HELP AFRICA FRIENDS

US$5 million for Ghana biomass energy project

2012-01-26T11:11:00.000+01:00

Accra, Ghana --- ESI-AFRICA.COM --- 25 January 2012 - Takoradi Renewable Energy Limited ‒ a subsidiary of the biomass producer and trader Africa Renewables Limited ‒ has secured a credit facility of US$5 million from Standard Chartered Bank in Ghana to support what it claims is its first biomass energy project in Africa.

After deals with GREL and Verdo Energy, the loan finalises AfriRen's Ghana distribution chain and should see the company double total biomass exports from Africa to Europe by 2016.

Founded in 2010, AfriRen will invest a total of US$8 million in its biomass extraction chain in Ghana, and will seek further funding of up to US$30 million in order to replicate the project across the West African region, benefitting from the upswing in European demand for biomass.

AfriRen harvests redundant rubber trees that are cut in order to prepare for replanting, and processes them into woodchips, helping displace the burning of coal and assisting Europe meet its renewable energy policy target.

The US$5 million credit facility is split into two components. Firstly a capital expenditure loan of US$3 million, which will be spent on a variety of new assets including development of their existing land near the port of Takoradi into a factory workshop and storage space for the woodchips.

The second component is a working capital facility of $2 million for operational expenses.

On being awarded the credit facility, COO Sonia Medina, said: “Standard Chartered has the credibility, reach and reputation we want. They are the leading bank in West Africa. Most importantly they have been extremely enthusiastic about our project and future plans from day one. The credit facility gives us a firm foundation while allowing us the freedom to expand quickly elsewhere in West Africa.”

The socio-economic advantages for both continents are unparalleled with Europe receiving a secure, long-term supply of biomass and Africa developing a sustainable green economy.

Is Africa Important to Meeting China's Growing Food Demand?

2012-01-24T10:12:00.002+01:00

Tuesday, 29 November 2011

Africa will in the next decade increasingly play an important role in China’s long-term food security agenda as demand for food in the world’s most populous nation threatens to outstrip its supply, according to Standard Bank research analysts Simon Freemantle and Jeremy Stevens.

In their latest paper “China’s Food security challenge: What role for Africa?” published this week, Mr Freemantle and Mr Stevens write that China is facing serious strains on both the demand and supply side of its agricultural sector and will in the next few years have to look externally to supplement its sources of food supply.

“Rising incomes and urbanisation are leading to dramatic increases in food consumption in China. China now consumes the second most amount of food in the world, behind the USA. It is expected that by 2015, China’s total food expenditure will double to over US$1-trillion. Meanwhile, China is facing increasing strains on agricultural supply. Urbanisation and industrialisation are swallowing up farmland, and diminishing water tables. Between 1996 and 2006, China lost 9-million hectares of farmland,” they write.

While for now China can and will look to its own sources to provide for the bulk of new demand, it is increasingly evident that China will be unable to ensure low-cost food for its large population without ramping up external sources of nutrition. Consequently, the authors note, Beijing is expected to increasingly align its aid and outward investment in agriculture to access new opportunities.

They comment: “In Africa, two core areas create an allure for China. First, given the manner in which the continent’s agricultural sector has persistently underperformed, the provision of develop-mental and technical assistance allows Beijing an important avenue in fostering and building deeper bilateral ties. And, second, Sub-Saharan Africa’s (SSA) immense and largely untapped agricultural potential is being increasingly viewed by China as a cog in an unfolding and inclusive food security strategy. For now, China’s strategy is overtly developmental, and, though commercialism inspires many of the cooperative farming projects, profits are generated almost entirely in local and regional markets.”

They note it is already clear that Beijing is seeking to build deeper relationships in agriculture with land-rich and politically stable countries that are friendly to China, such as Mozambique where China has made expansive agricultural investments.

