of digital provisions in trade frameworks threaten to slow sub-Saharan Africa’s digital transformation. African governments have fallen short on three key issues—intellectual property (IP) protection, data protection, and cybersecurity— which will impede regional competitiveness and have critical implications for security and trade in the region.

Connectivity Like Never Before . . .

Sub-Saharan Africa is undergoing a digital transformation. From students learning to code and drones delivering medical supplies to the increased usage of mobile payment platforms, daily life is being redefined by digital technologies.

According to the International Monetary Fund, internet penetration in sub-Saharan Africa has grown tenfold since the early 2000s, compared with a mere threefold increase in the rest of the world.

The number of tech hubs on the continent has grown by 50 percent over the past several years, now numbering more than 600. And the region was home to nearly half of the world’s mobile money accounts in 2018 and will see the fastest growth in mobile money technology through 2025, according

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to the Brookings Institution. Three of the most digitally advanced countries in the region—Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa—boast impressive internet penetration and are expected to be the top three markets for smartphone connections in 2025, according to the GSM Association (GSMA).

• Kenya. Home to a dynamic, growing digital ecosystem, Kenya is a regional leader in information and communications technology (ICT) innovation. The percentage of mobile internet penetration nearly doubled between 2014 and 2019, according to GSMA. In fact, mobile phone subscriptions surpassed the total population by 12 percent in 2019. Kenya has also led the continent in financial inclusion; telecoms giant Safaricom is the main force behind Kenya’s M-Pesa money transfer technology, which grew the percentage of Kenyan adults with access to at least basic financial services from 26 to 83 percent in approximately 15 years.

• Nigeria. The region’s most populous country is an ICT powerhouse. The sector contributes almost 14 percent to the country’s GDP, and the government has invested in highspeed internet via five underwater cables with international links, reducing bandwidth prices and enhancing network capacity. GSMA estimates that Nigeria will be home to the highest number of smartphone connections in 2025 with 154 million connections—more than the combined number of connections estimated for South Africa and Kenya. Nigerians are also the top cryptocurrency traders on the continent, although often maligned as avenues for corruption. Nigeria generated more than $400 million worth of cryptocurrency trade in 2020, ranking third place after the United States and Russia.

• South Africa. Boasting a vibrant digital DAWN

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Governance - Commentary

frica Program

entrepreneurship ecosystem, South Africa is home to a variety of tech startups tackling challenges in the health, transport, and education sectors. The country accounts for 49 percent (a plurality) of the region’s cellular internet of things (IoT) connections and is the only sub-Saharan African state to have launched commercial 5G services. South Africa has seen great advancements in fiber optic networks, leading bandwidth prices to drop significantly. Most of this advancement has occurred in urban areas, however, leading to a significant digital divide.

national digital economies. Digital strategies go hand-in-hand with digital legislation—including on key issues like data protection and cybercrime— without which it is impossible for governments to facilitate secure, sustainable digital growth.

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation Development (OECD), as of 2021, . . . But Still Not Ready for Prime-Time only 28 African countries have comprehensive This boom in digitization is unlikely to fulfill its personal data protection legislation in place, while potential until major blind spots are confronted just 11 countries have adopted substantive laws head-on. These limitations stem from countries’ on cybercrime. The lack of digital strategies and lack of or outdated national digital strategies and relevant legislation results in severe security gaps frameworks as well as lean or absent digital clauses that leave countries vulnerable to the misuse and in the multiple trade agreements to which African abuse of digital platforms and data. countries are signatories. These shortcomings could seriously hinder sustainable, secure digital TRADE AGREEMENTS African governments are signatories to a variety growth and trade, and serve as a significant of multilateral trade agreements that outline norms stumbling block to private sector competitiveness. If regional governments want their digital ecosystems and regulations around issues such as technical to reach cruising altitude, they must develop robust barriers to trade (TBTs), tariffs, and other trade digital governance frameworks and strengthen restrictions. As digital technologies and platforms digital provisions regulating trade and investment play a greater role in everyday life—from purchasing groceries and filling a gas tank to accessing health with external partners. clinics—it is critical for these agreements to ensure NATIONAL DIGITAL STRATEGIES protection of individual, private, and government A national digital strategy is a policy framework data and property rights. Many of these trade that strengthens governance on a host of digital agreements, however, skimp on details when it issues such as IP protection, data security, ICT comes to digital issues like IP protection, digital infrastructure, and human capacity development. privacy, and cybersecurity. CSIS reviewed six key Not only do national digital strategies generate trade agreements on the continent—the African digital norms for e-government services and Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Agreement, private companies operating in the country, but they UK-Ghana Interim Trade Partnership Agreement, also help create open and predictable regulatory UK-Kenya Economic Partnership Agreement, environments that attract trade and investment in see page 58

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Digital Africa

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European Union-East African Community (EUEAC) Economic Partnership Agreement, the Cotonou Agreement, and the U.S.-Kenya Free Trade Agreement (FTA) Negotiation Principles— and found that only half include vague or general provisions around IP protection, while none include clauses on data protection or cybersecurity.

unresolved, and that will remain true as long as governments are slow to formulate and pass foundational cybersecurity strategies and trade rules.

• Anemic trade and investment. U.S. trade with sub-Saharan Africa is already dismally low (in the past two years, U.S. trade with the region has represented less than 1 percent of all U.S. trade in goods), and this trend is on track to worsen if African governments fail to implement necessary reforms. If regional governments do not have IP protection in place, for example, foreign firms will not trust their patents, trademarks, and copyrights to be enforced.

International companies will be more likely to choose to trade with and invest in countries that have up-to-date digital regulatory environments as well as digital-first trade standards.

The Consequences of Inaction Unless regional governments step up— developing and updating their national digital strategies and incorporating digital-specific clauses into their trade agreements—they will miss an opportunity to fully benefit from the unfolding digital transformation. Moreover, countries are likely to become more vulnerable to cyberattacks and may face a decrease in trade and investment from external partners.

Taking It to the Next Level African governments can still get digitization right.

• Deficient digital transformation. Without IP By developing, updating, and committing to national protection, data protection, and cybersecurity digital strategies and legislation, working with the standards in their regulatory environments African Union to ensure regulatory harmonization, and trade agreements, sub-Saharan African and prioritizing digital clauses in upcoming trade countries risk stunting their digital growth. A deals such as the AfCFTA Phase II negotiations, failure to implement these provisions could the region can harness its digital momentum to translate to reduced innovation and difficulty mitigate economic inequality, expand education scaling digital solutions. For example, access, increase trade and investment, and spur a Nigerian startup providing 3D printing technology to local hospitals will likely hit a wall innovation. Trade-friendly regulatory environments will also see considerable growth in workforce as it struggles to navigate Nigeria’s inadequate digital legal and trade frameworks. This creates development opportunities.

Update or Develop National ICT Strategies. a cyclical effect: as tech startups fail to scale, As digital tools, services, and infrastructure regional governments will be less inclined to become increasingly ubiquitous, it is critical invest in their ICT sectors, which is bad news for regional governments to shape sustainable for lowering data prices, developing human digitization through a national plan, set of policies, capacity, and increasing competitiveness. or blueprint. And while numerous countries may • Exposed to cyberattacks. Without adequate have digital blueprints in place, it is the quality of cybersecurity measures in place, regional and commitment to these strategies that counts. governments are at an increased risk of Regional governments should look to Kenya as cyberattacks. According to the Africa Center for a model, which has some of the most advanced Strategic Studies (ACSS), African governments digital legal frameworks on the continent, including face a rapidly evolving mix of digital threats— its ICT Masterplan (2014) and Digital Economy critical infrastructure sabotage, organized Blueprint (2019). The Kenyan government is a crime, and combat innovation—from a mix of regular convener of digital symposiums and, actors, including nation-states and lone-wolf according to the International Trade Administration, actors. Ninety-six percent of cybersecurity has “invested heavily” in its ICT sector. In addition incidents on the continent go unreported or 58

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to national strategies, countries should pass laws related to IP protection, data privacy, and cybersecurity. Regional governments should take notes from Uganda which passed the Data Protection and Privacy Act in 2019, becoming the first African country to recognize data privacy as a human right. In addition, regional governments could prioritize training of legislators and judges who are often responsible for applying regional and international standards and regulations.

Engage the African Union. The African Union is a powerful convener on a host of issues, including digitization, with the capacity to strengthen coordination, align policies and sector regulation, and scale investment and dedication of resources for sustainable digitization. Building off its Digital Transformation Strategy for Africa (2020-2030)— which seeks to harmonize regulatory environments and guarantee investment and financing in the see page 60

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Governance - Commentary Digital Africa

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digital economy—the African Union should expand engagement with member states to not just update and develop national ICT strategies but to ensure alignment between those strategies. Regional interoperability is key to scaling digital applications across the continent. If something works in Kenya but cannot be used in Uganda and Tanzania, growth will be stunted. In addition, recognizing that the development of national policies take an enormous amount of time, money, effort, and political will and commitment, the African Union should ramp up regional conventions on digital issues. Examples of past conventions include the African Union’s Malabo Conventions (officially the Convention on Cyber Security and Personal Data Protection), which continues to be ratified by member states.

Build Out Digital Clauses in Phase II AfCFTA Protocols and U.S.-Kenya FTA Negotiations.

Hopes are high for the ongoing AfCFTA Phase II negotiations, which include IP protection, data protection, and cybersecurity. These provisions will have enormous consequences for security and regulatory harmonization with the possibility to facilitate increased trade and investment. If the AfCFTA signs off on effective digital clauses, it will make the African continent an attractive trade and investment destination. There is also precedent to be set with the digital clauses in the U.S.-Kenya Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations, which may be restarted under the Biden administration.

Prioritize Digitization as Key Pillar of U.S. Strategy in Africa. The Biden administration should signal its commitment to economic engagement in the region, engaging African governments to develop and implement comprehensive digital frameworks and policies. The United States should work with African partners to embrace high standard digital trade rules, including through the U.S.-Kenya FTA negotiations, and improve enabling environments. This might include convening high-level African ministers responsible for ICT and digital growth to discuss policy issues and paths toward alignment. It might also include a presidential statement reiterating support for digital-focused trade agreements, including the AfCFTA. 60

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News Bits

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Drawing Further Apart: Widening Gaps in the Global Recovery IMFBlog - The global economic recovery continues, but with a widening gap between advanced economies and many emerging market and developing economies. Our latest global growth forecast of 6 percent for 2021 is unchanged from the previous outlook, but the composition has changed.

Thomas-Greenfield to lead U.S. delegation to Olympics closing ceremony Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, lead the U.S. delegation to the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympic Games closing ceremony, the White House announced. She met with members of Team USA, Japanese and Olympic officials, and members of the Refugee Olympic Team, (ROC) which is made up of 29 refugee athletes from various countries, including Afghanistan, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, Cameroon, Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Iran and Iraq.

This commentary Thi t is i made d possible ibl with ith generous support from Google. www.csis.org/analysis/digital-africa-levelingthrough-governance-and-trade DAWN

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Governance

Jamaica Plans to Petition Queen for 'Overdue' Reparations for Caribbean

By Parker Diakite

reparations.

Once the petition is approved by Jamaica’s National Council on Reparation, the attorney general will send it to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II. Even though Jamaica gained independence from Britain in 1962, the Queen still serves as the Caribbean JAMAICA IS MAKING PLANS to petition the United Kingdom to pay back billions in reparations for its role in the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

Jamaica became an English colony in 1655 after the British seized the Caribbean island from the Spanish. The number of slaves present in Jamaica reached up to 600,000 in the eighteenth century.

“We are hoping for reparatory justice in all forms that one would expect if they are to really ensure that we get justice from injustices to repair the damages that our ancestors experienced,” Minister of Sports, Youth and Culture Olivia Grange told Reuters. “Our African ancestors were forcibly removed from their home and suffered unparalleled atrocities in Africa to carry out forced labor to the benefit of the British Empire. Redress is well overdue.”

Grange did not go into detail about how much Jamaica is seeking, but Jamaican lawmaker Mike Henry says the UK owes at least $10.5 billion in

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nation’s Head of State.

Slavery was abolished by Britain in 1807 through the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act. But slavery existed until the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 brought an end to it.

As a result of the act, slave owners were given financial compensation for losing people they had enslaved as they were deemed as their property.

The British government borrowed a little more than $20 million to make sure slave owners were compensated.

“I am asking for the same amount of money to be paid to the slaves that were paid to the slave owners,” says Henry, a member of the ruling Jamaica Labour Party. “I am doing this because I have fought against this all my life, against chattel slavery, which has dehumanized human life. https://travelnoire.com/jamaica-petition-queenreparations-caribbean Image credit: Atlanta Blackstar DAWN

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Investment

African Stock Exchange/Bourse • Algeria • Angola • Botswana • Cameroon • Cape Verde Islands • Cote de Ivoire • Egypt • Ethiopia • Ghana • Kenya • Libya • Malawi • Mauritius • Morocco • Mozambique • Namibia • Nigeria

Algiers Stock Market Angola Stock Exchange and Derivatives Botswana Stock Exchange Douala Stock Exchange Bolsa de Valores of Cape Verde Bourse Regionale des Valeurs Mobilieres UEMOA (Abidjan) The Egyptian Exchange Ethiopia Commodity Exchange Ghana Stock Exchange Nairobi Stock Exchange Libyan Stock Market Malawi Stock Exchange Stock Exchange of Mauritius Casablanca Stock Exchange Bolsa Valores de Mocambique Namibian Stock Exchange Nigerian Stock Exchange

• Rwanda • Seychelles • Somalia • South Africa

Rwanda Stock Exchange Seychelles Securities Exchange Somali Stock Exchange Bond Exchange of South Africa Johannesburg Stock Exchange

• South Sudan • Swaziland • Tanzania • Tunisia • Uganda • Zambia • Zimbabwe • Zimbabwe

Khartoum Stock Exchange Swaziland Stock Exchange Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange Tunisia Stock Exchange Uganda Securities Exchange Lusaka Stock Exchange Victoria Falls Stock Exchange Zimbabwe Stock Exchange

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www.sgbv.dz www.bodiva.ao www.bse.co.bw www.douala-stock-exc www.bvc.cv (in Portug

www.brvm.org www.egx.com.eg www.ecx.com.et www.gse.com.gh www.luse.co.zm www.lsm.gov.ly www.mse.co.mw www.stockexchangeof www.casablanca-bours www.bolsadevalores.co www.nsx.com.na www.nse.com.ng/Page www.abujacomex.com www.rse.rw https://merj.exchange www.somalistockexcha www.bondexchange.co www.jse.co.za/Home.a www.a2x.co.za www.kse.com.sd www.ssx.org.sz www.dse.co.tz www.bvmt.com.tn www.use.or.ug www.luse.co.zm www.vfex.exchange www.zse.co.zw

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change.com guese)

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es/default.aspx

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Stocks Mirror the Economy Africa has around 29 stock exchanges representing 38 countries including two regional exchanges.

