The selection: Thursday, 8 December 2016

Starting today, in Addis: 5th Ministerial Retreat of the Executive Council. The Ministerial Retreats of the Executive Council, first held in January 2014, have become an important forum towards engagements on the key steps necessary to take forward the continental integration project, the effectiveness of the Union institutions and the implementation of Agenda 2063.

Today, in Windhoek: The Ministry of Industrialization, Trade and SME Development, in collaboration with the Namibia Trade Forum, will host a seminar on the CFTA.

Tomorrow, in Abuja: the ECOWAS Convergence Council will hold an ordinary session to determine progress made in implementing the roadmap of the Community’s Single Currency Programme and adopt the macroeconomic convergence report of member states.

Doing Business Trading Across Borders and Logistics Performance Index: similar yet different (World Bank)

People who look at the Doing Business report’s Trading Across Borders indicator and the Logistics Performance Index (LPI) often wonder why one country can perform well on one of the rankings but not so well on the other although they both measure trade and logistics. In fact, earlier this year, the Doing Business team organized a workshop at the World Bank Global Knowledge and Research Hub in Kuala Lumpur to clarify the differences between the two datasets.

East Africa: Customs administrations welcome more WCO involvement

The WCO/JICA Joint Project Manager introduced the upcoming activities to be held in 2017 in cooperation between the WCO and JICA. The participating Commissioners General and Commissioners Customs welcomed this development. The Trade Facilitation Project in East Africa is expected to be completed by December 2017 and the WCO is committed to work with JICA and Customs administrations in East Africa to achieve the project objectives together through the new framework of WCO/JICA cooperation.

Tanzania: How Kigoma porous border lose government revenues (IPPMedia)

A one-month investigation conducted by this paper has revealed that the government of Tanzania is losing billions of money per year in terms of revenues collections along Kigoma porous border with the neighbouring countries of Burundi and DR Congo. This follows the presence of more than two hundred illegal routes along the porous border of Kigoma which is more than 300 kilometres before snaking into the neighbouring Katavi Region.

Face to face with Beitbridge’s daring smuggling syndicates (The Standard)

A recent investigation by The Standard revealed that smuggling syndicates have mushroomed at Zimbabwe’s busiest port of entry following a government import ban imposed in July. While smuggling was common along the country’s porous border with South Africa through illegal entry points, the syndicates now have the audacity to transport their loot through the heavily manned Beitbridge Border Post. The syndicates are big and involve Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) officials, police, state security agents, soldiers, traders and members of the public, our investigations revealed.

Inactivity of EAC Attorneys General hampers legislation (New Times)

Presenting Bills proposed by the Council of Ministers to the East African Legislative Assembly for debate to facilitate EAC integration has become harder for lack of green light by the Sectoral Council. The bills must be scrutinised and accepted by the EAC Sectoral Council on legal and judicial affairs before submission to the regional Assembly. But sectoral council has not met for nearly two years, The New Times understands. During a recent EAC media training workshop in Nairobi, Peter Njoroge, director of Economics with Kenya’s Ministry of EAC Affairs, also noted there was frustration caused by the sectoral council. “If there is a sectoral council we are having problems with it is the sectoral council on legal and judicial affairs. They do not meet to look at legislation and this affects progress,” Njoroge said, while shedding light on issues concerning the East African Monetary Union project. [Isaac Mwangi: Creation of EAC committee of eminent persons still a mystery]

Central Africa: Sub-regional Coordination Mechanism update (UNECA)

Of particular interest to the Secretary General of the ECCAS Secretariat – H.E. Mr Ahmad Allam-Mi, who opened the session, was improved trade between countries of the sub-region. “The operationalisation of the ECCAS Free Trade Area should therefore be the priority of the priorities of activities to be included in the next Common Indicative Programme, otherwise the ambitious project for the construction of a Common Market in Central Africa will remain, a pious wish for yet a long time to come,” he said. The session ended with the adoption of an 18-month a roadmap for populating and kick starting the third Common Indicative programme (CIP III) for Central Africa’s development.

The political economy dynamics of regional organisations in Africa: a new project from ECDPM

In the next two years, our new PEDRO project wants to dig even deeper by looking into the political economy dynamics of 17 regional organisations in Africa. The study, carried out with support from the German ministry for economic cooperation and development (BMZ), will try to understand the actors and factors that shape how regional organisations play their role in promoting regional integration and cooperation. The three overarching research questions of this study are:

Uganda: We need Shs140b to collect more taxes, URA tells government (Daily Monitor)

In order to meet the target of collecting 16% tax ratio to GDP, the Uganda Revenue Authority says government needs to avail it with Shs140 billion to make massive investments needed to put in place all the necessary infrastructure and systems. URA Commissioner General, Ms Doris Akol, says the URA needs to make investments in IT infrastructure and compliancy mechanism by strengthening electronic tracking devices; open up more offices in Kampala and up country; and increase the staff. “URA has about 2,400 staff; one staff handles 7,000 payers on average. This is heavy work load for one person to do his or her work effectively. In other places we don’t have offices to reach out to the general public and collect tax,” she said.

