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tralac’s Daily News Selection
The selection: Monday, 8 August 2016
Today, in Nairobi: President Kenyatta will host a summit of investors, government officials and donors involved in infrastructure projects.
Southern Africa Business Forum: annual conference 24 August (pdf, SABF)
The Second Annual SABF Conference will focus on addressing critical issues which include: (i) sector specific challenges facing businesses operating in SADC; (ii) identifying projects that can spur socio-economic development in the region through joint private sector-SADC government engagements; and (iii) securing the resources required to make these projects a reality. The conference will be a central event at the 'SADC Industrialisation Week' which runs from 23-26 August. It will also be a precursor to the 36th SADC Summit of Heads of State and Government. The Conference will guide discussions and lead a Conference Statement on behalf of the Private Sector which will be shared at the High-Level Ministerial Meeting on 25 August 2016. SADC's Industrialisation Week will include the following activities:
Faizel Ismail: ‘The changing global trade architecture - implications for sub-Saharan Africa’s development’ (The Commonwealth)
What are the main changes in the global trading architecture over the past 15 years? How have these changes impacted on Africa’s economic development and the nature of trading relations between Africa and its traditional developed country partners, the European Union, the UK and the USA, and its main developing country partner, China? What are the implications of ‘Brexit’ – the UK’s departure from the European Union – for Africa’s trade? And how has the changing narrative of trade and trade integration impacted on Africa’s own strategy to integrate its market? This issue of Commonwealth Trade Hot Topics explores these questions and offers some policy recommendations for African policy-makers and trade negotiators. [The author is Adjunct Professor in the School of Economics, UCT. He previously served as SA's Ambassador to the WTO]
Justin Yifu Lin: ‘China’s chance to lead on development’ (Project Syndicate)
In time, China will likely be the world’s largest source of FDI. Having gone from being a recipient of FDI to a net contributor in recent decades, China is perfectly positioned to lead G20 discussions on global development. It should do so by setting a concrete goal for a workable development framework with a clear timeline for reaching specific milestones. An early milestone should be to establish a non-binding investment facilitation framework for developing countries. And, more generally, the agreement should emphasize inclusiveness and honest dealing to foster economic growth for developing and developed countries alike. [The author is the founding director of the China Center for Economic Research]
Chinedu Moghalu: ‘Enhancing Africa’s capacity for climate risk response’ (Premium Times)
The ARC is already off the ground. No less than 37 countries have signed up to the initiative, including Nigeria. The initial risk pool, which covered the 2014/2015 rainfall seasons, consisted of Kenya, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal. The drought insurance policies issued to the countries totalled nearly $130m in coverage for a total premium cost of $17m. The first set of insurance payouts, totalling over $26m, has been made under this initiative in January 2015, with Mauritania, Niger and Senegal benefiting as a result of drought conditions in these countries in 2014. Five other countries have since joined the pool. This has increased the drought coverage for the 2015/2016 rainfall seasons to over $190m.
However, the ARC aims to do much more. It targets up to 30 countries for coverage of its drought, flood and cyclone policies, totalling approximately $1.5 billion by 2020. An estimated 150 million Africans will benefit from the risk covers. For this, however, only $300 million in premium payments is required. This underscores the cost-benefit of early intervention through the African Risk Capacity which guarantees that every dollar spent on its insurance saves nearly four and a half dollars that would be spent after a crisis is allowed to crystallise. The potent question therefore is, how do Africans push towards the target coverage of the scheme? [The author is head of corporate communication at Nigerian Export Import Bank]
Politics hurts Kenyan growth prospects, says Kepsa survey (Daily Nation)
“80% of the 509 businesses involved in this study showed political demonstrations hit hard their incomes and threatened livelihoods but no politician seems to give a hoot to our cry. We have a role to reawaken politicians from slumber and force them to respect businesses first before doing anything else to pursue their own interests,” said Kenya Private Sector Alliance chief executive Carole Kariuki. The survey was conducted by Research firm Trends and Insights For Africa (Tifa), which was sanctioned by the alliance. Kepsa said Kenyan businesses were apprehensive of the political situation as General Elections neared and called for closer consultations to avert revenue and job losses. [Nic Cheesman: Inequality and political stability in Kenya]
East African Payment System: the mechanics explained (New Times)
However, Kagabo said central banks will use a unanimously agreed upon exchange rate shared daily across the region. “As for the exchange rate, we have agreed that at the end of each day, we will share the exchange rate of the currencies across the region to maintain the rates. We will be using a bilateral unanimously agreed upon exchange rate,” he explained. This means that a Rwandan trader importing goods from, Kampala or Nairobi will be able to travel and use the Franc for purchases and expenditures unlike now when they have to convert their money before travelling.