Africa has become the newest destination for emerging markets investors. From 2000, according to the World Economic Forum, "half of the world's fastest-growing economies have been in Africa." By 2030 one in five people will be African. Combine the continent’s soaring population with technology, economic growth, increasing demand from its growing middle class, improvements in infrastructure, political stability, health and education, and Africa could be the next century’s economic growth powerhouse. Nobody can predict the growth trajectory with accuracy, but Africa is poised for growth.

Profile: The Bourse Régionale des Valeurs Mobilières (BRVM) is the regional stock exchange of the member states of the West African Economic and Monetary Union, namely, Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo. The Exchange is located in Abidjan but maintains market offices in each of the affiliated countries. Being both an economic and political institution, the BRVM is governed by the provisions of the OHADA Uniform Act relating to Commercial Companies and Economic Interest Groups. The operations of the Exchange are entirely digital making it a technical success story on the continent.

Dealing members therefore need not be present on the premises of the central office but can engage from their own offices which the bourse guarantees equal access regardless of the economic operator's location. https://afx.kwayisi.org/

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Investment

How Africa Could Become a World Leader in Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC)

By Carlos Mureithi for Quartz

DR. CO-PIERRE GEORG, associate professor at the University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa, is an expert on central bank digital currencies (CBDC). He says Africa should take the lead in disrupting the global financial services system through the instrument, as the continent has a significant remittance market, and is primed for more fintech investment. UCT recently joined the University Blockchain Research Initiative, a blockchain accelerator program, to solve key fintech challenges, and explore real-world solutions for blockchain and cryptocurrency.

Digitizing currencies is not an easy proposition, and raises questions around accessibility, privacy, and what architecture to use. Quartz spoke about these and more with Dr. Georg, who is also a research economist with Deutsche Bundesbank, Germany’s central bank. The conversation was edited and condensed for clarity.

Quartz: How could central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) be feasible in Africa?

The question really touches on “How should central banks approach CBDC?” I think the best way to look at them is as a piece of public infrastructure, [with] some principles that you should follow. It should be universally accessible, should be open to everyone, should be transparent efficient trustworthy. And in that regard, Africa doesn’t differ from Europe, the US, or from China.

Asset tokenization is a very powerful driving force for a lot of business models these days.

We need to decide how we are going to build this public infrastructure. The additional challenge that Africa has is that it’s a lot of countries. If every country is building their own CBDC, then 64

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you have some co-monetary areas like we have here in southern Africa. You need to make sure that, on top of all the principles that hold for public infrastructure, they are also interoperable. I think that’s quite key: to create a system that doesn’t add artificial barriers to economic activity between the different countries A lot of central banks are evaluating this now and they are making decisions on how to build the CBDC platform.

The big challenges of CBDC and one of the big open questions that also might also need the studying is: “How do you provide universal access to digital payments?” How do you include people who don’t have smartphones, or who don’t have phones into a modern digital payment system? And that’s one of the questions that we’re working on.

Quartz: What kinds of problems would CBDCs solve?

Think of somebody living in an informal settlement.

They struggle with access to finance because they don’t have collateral. They also probably don’t have a bank account. But even if they do have a bank account, they don’t have collateral, because title deeds in these situations are uncertain, they are not always formally recognized.

So these guys struggle to access a lot of financial DAWN

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services. One of the consequences of that, is that you have a lot of your wealth in a lump sum risk. If you think about your portfolio as a household, for most households the majority of your wealth will be in your home. And this holds for lower income records as well—the majority of their wealth will be in their property, but it exposes them to a huge lump sum risk. One of the things you can do is you can tokenize ownership of property and you can create easy means of diversification. So that instead of me owning my house and only my house, I own part of my house, but I also own a part of houses that are in very different areas. I can diversify my portfolio.

Asset tokenization is a very powerful driving force for a lot of business models these days. It holds for physical property or agricultural commodities, where you can use asset tokenization to overcome asymmetric information. But again, in particular, it holds in the digital economy.

When you think about digital objects and how they are being traded, these are low-value transactions, usually because digital objects can be copied and therefore if you have a lot of them and they are cheap and easy. So you do need very low-value transactions in order to facilitate digital marketplaces and marketplaces in the digital economy.

These are classic use cases for asset tokenization, where creating a token that represents that asset actually facilitates new uses. If you do that, you do need a payment system that is in sync with this.

You can’t just put a tokenized asset onto a normal payment system, because then the payment system might be too slow to facilitate the use case that you want. Or too expensive. Because of correspondent banking, we have very expensive, very slow international transactions, especially in Africa. The cost of cross-border remittances is still very high and it’s not just Western Union’s fault— there are many reasons for it. And that means that the existing payment systems are not built for these kind of low-value transactions that in particular the digital economy needs. For me this is the clearest use case to say we do need a CBDC. Instead of just importing the next American or UK or German app into your country, you enable your entrepreneurs to build for a much larger 65

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marketplace.

There are two other reasons. One of them is that a CBDC provides entrepreneurs with a unified market access. So if you build a CBDC, you create a standard on which start-ups can build innovations. They can build their apps, they can create solutions that are tailored to the African market. Instead of just importing the next American or UK or German app into your country, you enable your entrepreneurs to build for a much larger marketplace than if they were to use private crypto assets – so if they were to use their own marketplace.

From an industrial policy perspective, it’s a very important argument to make, to say, “we want to facilitate this market.” It’s one of the main reasons why China is doing their CBDC. The third reason why I think countries are interested in CBDC is a defensive one. If you don’t provide public access in this public market, you will have companies like Facebook creating private markets. They would control who validates transactions, which would give them a lot of power to exclude small startups from the system, or create barriers to entry to protect the initial members of the association. This was very concerning for central banks, because it means they would have lost part of the control over the money supply and the circulation of money. We need to provide a public infrastructure to prevent the privatization of that infrastructure.

Quartz: What kinds of problems would CBDCs present?

You need to make sure that if it’s legal tender like cash, it is universally accessible to everybody, [from] remote areas where it’s intermittent connectivity [to] crowded urban areas. That is one challenge.

One of the reasons why cash is so good is because it gives you immediate settlement finality, as well as full privacy of transactions. If you work with cash in the informal sector, you don’t fear that the government suddenly can come and present you with a big tax bill. Many businesses in the informal sector actually really like cash for the privacy it provides and central banks don’t want to be involved—they don’t want to know all these see page 66

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Investment and it facilitates investment, and as a consequence they are building large solar facilities across south low-value transactions, it’s not their business to Africa. I think that’s a fantastic use case. know. What they do want to know is the know-yourOne of my students worked with small-scale customer, anti-money laundering for very high farmers to use blockchain to verify when something was harvested.

The farmer would block an entry for the harvest, then when the harvest would be delivered to a local market, someone else would log another entry to say, “We’ve received it Thursday morning.”

What my students built was a platform where you can scan a QR code and get the story of your food. It brings you closer to your food.

If you do that again, you overcome this value transaction. So this lever between privacy asymmetric information in agricultural production, and auditability, I think that’s the second really and open up [once-risky assets] for investors to essential challenge that CBDCs need to solve. invest. This is truly powerful.

All of this is, at the moment, with private crypto Quartz: How do you see CBDCs fitting in the context of the global rise of cryptocurrencies? assets. A CBDC would bring this into a much more We’ve seen with the rise of private crypto assets formal realm. There’s lots of onboarding issues, that there is a lot of innovation happening in that there’s lots of uncertainty still with private crypto space. In South Africa there’s a nice example of assets. if you do this with a public infrastructure, Sun Exchange, a company that uses a blockchain you will unleash this kind of innovation on a much to verify the electricity output of solar panels, and larger scale. facilitate investment in solar.

Quartz: What role would CBDCs play in Africa’s One of the big problems in these investment remittance market? projects is that the investor doesn’t know whether The reason why we have such big remittance the project is successful and that the money wasn’t markets in South Africa or in Africa in general used for something else, so there’s asymmetric is two-fold. One, you have a lot of pan-African information. By putting all these all the electricity migration. And two, the existing correspondent outputs together and making it verifiable, you banking system has failed these guys. They work can actually help the investor to have trust in the in another country, they don’t always have all the project. You create like a history of payments from paperwork necessary to get a formal bank account that particular solar panel that then can be used because there’s a big barrier to entry. And if you to de-risk this asset. And all of a sudden, what don’t have a bank account, you are reliant on a few used to be an un-investable project becomes providers like Western Union, who just have very investable. This takes out the risk of the project high transaction fees. So either you’re sending

CBDCs

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Investment

Quartz: All You Need to Know About Africa's Four (Six?) Unicorns

By Tawanda Karombo

THERE IS A WAVE OF OPTIMISM around the first four African startups to hit a $1 billion valuation. Emerging markets investment analysts are betting on fintech and e-commerce, staked on the continent’s tech-savvy population, to provide even more unicorn status companies for the region.  Flutterwave—Founded: 2016; Industry: fintech; Secret weapon: An office in San Francisco gives it access to a bigger pool of venture capitalists  Interswitch—Founded: 2002; Industry: fintech; Secret weapon: Attracting investors that hadn’t thought to look towards Africa

cash across borders, which is very dangerous, or, you find alternatives.

If you have a CBDC, you take out all the frictions from having a Balkanized, fractured remittance system. If you have a South African CBDC and a Nigerian CBDC and you make them interoperable, you can have almost instantaneous, almost free transactions between them, if those two CBDCs are efficient. And you can be fully compliant with foreign-exchange controls. It removes the remittance payments from the correspondent banking system, which was not really not build for this.

Quartz: How would CBDCs fit in the context of growing investment in Africa’s fintech industry?

Think about the Google or the Apple Play store.

Why are they successful? Because they provide developers with access to the entire customer base. CBDC would be the same thing, except that

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 Fawry—Founded: 2008; Industry: fintech; Secret weapon: Egypt’s regulatory changes mean licensing from the central bank  Jumia—Founded: 2012; Industry: e-commerce; Secret weapon: Achieving unicorn status first  Chipper Cash and Opay—Depending on how you define “unicorn,” these two could be on the list, too https://qz.com/africa/2032255/africas-4-1bfintech-unicorns-could-pave-the-way-for-startups

it’s in public hands, controlled by the government, so its regulated, it’s safe, it’s secure, it’s efficient.

And you provide this universal market access. I think it would be a great boost to investment in fintechs in Africa, because everybody knows, “This start-up, when they build something that is compliant with what the CBDC does, then they can tap directly into the CBDC system [and they] have access to a billion people as potential customers.”

I think Africa is so big as a market, that this would really be an extremely attractive value proposition for investors. https://techio.co/how-africa-could-become-aworld-leader-in-central-bank-digital-currencies/ Original article: https://qz.com/africa/2015047/ africas-central-banks-are-exploring-digitalcurrencies/?utm_source=email&utm_ medium=daily-brief&utm_content=afeff3c1-c57911eb-909d-fa1c4ed29843 Image credit: atozmarkets.com, Fox News DAWN

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Investment

How to Attract Private Finance to Africa’s Development

By Abebe Aemro Selassie, Luc Eyraud, and Catherine Pattillo

AFRICAN ECONOMIES ARE AT A PIVOTAL juncture. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought economic activity to a standstill. Africa’s hard-won economic gains of the last two decades, critical in improving living standards, could be reversed.

High public debt levels and the uncertain outlook for international aid limit the scope for growth through large public investment programs. The private sector will have to play more of a role in economic development if countries are to enjoy a strong recovery and avoid economic stagnation.

Heads of state from Africa made this one of their resounding messages during the recent summit on “Financing African Economies” held in Paris in May. Infrastructure—both physical (roads, electricity) and social (health, education)—is one area where the private sector could be more involved. Africa’s infrastructure development needs are huge—in the order of 20% of GDP on average by the end of the decade. How can this be financed? All else equal, the main source of financing would be more tax revenue collections, something that most countries are working towards. But, given the scale of the needs, new financing sources will have to be mobilized from the international community and the private sector.

Africa is a continent that holds immense opportunity for private investors. It has a young and growing population and abundant natural resources. Cities are seeing massive growth. Many countries have launched long-term industrialization and digitalization initiatives. But significant investment and innovation are necessary to unlock the region’s full potential. Recent research published

by IMF staff shows that the private sector could, by the end of the decade, bring additional annual 68

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financing equivalent to 3% of sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP for physical and social infrastructure. This represents about $50 billion per year (using 2020 GDP) and almost a quarter of the average private investment ratio in the region (currently 13 percent of GDP).

What constrains private finance now?

At the moment, the private sector is not involved much in financing and delivering infrastructure in Africa, compared to other regions. Public entities, such as national governments and state-owned enterprises, carry out 95% of infrastructure projects.

The volume of infrastructure projects with private sector participation has significantly declined in the past decade, following the commodity price bust.

The limited role of private investors is also apparent from an international comparison perspective: Africa attracts only 2% of global flows of foreign direct investment. And when investment does go to Africa, it is predominantly to natural resources and extractive industries, not health, roads, or water.

To attract private investors and transform the way Africa finances its development, improvements in the business environment seem critical. Our research shows that three key risks dominate international investors’ minds: Project risk. Despite Africa presenting a wealth of business opportunities, the pipeline of projects that are truly “investment-ready” remains limited.

These are projects sufficiently developed to appeal to investors that do not want to invest in earlystage concepts or unfamiliar markets. Financial and technical support by donors and development banks can help countries fund feasibility studies, project design and other preparatory activities that

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expand the pool of bankable projects.

Currency risk. Imagine that a project yields a return of 10% a year, but the currency depreciates by 5% at the same time—this would eliminate half of the profits for foreign investors. No wonder currency risk is a top concern for them. Prudent macroeconomic policy combined with sound foreign exchange reserve management can greatly reduce currency volatility.

Exit risk. No investor will enter a country if they don’t have assurances that they can also exit by selling their stakes in a project and recouping their gains. Narrow and underdeveloped financial markets may prevent investors from exiting by issuing shares. Capital controls can slow down or increase the cost of exiting. And, when the legal framework is weak, investors may get bogged down in legal battles to have their rights recognized.

Incentivizing private investment Improving the business climate is important but not enough. Development sectors have certain structural features that make private sector participation intrinsically complicated, even in the most favorable environments. For instance, infrastructure projects often have large upfront costs, but their returns accrue over long periods of time, which can be difficult for private investors to assess. Private sector growth also thrives on networks and value chains, which may not yet exist in new markets.

When these problems are acute, governments may have to provide extra incentives to make

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infrastructure projects attractive to private investors.

These incentives, which comprise various types of subsidies and guarantees, can be costly and carry fiscal risks. But the truth is, many projects in development sectors won’t happen without them.

In East Asia, 90% of infrastructure projects with private participation receive government support.

With certain design features, governments can maximize the efficiency and impact of public incentives, while minimizing risks. Support should be targeted, temporary, and granted on the basis of proven market dysfunctions. It should also be transparent, leave sufficient risk to private parties, and display additionality, meaning that incentives should make worthy projects happen that would not happen otherwise. Finally, their size should be well calibrated to avoid overcompensating the private sector.

