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tralac’s Daily News Selection
The selection: Friday, 19 August 2016
Featured tweet, by the EIU’s @RobertAlanWard: Africa export revenue to China falls off from 2015 as commodity prices wilt, trade imbalance widens.
A suite of postings for pan-African, Southern and East African trade and development conferences:
TICAD VI Summit: Over 40 heads of states, UN secretary general Ban Ki Moon and top AU officials will attend the sixth Tokyo International Conference on African Development summit at KICC in Nairobi next weekend. An estimated 10,000 delegates – 6,000 Africans and 4,000 Japanese – are expected to attend the event to be held at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (27-28 August). The Japanese delegates include executives of 100 top firms which are set to exhibit their products and scout for new opportunities in Africa. “We expect immediate economic benefit of hosting this event to double that of the recent United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD),” said Ms Mohamed at a media briefing on Thursday.
The 1st African Parliamentary Budget Office conference: During the conference (17-19 August, Cape Town) various PBOs within and outside the African continent will share their experiences and challenges, in particular on their creation, function and impact on fiscal oversight in their respective countries. The conference will also be a platform for different countries to learn from other experiences, especially because many African countries are developing their own PBOs. Other PBOs stakeholders and local and international bodies within fiscal oversight and broader accountability are also present at the conference. The secondary objective of the 2016 African PBO Conference is to create a platform for the development of an African Network of Parliamentary Budget Offices to facilitate regular engagements among members. The AN-PBO is proposed to be a platform for new and developed African PBOs to regularly share experiences and showcase successes. [Downloads include papers, speeches and the conference brochure]
Migration Dialogue for Southern Africa: The conference (16-18 August, Gaborone), on the theme Addressing mixed migration in Southern Africa - linking protection, immigration, border management and labour migration, is in partnership with the Government of Botswana, SADC Secretariat, UNHCR, UNODC and Save the Children. Participants – mostly senior government officials responsible for Home Affairs and Labour in the 15 SADC Member States – will deliberate on regional efforts to improve the region’s coordinated response to mixed and irregular migration. The focus will be on assessing the implementation of recommendations from the Ministerial MIDSA of 2015. Officials will explore related immigration, border management and labour migration issues to enhance the protection of vulnerable migrants and improve overall migration governance in the SADC region. The Southern Africa region has seen a rise in recent years in ‘mixed migration’, particularly coming from the East and Horn of Africa, the Great Lakes Region and countries in the SADC region itself.
Reminder: The Southern Africa Business Forum, in collaboration with the SADC Secretariat, hosts the Second Annual SABF Conference (24 August, in Swaziland) ahead of the SADC Summit (30-31 August)
Southern Africa data collection and the compilation of country and regional profiles: The consultative meeting (8-9 Sept, Lusaka) seeks to review draft country and regional profiles for 2016, and discuss the data collection processes that feed into the production of these profiles and into the ECA Databank. A review of the draft country profiles for Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Mauritius, Swaziland and South Africa as well as the quarterly updates on; Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe will be the main focus of the discussions.
Developmental regionalism, peace and economic transformation in Southern Africa: ECA Southern Africa Office and the African Peacebuilding Network of the Social Science Research Council are facilitating a regional forum (28-30 Sept, Mbabane) linked to a research project on the theme: “Developmental Regionalism, Peace and Economic Transformation in Southern Africa”. The main objective of the regional forum and research project is to interrogate the notion of developmental regionalism and how that applies to Southern Africa, especially within the context of the development trajectory of SADC, and the policy options and interventions necessary to ensure a sustained peaceful and stable regional developmental process in Southern Africa.
An East African regional anti-illicit trade conference: The broad objective of the conference (15-16 Sept, Nairobi), organised by the EABC and the Kenya Association of Manufacturers, will be to come up with proposed policy reforms and key recommendations for prioritised and expedited implementation. Key sectors affected by counterfeits and other forms of illicit trade will have an opportunity to discuss how their businesses are impacted, and what solutions they propose. EABC chief executive Lilian Awinja said they are pushing to have a robust legal and policy framework at the regional level to have proper enforcement and surveillance mechanism in all EAC partner states.
The inaugural East African Business and Entrepreneurship Conference: The East African Business and Entrepreneurship Conference and Exhibition (10-13 October, Nairobi) will be an annual event rotating in all partner states of the EAC, in collaboration with the respective investment agencies. The inaugural 2016 edition, organized by the East African Business Council, will take place with support from the Federation of German Industries. The national investment agencies of the EAC partner states will present actual bankable projects, thus pointing out the range of attractive investment opportunities emerging from national programmes and multinational development plans; moreover new opportunities arising from the regional harmonization processes will be highlighted. The conference will also focus on manufacturing, infrastructure, leather, textiles and energy in parallel sessions. [Draft programme, Conference brochure]
Rwanda to host 5th All-Africa International Honey Industry Exhibition: Some 2,000 participants, including researchers, policymakers, honey trade support networks, and development partners, are expected to attend the event (21-26 Sept, Kigali). Participants will be drawn from Africa, Middle East, Europe, and USA among others. Organized by ApiTrade Africa in partnership with Rwanda’s National Agricultural Export Development Board, the exhibition will feature bee products, beekeeping technologies, innovations and initiatives to promote the trade.
Call for papers: the Centre for the Study of African Economies Conference will take place on 19-21 March 2017 in Oxford. Submit your paper before 28 October.