They add that investments, backed by state-directed assistance, in these countries will increasingly look to produce the types of crops—such as soybeans and cotton—for which demand in China is elevated. Collaboration will also be pronounced in coffee, tea, rubber, wine, sisal; and tobacco production—emphasising select strengths already evident in Africa in the production of some of these commodities.

“Most of these initiatives will look to bolster China’s agricultural trade ties with Africa, though some, as has been evident in nascent moves in Latin America, will position Chinese firms to control the external source of production,” they write.

Mr Freemantle and Mr Stevens conclude that for Africa, managing Chinese interest in the agricultural sector will be critical. They note that Africa desperately requires capital and skills to elevate food security.

“The continent suffers from an acute lack of skills and capital in unlocking its inherent potential. Yet, as has been evident in many of the land leasing deals signed in SSA over the course of the past decade, too often investments are poorly structured, undervaluing the agricultural assets at stake. Managed well, partnerships with China can be meaningful. However, domestic food security must be placed first. Then, and leveraging Chinese aid, crops suited for China’s demand dynamics can and should be emphasised. Increasingly, green technology will provide cogent opportunities.”

10 African business leaders and thinkers to follow on Twitter

2012-01-18T11:45:00.000+01:00

A number of African executives are using micro-blogging platform Twitter to communicate their thoughts on business, politics and Africa’s development, as well as some more trivial subjects such as football.

1. Bob Collymore @bobcollymore

Position: CEO, Safaricom (Kenya)

Number of followers: 36,799

Interesting tweet: “@yegonstar: Hey @bobcollymore can i call you bobby for short???” How on earth can BOBBY be short for BOB??

2. Michael Jordaan @MichaelJordaan

Position: Chief Executive, First National Bank (South Africa)

Number of followers: 8,027

Interesting tweet: Rating agencies are paid to formalise the blindingly obvious, long after the markets have figured it out.

3. Trevor Ncube @TrevorNcube

Position: Chairman and Deputy Executive Chairman at Alpha Media Holdings (Zimbabwe) and M&G Media (South Africa)

Number of followers: 6,590

Interesting tweet: Am I the only one who thinks Sir Alex is enjoying gum more than football? #ManU #N’Castle

4. Chris Kirubi @CKirubi

Position: Africa’s 31st richest person (according to Forbes) with interests in a variety of industries (Kenya)

Number of followers: 21,693

Interesting tweet: A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship… What do you think? True or false?

5. Grant Pattison @GrantPattison

Position: CEO, Massmart (South Africa)

Number of followers: 775

Interesting tweet: Never Argue With A Fool – They Will Drag You Down To Their Level, Then Beat You With Experience!

6. Ashish J. Thakkar @AshishMaraGroup

Position: Founder and MD, Mara Group (Uganda)

Number of followers: 63

Interesting tweet: Being in #Dubai airport makes you think why we don’t have airports like this in #Africa. We need to adopt PPP’s and be more innovative.

7. Ory Okolloh @kenyanpundit

Position: Policy Manager, Google Africa (South Africa/Kenya)

Number of followers: 21,277

Interesting tweet: So if any reporter out there wants to do a non-overdone future of Africa story (hint don’t mention mpesa), youth bulge and farming is it.

8. Mteto Nyati @mteton

Position: MD, Microsoft South Africa (South Africa)

Number of followers: 329

Interesting tweet: Human beings try to control others but the human soul is hard wired to be free. Why do we waste time and effort ???

9. Mthuli Ncube @MthuliNcube

Position: Chief Economist and Vice President, African Development Bank (Tunisia)

Number of followers: 138

Interesting tweet: Africa’s ageing population is an opportunity for policy reforms and business opportunities in medical insurance and life assurance.