Given the limited availability of public funds, African countries and development partners could consider reallocating some resources used for public investment towards financing public incentives for private projects. When this reallocation is gradual and supported by sound institutions, transparency and governance, it could increase the amount, range, and quality of services for people in Africa. More innovative thinking can help realize the transformative potential of infrastructure on the continent. https://blogs.imf.org/2021/06/14/how-to-attractprivate-finance-to-africas-development/ Image credit: IMF PHOTOS

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Investment

President Samia Gives Cryptocurrency Markets a Boost, as Bitcoin Closes on $40,000

By Agencies TANZANIA’S PRESIDENT SAMIA SULUHU HASSAN’s speech on Sunday (June 11) on cryptocurrency has given Bitcoin a much-needed shot in the arm after delivering positive news for the markets.

Her speech in Mwanza came fresh on the back of El Salvador announcing its adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender, coupled with a slew of South and Central American nations signalling their readiness to get on board.

Speaking in Mwanza, President Samia Suluhu Hassan told financial chiefs to prepare for cryptocurrency, saying the age of crypto and blockchain was dawning as she urged her country to pave the way for change.

President Samia said Tanzania’s Central Bank should begin the necessary preparations for a step change in global attitudes towards banking, singling out cryptocurrencies as the future of finance.

“We have witnessed the emergence of a new journey through the internet,” she declared.

“I know that throughout the nation, including Tanzania, they have not accepted or started using these routes. However, my call to the Central Bank is that you should start working on that development.

“The Central Bank should be ready for the changes and not be caught unprepared.”

Outside of El Salvador and a handful of neighbours, this is the first time a country’s President has openly acknowledged a serious acceptance of digital assets or a decentralised approach to banking.

The news from Tanzania arrived hand-in-hand 70

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with a change in recent sentiment from Elon Musk who has, arguably, been the biggest influencer in the price of Bitcoin since its inception more than a decade ago.

However, the 49-year-old entrepreneur was riled by a Coin Telegraph article which quoted Magda Wierzycka – CEO of financial services firm Sygnia – as saying her fellow South African would likely have been investigated by authorities for market manipulation. He responded on social media by saying the article was way off the mark.

Together with the news from Tanzania, those last six words from Elon Musk were enough for Bitcoin to shake off the shackles that had held it below $35,000 for much of the weekend and propel it to within touching distance of $40k.

Weekend trading, historically, gives a downward push across the cryptocurrency markets, so a sudden lift driven by news narratives will no doubt be taken as a signal that Bitcoin might be about to emerge from its recent slump.

With El Salvador, Tanzania and even Elon Musk now driving that narrative, the week ahead looks like a must-watch for cryptocurrency. www.thecitizen.co.tz/tanzania/news/presidentsamia-gives-cryptocurrency-markets-a-boost-asbitcoin-closes-on-40-000-3436486 The World Bank rebuffs El Salvador’s plan to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. While the World Bank will continue to help the Latin American country on several matters, it said those won’t include helping it adopt the cryptocurrency, citing environmental and transparency issues. DealBook

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Investment

South Africa Opens up to Private Power to Ease Blackouts

By Jacob Kastrenakes

Johannesberg, South Africa SOUTH AFRICA ANNOUNCED it is easing restrictions on electricity generation to allow private firms to build power plants and help reduce frustrating blackouts.

The increase in the maximum generating capacity of private power plants to 100 megawatts from the current limit of one megawatt is expected to lead to firms building facilities to power their own operations as well as selling surplus electricity to Eskom, the state-owned power company.

In a televised address, President Cyril Ramaphosa said the move was a "significant" new step in reforming the electricity sector and achieving a stable and secure energy supply.

"This reform is expected to unlock significant investment in new generation capacity in the short and medium term, enabling companies to build their own generation facilities to supply their energy needs," Ramaphosa said.

"This in turn will increase the available supply of energy and reduce the burden on Eskom," he said

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in televised address.

Eskom currently produces 90% of South Africa's electricity, which is still mostly generated from heavily-polluting coal-fired plants.

Its inability to produce sufficient electricity for the country's needs means it has had to impose rolling power cuts that have hobbled the country's economy.

Recently Eskom intensified blackouts owing to a surge in the winter demand and breakdowns at some of its ageing and poorly-maintained power plants -- sparking public outrage.

"There is no doubt that the prospect of a continued energy shortfall ... presents a massive risk to our economy," said Ramaphosa.

The new power producers will be connected to the national grid under the reform. www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/s-africaopens-up-to-private-power-to-ease-blackouts/arAAKUCdb?ocid=msedgdhp Image credit: renewafrica.biz DAWN

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Investment

Available for Order: Disrupt Africa's

African Tech Startups Funding Report 2020 & Full Startup List

By Disrupt Africa

THE YEAR 2020 was a record-breaking one for assistance in ensuring this vital data makes it into African tech startups, with 397 companies securing the hands of as many entrepreneurs as possible.

US$701.5 million worth of investment.

The report includes: For the sixth consecutive year, Disrupt Africa is • Detailed information on funding activity in six releasing data on the tech investment ecosystem African countries; across Africa, contained in the African Tech • Figures on the number of deals per location, Startups Funding Report 2020. and average deal sizes; The report details how Kenya, Nigeria, South • Data on growth in funds and deals over the Africa and Egypt are the premier investment past six years; destinations on the continent, though funding is • Highlights of key deals across continent; also on the rise elsewhere. Fintech remains the • Sector-specific breakdowns across 13 sectors; dominant sector, and the number of investors grew • Tracking of acquisitions in 2020. substantially. All this while the world was gripped • - The full list of 397 funded tech startups from by the COVID-19 pandemic. across Africa, detailing location, sector, when This year’s edition of the African Tech Startups funding was secured and, where we are able Funding Report, and the list of funded startups to disclose, the investors and approximate on which it draws, is available FREE as a result amount raised. Any funding amounts disclosed of an open-sourcing initiative in partnership with confidentially do not appear in the list.

Catalyst Fund, RTB House, Quona Capital, *** Type "0" when asked to "name a fair price" to 4Di Capital, Villgro Africa, Lateral Capital, and get this product for FREE *** Otundi Ventures. We thank our partners for their https://gumroad.com/l/njrzl 72

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Greenwood Bank Expands its Executive Engineering Team Ahead of Product Release this Year

By BusinessWire

D Y L A N I H E R A T H , an esteemed fintech leader and technology changemaker, has joined Greenwood, the digital banking platform for Black and Latino individuals and business owners, as Vice President of Engineering. Dylani, named one of The Top 25 Women Leaders In Financial Technology Of Europe For 2021 by the Financial Technology Report, has more than a decade of deep fintech and banking expertise. Her experience includes over 11 years at FIS, the largest financial processing and payments company in the world, where she served as the Director of Engineering. Most recently, Dylani was a part of JPMorgan Chase & Co. leading initiatives in the SMB segment. Dylani joins Greenwood as part of her personal motivation and a shared vision with Greenwood, to affect change and impact persons and businesses who are often overlooked.

"We are thrilled to welcome Dylani to Greenwood, as her technical expertise and motivation to make an impact perfectly aligns with the Greenwood team," said Ryan Glover, Greenwood Co-Founder and Chairman. “We look forward to having Dylani lead development of Greenwood’s suite of products and services, ensuring our customers will have an exceptional banking platform."

At Greenwood, Dylani will develop and scale the banking platform, including further developing the platform’s security, growth, and product pipeline.

She will play an instrumental role in bringing Greenwood’s online banking services to market and lead in the iterative development of those services as the company’s user base continues to expand.

“I am delighted to join Greenwood, where I am excited to take my experience of creating high impact

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at legacy companies to the Greenwood team,” said Dylani Herath. “Part of what drew me to Greenwood was the company’s mission of bettering people and contributing to culture, and I look forward to helping Greenwood achieve this mission.”

Greenwood, which announced its digital banking platform for Black and Latino people and business owners in October 2020, has since secured a waitlist of more than 550,000 community members. To learn more and join the Greenwood community, visit www. bankgreenwood.com.

About Greenwood Greenwood is a digital banking services platform for Black and Latino individuals and businesses.

Greenwood is partnering with FDIC-insured banks to give customers the ability to spend and save securely through use of best-in-class banking services and innovative ways to support Black and Latino causes and businesses. Advanced account features include Apple, Samsung, and Android Pay, virtual debit cards, peer-to-peer transfers, mobile check deposits, and the largest surcharge fee-free ATM network in the USA. True to its mission, Greenwood will allow customers the ability to round up their spend to the nearest dollar and donate the change to key charity partners such as The King Center for Social Justice, NAACP, and UNCF among others. Greenwood was founded by Civil Rights leader Andrew J. Young; rapper and activist Michael “Killer Mike” Render; and Ryan Glover, founder of the Bounce TV Network.

The Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma, which included the “Black Wall Street” of the early 20th Century, is an enduring symbol of the economic potential of community solidarity and empowerment. www.businesswire.com/news/ home/20210624005416/en/Greenwood-ExpandsIts-Executive-Engineering-Team-Ahead-of-ProductRelease-This-Year

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Investment

Seven African Start-ups Shaking up the Global Tech Ecosystem

By Quentin Velluet

THERE IS NO MISTAKING certain signals, even if they are weak ones, like the recent nod from the Israeli research centre StartupBlink to Africa’s growing prominence in the global startup ecosystem. Providing research and analysis on the world’s best innovation ecosystems – through its annual Global Startup Ecosystem Index – StartupBlink’s experts recently ranked Lagos 122nd out of 1,000 cities covering 100 countries. The report evaluates each city based on its ability to create an environment that fosters the growth of digital enterprises.

Nigeria’s commercial capital has thus been named the best location in Africa to launch a start-up. Lagos, with a population of more than 17 million, overtook Nairobi as the top-ranked African city in the 2021 ranking, after the Kenyan city fell 20 spots year on year, to 136th place. In the Middle East and Africa region, both Lagos and Nairobi outranked Cairo (180th), Abu Dhabi (169th) and Riyadh (192nd), cities that have set their sights on attaining global tech hub status.

From its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, the World Economic Forum (WEF) is also sending strong signals about Africa’s start-up potential. On 16 June, seven African start-ups were included in the forum’s 2021 cohort of 100 Technology Pioneers: 54gene, mPharma, Cambridge Industries, FlexFinTx, Kuda, Moringa School and Sokowatch. Since its inception in 2000, the annual selection of tech start-ups has honoured the likes of Google, Airbnb, Twitter and Spotify.

35-year-old Nigerian doctor.

His company, which specialises in sequencing African genomes, grabbed the world’s attention in 2020, when it played a pivotal role in launching Covid-19 mobile testing laboratories in Nigeria, even though the initiative meant the company had to pause its international expansion plan.

After raising $15m in April 2020, Ene-Obong’s start-up is sure to get back to its core business as soon as possible. A geneticist by training, he holds degrees from Imperial College London and the Drucker School of Management of Claremont Graduate University (United States). 54gene’s primary goal is to harness genomic data to help researchers quickly develop treatments tailored to the genetic characteristics of Africans.

mPharma (Accra, Ghana)

A n o t h e r company that has come to the aid of national governments as the Covid-19 pandemic rages on is mPharma. The start-up, co-founded in 2013 by Gregory Rockson, and currently operating in eight countries, helped furnish laboratories in Ghana and Nigeria with molecular diagnostic equipment for Covid-19 testing through a special $3m fund.

Joining a consortium of private-sector players, mPharma donated free vaccines for healthcare 54gene (Lagos, Nigeria/Washington, workers to the Ghanaian government.

DC) The start-up, which manages prescription drug inventory for pharmacies and their suppliers, has raised a total of $53m since its founding and acquired Haltons – a pharmacy chain in Kenya 54gene’s chief executive is Abasi Ene-Obong, a – in 2019 for an undisclosed amount. mPharma

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now has plans to expand its chain’s footprint to Ethiopia.

Cambridge Industries (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) Cambridge Industries, a start-up headed

by Samuel Alemayehu, is at the forefront of technological innovation in a host of areas such as insect farming, waste-to-energy power plants and recycling. The firm joined forces with China National Electric Engineering Company to construct Ethiopia’s first waste-to-energy plant, a project that was fully financed with generous backing from the Ethiopian government. The facility is located next to Koshe landfill, just outside the country’s capital, Addis Ababa. According to Cambridge Industries, the plant is capable of

powering 25% of the city’s households all the while eliminating over 80% of the municipal waste delivered to it.

With degrees in management science and engineering from Stanford University, as well as appearances at conferences hosted by Harvard, Alemayehu – the eloquent chairman of Cambridge Industries – is focused on maximising energy recovery to supply Addis Ababa’s residents with renewable power. The waste-to-energy plant is outfitted with magnets to recover metals for recycling, helps prevent the formation of toxic liquid substances (leachate) produced by landfills and converts ash into bricks for use in construction.

The process is straightforward: users can register to set up their identity by sending a WhatsApp message to the start-up’s chatbot, which guides them through the remaining steps. Users can then retrieve their information through a blockchain called Algorand.

The FlexID digital identity wallet offered by the Harare-based company connects users with a network of partner financial institutions and government agencies, allowing them to open bank accounts, buy insurance policies and sign employment contracts.

Founded in 2018 and a member of the Decentralised Identity Foundation since February 2020, FlexFinTx is helping to develop decentralised identity standards alongside ‘big tech’ firms like Microsoft and IBM.

Kuda (Lagos, Nigeria) Back in May, Kuda – an online-only bank with ambitious plans to reach all Africans – marked the milestone of serving 1 million customers. Babs Ogundeyi and Mustapha Musty founded Kuda – initially known as Kudimoney – in 2016 to offer online loans.

FlexFinTx (Harare, Zimbabwe) Blockchain is as fascinating as it is complex, but for Victor Mapunga – the Zimbabwe-born co-founder of FlexFinTx – and his Indian business partner Haardik Haardik, the technology – essentially a decentralised system that allows users to verify transactions – also provides a way to create and Eventually, the company received a banking store the digital identities of some 400 million licence from the Central Bank of Nigeria and raised Africans who lack official forms of identification. $36.6m from four funding rounds. Several notable The information is accessible without the internet see page 76 to boot.

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Investment Tech Ecosystem

from page 75

investors have backed the start-up including Ragnar Meitern – a former managing director of Dutch bancassurance group ING – and Valar Ventures – a New York-based venture-capital firm with $1.2bn in assets under management.

To stand out from the pack, Kuda – which says it processed $2.2bn in transactions in February 2021 alone – has taken a page out of the playbook of other success stories such as Brazil’s Nubank, Germany’s N26 and the UK’s Revolut. These ‘neo-banks’ are different from their traditional counterparts in that they are digital only, offer great customer service and charge virtually no debit card transaction fees.

Moringa School (Nairobi, Kenya) Founded in 2014 by Taiwanese-American entrepreneur Audrey Cheng and Kenyan techpreneur Frank Tamre, the Moringa School’s mission is reminiscent to that of US company Andela: teaching tech talent skills that meet the needs of African and international companies.

Cheng has since stepped down from her role, though she is now an executive board director, while Tamre exited the company.

With learning centres in Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, as well as more than 80 employer

the school.

Currently led by Meredith Karazin, the learning institution charges course fees of around $1,700 for a year of training and also offers financial aid for its students.