Indian Ocean Commission: new Secretary General makes security his priority (SNA)
The newly appointed Secretary General of the Indian Ocean Commission said Thursday that security will be his priority during his four-year mandate. Hamada Madi Boléro made the statement after meeting with Seychelles’ President James Michel. “My mandate is going to be about security: food security, security of the persons and their assets, fighting against terrorism, drug trafficking, piracy as well as sanitary safety,” said Boléro. The new Secretary General said once there is security in all its forms, the member states will then be able to talk about developing the region.
Southern Africa: CSOs unveil public funds monitoring project for agriculture, health sectors (Zambia Daily Mail)
The Partnership for Social Accountability project is a consortium of four agencies that include Action Aid International as lead organisation, Eastern and Southern Africa Small Scale Farmers’ Forum, Southern African HIV and AIDS Information and Dissemination Services, and Public Service Accountability Monitor, and is supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. ActionAid Zambia country director Nalucha Ziba said reflecting on the UN Sustainable Development Goals agenda, the project will build the capacity of state officials and parliamentarians to more effectively manage public funds, support small-scale farmers and the media in holding leaders accountable. Ms Ziba said in the first three years of implementation, the project will focus on Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. “Parliaments must provide effective oversight, citizens must be free and able to monitor and hold them to account. By strengthening state and civil society, the project will improve public services in our region, particularly in health and agriculture,” she said in a statement issued to the Daily Mail yesterday.
Rwandan businesses eye DR Congo market (New Times)
Local entrepreneurs in agriculture are paying particular attention to neighbouring DR Congo as they look to boost their business. As such, the Private Sector Federation, particulary the Chamber of Farmers, is organising a three-day agri-business trade mission (24-26 August) to Goma, the capital of the vast neighbouring country’s North Kivu Province, next week. Nearly 50 traders, companies and cooperatives, including Rwanda Farmers Coffee Company (RFCC), Inyange Industries, Rwanda Mountain Tea, and Bourbon Coffee will head to Goma to explore opportunities.
Mauritius-Pakistan Preferential Trade Agreement (goods): report by the WTO Secretariat
The Preferential Trade Agreement between Mauritius and Pakistan is the fifth RTA notified by Mauritius to the WTO and the ninth RTA notified by Pakistan to the WTO. Bilateral trade between the Parties is relatively small. In 2014 Pakistan was the 26th largest source of imports for Mauritius (0.6% of total imports) and the 38th largest export destination (negligible export share) while Mauritius was Pakistan’s 48th largest source of imports (negligible share of total imports) and 62nd largest export destination (0.1% of total exports). In terms of total and bilateral merchandise trade between the Parties for the period from 2004-2014, both Parties ran a widening trade deficit globally. In their bilateral trade Mauritius had a trade deficit with Pakistan during this period although the figures on bilateral trade reported by the Parties show considerable differences, with Pakistan showing a reduction in its trade surplus with Mauritius since 2010, the decline is less clear from figures reported by Mauritius.
Senegal: AfDB's Country Strategy Paper, 2016-2020
Senegal is located far to the west of several other countries in the centre and, to some extent, has difficulties accessing its neighbours and the rest of ECOWAS and suffers from a serious infrastructure gap. As a result, the country needs to invest in infrastructure to improve its internal and external accessibility through regional programmes to reduce intra-ECOWAS trade-related costs. These infrastructure gaps represent bottlenecks to the development of agribusiness, value chains and the competitiveness of Senegalese products.
Senegal’s geographical location places it in a favourable position regarding links between the West African zone, Europe, South and North America and South Africa (intersection of maritime links between ECOWAS and these zones) and provides an opportunity the country should seize. Also, concerning regional integration, the Bank’s flagship study entitled Regional Integration in West Africa: Challenges and Opportunities for Senegal, indicates that several dozen products have not yet realized their full export potential with ECOWAS. 45 out of a total of 232 products traded by Senegal with the region were identified as having unsaturated export potential. Each of them is of interest to 5 or more countries in the sub-region (ECOWAS and Mauritania). These products mainly concern agri-food industries, chemical industries and the metal and electricity industry.
Making it happen: selected case studies of institutional reforms in South Africa (World Bank)
Based on interviews with senior policy makers, the book captures the how-to of designing and executing these policies in a variety of strategic areas, including increasing budget transparency, developing an intergovernmental fiscal system, strengthening tax administration, enhancing the statistical system, developing a modern performance monitoring and evaluation system, expanding HIV/AIDS treatment, reforming the social transfer system, creating a modern national identity system, developing a system for the management of biodiversity, modernizing the national road network management, developing the framework for renewable energy, and formulating the country’s much-lauded constitution. Tracing a twenty-year journey of transformation, this book places particular emphasis on recording the design of these reforms and endeavors to shed some light on the decision-making processes. In particular, it attempts to provide insight on the trade-offs policy makers faced, and the sequencing and complementarities among the various reforms. It finds leadership at different levels, adoption of pragmatic and innovative solutions, and the focus on results as among the key drivers in implementing these changes. [Implementing successful reforms: the case of social assistance in South Africa]
South Africa: Coega courts R11bn Chinese deal (Fin24)
The Coega Development Corporation has signed the biggest automotive investment deal in Africa in the last 40 years. The R11bn investment is with the Beijing Automobile International Corporation for a completely knocked down automotive manufacturing plant in the Coega Industrial Development Zone. The BAIC investment is an outcome of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) that was held in Johannesburg in December 2015, where President Jacob Zuma and Chinese Prime Minister Xi Jinping signed no less than 26 bilateral agreements valued at approximately R100bn.
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