10. Linus Gitahi @LGtwits

Position: CEO, Nation Media Group (Kenya)

Number of followers: 2,566

Interesting tweet: It’s a paradox that the more disciplined I am, the more freedom I have…..similarly, the more I give, the more I seem to create wealth

The Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF) is offering funding up to $1.5 mil for innovative business ideas

2011-11-19T12:01:00.000+01:00

The Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF) is inviting private sector companies to compete for investment support for their new and innovative business ideas. The AECF makes matching grants or soft loan funding of up to US$1.5 million available to projects and business ideas with the greatest rate of return against its objectives.
The AECF has recently launched three new competitions that are open until 15 December 2011. The competitions were launched with funding from the Department for International Development (DFID) and the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA). The fund manager of the AECF is KPMG Development Advisory Services.

SUMMARY OF NEW COMPETITIONS

1. Renewable Energy and Adaptation to Climate Technologies Window Round 2 (REACT R2)

The REACT R2 competition will support business ideas in renewable energy, adaptation to climate technologies, and applications from financial institutions that wish to expand their lending in these areas. There is no restriction on where the applicant company is from, only that the projects must be implemented in one or more of the 5 countries in the East African Community. Applications related to adaptation to climate change technologies are particularly welcome in this round.

2. AECF Agribusiness Africa Window (AECF AAW)

The Agribusiness Africa Window is a competition open to agribusiness ideas (broadly defined) from across the continent of Africa. It will support business ideas across the whole agricultural value chain (production, processing, input supplies, logistics, etc) as well as rural finance, information and other service sectors associated with agribusiness and rural enterprise. AECF AAW will co-fund successful applicants with grants and repayable grants of between US$250,000 to US$1.5 million. Special consideration will be given to projects implemented in DFID focus countries.

3. AECF South Sudan Window (AECF SSW)

The South Sudan Window will support business ideas in agribusiness, associated service sectors and value chains which extend from the Republic of South Sudan to local and international markets. The criterion on project size has been adjusted to US$100,000 minimum and US$1.5 million maximum to attract more small and medium sized businesses.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

What is the AECF?

The AECF is a US$120 million private sector fund, backed by some of the biggest names in development finance and hosted by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). Since its inception in June 2008, the AECF has grown from strength to strength. To date the AECF has run 11 funding rounds and are now managing 52 projects, with an additional 32 projects approved for funding. What started out as a US$36 million fund is now at US$120 million and still growing!

How does my business apply?

From the AECF website (www.aecfafrica.org), you need to download the application form and submit it to the AECF before the deadline – it is easy to complete and only requires an outline description of your company and your project.

How are successful proposals selected?

All proposals submitted will be screened and the best will be shortlisted and forwarded to the AECF’s independent Investment Committee. Commercially viable proposals that are considered to have the greatest positive impact on the rural poor in Africa will be invited to present a detailed business plan. The final selection of business ideas will then be made.

Does my company have to contribute?

Yes. Your company must provide matching funds equal to, or greater than, 50% of the total cost of the project. The AECF aims to leverage its funds and applications from companies providing a greater percentage of the funds for the project from their own resources will be treated more favourably, all other things being equal. Similarly, those projects with a greater repayable grant percentage will have a greater chance of winning.

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Contact Details

For more information please send an email to info@aecfafrica.org, or visit our website at www.aecfafrica.org

Africa and Asia could become the epicentre of the global economy

2011-09-27T00:51:00.000+02:00

Developed economies had for long been regarded as immune to major breakdown. We now know differently. Decades of structural challenges, coupled with poor financial controls and sheer human greed, have left Europe and America with, as Harvard economist Dani Rodrik rightly puts it, “debilitating challenges”.

That’s bad news for the citizens of developed countries. And, yes, the crisis poses challenges for Africa, too. However, the challenges now faced by developed economies also present a unique opportunity to close the gap between developing and developed economies. Rodrik says of Europe and America’s fragile recovery: “In such an environment, rapid growth in the developing world is the only thing that could propel the world economy forward and generate increasing demand for rich-country goods and services – the only silver lining in an otherwise dreary future.”

I agree with Rodrik. Africa and Asia have the potential to become the epicentre of the global economy. That moment in economic history is now. Our immediate aim must be to fully unlock that potential and turn it into historic outcomes.