Sokowatch (Nairobi, Kenya) Sokowatch, a start-up that sources goods for informal retailers, was featured in Fast Company’s ‘World’s Most Innovative Companies’ ranking for 2021. The firm founded

by US-born entrepreneur Daniel Yu has proven that sound inventory management can translate into less waste, while putting more into the pockets of merchants, no matter their size – and all with the help of an algorithm.

Impressed by the startup’s business model, which has attracted suppliers such as consumer-goods heavyweights Unilever and Procter & Gamble, Morocco-based Outlierz Ventures joined a seed investment round in 2018.

Other prominent investment funds have since followed in the venture capital firm’s footsteps: East Africa-focused Catalyst Fund (backed by investors including Proparco and CDC Group) and 4DX Ventures, an American firm which took part in June in a $30m funding round for Egyptian logistics start-up Trella. www.theafricareport.com/104738/seven-africanstart-ups-shaking-up-the-global-tech-ecosystem

partners, including local and global companies (such as Microsoft, US advisory firm Dalberg and Mastercard Foundation), the start-up boasts more than 3,000 trained students and an over 85% employment rate for graduates. Courses cover software development and data science.

In 2019 and again in May 2020, Netherlandsbased DOB Equity, an impact investor that has participated in funding rounds for Twiga Foods, Sendy Logistics and M-KOPA (an app that provides solar power to customers on a pay-asyou-go basis), sunk an undisclosed amount into 76

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Image credit: nipc.gov.ng, thenewsghana.com, unreasonablegroup.com, weetracker.com, ltkmag.com, unistoretz.com, aameg.org

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Technology/Science

Launch of the Mediacity Mauritius Hub in Africa Translated from the article published by Thomas Moysan on April 8, 2021 on CBNews

THIS CLUSTER WILL HOST audiovisual The first phase of MediaCity Mauritius’ production companies, creative agencies, video development will be completed in 2022, with the game developers, and international broadcasters, second phase completed in 2025. The MediaCity on the site of Beau Plan, a smart city in Mauritius. School will open in 2022.

The MediaCity will host the infrastructure and www.bce.lu/bce-news-articles-video-social-network/ technology needed to create content, innovate, launch-of-the-mediacity-mauritius-hub-in-africa and train. It will consist of production studios, video audio editing facilities, and captioning, as well as a “Mauritius’ unique economic and political dedicated data storage center – all built to the best environment has enabled us to create the international standards. first multimedia hub for Africa and the MediaCity Mauritius will also host the African world. Globally, daily consumptio n of online Media Campus: an educational structure aimed content has doubled since the beg inning at bringing out the next generation of talent. On of the Covid-19 pandemic. Media City the campus, the MediaCity School, a technical Mauritius will meet the growing demand school, will train students and young professionals for communications products and content in multimedia production. This human resource will creation, with a particular focus on Africa, directly benefit from the opportunities offered by while stimulating local economies and resident companies integrated into the MediaCity. linking international economic act ors to The project is a private and independent initiative African talent. We look forwa rd to welcoming supported by the Mauritian government and the creators, developers, produc ers, technicians Mauritian Economic Development Council. To and students to give them the bes t chance ensure its completion and sustainability, MCM of success in Africa,” said Najib Gouiaa, Ltd has teamed up with the leading real estate Managing Director of MediaCity Mauritius. developer in Mauritius, Novaterra.

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Technology/Science

SpaceX President says Starlink Global Satellite Broadbrand Service to be Live by September

By Aimee Chanthadavong

SPACEX PRESIDENT AND CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER Gwynne Shotwell has revealed the company's low-Earth orbit Starlink satellite broadband may be operational by around September.

"We've successfully deployed 1,800 or so satellites, and once all those satellites reach their operational orbit we will have continuous global coverage so that should be like [the] September timeframe," Shotwell said, speaking as part of the virtual Macquarie Technology Summit.

But the company still needs regulatory approval from any given country to be able to provide telco services, she said.

The launch will come off the back of running beta services in 11 different countries.

"We've got almost 100,000 users. Half a million people want to be users, but we need the electronic piece part situation to settle down so that we can actually build the user terminals for the folks that want the service," Shotwell said.

A Starlink beta user in Arizona, United States said service was lost after the dish reported it had overheated. The user took to Reddit to show that the Starlink app provided an error message, which said the dish "overheated" and "Starlink will reconnect after cooling down". The user noted that they were informed the dish would shut down at 122 fahrenheit. Another user had previously reported a similar problem on Reddit.

SpaceX scored $885 million in grant funding from the US Federal Communications Commission last December to bring its satellite broadband 78

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service to people in 35 US states.

But it is not only the launch of Starlink that has Shotwell excited. Leveraging the Starship rocket is the other, she said, whether that is flying people to the moon or Mars, or using the rocket as a solution for long-haul travel on Earth.

"The suborbital vehicle itself can get halfway around the world in 40 minutes … you know, you could do a long-haul trip from Australia to central Texas in probably two and a half hours, two hours, so you could go have a meeting … listen to some engines getting fired … and then get home in time to have dinner with your family," she said.

Shotwell says it "feels like the right time" for space travel.

"We were on the moon in the 60s and 70s and then we stopped going, so it's time to go to the next heavenly body, which I believe will be the moon, with people, and then Mars will be the next closest planet that could be survivable," she said.

In acknowledging that travel to Mars would be an "extraordinary leap for humankind", Shotwell said what she was most looking most forward to would be seeing space travel go beyond Mars.

"What I am most interested in is figuring out how to go meet people in other solar systems, maybe even other galaxies, but obviously that's crazy talk, but I hope that we at SpaceX starts that process," she said. www.zdnet.com/article/spacex-president-saysstarlink-global-satellite-broadbrand-service-to-be-liveby-september Image credit: mediasat.info DAWN

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Technology/Science

The Triumph of the Electric Motor

By Mark Pesce

FOR THE PAST CENTURY, designers have weighed the trade-offs between engines and motors and have opted to use engines in almost anything that operates far from an electrical outlet.

The choice adds considerably to complexity: A modern automobile engine may have thousands of individual components—two orders of magnitude more than the average electric motor. This means internal-combustion engines malfunction in ways an electric motor never could. We’ve long accepted this mechanical burden as the price for cutting the cord.

That calculus kept internal-combustion engines in the captain’s chair for almost all of the 20th century. Although about half of all electricity generated gets used to power electric motors of one sort or another, those many motors have historically been thought of as limited and limiting, an assessment now invalidated by a combination of better batteries (the result of manufacturing billions of smartphones) and smarter electronics.

Today, electrifying a device that formerly required an engine means opening up the palette of possibilities to a product designer, who can now blend simplicity with sophistication.

No modern gadget makes that point as clearly as the recently unveiled flying taxi from Joby Aviation. The product of more than a decade of stealth R&D, it’s a cross between a small plane 79

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and a multicopter. Had Joby’s designers been forced to use internal-combustion engines, as some other flying-car companies have attempted, the craft would no doubt have been awkwardly complex, heavy, and much too loud. Instead, it uses sophisticated batteries and software to manage its six motors, making this eVTOL (electric vertical-takeoff and landing) craft relatively quiet and versatile. Distributed electric propulsion represents a new kind of design, one that we’ll surely see much more of, as aeronautical engineers explore the possibilities that arise when combining electric motors with electronic brains.

Only a decade ago we assumed internalcombustion engines would remain a permanent part of our world and invested huge resources in squeezing the last drops of efficiency out of them.

While they’ve had a good run, they’ve been pipped at the post now by electric motors.

The 20th century belonged to the engine, but the 21st century belongs to the motor, which is simple, silent, and smart. That combination changes everything about how our world works.

This article appears in the July 2021 print issue as “Engines of Change.” https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/batteriesstorage/the-triumph-of-the-electric-motor Image credit: evtol.com DAWN

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Technology/Science

Sundar Pichai Surprises Winner of Doodle for Google Contest with a Video Call

By Dan Cancian

Sundar Pichai (L) surprises the winner of Doodle for Google contest, Milo Golding (R), with a video call. (Twitter/@sundarpichai)

THE JUNE 15TH GOOGLE DOODLE celebrates Milo Golding, the U.S. 2021 Doodle for Google contest winner.

A special temporary alteration to its homepage logo that commemorates holidays, events, achievements and historical figures, the Google Doodle is traditionally reserved for famous people and events.

In a break from tradition, however, on June 15 the Doodle celebrated a Kentucky-based 11th grader.

On Monday, June 14th, Golding was announced as the winner of the 13th annual Doodle for Google competition on NBC's Today show after his artwork was selected as the winner out of 54 state and territory winners.

An annual art contest open to students in grades K-12, Doodle for Google encourages

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students to create their own Doodle for the chance to have it featured on Google.com.

The winner also receives scholarships and tech packages for their school. In Golding's case, he secured a $30,000 college scholarship and a $50,000 technology package for his school after winning the contest.

The Golding Doodle features a mixed-race kid kneeling in the act to hand a younger child a balloon, while fixing the scarf around the latter's neck.

Two young kids can be seen in the background, one looking above the wall the Google logo is set against, while the other is spreading his arms and facing the screen with his back.

Speaking to Google, Golding said his artwork symbolized the strength of having hope, a lesson he learned from his late father. He wanted his

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Doodle to inspire hope and encourage others to overcome obstacles in the face of life's many hardships.

"I am strong because I have hope. I once asked my father how he overcame obstacles and became who he wanted to be," he said.

"He replied, 'Hope, hope keeps me strong.'"

Golding, a junior at Lexington Christian Academy in Lexington, Kentucky, lost his father to a heart attack when he was 13 and credits retaining hope as the main factor that helped him overcome grief.

He channeled his trauma into helping others and through his Sanguine Path charity he supports children who find themselves in a similar scenario.

The charity helps kids under 18 who have lost loved ones with care packages, back-to-school kits and holiday gifts.

"Milo is one of those truly special young people who makes our school, community, commonwealth, nation, and world a better place," said LCA Head of School, Dr. Scott Wells.

"Milo's message of hope is a powerful and

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courageous statement that inspires those around him to be a difference in the lives of others. This morning, he inspired our nation when word of his story broke in the news."

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear was full of praise for the teenager.

"On behalf of the entire commonwealth, congratulations on winning Doodle for Google," he said.

"Your talent is truly incredible. And the story behind your artwork is beautiful, personal and inspiring. I see your strength. I also see that hope your father taught you about. And now, your work will inspire hope in others. Congratulations. And thank you for sharing your talents."

To all upcoming K-12 teachers, parents, and students: be sure to bookmark our website for updates around the 2022 Doodle for Google contest, set to open again this Fall. www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/who-is-doodlefor-google-2021-winner-milo-golding-google-doodlecelebrates-11th-grader/ar-AAL3xd2?ocid=uxbndlbing Image credit: © Google, google.com

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Technology/Science

Reuters' Hot List of Climate Scientists is Geographically Skewed - Why This Matters

By Andrew Emmanuel Okem, Catherine Sutherland|| Debra Roberts|| Marlies H Craig|| Michelle A. North|| Nina Hunter and Rob Slotow

Global South blogspot.com

THE REUTERS HOT LIST of "the world's top climate scientists" is causing a buzz in the climate change community. Reuters ranked these 1,000 scientists based on three criteria: the number of papers published on climate change topics; citations, relative to other papers in the same field; and references by the non-peer reviewed press (for example on social media). The list does not claim that they are the "best" scientists in the world.

But the ranking enhances position and reputation, influencing the production, reproduction and dissemination of knowledge.

What matters to us, as global South researchers and practitioners working in the field of climate change, is that the geography of this "global" list reveals a striking imbalance. While over three quarters of the global population live in Asia and Africa, over three quarters of the scientists on the list are located in Europe and North America. Only five are listed for Africa.

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are contributing to the current reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, arguably the most influential source for climate change policy. Again, the imbalance is stark: 377 (41%) of panel authors are citizens of developing countries (95 from Africa) and only 16 of these are on the Reuters list (only two from Africa).

Climate change science dominated by knowledge produced in the global North cannot address the particular challenges faced by those living in the global South. It also misses significant lessons emerging from the global South, for example from the intersection of climate change with poverty, inequality and informality.

Reuters maps the 1,000 scientists, making it clear that their location is important, yet it does not reflect on what this portrays. While the list is presented as a neutral, data-driven assessment of the top climate scientists, it is silent on the questions of power, authority and inequality this map raises. Where are the global South scientists, DAWN

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and why are they not featuring in this analysis of influence?

We believe that this inequality in influence is a result of unequal access to knowledge production essentials and processes. It also reflects the unequal valuing of climate change scientists' research focus, which for scientists in the global South is often context-specific, to improve human outcomes and achieve localised return on investment in knowledge.

The list elevates research that contributes to well-established bodies of knowledge on the processes of climate change, and its global and local impacts, much of which has been produced in the global North. Research questions developed in and framed by the global North, for instance questions about environmental perceptions and values, often have limited application or meaning in the global South.

Science from global South matters The science that is elevated by the list is not the only science that matters. Research from the global South tends to focus on solving challenges on the ground, drawing on multiple voices in local spaces and including practitioner knowledge, to co-produce solutions.

From our experience in Durban on South Africa's east coast, local researchers, drawing on contextualised and decolonised global knowledge, influence the position of local policy makers and practitioners on climate change solutions.

An example is research undertaken in informal settlements by university researchers with communities, which is shaping Durban's climate change action.

To achieve a better global balance of important work on climate change, a list like the Reuters one could include a measure of the localised application and influence of research. What also matters is that the exclusion of ideas inhibits the production of knowledge for globally relevant innovation, transformation and action. Northern literature dominates global thinking and practice as shown through the spatiality of the list, but this science does not always provide globally relevant solutions, and often has limited application or meaning in the global South.

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change requires an engagement with the theories, knowledge and experiences from all parts of the world. Science from the global South may well provide innovative climate change solutions, but very little of this science makes it into the global conversation. The imbalance in influence, therefore, has implications for both global and local action.

Global South vulnerable to worst impacts of climate change The global South is faced with the most severe consequences of climate change. Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and small island developing states are identified as key vulnerability hotpots.

Sub-Saharan Africa already has a large share of the population living in multidimensional poverty.

Across the continent there is a high dependence on agriculture which is predominantly rain-fed.

Changing rainfall patterns and low irrigation rates are compromising these livelihoods. Rapidly growing coastal population centres are increasingly exposed and vulnerable to rising sea levels.

Global literature should support global fight against climate change Much of the global literature is blind to and silent on the lived experiences of the majority of the globe. This includes extreme and multidimensional poverty, inequality, informality, gender inequity, cultural and language diversity, rapid urbanisation and weak governance, and how these intersect with climate change. An incomplete literature will miss important solutions in the global fight against climate change.

The most compelling story in the Hot List publication is the unequal global distribution of knowledge and expertise. But this is not acknowledged, debated or highlighted as a cause for grave concern. It may not be the responsibility of an international news agency like Reuters to solve this issue, but an agency that claims to provide "trusted intelligence" and "freedom from bias" should at least point it out. https://allafrica.com/stories/202106160789.html This article is republished from The Conversation Africa under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article

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Technology/Science

Glowing Bacteria May One Day Protect Peo

LAND MINES LEFT OVER from bygone conflicts — or those still being fought — pose silent threats to millions of people around the world. With the help of bacteria that glow in their presence, these hidden hazards may one day be found and safely removed or destroyed.

Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have spent a decade developing living land mine sensors using E. coli bacteria. In recent studies, they describe their latest progress.

By using genetic engineering, they can turn each bacterium into “a miniature firefly” in the presence of a chemical associated with the explosives, said Shimshon Belkin, the Hebrew University microbiologist leading the research.

In 2019, more than 5,500 people were killed or injured by land mines and explosive remnants of war, and 80% of them were civilians, according to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.

Anti-personnel land mines, which can be only a few inches across and easily concealed, are especially

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d a n g e r o u s .

Estimates vary for the worldwide count of buried land mines, but they are as high as 110 million.

Many strategies have been tried to locate such t land l d mines, i h as using i metal detectors and training detection animals, including an award-winning rat that helped locate 71 land mines before it retired. Each method balances benefits with risks and costs.

The idea of rewiring bacteria to sense land mines originated with Robert Burlage, then at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. In the mid1990s, Dr. Burlage worked on getting bacteria to light up in response to organic waste and mercury.

Looking for a new application for this technique, he got the idea to try targeting land mine chemicals.

Although Dr. Burlage conducted a few small field

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ople From Landmines tests, he was unable to secure more funding and moved on. “My tale of woe,” said Dr. Burlage, now a professor at Concordia University Wisconsin.

Dr. Burlage’s work was an inspiration for the Israeli researchers, and he says he wishes them well in their efforts to advance the technology.

Bacteria are cheap and expendable and can be spread over a lot of ground. And they are relatively quick at reporting back — within hours, or up to a day, they either glow or they don’t.

In studies published in the past year in Current Research in Biotechnology and Microbial Biotechnology, Dr. Belkin and his team describe tinkering with two key components of the E. coli genetic code: pieces of DNA called “promoters” that act as on/off switches for genes, and “reporters” that prompt light-emitting reactions. To produce this effect, researchers borrowed genes from marine bacteria that naturally emit light in the ocean.

Scientists attuned the bacteria to a chemical called 2,4-dinitrotoluene, or DNT, a volatile byproduct of trinitrotoluene, or TNT. Over time, DNT vapor seeps into soil surrounding a land mine, and the bacteria can sniff it out.

Rather than roaming freely, the bacteria are immobilized in tiny gelatinlike beads that feed them while they work. Each bead, about one to three millimeters across, contains about 150,000 active cells.

These latest crops of genetically engineered bacteria are faster to react and more sensitive than bacteria in the group’s earlier field tests, Dr. Belkin said. And the scientists no longer need to use a laser signal to activate the glow.

One key challenge the group is working to overcome is safely locating the bioluminescent bacteria in a real minefield. When they detect land mines, their glow is so faint that light from the moon, stars or nearby cities could drown it out.

To help address this problem, Aharon J. 85

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Agranat, a bioengineer at Hebrew University, and other researchers reported in April in the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics that they had developed a device that shields the bacteria and detects their glow. This sensor system can then report its findings to a nearby computer, but it hasn’t been tested outside a laboratory setting.

The researchers have also recently conducted field tests in Israel, collaborating with the Israeli army to ensure the safety of the experiments, as well as an Israeli defense company. The results of these tests have not been published, but Dr. Belkin called them “generally very successful.”

In the future, the team hopes to use drones to deploy bacteria sensors in a minefield, eliminating the need for humans to get close.

Dr. Burlage came across another issue decades ago that the Hebrew University group grapples with even now: temperature. The Israeli bacteria sensors work only from about 59 to 99 degrees Fahrenheit, meaning researchers will need to figure out how to adapt their systems to more scorching desert conditions.

The Israeli bioengineers also acknowledge that their bacteria sensors could be used for both humanitarian and military purposes. DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, contributed funding to their research.

Nonetheless, the bacteria sensors for land mines exemplify how the field of synthetic biology has grown “leaps and bounds in the past few decades,” said Dr. Timothy K. Lu, co-founder of Senti Biosciences and biological engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who was not involved in these studies.

“It’s super exciting, and I hope to see these sort of applications start migrating out of the lab and into the real world,” Dr. Lu said. https://americanglobalnews.com/2021/06/ glowing-bacteria-may-one-day-protect-peoplefrom-landmines Image credit: khybernews.tv

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Technology/Science

Africa is Blasting its way into the Space Race

By The Economist

IN THE HOURS AFTER HURRICANE KATRINA slammed into America in 2005, destroying large parts of New Orleans, the people co-ordinating the disaster response urgently needed satellite pictures to show them what they were facing.

The first images to come in were not from the constellations launched by NASA or the space agencies of other rich countries. They were beamed to Earth by a small Nigerian spacecraft that had been launched from Russia just two years earlier.

The small cube—Nigeria’s first satellite and only the second launched by a sub-Saharan African country—did not just watch a storm, it provoked one, too. British politicians and a taxpayers’ pressure group called for a halt in development aid, saying Nigeria did not need help if it could afford a space programme. Still, the sums being spent on space by African countries back then were tiny. South Africa’s SunSat, the region’s first satellite, was built by students at Stellenbosch University and hitched a free ride on a NASA rocket. Nigeria’s spacecraft cost just $13m.

In the past few years, however, the continent has dashed into space. The most recent orbital enthusiast is Mauritius, which put up a satellite on June 3rd. At least 20 African countries now have space programmes. These include heavyweights such as Egypt, Algeria and Nigeria, as well as smaller countries such as Ghana. In 2019 another five African countries launched satellites, bringing 86

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Africa’s total in orbit that year to 41.

Space in Africa, a consultancy based in Nigeria, reckons that African governments budgeted about $500m for their space agencies in 2020. That is a sliver of the $23bn spent last year by NASA, but it still marked a big jump from the $325m they spent in 2019. This does not include spending by private investors such as Eutelsat, a European operator, which park communications satellites in orbits so they can beam signals down to Africa.

African governments argue that their investments in space programmes help to build local skills that can attract investment and spill over into other areas of the economy. The Square Kilometre Array, an internationally funded radio telescope being built in South Africa, will pull in almost €2bn ($2.3bn) of investment and is creating thousands of jobs. It is also inspiring youngsters to study engineering.

The satellite programme started on the Stellenbosch University campus has already borne fruit. Several of its graduates went on to work at Dragonfly Aerospace, a firm based in Stellenbosch that hopes to build as many as 48 small satellites a year. In April, Max Polyakov, a Ukrainian-born investor, bought a controlling stake in the company for an undisclosed sum.

African countries missed out on the big shift in the world’s economy in the 1990s, when manufacturing moved from rich countries to poorer ones in Asia, because they were not nimble enough to open their economies and attract investment. Now they are entering the space industry just as it is being disrupted by new entrants, who are making small satellites that cost a fraction of the price of big ones made by incumbents. That offers a rare opportunity to countries and companies quickwitted enough to grasp it. www.reddit.com/r/anime_titties/comments/o3wutc/africa_ is_blasting_its_way_into_the_space_race/ Source: www.economist.com/middle-east-andafrica/2021/06/19/africa-is-blasting-its-way-into-the-spacerace Image credits: mg.co.za DAWN www.africabusinessassociation.org

NASA Seeks Proposals for Commercial Space Station Development

By Jeff Foust

NASA IS SEEKING PROPOSALS for a program to support the development of commercial space stations, even as funding for that effort is in jeopardy in Congress.

NASA published a request for proposals July 12 for its Commercial Low Earth Orbit Development, or CLD, program. The effort, announced earlier this year, will provide funding for initial studies of commercial space stations that could ultimately be used by NASA and other customers. Proposals are due to the agency Aug. 26.

NASA expects to award between two and four Space Act Agreements to support those studies, with up to $400 million available from fiscal years 2022 through 2025. NASA anticipates a second phase of the program to start in 2026, where the agency would certify commercial space stations for use by both NASA payloads and astronauts.

The CLD program is part of NASA’s broader LEO commercialization strategy, tied to its plans to transition from the International Space Station to one or more commercial stations.

That process is likely to take a decade, given interest by both NASA and Congress to continue operations of the ISS through the 2020s.

“I think that’s going to be the third leg in the stool in low Earth orbit” along with commercial cargo and crew, said Phil McAlister, director of commercial spaceflight development at NASA Headquarters, of commercial space stations during a session of the American Astronautical Society’s Glenn Memorial Symposium July 13. “All three pieces of that infrastructure are necessary to be in commercial hands so you can see those 87

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synergistic relationships among those three and costs coming down.”

Those future commercial stations, he acknowledged, won’t be as large or as capable as the ISS, at least initially. “In terms of the amount of research volume, I do expect it to go down,” he said, given the size of the ISS. Future commercial stations, he said, likely will start smaller but expand as needed to meet demand. “That’s a very attractive model. You don’t have to pay for a lot of infrastructure unless you’re actually using it.”

NASA, though, continues to face an uphill battle to win congressional support and funding for its LEO commercialization strategy. The agency requested $150 million in fiscal years 2020 and 2021 but received only $15 million and $17 million, respectively.

The full House Appropriations Committee is scheduled to mark up that spending bill and send it to the full House. Senate appropriators have not yet introduced their own version of a fiscal year 2022 spending bill. https://spacenews.com/nasa-seeks-proposals-forcommercial-space-station-development Image credit: Weebly

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Lifestyle/Culture

'Wrong Number? Let's Chat' Maasai Herders in East Africa use Misdials to Make Connections SOMETIMES WRONG NUMBERS WORK. On the East African savanna, Maasai herders can form important new social connections when they misdial their mobile phones, our new study of these communities found. Maasai have traditionally lived in relatively independent, homogeneous groups, but these misdials introduce them to strangers near and far. And some even become friends or business partners.

Our research into how Maasai in Tanzania use their phones shows us how technology, error and openness can bring diverse people together.

Maasai social life centers on family connections. However, groups organized by age and clan are also longstanding and critically important. In a challenging savanna landscape, these intersecting social networks provide a strong web of friendships and business partnerships alike.

And now, with mobile phones, communication across these networks is much easier.

Earlier studies showed that Maasai use phones widely to communicate with people they already know. It’s much less common for them to use phones to communicate with strangers. Generally, people meet face-to-face and stay in touch using phones.

This may be changing – and in a way that can offer lessons for societies and technology companies around the world.

‘Good things happen’ Approximately 2 million Maasai live primarily in Kenya and Tanzania. Between 2018 and 2019, our team interviewed hundreds of Maasai in Tanzania to learn more about how they use phones. We discovered that some Maasai form meaningful social connections with people they meet through wrong numbers.

When asked why people use phones this way, one respondent commented, “Good things happen.”

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In our 2021 paper, we discuss how and why Maasai form these accidental friendships, how common they are, and how they relate to local livelihoods.

First, misdials may be more common in Maasai groups than in others. Low levels of literacy can lead to errors when people aren’t familiar with the numbers and letters printed on phone buttons. Poor access to electricity can also cause errors. When phone batteries die, people borrow other phones and enter numbers manually. But mistakes are common, and people can be randomly connected across Tanzania and parts of Kenya.

Respondents told us that they can be genuinely curious about calls from unfamiliar numbers and are happy to answer.

When wrong numbers do occur, callers may simply recognize the error and hang up promptly.

But they may also chat and get to know each other. For example, if both parties begin the call speaking Maa, the Maasai language, they may want to learn more about each other. By sharing what age groups and clans they belong to, callers mark their social positions relative to each other.

From there, livestock and weather can be easy topics to discuss.

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But even callers from different ethnic groups connect. Most Maasai also speak Swahili, the national language of Tanzania. Callers may talk about anything, but conversations about social networks and business activities seem to be common. Ultimately, when either party saves the number and uses it again, a kind of accidental friendship is formed.

Accidental friends offer information, resources In our sample of roughly 300 Maasai men, 46% have had one of these accidental friendships.

Women, we were told, do not form these friendships because men, often controlling husbands, limit or monitor women’s access to phones. Men, however, form these ties for many reasons.

First, social networks are critically important to Maasai. In the absence of other social safety nets, like insurance or Medicaid, networks help them manage many challenges. So it’s not necessarily surprising that some have leveraged wrong numbers to learn about other people and places.

Distant contacts can be valuable for future travel.

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areas, Maasai are especially interested in the weather, forage quality and livestock conditions elsewhere. They’re also watchful for opportunities to gain business connections and access to land. Ultimately the dial-and-talk ease of mobile technology suits mobile herders well.

Information itself is valuable and can also lead to materials, markets and money. One Maasai described how, during a difficult drought, he was able to move his livestock to land in another village to graze. This was illegal, but the accidental friend he had made in that village pretended the animals were his own – and the herd survived where many didn’t.

Another person described how he connected with a man far away on the coast who was looking for a rare medicinal plant. This Maasai now harvests the plant and makes regular shipments to a buyer in Dar es Salaam, the country’s largest city.

Groups also shared stories of how Maasai have rented land to outsiders to start new farms. One described how he’s become close friends with his tenant and learned much about agriculture. see page 90

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Lifestyle/Culture Maasai Connections

sometimes badgering their contacts. Ultimately, local tensions surrounding grazing, agriculture Accidental friendships, especially between and shrinking access to land can become inflamed Maa-speaking individuals, can also mobilize and when local Maasai provide plots to accidental reinforce longstanding cultural practices. People friends and their families rather than other locals. told us how they had exchanged traditional gifts of Accidental friends are social networking livestock to formalize their friendships. One man innovations shared how he helped an accidental friend far in the These findings contrast somewhat with studies south find a traditional Maasai leader who would from other developing areas around the world travel to arbitrate a difficult local disagreement. that have highlighted how phones are important For Maasai, who are traditionally polygamous for maintaining connections within familiar groups. and typically arrange marriages, wrong numbers Here, phone-driven errors help people expand can help. On two occasions, men told us they their networks and even their income. had found wives for their sons through accidental Broadly, these ties create important new friends. opportunities for individuals but new challenges for communities. And they are new types of Wrong numbers gone wrong As could be expected, there are concerns and connections that can undermine important older problems with this practice. Valuable new social ones.

Accidental friends don’t fit neatly with scholars’ ties can disappear without recourse when phones are lost or broken. Also, opportunistic or duplicitous understanding of how people connect. In callers can use wrong numbers as an excuse life, people’s encounters with each other are to press scams to get rich quick, cure disease, circumscribed by many factors. Race, class, gender, occupation and geography all limit whom become famous or find love.

Studies of pastoralists have also found that mobile people encounter and connect with. But through phones have become vehicles for dishonesty. A wrong numbers, those factors play a much smaller study in Kenya found that people lie about weather role in who Maasai encounter. In a way, wrong conditions to exclude outside herds from valuable numbers expand their horizons.