Taxes hindering growth of mobile services in Africa, new GSMA report says (The East African)
According to the policy manager for Africa at GSMA, Shola Sanni, the role of taxation is critical because it can either advance or hinder the development of the telecom sector. “In reality, tax policies don’t often reflect the development goals that many governments want for the mobile economy,” said Ms Sanni. “There is a need to harmonise our desire for digital inclusion and the advancement of the digital economy; we need to reflect that in the tax policy we create.” According to Ms Sanni, East Africa has too many consumer taxes.
EAC civil society views on the EAC-EU Economic Partnership Agreement (SEATINI-Uganda)
We, the members of Civil Society Organizations working on trade, fiscal and trade related issues in the EAC, would like to present our observations and recommen-dations in respect to stalled EAC-EU EPA signing. We wish to reiterate the following concerns which we have been raising since the inception of the EPA negotiations:
Ghana: TWN bemoans ratification of EPA with EU (Citi)
Speaking to Citi Business News, Sylvester Bagoroo, a programmes officer with the Third World Network Africa, bemoaned the process through which parliament assessed the agreement, describing it as lacking critical examination. “We at TWN Africa we are disappointed with what parliament as an institution has done. This is an agreement that was negotiated for over a decade because there were a lot of dangerous clauses in that agreement. We were expecting parliament to debate it at committee level for months,” he said. [Sahel and West Africa Club: latest newsletter]
African Speakers lobby for stronger continental assembly (EAC)
The 8th Annual Conference of Speakers was held last week in Midrand on the theme: Adoption of the African Union Treaties, in particular the new Protocol of the PAP. In his remarks, the EALA Speaker Daniel F. Kidega re-affirmed the need for African governments to speed up the ratification process of the revised Protocol of the Pan African Parliament. The Protocol among other things, aims at giving the PAP the opportunity to develop model laws and elections of members through universal suffrage once the electoral code is in place. “I am informed that 10 countries have already signed the amended Protocol, three have ratified, with only two depositing the Instrument”, Speaker Kidega said. “It is important to state that Africa is at a crucial time in its development and thus strengthening of AU institutions such as PAP, will improve integration of the continent”, he added. [Further details]
IGAD: communique of the Second IGAD PLUS Extraordinary Summit on the situation in South Sudan (pdf)
Underlines once again that the situation in South Sudan is a serious threat to regional peace, security and stability, and recognizes that the neighboring countries have been shouldering the heavy burden of the conflict since its outbreak in December 2013, including continued and intensive flow of refugees, as well as proliferation of illicit small arms and weapons [UN chief welcomes South Sudan's acceptance of African-led regional protection force]
Depressed energy prices playing key role in lowering food commodity prices (World Bank Blogs)
Energy prices fell 45% in 2015 and are forecast to drop 16% this year. Food prices are expected to average 26% below highs reached in 2011. Not only does energy make up more than 10% of the cost of agricultural production, energy price fluctuations affect incentives and policy support for the production of biofuels as an alternative energy source to oil. Scrutiny of these drivers helps explain declines in food prices after 2011. In that period, maize prices have fallen by 43%, wheat by 42%, rice by 25%, and soybeans fell by 23%. About one-third of this decline can be explained by the oil price drop. One-sixth of the decline is attributable to a rise in incomes during that period.
SADC Ministerial Committee of the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation: updates from SADC, from SA's DIRCO
Peter Kagwanja: 'New financing model puts Africa’s security resources into focus' (The East African)
Eritrea: UNDP-sponsored conference urges closer ties between scholars, development experts
Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam: construction update (Ahram)
Ethiopia: The end, the means (Africa Report)
Tanzania’s energy sector: TPDC set to go commercial to avoid ‘resource curse’, IOCs reluctant to invest in $15bn liquefied natural gas plant
China to stop export of fake goods to Africa (The News)
USDA announces reopening of Brazilian market to US beef exports
US international trade in goods and services, June 2016 (pdf)
Free trade’s diminishing returns: commentary by Vladimir Popov, Jomo Kwame Sundaram (Project Syndicate)
World Bank Board approves new Environmental and Social Framework
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