The questions we must now pose ourselves are the following: what are the drivers of unprecedented growth in Africa and Asia? And, perhaps more importantly, what must Africa and Asia do, immediately, to capitalise on this historic opportunity to converge on developed economies?

The central thought I want to build a case for is that global economic power is shifting, albeit slowly, from Europe and North America to Africa and Asia.

Africa and Asia have already learnt the important lessons of the debt and financial crises of the 1970s, 80s and 90s. African and Asian economies learnt, through bitter experience, the importance of sound macroeconomic management. They also came to appreciate that the state and the market needed to work in partnership, and that the liberalisation of capital accounts and markets was not a panacea for growth.

But, more is required of Africa and Asia in order to sustain growth levels in the future, and it is worth exploring what else, beyond the conventional wisdom, might ensure that Africa and Asia become the dominant players in the world economy, soon.

So what are the big, little-known truths, about Africa and Asia?

Fifty years ago most of Asia was at least as poor as Africa. South Korea had the same income level per capita as Sudan and Ghana’s citizens were richer than virtually all the Asians. As recently as 1982, average per capita income (PPP basis) in developing Asia was less than half that of Africa, but by 2008 Asia’s per capita income was double that of Africa. Put another way, in the last 20 years per capita incomes in Africa have slightly more than doubled, while incomes in developing Asia have jumped by nearly 11-fold.

China in particular has achieved what no country in history has done, doubling per capita incomes every 10 years over a period of 30 years. Through concerted leadership, China is transforming from a rural to a manufacturing economy which has meant that over a period of approximately 25 years, roughly 600 million people were lifted out of poverty. This meant a decline in poverty rates from 85% to 15%.

Whereas, currently, Africa accounts for just 2% of global GDP and Asia a further 25%, by 2050 Africa’s contribution will have risen to around 5% and Asia’s to an astonishing 50% so together they will account for well over half of global GDP. Over the next five years Africa is likely to take the lead with the highest average growth rates and will become the fastest growing continent.

This trajectory stays the same even if we take a slightly longer term view. Over the next decade, for example, many economists are forecasting that Africa will grow at an average of 7% per year, thereby maintaining its position as the most rapidly growing continent.

It is natural, of course, to wonder what the sources of these growth forecasts are. OECD countries, for example, have never achieved these average levels of growth for even a five-year period, let alone sustained over a number of decades. This fact alone points to deep differences in the sources of growth. It is critical, for precisely this reason, that we be wary of cutting and pasting solutions from one region of the world to other regions without taking full cognisance of structural differences. Indeed, even talk about “Africa” and “Asia” belies the reality that different economies within these regions themselves differ in salient respects.

Part of the growth spurt is, nonetheless, linked to significant general differences between Africa and Asia, on the one hand, and Europe and North America, on the other.

Some of the differences include Africa’s demographic transformation – the doubling of the population in the coming decades, rapid urbanisation and a youth bulge; the extent of arable land on the continent; and the extensive and accessible commodities which, in turn, create significant manufacturing, trade and investment opportunities.

Of course, even the demographic transformation is a double-edged sword. On the positive side, a growing population implies greater demand for goods and services which, in turn, translate into increased economic opportunity and activity.

Beyond the economic benefits of increased consumption, there are also benefits for various industries that flow naturally from this demographic transformation. In countries such as Angola, for example, the construction industry is in boom because the reality of rapid urbanisation is, precisely, that new infrastructure must be built.

Africa’s demographic trends count powerfully in favour of sustained growth. Africa’s workforce will become the world’s largest by 2040. Already, there are over 500 million people of working age, and there will be over 1.1 billion by 2040. Africa is in the position to reap the demographic dividend of a bulging youth population, at a time when all other regions, and not least Europe, are entering a period of dramatically increasing dependency ratios.