Like many groups in developing areas, Maasai forage. And a study in Tanzania found that people lie about where they are to avoid in-person visits, haven’t yet become immersed in smartphones which are often requests for financial assistance. and their trappings. But their use of wrong Our team has also reported that young brides numbers may still offer insights for a more “social” can use phones to facilitate extramarital affairs, social media. The basic decision to engage with a new method for an old practice in polygamous a stranger, one encountered nearly randomly, marriages, assuredly used by men and women suggests an openness to diversity and a general sense of optimism about people. Given humans’ alike.

With this study, we also found that accidental innate desire to connect, perhaps the technology friendships can amplify tensions surrounding land. landscape needs more mistakes – not fewer.

Throughout northern Tanzania, access to land Timothy D. Baird, Associate Professor of is increasingly scarce due to population growth Geography, Virginia Tech, Emily Woodhouse, and the spread of commercial agriculture. In some Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Environmental of our study communities, people are concerned Anthropology and Human Ecology, UCL, and J. about the conversion of grazing lands, critical for Terrence McCabe, Professor of Anthropology livestock and wildlife, into new farms. www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/wrongOutsiders often view our study region as wide number-let-s-chat-maasai-herders-in-eastopen and undeveloped. We learned that when africa-use-misdials-to-make-connections/arpeople from distant areas discover they’ve AALomWh?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=W069 connected with someone from that area, they can Image credit: © Timothy D. Baird/Virginia Tec ask about getting land to convert to agriculture –

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from page 89

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Kamba Cua: the Little Known Kenyan Tribe Living in South America for 200 Years

By Parker Diakite

THERE ARE TWO SUBTRIBES of Kenya’s Kamba community still thriving in the South American nation of Paraguay: Kamba Cua and the Kamba Kokue.

They were among the first slaves forced into the country during Spanish-colonial rule. When the Spanish took over in 1524, the first African slaves arrived shortly after in 1556.

According to Argentine historian José Ignazio Telesca, some slaves entered Paraguay “legally” through Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and Córdoba, Argentina. He says those who gained access illegally came from Brazil.

Telesca adds the population of Paraguay continued to increase and by 1811, 50% of the population identified as African descent, whether enslaved or free.

General Jose Gervasio Artigas of Uruguay was the first to recognize the Kamba tribe for their agility and military skills with spears, bows, and 91

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arrows when sought exile in Paraguay’s Itapua area.

They were eventually given 100 hectares of land in Campamento Loma, a suburb of the capital by then Paraguay ruler Jose Gaspar Rodriguez in an effort led by General Artigas. This area came to be known as Kamba Cua and those who settled there became farmers.

The community thrived and remained true to their Kenyan cultural roots until General Higinio Morinigi came to power in 1940. The Kamba Cua were stripped of their land and only had three of the original 100 hectares left.

Shortly after his rule, a new policy of defining Paraguay as completely “white” was adopted, and interracial marriage was encouraged to gradually dilute the presence of Black residents.

An informal census in 2009 estimates there are roughly 422 Kamba Cua and 385 Kamba Kokue families left.

They have guarded their culture for close to 200 years and still practice dairy farming and agriculture on their small plots of land as well as perform traditional dances.

Today, the Kamba Cua are using their dances and cultural practices to draw attention to their plight in public performances, advocating for equal economic and social rights while building an African identity. https://travelnoire.com/kamba-cua-kenyan-tribesouth-america-200-years

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Senegal is Preser Oral History in a

Massamba Gueye

Ismaila Fall - An illustration for the podcast The tey (“Know your past, know y

“LET ME TELL YOU the marvelous history of our Senegal. Let me take you on a journey into the great feats of glory,” begins Massamba Gueye in a voice that promises epic tales to come.

The famed Senegalese storyteller is accustomed to speaking to crowds of captivated children or packed theater halls. But this time Gueye is alone in a studio, recording a podcast.

The podcast Xam sa démb, xam sa tey (“Know your past, know your present”) is the product of a partnership between Senegal’s National 92

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Archives, the Goethe-Institut, and the House of Orality and Heritage, a cultural center founded

by Gueye. Through 50 episodes published online in Wolof and French, it aims to make Senegalese history accessible to youth and to preserve the country’s storytelling tradition.

Famed storyteller Massamba Gueye works on the podcast. At less than 15 minutes long, each episode tackles a different topic in Senegalese history.

“Orality still plays an important role in the DAWN

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rving its a Podcast

transmission of knowledge on the African continent,” says Bouya Fall, director of the library at Goethe-Institut Senegal, a branch of the worldwide German cultural association. “It was in the desire to prolong this tradition, by adapting it to the modern and digital world, that we decided to produce this podcast.”

The podcast started in February and will continue into 2022 with a new episode every Tuesday. At less than 15 minutes long, each episode tackles a different topic in Senegalese history, from the well-known island of Gorée, an old slavetrading post, to the story of Ndate Yalla Mbooj, a Wolof queen who fought against French colonization in the mid1800s.

The scripts were written by Ibrahima e podcast Xam sa démb, xam sa Wane, a professor of your present”).

African literature at Dakar’s Cheikh Anta Diop University, and drawn from National Archive documents, which were then re-worked and narrated by Gueye, the project’s artistic director.

Some of the topics are taught in schools, said Gueye, but he’s concerned about how much kids really retain. Lessons can be dry and students rarely go to the library anymore to check out books, he said.

“More and more I receive requests about the history of Senegal. Every day I get a dozen calls with people asking me to explain something,” said 93

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Gueye, who wears many hats including professor, writer and advisor to the Senegalese government.

He has worked on other radio shows and podcasts, but said this is the first of such scope and ambition.

More than 9,000 people have visited the podcast’s website, said Fall, although there are no statistics on how many have listened to the episodes, which are free to stream or download. Feedback has been positive, including from Senegalese immigrants living in Europe who said their children are listening to learn their history, she said.

Once all 50 episodes have been produced the plan is to create an “audio corner” in the National Archives where people can come listen, and to make them available in schools and museums, said Fall.

Gueye says oral transmission has faded in Senegal as more people have learned to read and write, but it is still the primary means of knowledge transfer in certain domains, such as traditional medicine, crafts and sewing. He founded the House of Orality and Heritage in Dakar in 2012 as a center for research and documentation of oral traditions.

“Our entire heritage, not only our history but our laws, our religion, our customs, everything was passed down by oral transmission,” he said.

Even the younger generation has shown its penchant for the spoken word through its use of the audio elements of social media, said Gueye.

The dominant messaging platform in Senegal is WhatsApp, and most people use it to send voice notes rather than texts. The podcast therefore reaches youth in a medium they already consume.

“I think social media has helped orality come alive again,” said Gueye. https://techio.co/senegal-is-preserving-its-oralhistory-in-a-podcast www.goethe.de/ins/sn/fr/kul/sup/xam-/pod.html Link to original article: https://qz.com/ africa/2014810/senegal-preserves-oralhistory-in-a-podcast-with-massambagueye/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=dailybrief&utm_content=7385433f-c2bd-11eb-98b056c2fd356270

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Lifestyle/Culture

Super Sema episodes and clips have been viewed some 15 million times on YouTube.

PHOTOGRAPHER: KUKUA EDUCATION LTD.

SUPER SEMA FEATURES all the tropes typical of a superhero story—a greedy villain, a futuristic setting, and a do-good warrior who saves the day.

But there are a few key differences: The hero is a 10-year-old girl from a village in Africa, and to defeat the robot villain and his minions, she taps into courage and empathy—not superhuman strength—as well as her understanding of science, technology, and the arts.

The series is the creation of Kukua Education Ltd., a startup in Nairobi that aims to build the first media franchise based on an African animated superhero. On YouTube, the 20 episodes plus extras featuring dance instruction, science experiments, and craft-making have garnered 15 million views—“massive, for a new channel,”

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says Kukua’s founder and chief executive officer, Lucrezia Bisignani. The company expects to close a second round of venture capital financing in July and is working on Season 2, due to start in December.

Kukua, which means “to grow” in Swahili, says its combination of fun and learning can yield an online and offline franchise that appeals to children anywhere. Riding a global wave of interest in Afro-futuristic stories triggered by Disney’s Black Panther, the all-female team of executives has big plans for Sema: toys, costumes, comic books, virtual- and augmented-reality learning experiences, and perhaps even a Semaland theme park. “We want to be the Mickey Mouse of Africa, but with a strong learning component,” says

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African Superhero Sema Aims to Inspire Kids Worldwide

By Rebecca Penty, David Malingha

Vanessa Ford, Kukua’s chief operating officer and executive producer.

Hits such as Black Panther, Crazy Rich Asians, and Coco have shown Hollywood that stories featuring diverse characters set outside the U.S. or Europe are bankable, triggering a slew of African animated series. Mama K’s Team 4 by Triggerfish Animation Studios in Cape Town, about four teenage girls fighting evil in a futuristic Lusaka, is scheduled to premier next year on Netflix. Walt Disney Co. has at least three such shows in the works, including Kizazi Moto: Generation Fire, a sci-fi fantasy to stream on Disney+ next year.

And YouTube Originals, which is backing Super Sema, will release Supa Strikas: Rookie Season, a series about a fictional pan-African soccer team.

“The Africa market is so vibrant right now,” says Nadine Zylstra, who oversees family programming at YouTube Originals. “Hearing these pitches from young African talent, there is definitely the feeling that this is the generation that can use these digital tools to share their voice with the world.”

Black Panther was released just as Kukua was developing Super Sema and seeking financing in 2018, and its success convinced investors of the Kenyan series’ international appeal, helping the company raise $2.5 million. Then, as media giants sought to boost the diversity of their storytelling in response to the Black Lives Matter movement, Kukua landed its distribution agreement with YouTube. “There was a whole global awakening and new buzz around diverse properties,” Ford says.

Lupita Nyong’o, the Kenyan-Mexican actor who played Nakia in Black Panther, owns a stake in the company, serves as executive producer of Super Sema, and has brought her star power to the series by providing the voice of the tree that is Sema’s mother figure. The five-minute episodes weave in Kenyan cultural references such as mandazi—a traditional snack of fried dough—and Swahili 95

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sayings like Polepole ndio mwendo (“Slowly, slowly wins the day”). In one episode, the robot villain cuts down the forest to build a castle. Sema thwarts him with a drone and a special substance to replant the trees and trap him, showing off her critical thinking and grit while highlighting for young viewers the dangers of deforestation.

Kukua is incorporated in London, but most of its 11 employees are in Nairobi, where it did the voicing, music, and sound work for the first season of Super Sema. At the company’s offices in a townhouse complex in western Nairobi, the walls are plastered with framed Super Sema stills, storyboards, and photographs of notable women of color such as Kamala Harris and Oprah Winfrey.

To keep the content topical and educational, the team holds brainstorming sessions with child behavioral experts, parents, teachers, and environmentalists. “The episodes are informed by values that people would like to see in their own children,” says Clara Njeru, Kukua’s chief product officer.

Although Bisignani is White and was raised in Rome, she traveled widely in Africa when she was young as her parents sought to instill a global mindset in their children. She has since visited most countries on the continent and has long been captivated by its energy and entrepreneurial culture. After graduating from university, she realized media and mobile technology could help narrow the educational gap between Europe and Africa and dispel what she says is the flawed view of the region as impoverished, diseased, and corrupt. “It’s this thriving continent with 1.2 billion people, with a billion new kids being born over the next 30 years,” she says. “It’s incredible, and it’s never portrayed.” www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-24/ super-sema-marks-african-animated-tv-showson-netflix-nflx-disney-dis

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From Thatched Huts to Wakanda, a Massive New Architectural Guide Explores Sub-Saharan Africa

By NATE BERG ► Xavier Vilalta, Lideta Mercato shopping center, 2017. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

[Photo: Dom Publishers]

Mosque of Dioulasso-Bâ in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso, a fine example of Sudano-Sahelian architecture made of earth and wooden beams. [Photo: © Philipp Meuser/courtesy Dom Publishers] IN 2014, PHILIPP MEUSER was looking for information about architecture in Africa. His Berlin-based architecture firm, Meuser Architekten, was designing two German embassies, in Mali and Ghana, and he wanted to get a better sense of the history and variety of architecture in West Africa. But aside from a few academic research projects and one-off building profiles, he and his team weren’t having much luck. “There was no comprehensive overview,” Meuser says. “This was the motivation in the beginning to start doing an architectural guide.”

Seven years later, Meuser and his colleague Adil Dalbai have edited a sweeping architectural guide for the entirety of Sub-Saharan Africa for Dom Publishers, featuring more than 800 buildings from 49 countries. Illustrated by more than 5,000 images, the seven-volume guide fills more than 3,400 pages, and features essays and building profiles from an international group of more than 300 authors, including original essays from noted 96

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African architects like David Adjaye and Francis Kéré.

Covering a wide range of architectural styles— from the indigenous and colonial to the modernist and 21st century—the guide is a significant attempt to fill the gap Meuser and his team faced back in 2014. Dalbai and guide collaborator Livingstone Mukasa were recently awarded a grant from the Graham Foundation to expand this work into an online network to share more knowledge and information about African architecture.

But creating a guide to nearly an entire continent— now home to more than 1 billion people—is hardly a straightforward task. Here, Meuser and Dalbai discuss how they tried to encompass Sub-Saharan Africa’s architecture without oversimplifying it.

Fast Company: The scope of this project is a bit daunting. How did you go about tackling such a wide and diverse subject?

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◄ Yaoundé City Hall on Place de l’Indépendance, Yaoundé (Armand Salomon, 1982).

The Reunification Monument (Armand Salomon, 1974) in Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé. [Photo: © Adil Dalbai/courtesy Dom Publishers]

[Photo: © Adil Dalbai/ courtesy Dom Publishers]

Adil Dalbai: We have architects involved, authors, j o u r n a l i s t s , photographers, all kinds of different profe ssional backgrounds, and all of them brought with them their own views, their own take on the topics [and] countries they wrote about, so it’s totaled into this polyphonous work of many. We also invited participation from renowned scholars, professors from various universities from Africa, the African diaspora, and also from countries across the global south to give their input on how architecture in Africa can be perceived, what are the narratives that exist, which ones are changing, and how can we overcome the clichés and stereotypical tropes.

How did you go about selecting buildings?

Philipp Meuser: We do have hospitals, schools, and other social infrastructure, but for us it was also important to point out and to focus on everyday architecture. You’ll find the icons, but we also wanted to show normal architecture, how it is in 97

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reality.

AD: One of our aims was to bridge [what’s shown in] glossy architecture magazines where you have a luxury project with nice photos or some resorts and hotels, and then “slum porn,” as it’s sometimes called. We tried to show the whole range. And we do that by means of not only describing buildings, but also giving a lot of context information, which is crucial to understand how these buildings are embedded socially, spatially, geographically, historically, and politically.

Colonialism is a recurring theme in many African countries. It’s also evident in the built environment, with architectural styles that have been shaped by outside influences, and not always in positive ways. How did you address this in the guide?