Tanzania: Mafuru removed from the Treasury (The Citizen)

Arguably, the biggest surprise in President Magufuli’s latest reshuffle is the change of guard at the sensitive Treasury Registry. The new Treasury chief, Dr Mashindano, was a principal research associate with the Economic and Social Research Foundation. He replaces Mr Lawrence Mafuru.

Indonesia to finalize five trade deals next year in hunt for wider markets (Jakarta Post)

Apart from the five aforementioned deals, Indonesia is also preparing for other potential agreements. It is currently carrying out a joint feasibility study with the Eurasian Economic Union, a bloc that includes Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan and comprises 183 million people. It is also considering starting talks on a trade deal with either Egypt or Southern African Customs Union (SACU) and is reconsidering one with Turkey. In the planned deals, Indonesia will seek to lure investors into priority industries and export more of its champion manufactured goods.

African Economic Conference closes with call for agriculture to be at the centre of Africa’s development (UNECA)

“This should not just be another conference. There has to be some key actions going forward, deploying agriculture to spearhead Africa’s economic transformation,” Ousmane Dore, the Resident Representative of the African Development Bank’s Nigeria Country Office, said as he closed the meeting. Dore highlighted the Bank’s operations in Nigeria, a huge agriculture portfolio including the ENABLE Youth programme, which is assisting young graduates, or “agripreneurs”, to venture into a variety of agri-businesses. The theme of the conference was timely, he said.

Country CAADP Implementation Guidelines under the Malabo Declaration (pdf, AU)

We intend these to be ‘living guidelines’ that will be accompanied by follow-up information in the form of Technical Notes such as on market regulation, price control, input subsidies but also on management tools as the Medium Term Expenditure Framework, Agriculture Public Expenditure Review, Performance Assessment Framework. [Note: the Guidelines are also available in French and Portuguese]

Agricultural productivity in resource-rich African countries (UNDP)

Between 2003 and 2013, agricultural output in resource-dependent countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) actually grew at an average annual rate of 3.6%, slightly higher than the 2.7% growth rate experienced by the rest of SSA. Annual agricultural output growth rates in Angola, Cameroon and Zambia, for instance, averaged higher than 6% and were among the world’s highest growth rates. A closer look at the use of production inputs, however, indicates that much of the growth in agricultural output has been achieved by increasing the size of cultivated land and not productivity. Cropland grew at an annual rate of 2.6%, reaching a total of 103 million hectares compared to 83 million hectares in the previous decade. [The authors: Degol Hailu, Chinpihoi Kipgen]

Southern Africa: Humanitarian needs continue to spiral as peak of lean season looms (OCHA)

Southern Africa is now entering the peak of the lean season following the worst El Niño-induced drought in decades. With food stocks largely depleted due to poor or failed harvests across the region, estimates of people in need of humanitarian assistance have increased by more than one million to 13.8 million, mainly due to rising needs in Madagascar, Malawi, and Zimbabwe.

Sahel region: UN launches $2.66bn appeal for emergency assistance (UN)

“And we must, more than ever, shift ‘from providing aid to ending needs’ because extreme vulnerability in the Sahel is the most visible symptom of the triple crisis of governance, insecurity and climate change that affects this region. The demographic explosion, which will see the region’s population double in the next twenty years, exacerbates the situation still further,” Mr. Lanzer underscored. The Sahel regional appeal is part of the larger $22.2 billion funding request for 2017 launched by the United Nations Monday in Geneva, Switzerland.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution: Women’s jobs at risk from tech disruption (World Bank)

Our analysis of this report shows that in absolute terms, men stand to gain one job for every three jobs lost to technology advances, while women are expected to gain one job for every five or more jobs lost. These figures are based on our analysis of the statistics for disproportionate job losses from the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Survey results. Some of these job losses could be partially offset by emerging roles in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). But currently, these roles are very male-dominated. Women are expected to gain only one new STEM job per 20 jobs lost from technological disruption, while men are set to gain nearly one new STEM job for every four jobs lost.

Today’s Quick Links:

Egypt’s central bank governor says intervention in currency market is "history"

Uganda’s National Chamber of Commerce and Industry: what the chamber needs to remain relevant

Berbera Corridor Diagnostic Study undertaken

Donald Kaberuka joins Boston Consulting Group

Zimbabwe: DFID/grain millers import facility update

Angola: Locomotives start arriving to strengthen rail network

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