There are, fortunately, already positive signs of human potential in many developing countries being successfully harnessed to achieve demonstrable economic output. The number of engineers that are produced in India, for example, leave Europe and North America with little hope of successfully competing with India for scarce engineering talent.

What we need, however, is for the human potential of all the citizens of Africa and Asia to be similarly developed. Pockets of excellence are worthy of praise. But they must be replicated across the regions.

The point to be taken to heart is a strategic one: an educated, healthy, highly skilled and self-sufficient workforce must be the foundation of an emerging markets success story.

Education is critical. Health is critical. Partnership between governments, civil society and the private sector, glued together by a mutually beneficial vision of an alternative reality for Africa and Asia, is crucial.

So, Africa’s and Asia’s demographic transformations, if exploited with appropriate policy interventions, can indeed be the catalyst for bringing about the growth forecasts I started this article with. Africa’s GDP is approaching $2 trillion, larger than Brazil’s, with its consumers spending around $900 billion per year. Within 10 years, around 2020, its GDP will have grown by a further trillion, consumer spending will be close to $1.5 trillion and the population will be well over 1.5 billion.

These changes will be effected across multiple parts of the economy. The four groups of industries which together will be worth over $2.5 trillion in annual revenues in Africa are:

consumer facing industries (retail, telecommunications, banking),

infrastructure-related industries,

agriculture, and

mining and minerals.

Tanzania to Export Rare Earth Mineral

2011-09-22T11:34:00.000+02:00

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania — Tanzania is set to venture to export a rare earth, bastnaesite, following the discovery of a wide zone of the rare earth of the low grade earth material used mainly in the production of hi-tec products

The rare earth mineral has been discovered in the course of drilling done by a Canadian firm, Montero Mining and Exploration Ltd, at the Tumbili target at the Wigu Hill Rare Earth Project some 170 km south-west of Dar es Salaam city, and 68 km south of Morogoro.
According to the Minister for Energy and Minerals Resources, William Ngeleja, said the discovery shows Tanzania has huge potential for mining, and urged small Tanzanian miners to venture into the exploitation of such rare minerals.

"The Government will look for ways and means to help small miners around Wigu Hill to access the deposits according to the laws of the land," said the Minister.

He said that the Wigu Hill's first competitive advantage is that it is simple carbon material, unlike many rare earths which are found in deposits that are complicated by radioactive materials or silica, creating all kinds of processing, and costs.
Mr Tony Harwood, the President and Chief Executive Officer of Montero Mining and Exploration Limited told The East African Business Week in Dar es Salaam that the completion of a 1,525m drilling program at the Tumbili target on the South East side of Wigu Hill carbonatite complex and the discovery of a broader zone of mineralized carbonatite breccias will now map Tanzania among the Rare Earth producers in the world.

He said at present China produces 97 % of world supply of Rare Earth Elements (REE's), and due to the 21st Century technological progress and environmentally sustainable development associated with the rising prices of REE's and China's control over export quotas, it is becoming imperative that the rest of the world develops new rare earth resources to meet the increasing demand from 'green technology.'

Demand for rare earth metals is likely to rise by 48% due to digital revolution and popular hi-tech products such as iPods and smartphones.

INDIA-AFRICA BUSINESS PARTNERSHIP SUMMIT

2011-09-22T11:17:00.000+02:00

(Meeting point for serious business between India & Africa)

The 2nd Africa-India Forum Summit which was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in May 2011 set the stage for dynamic and vigorous engagement between India and Africa. In 2010, bilateral trade stood at US$46 billion; this is expected to reach US$70 billion by 2015. The resilience exhibited by the African and Indian economies during the recent financial crisis has strengthened the belief that this partnership holds great promise for the future. Africa’s economy has expanded by 4.7% in 2010 and is expected to grow at more than 5% in the coming years. The Indian economy, on the other hand, grew at 8.6% in 2010-11 and is projected to grow at 8.2% in 2011-12.