AD: In some countries, the colonial architectural legacy is very disputed, very controversial, and we tried to reflect this in the text. Because in some places colonial times are not so long ago, and there was a lot of struggle. In other countries, the colonial architecture is very much incorporated into the contemporary national identity, in a way. see page 98

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► Museum of Black Civilizations in Dakar (Beijing Institute of Architecture, 2018). [Photo: © Adil Dalbai/courtesy Dom Publishers]

Architecture

from page 97

It’s adapted and accepted as part of the current built reality. Of course in some places it is still relevant to challenge these sometimes uncritical modes of perpetuating this architectural heritage. But you can find all kinds of different ways this heritage is dealt with. And in some countries, although a minority, there are even initiatives to preserve and restore this heritage, of course with the historical context of when and how it was built.

PM: There were some urban agglomerations in Africa before the Europeans, before the Indians, before the Arabs arrived. And these urban agglomerations were different from what we understand as urban culture. These were more marketplaces, and bigger villages. And in my understanding, I would say that the Sub-Saharan African city typology today is very much related to the agglomeration of villages. Of course in the 21st century you have denser city centers, and Africa has a high rate of urbanization. Within the next 30 years, more than 400 million people will move to cities or be born in cities, so that means there’s going to be a complete change in those cities, and the question is: How will those cities be developed? Are they following an Asian strategy or a European strategy or an American strategy, or will they find their own strategy?

AD: Most of the people in Europe or the U.S. that I showed the draft chapters to, many who have never been to Africa or had no special interest in Africa before, they were surprised to see the diversity, the variety. There is this whole spectrum, from the round houses to actual high rise, glass and steel, modernist, hyperfuturistic buildings.

There are a lot of African cities with these skylines.

Not exactly Wakanda, but very close to it.

There’s naturally a huge variety of building types

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and styles in the 49 countries included in the guide.

Were there any similarities or common themes?

PM: You also see this relationship between decorating the body and decorating the space … between climate, material, and construction methods. Of course, you see these round huts, with the cone-thatched roof. You see that everywhere.

But if you go deeper into the details, you see that they are all different. From village to village, they have different decorations, different sizes, different orders of the houses within the village. This is something that you can also see in the modern slum areas, places that do not have urban infrastructure.

You see similar patterns.

AD: It’s very difficult in a vast region and 49 countries to find very specific commonalities. But what we see, especially with the African authors in the book, is this common feeling that right now is a time when there are a lot of things happening all over the African continent. Even though in some places the economic situation is bad and some places are riddled by war and internal conflict and crisis, most of the places in Africa have a lot of drive, a lot of energy, a lot of new young architects, because there are a lot of new architecture schools and the first cohorts are graduating. The drive among the young African architects to find new solutions and their own solutions in relation to climate and material and construction, this is certainly something that can be found all over the continent. www.bbc.com/culture/article/20210326-howafrican-fashion-has-conquered-film

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Lifestyle/Culture

Milwaukee Bucks' Giannis Antetokounmpo Caps Extraordinary Postseason as NBA Finals MVP

By Jim Owczarski He suffered a hyperextended left knee in the Eastern Conference finals June 29 and somehow found a way to play in Game 1 on July 6. He played 35 minutes in his Finals debut, scoring 20 points on 54.5% shooting, pulling down 17 rebounds and handing out four assists.

He followed it up by making history in every game afterward.

Star big men Giannis Antetokounmpo and Deandre Ayton highlight a large number of players of African origin playing in this season’s NBA Finals between the Milwaukee Bucks and Phoenix Suns.

Giannis Antetokounmpo celebrates during the Bucks' Game 6 win That list includes the Bucks’ over the Suns. © Mark J. Rebilas, USA TODAY Sport Antetokounmpo (Nigeria), GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO COMPLETED Thanasis Antetokounmpo (Nigeria), Jordan the career most valuable player trifecta by being Nwora (Nigeria), Mamadi Diakite (Guinea) and named the Bill Russell NBA Finals MVP on Axel Toupane (Senegal), and the Suns’ Ayton Tuesday night after the Milwaukee Bucks’ 105- (Nigeria) and Abdel Nader (Egypt). The presence 98 championship-clinching victory over the of so many players from Africa in the Finals is the result of the league’s nearly 20-year presence on Phoenix Suns at Fiserv Forum.

Antetokounmpo becomes just the 11th player the continent, from basketball camps to full-on in league history to have won the regular-season academic institutions, and its continued efforts to MVP (2018, 2019), a Finals MVP (2021) and an All- bring more prominence and interest to the game Star Game MVP (2021). He and Michael Jordan of basketball to people across the globe. are the only players to claim those honors and also “For the NBA, it speaks to the growing a Defensive Player of the Year award. internationalization/globalization of our league He also joins Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the only and specifically speaks to the growth of the game Bucks players to have won regular-season and in Africa and with Africans,” NBA Africa CEO Victor Finals MVPs. They are two of just 17 players to Williams told The Undefeated. earn that distinction in league history. www.msn.com/en-us/sports/more-sports/milwaukeeAntetokounmpo is also the fifth international bucks-giannis-antetokounmpo-caps-extraordinaryplayer to win the award (Hakeem Olajuwon, Tim postseason-as-nba-finals-mvp/ar-AAMntoV Duncan, Tony Parker, Dirk Nowitzki). https://theundefeated.com/features/the-nba-finalsIt seems improbable to believe that even playing in features-a-strong-african-coalition/ the Finals was a real question for Antetokounmpo.

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History

What Western Appraisals of Kenneth Kaunda Left Out

By Howard W. French

Presidents Robert Mugabe and Kenneth Kaunda AP photo by Moses Mwape WHEN KENNETH KAUNDA, Zambia’s former president and founding father, died June 17, 2021 at the age of 97, what followed in the Western media was a series of entirely predictable and desultory summations of an African leader’s long career in politics and public life.

There was mention of his upbringing in the church in a part of Africa then known as Northern Rhodesia, and its lasting effects on Kaunda’s moderating humanism. There were the unfailing descriptions of his affectations, like carrying a white pocket square, which he pulled out to daub his eyes when occasionally shedding tears in public, or his love of the songs that were popular in the era of independence on the continent in the early 1960s, marking Kaunda as a sort of ancient relic compared to younger audiences that have 100

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seemingly forgotten them.

Most of all, though, there was a kind of facile verdict issued about a man almost patronizingly treated as likeable enough, perhaps, compared to many rougher African characters of his time, but sadly unequal to the task of leading a poor nation like his through the early phases of its independence. Almost all the foreign accounts concluded that he was a failure on two scores, both diplomatic and economic.

The verdict of failure, however, is mostly a matter of the Western press’s unwillingness to consider African history in any depth, or to candidly acknowledge just how hostile the tides of Kaunda’s era were to the prospects of African autonomy and development. Even less do they acknowledge just how profound the West’s contribution was to DAWN

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making life on the continent difficult.

This omission is most prominent in many of the Kaunda obituaries where they present him as a sentimental and naïve figure who, in his repeated diplomatic bids to engage with then-white-ruled Rhodesia and South Africa, failed to get them to moderate their behavior, whether by ending their persistent military efforts to destabilize or overthrow Blackruled Southern African states, or, Kenneth Kaunda (Zambia), Samora Machel (Mozambique) & Julius Nyerere (Tamzamia) later, by allowing colonialism in Zambia, as in most of Africa’s newly democracy to take hold in South Africa itself.

Seldom did these chronicles note how reticent minted countries in the early 1960s. Europeans the West itself, led by Britain and the United had done precious little to prepare their erstwhile States, was to accept Black rule in this part of ostensible wards for success. This meant few the world, with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald roads or other infrastructure, and little education.

Reagan temporizing about meaningfully opposing How little? Britain left Zambia at its birth with apartheid until late in the 1980s. Even the U.S. no universities and only 0.5% of its youth even State Department’s official website nowadays completing primary school. Such as it existed, the acknowledges much of this, saying that Western country’s economy consisted of copper mining, “defenders of the Apartheid regime … promoted it which was held entirely in foreign—mostly British— hands, leaving most of Zambia’s people either as a bulwark against communism.”

This era coincided precisely with the final leg of to subsist in the darkness of their villages—here Kaunda’s 27-year rule, and it is hard to see how meant literally, without electricity or most of the he himself could have achieved any more through other amenities that we usually take for granted— diplomacy when the greatest powers of the West or to pin their hopes on a life of dangerous and were still tacitly supporting South Africa’s white- low-paid migrant labor in South Africa.

Kaunda quickly took up the challenge of minority regime.

The troublingly ahistorical treatment of Kaunda’s education and by 1966 had created schools in life and career begins, however, at a much earlier every district of the country. Hemmed in by hostile stage. Few of the obituary writers even bothered Rhodesia and South Africa, meanwhile, he set to mention the crippling legacy of European see page 102 101

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History a leader who played a weak hand with boldness and imagination. Kaunda’s Zambia helped usher Beijing into the United Nations in 1965 and was rewarded soon afterward with what by some measurements remains the largest foreign assistance investment that China has ever made: a $500 million railway linking landlocked Zambia to the Indian Ocean via neighboring Tanzania.

The United States had notably refused to back the project, which allowed Zambia to bypass hostile South Africa and Rhodesia, and therefore maintain its political independence.

Sekou Toure, In their consensus view that Kaunda was a of Guinea failure in his economic stewardship of the country, the obituary writers committed perhaps their most egregious, but hardly unprecedented, oversight. What is most remarkable when one considers the record of his independence-era peers in Africa is how nearly all of them would have to be described as having failed when one applies the narrowest of conventional journalistic yardsticks, as these writers do.

This includes a range of progressives, some of whom were arguably much further to the left than Emporer Haile Selassie, Kaunda.

Consider Felix Houphouet-Boigny Kwame Nkrumah, of Ghana, who, spurned by the West, reached out to the Soviet Union Kaunda from page 101 for help in building the huge Akosombo Dam about forging new international relationships for to power his ambitions for rapid industrialization his nation, reaching out to the Soviet bloc, but based on an aluminum industry he aspired to remaining proudly independent of it as he helped build by drawing on the country’s large bauxite solidify the emergence of the new, so-called Non- reserves. Consider Sekou Toure, of Guinea, who spurned his country’s former colonial ruler, Aligned Movement.

Contrary to most of the recent portraits, this was the French, believing that it was preferable to leave his land’s enormous mineral reserves in the 102

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ground, where they would be conserved for future generations, rather than submit to Paris’ continued economic and political domination. Consider Julius Nyerere, of Tanzania, who sought to institute a new form of African socialism built on collective efforts to improve lives in rural villages, where most of the population lived, and thereby achieve greater national self-sufficiency. They all received negative verdicts just as sweeping as the ones just issued on Kaunda.

Where this becomes more interesting, though, is when one considers the economic records of Africa’s conservative leaders from the same era, even the ones who aligned themselves most enthusiastically with the West. One is hardpressed to find a ringing success story among this group either, and you will search in vain for true economic takeoff. Here, the career of Cote d’Ivoire’s late founding father, Felix HouphouetBoigny, is instructive. An ardent practitioner of capitalism, his three decades of rule ended with Cote d’Ivoire perennially ranked as one of the top global producers of cacao and coffee, but with poverty and stark inequality still endemic. Today, per capita income in a country once held up as a showcase for the West is an extremely modest $2,276, according to the World Bank, a razorthin margin higher than that of erstwhile socialist Ghana next door. Other countries that have been held up as economic darlings of the West for adherence to the prescriptions of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank—like Uganda, for example, where per capita income is $794—rank even lower.

Too few in the West, including those who direct policy toward Africa, take much interest in what this tells us. It is true that Africa has had more than its share of genuinely bad leaders, but that explanation for the continent’s broad failure to break through economically only gets one so far. Late in their political lives, with their nearly opposite politics—one on the left, the other on the right—Kaunda and Houphouet-Boigny each made bold, almost desperate gambles to break out of the economic holding patterns their countries had been locked into. Kaunda nationalized copper production in his country, in the hopes of ensuring that the revenues could be used to improve 103

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living conditions for Zambians instead of merely enriching foreign investors. Houphouet-Boigny withheld Cote d’Ivoire’s cacao from European buyers, hoping that he could shock world markets into paying a fairer price for his country’s most important commodity. Both bids failed, and both men were severely punished by markets that cared little for their people’s needs or aspirations.

What the writers of the facile conventional judgments about Africa’s modern political history fail to acknowledge is the level of difficulty faced by the continent’s fragile new states as they entered the world stage, crippled by the stinginess of colonial rule and daunted by a West that only took interest in them in shallow, episodic ways that were utterly framed by Cold War competition.

What Zambia or Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana or Guinea needed most then were investments that would allow them to begin transforming their own products into finished and semi-finished goods, as the start of a process of industrialization—and it is what they still need most now. And until that day comes, they will need rich Western countries to open up their markets much more widely than they have ever been willing to do for African goods, especially farm products.

It is this legacy of parsimony and neglect that caused so much of Africa to turn eagerly toward China when that country began to reengage with the continent more than two decades ago.

Nowadays, with no sense of irony, Westerners can be frequently heard to warn of an ongoing Chinese “takeover” of Africa. If it is true that, when it comes to offering African countries investment, China is mostly in it for itself, it is even more true that when it comes to accepting those offers of investment, African countries are also in it for themselves.

What is even more obvious is that where Africa is concerned, the West has never answered the call. https://newcoldwar.org/what-western-appraisals-ofkenneth-kaunda-left-out Source: www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/29751/ for-kaunda-s-zambia-independence-failures-wereexacerbated-by-the-west/ Image credit: pinterest, lavdc.net, blogspot.com

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History

The Portuguese Colonization of Cape Verde

By Mark Cartwright Listen to this article

THE PORTUGUESE COLONIZATION OF THE CAPE VERDE (Cabo Verde) Islands began from 1462. Initially envisaged as a base to give mariners direct access to West African trade, the Central Atlantic islands soon became a major hub of the Atlantic slave trade. Slaves were used on the sugar plantations of the islands and sold on to ships sailing to the Americas.

Unlike the other Atlantic islands under Portuguese control, the Cape Verde group was subject to arid winds and irregular rainfall, which made life there precarious. Given trading concessions for the African coast, Cape Verdeans did manage to make their agriculture sustainable, and their cotton textiles, in particular, were in great demand on the mainland. Cape Verde was strategically important as a base for resupply for ships sailing to and from Portuguese territories in the East Indies and Brazil. The islands sent African slaves across the Atlantic and used them to such a degree in the Cape Verde archipelago that eventually the population became racially mixed with few cultural ties to Europe by the 17th century. The islands gained independence from Portugal in 1975.

Geography & Climate Located some 500 kilometres (310 mi) off the coast of West Africa (Mauritania and Senegal), the Cape Verde island group is named after the westernmost cape of the African continent. There are nine inhabited islands today, the capital being Praia on Santiago (São Tiago). The most important port is Mindelo on São Vicente. The other islands are Boa Vista, Brava, Fogo, Maio, Santo Antão, São Nicolau, and Sal. Santa Luzia is an uninhabited island, and there are several islets.

The islands are varied in topography, with some being relatively flat and others mountainous. Pico is an active volcano on Fogo and the highest point in the group at 2,829 metres (9,281 ft). The 104

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islands are divided into two groups: the Windward (Barlavento) and Leeward (Sotavento), names which indicate the strong winds which can blow in from across the Atlantic.