Government of India

12-13 October 2011, Hyderabad International Convention Centre, Hyderabad

India-Africa Business Partnership Summit provides the much needed platform to businessmen and policy makers on both the sides. Continuing with its endeavor of spearheading a comprehensive economic engagement between Indian and African economies, FICCI, with the support of Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India is organizing India-Africa Business Partnership Summit on 12-13 October, 2011 at Hyderabad International Convention Centre, Hyderabad.

The business summit would bring together the stakeholders like Ministers, CEOs, Managing Directors, Heads of Department of various corporate, Independent Consultants and many more, of the select priority sectors, from the economies of Africa and India at a common platform to share and showcase business opportunities for Indian and African companies.

Summit highlights:

• Two day international conference with specific sectoral round tables to gain insights into the African and Indian markets

• Two day exhibition to showcase the leading players in the identified sectors

• One to one business meetings with the captains of industry and visiting government officials for trade, investments and joint ventures

• Unit visits of the identified visiting delegates to your facilities on mutual consent and interest could also be organized (at own your own cost)

Focus sectors:

• Healthcare & Pharmaceuticals

• Information & Communication Technology (ICT)

• Power

• Agri-food & Allied Services

• Mining

• Infrastructure (Roads & Railways, Housing & Construction and Transportation)

Why should you attend?

• Meet the who’s who of the identified sectors from Africa and India

• Explore the trade, investment, joint venture and project export opportunities

• Information on African industry from profound experts

• Showcase the potential of your organization

• Exclusive B2B meetings

Who should attend?

• CEOs

• Managing Directors

• Head of International Business Development

• Consultants

• Project Developers

• Legal Advisors

• Head of Procurement

• Head of Logistics

• Chief Planning Managers

• Chief Engineers

• Project Managers

• IT Managers

• Township Planners

• Chief of Civil Institutions

• Infrastructure Managers

• Business Development Directors

• Investors

• Sectoral Nodal Institutions

Meet:

• Ministers/ Senior Government officials/ Key decision makers from the identified sectors

• Leading private and public sector companies

• Investors

• Procurement Agencies & Regulators

• Regional bodies

• Multilateral Funding Agencies

• Financial Institutions

• Manufacturers & Service Providers

• Importers and Exporters

• Technology & Equipment Providers

• Institutions & Consultants

Exhibition highlights:

• The two-day international exhibition will showcase the latest in technology, equipments and services in the identified sectors.

• The exhibition would provide the participating companies from Africa and India an exclusive opportunity to portray their capabilities in the sector to the high level clientele from Africa and India.

Contact:
Ms. Sneh Patel/ Mr. Saurav Mittal

Ph : +91-11-23487483, 23487489

Fax: +91-11-23765316

E-mail: sneh@ficci.com, saurav.mittal@ficci.com

$2.7 Million Solar Panel Factory Opens in Naivasha, Kenya

2011-09-05T16:33:00.000+02:00

Ubbink East Africa has built a $2.7 million solar panel factory in Naivasha, Kenya. Ubbink East Africa Managing Director Haijo Kuper said during the official opening ceremony that the company will be producing 100 solar panels per day at the new facility, noting, "Our prices are at par with our competitors. The market is huge. As one of the sunniest continents on the planet, Africa gives solar applications like LED-lighting, mobile charging, water pumps, street lighting very short pay-back times thus minimizing pollution levels."
Ubbink East Africa is currently manufacturing solar panels with outputs of between 13 and 120 watts, targeting rural households. Ubbink East Africa is a joint venture of Ubbink B.V - a wholly owned subsidiary of Centrotec Sustainable AG- and Chloride Exide (Kenya), its local partner, and is the first to make photovoltaic (PV) solar panels in East and Central Africa, Nairobi’s Business Daily reported.
Centrotec Sustainable AG CEO Gert-Jan Huisman said that almost 98 percent of the rural population in Africa does not have access to grid electric power supplies, and this was holding back rural economic development.
Solar panels have the added advantage of being environmentally friendly, as most common energy sources in the African countryside are currently highly polluting kerosene lamps and diesel generators.
By. Joao Peixe, Deputy Editor OilPrice.com