The islands are not blessed with abundant water sources and rainfall is irregular, although often torrential when it does come. The soil is shallow but rich thanks to the volcanic origins of the islands.

The climate is usually moderate, but the arid winds meant wheat, vines, and olives could not be grown as on other Portuguese territories. There were few meat sources on the island, the only indigenous mammal being bats. One source of meat was the sea turtles which nest on some of the islets.

Discovery It is likely that Cape Verde was known to ancient mariners such as the Phoenicians, and to Islamic sailors and Africans.

Prince Henry the Navigator However, it was not until the 15th Nuno Gonçalves (Public Domain) century that anyone took a serious interest in populating the islands. Two Genoese mariners, sailing under the flag of Portugal, discovered the archipelago in 1460. Their names were Antonio and Bartolomeo da Noli.

The Portuguese Crown was keen to gain direct access to the gold of West Africa and the Cape Verde islands provided a handy means by which they could sail down the coast and avoid the Islamic states in North Africa who were themselves intent on monopolising African trade. The first major obstacle was a geographical one: how to sail around Cape Bojador and be able to make it back to Europe against the prevailing north winds?

The answers were better ship design - caravels using lateen sails - and a bold course setting out away from the African coastline and using winds, currents, and high-pressure areas to sail back home.

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Prince Henry the Navigator (aka Infante Dom Henrique, 1394-1460) had sponsored expeditions of discovery that led to the Portuguese colonization of Madeira (1420) and the Azores (1439). These islands proved useful stepping stones for mariners intent on expeditions of discovery further south. In 1462, it was the turn of Cape Verde to be added to Portugal’s maritime and agricultural assets.

In 1462 Portuguese settlers arrived on Santiago and founded Ribeira Grande, which would be the capital for the next 250 years. Initially, the islands were granted to Prince Fernando, nephew and heir of Prince Henry, but in 1495, they returned to the full control of the monarch, then King Manuel I of Portugal (r. 1495-1521).

While West Africa was, for the moment, Portugal’s to monopolize, there were some squabbles with Spain over the Atlantic islands, particularly over who should have possession of the Canary and Cape Verde Islands. The 1479-80 Treaty of Alcáçovas-Toledo set out that the Canaries were Spain’s domain while Portugal controlled the Cape Verdes, Azores, and Madeiras. There were also some additional vague clauses to the treaty that would cause trouble later such as Portugal’s right to future discoveries in Africa and Spain’s to islands beyond the Canaries, interests which were eventually identified as the Caribbean and even the Americas.

Settlement As with the Portuguese colonization of the Azores and Madeira, the Crown partitioned the islands and gave out 'captaincies' (donatarias) as part of the system of feudalism to encourage nobles to fund their development. The first 'captain' of Santiago was Antonio da Noli. Each 'captain' or donatario was given the responsibility of settling and developing their area in return for financial and judicial privileges, Accordingly, 'captains', in turn, distributed parts of their estates to their followers for development, parcels of land known as semarias.

Men given such land had the responsibility of clearing it and beginning cultivation within a set period. The captaincies became hereditary offices in many cases. The model of donatarias would be applied to other Portuguese colonial territories in the future, notably in Brazil.

Settlers were a mix of mostly Portuguese (particularly from the Azores and the Algarve 105

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Ribeira Grande, Santiago, Cape Verde Caspar Schmalkalden (Public Domain) region of Portugal), some Jewish migrants seeking religious freedom, undesirables from Portugal such as deportees, and a number of Italians and French. Later, English and African settlers came, too.

As with the Portuguese colonization of Madeira and the Azores, sugar cane was planted with high hopes. However, the aridity of the islands limited yields. Droughts and famine were not infrequent due to the highly irregular rainfall. Settlers introduced such animals as goats and cattle, and forests were cut down to make way for agriculture, much to the detriment of the soil in the long term.

Besides sugar, products of the Cape Verde islands included a red dye from the lichen orchil, salt deposits (on Maio, Sal, and Boavista), grains and roots of African origin, maize introduced from the Americas, manioc, and sweet potatoes. Horses were reared on Santiago in the 15th century which were then shipped to the African coast. The cotton textiles produced on the islands were in great demand on the mainland coast and were designed specifically for that market using traditional African patterns. There was, too, a specific Cape Verdean design - six stripes of white, black, and blue - and cloth strips of this design were even used as a form of currency on the islands.

The Portuguese Crown had granted Cape Verdeans the right to trade with the African coastal communities in 1466, and they were given tax exemptions. There were some conditions such as only residents who had been on the islands for four years could trade and they could only do so with see page 106

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Historical Map of the Cape Verde Islands Barent Langenes (Public Domain) Colonization from page 105

Diagram of the Brooks Slave Ship British Library (CC BY-NC-SA)

goods from the Cape Verde islands. These favours were likely granted because the agriculture on the island was not dependable. The arrangement meant that Portuguese trade settlements were established on the continent, which could take advantage of the well-organised African trade that saw goods travel from the interior along the major rivers (e.g. Gambia and Senegal) to the coast. Goods acquired included gold, slaves, ivory, pepper, beeswax, gum, and dyewoods. At this stage, the Portuguese made no attempt at conquest since they lacked the manpower and it was, in any case, unnecessary since the existing trade networks were so well-established and organised. Sometimes fortifications were built to protect trade centres, but these were always constructed with permission from the local chiefs.

The good trade relations between the islands and coast brought other advantages such as the possibility to lease land for cultivation when there were poor harvests on the islands and for the Cape Verdeans to offer refuge to exiles during tribal warfare on the mainland.

The islands continued to be of strategic value to mariners. Vasco da Gama’s historic voyage around the Cape of Good Hope to India in 1497-8 stopped off at the islands. Ferdinand Magellan’s epic expedition also called in for resupply at the Cape Verde Islands during the first circumnavigation of the globe in 1519-22.

Slavery The islands really gained wider prominence when the slave trade to the Americas took off. Cape

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Verde was ideally located to ship slaves from the African continent and then put them aboard the slave ships that crossed the Atlantic to be used as labour in plantations in the Caribbean, North America, and Brazil. On the return journey, these ships brought back trade goods which were then marketed through Cape Verde and on to Africa and Europe.

Slaves also worked on the sugar and cotton plantations on the Cape Verde Islands and in the industry producing indigo die. All three products were exported, along with island-made fabrics, to the African mainland and exchanged for slaves, which were then shipped to the Americas.

Slaves were given a number of basic lessons in Portuguese and Christianity, both of which made them more valuable if they ever made it to the Americas. These lessons also eased traders’ consciences that they were somehow benefitting the slaves and giving them the opportunity of what they considered eternal salvation. Around 3,000 slaves a year took the terrible and often deadly voyage across the Atlantic. Many free Cape Vedereans went, too, attracted by the possibilities of Portugal’s new presence in Brazil.

The Florentine merchant and slaver Francesco Carletti visited the Cape Verde Islands in 1594. He gives the following vivid description of the slave trade on Santiago: …we bought seventy-five slaves, two-thirds men and one-third women, both young and old, large and small. All were mixed together according to the custom of the country in a flock, just as in our country we would buy sheep, having first taken all DAWN

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History the necessary precautions to make sure that they were in good health, had good constitutions and had no bodily defects. Each owner then marks them, or to say it more appropriately, brands them with his own brand mark. This is made of silver and is heated in the flame of a candle made of tallow with which the burn is anointed. The mark is made on the breast, or the arm or the back so that they be recognised. …The slaves were embarked in the ship we had hired, the men below decks pressed and squeezed together one against the other in such a way that they had great difficulty in turning from one side to the other when they wanted to. The women were lodged after their own fashion on deck wherever they could find room in the ship.

(Newitt, 156-8)

had taken over Portugal in 1580 and so the Cape Verde Islands were seen as a legitimate target by Spain’s enemies. In 1598, a Dutch fleet attacked the islands as the international competition around West Africa became ever more intense. Trade routes also moved to the direct passage between Europe and West Africa so that the islands went into decline. A series of droughts throughout the 16th century further impoverished the islands.

In 1712, the French pirate Jacques Cassard attacked the islands with the consequence that Praia became the capital in a gradual process not fully completed until 1770.

Later History

As the fortunes of the islands declined, many Cape Verdeans migrated to the Portuguese islands of São Tomé and Principe or to North America As Cape Verde was much further from Portugal where the whaling industry offered employment. than the other Atlantic colonies (about two weeks This was especially so with the end of the slave sailing), so the islands attracted fewer European trade in 1876. The islands have always been settlers, especially women. As a consequence, strategically important and now they became Europeans and Africans intermarried on the useful as a refuelling base for steamships heading islands, creating an Afro-Portuguese culture across the Atlantic and down the coast of Africa, which had a strong African religious and artistic even if the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 influence. It was very often these free mixed-race meant that east-bound ships no longer had to Cape Verdeans who settled in the trading posts on go around the Cape of Good Hope. An important coaling station was developed for passing ships at the coast of Africa.

Another cultural influence was from the Portuguese Mindelo on São Vicente.

The various national groups on the islands ships sailing from the East which stopped off at the islands on their way back to Europe. As the intermarried early on in the island’s history and major junction between the Portuguese African, so the majority of today’s islanders are of mixed American, and Indian empires, the Cape Verdes European and African descent, known as mestiço were certainly a cultural melting pot. In addition, or Crioulo, which is also the name of the language the number of resident slaves steadily increased spoken (with Portuguese still dominating in more to eventually greatly outnumber the free settlers. formal contexts). Roman Catholicism remains By 1582, the populations of Fogo and Santiago, the dominant religion, and the Iberian peninsula still the two main islands, were made up of 1,600 still dominates imports and exports. Cape Verde whites and mixed-race mulattoes, 400 free blacks, gained independence from Portugal in 1975 in a less tumultuous handover than was seen in and 13,700 slaves.

The wealth going through the islands and their Portuguese colonies on the African continent. strategic value inevitably attracted unwanted The islands then became the Republic of Cabo attention from other European powers, notably Verde. Cidade Velha (formerly Ribeira Grande) England and Spain, but also pirates of various on Santiago is listed by UNESCO as a World nationalities. Pirates attacked the archipelago in Heritage Site for its rich colonial architecture.

1541, and the English came in 1585 and 1592. The www.worldhistory.org/article/1762/thefirst English raid was led by Francis Drake (c. 1540portuguese-colonization-of-cape-verde/ 1596 CE) and resulted in the sacking of several Also listen to this article settlements on Santiago. These latter raids had developed since Philip II of Spain (r. 1556-1598) 107

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Trade Shows/Exhibitions/Conferences

Events Around the African Continent and the World https://africamicesummit.com

Africities Summit 16-20 November 2021 Kisumu, Kenya https://africitieskisumu. co.ke

5th Invest In Africa Summit 2021 16-17 September 2021 Virtual www.africanleadershipmagazine.co.uk/ invest-in-africa-summit-2021-africanbusiness-leadership-award-abla/

2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference 1-12 November 2021 Glasgow, United Kingdom https://ukcop26.org

Africa Downunder 1-3 September 2021 Pan Pacific Perth, Australia www.africadownunderconference.com

Tropic Business Summit

13-16 October 2021 Hybrid Event Protea Hotel by Marriott Johannesburg Balalaika Sandton, Sandton, South Africa https://10times.com/tropics-businesssummit Youtube: https://lnkd.in/dirRSwc Facebook: https://lnkd.in/dpgFaxS

Africa MICE Summit

Afrochella 2021

9-11 September 2021 – Virtual Event

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December 26, through January 4, 2021 www.historicalafrica.org/events/ afrochella-2021 Accra, Ghana

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Celebrations

African Diaspora Independence Days J 26, 1960 R DJIBOUTI - J 27, 1977 R CAMEROON - J . 1, 1960 R SEYCHELLES - J 29, 1976 R HAITI - J . 1, 1804 R CONGO D R SUDAN - J . 1, 1956 D (KINSHASA) - J 30, 1960 F MOROCCO (I ) - J 30, 1969 G GRENADA - F 07, 1974 J R T GAMBIA - F . 18, 1965 R BURUNDI - J 1, 1962 SAINT LUCIA - F 22, 1979 R RWANDA - J 1, 1962 DOMINICAN REPUBLIC - F . 27, 1844 D R SOMALIA - J 1, A R EGYPT - F . 28, 1922 1960 WESTERN SAHARA - F . 28, 1976 D P R M ALGERIA - J 3, 1962 K MOROCCO - M 2, 1956 R CAPE VERDE - J 5, 1975 R GHANA - M 6, 1957 F I R COMOROS S MAURITIUS - M 12, 1968 -J 6, 1975 R TUNISIA - M 20, 1956 R MALAWI - J 6, 1964 R NAMIBIA - M 21, 1990 C THE BAHAMAS - J 10, A 1973 R SENEGAL - A 4, 1960 D R SÃO TOMÉ AND S N Z MOROCCO PRINCIPE - J 12, 1975 (M )-A 7, 1956 R LIBERIA - J 26, 1847 R ZIMBABWE - A 18, 1980 A MOROCCO (S S Z , R BENIN - A . 1, 1960 M )-A 27, 1958 R NIGER - A . 3, 1960 R SIERRA LEONE - A . 27, 1961 P D R BURKINA R TOGO - A 27, 1960 FASO - A . 5, 1960 M JAMAICA - A 06, 1962 P ' D R ETHIOPIA - G R CÔTE D'IVOIRE (I C )M 5, 1941 A . 7, 1960 R CUBA - M 20 ,1902 R CHAD - A . 11, 1960 S ERITREA - M 24, 1993 C R GUYANA - M 26, CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC - A . 13, 1960 1966 R CONGO (BRAZZAVILLE) R SOUTH AFRICA - M 31, 1910 A . 15, 1960 J GABON - A . 16, 1960 NIGERIA (B C N )-J 1, R R TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO - A 1961 31, 1962 A A ' R V S (J )-J 19, 1865 K SWAZILAND - S . 6, 1968 R MOZAMBIQUE - J 25. 1975 F S C ST. KITTS D R MADAGASCAR -

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AND NEVIS - S 19 1983 G BELIZE - S 21, 1981 R MALI - S . 22, 1960 R GUINEA-BISSAU - S . 24, 1973 R BOTSWANA - S . 30, 1966

O CAMEROON (B C S )O . 1, 1961 F R NIGERIA - O . 1, 1960 R GUINEA - O . 2, 1958 K LESOTHO - O . 4, 1966 R UGANDA - O . 9, 1962 R EQUATORIAL GUINEA - O . 12, 1968 R ZAMBIA - O . 24, 1964 G ST. VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES - O 27, 1979 MOROCCO (I Z ,T )O . 29, 1956

N G ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA 01 N 01, 1981 C DOMINICA - N 03, 1978 P ' R ANGOLA - N . 11, 1975 R SURINAME - N 25, 1975 I R MAURITANIA - N . 28, 1960 BARBADOS - N 30, 1966

D U R TANZANIA - D . 9, 1961 R KENYA - D . 12, 1963 LIBYA (S P ' L A J ) - D . 24, 1951 www.thoughtco.com/chronological-list-of-africanindependence-4070467 www.caribbeanelections.com/education/ independence/default.asp

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