ENL Land of Mauritius Unit, Atterbury to Build $80 Million Mall in Zambia

2011-09-05T16:23:00.000+02:00

ENL Property, a unit of Mauritian company ENL Land Ltd. (SAVA), plans to build an $80 million shopping mall in Zambia as it expands in sub-Saharan Africa, Chief Executive Officer Gilbert Espitalier-Noel said.
The 25,000 square-meter (269,000 square-foot) project will be developed in Lusaka, Zambia’s capital, with South Africa’s Atterbury Investment Holdings, Espitalier-Noel told reporters today in Ebene, south of the capital, Port Louis.
ENL Property’s current developments total 20 billion rupees ($711.7 million), including residential projects and shopping malls. ENL and Atterbury’s first project is the 3.5 billion- rupee Mall of Mauritius at Bagatelle, a 42,000 square-meter development due to open on Sept. 29, it said.
The Zambian project is a stepping stone in Africa and part of the company’s “logical expansion” as it prospects other sub-Saharan countries such as Tanzania and Mozambique, Espitalier-Noel said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Kamlesh Bhuckory in Port Louis via Johannesburg at 1933 or gbell16@bloomberg.net

Cameroon to Spend 175 Billion CFA Francs on Roads Over 10 Years

2011-09-05T16:14:00.004+02:00

Cameroon, Africa’s fourth-biggest cocoa producer, plans to spend 175 billion CFA francs ($379 million) on constructing roads over the next 10 years.
The central African nation will build 350 kilometers (217 miles) of roads each year, Francois Felix Ewane, technical inspector at the Ministry of Public Works, said in an interview in Yaounde, the capital, today.
Cameroon’s roads, of which 5,000 kilometers or 10 percent are paved, are degrading as traffic increases an average of 5 percent each year, according to the ministry. Only 6 percent of roads are said to be in a good state, 21 percent are classified as normal, while 70 percent are mediocre and 3 percent in a very poor state, the ministry’s statistics showed.
The routes will be built around the country, including in the cocoa-producing south, center and east regions. Cameroon follows Ivory Coast, Ghana and Nigeria as the continent’s top cocoa growers. It also produces robusta and arabica coffee for export.
To contact the reporter on this story: Pius Lukong in Yaounde via Accra at ebowers1@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin at asguazzin@bloomberg.net

Saran Kaba Jones: A Young African Woman And Her Water Legacy

2011-07-12T01:16:00.000+02:00

Saran Kaba Jones

Africa’s got a lot of beautiful, remarkable women. Saran Kaba Jones is one of them.
A Liberian national, Jones, now 29, fled her country at the age of 8 with her family in the wake of a devastating civil war which lasted well over a decade. Returning home in 2008– nearly 20 years later, she came face to face with the harsh economic realities of a post-conflict Liberia. “The long and devastating civil war had left Liberia’s infrastructure in ruins – roads, buildings, health clinics, schools, farms and factories were almost totally destroyed,” she says. “There was no electricity, no running water or sewage system, and an inadequate education system.” Liberia was broken.
Saran is not one to whine about inadequacies, but rather the type who finds audacious and creative solutions to them. In order to address the problems of contaminated water, she founded Face Africa (www.faceafrica.org), a non-profit organization that provides access to clean and safe drinking water for rural communities in Liberia, using an innovative social enterprise model to fund water projects. Today Face Africa provides clean drinking water to tens of thousands of Liberians. I caught up with this remarkable Liberian lady via email, where she recounted her journey, professed her undying love for her people, and hinted on her quest for legacy.

Who Is Saran Kaba Jones?
I was born Saran Kaba, on June 21, 1982 in Monrovia, Liberia where I lived until I was 8 years old. I left Liberia in 1989 with my parents and 3 brothers when the civil war broke out. We moved to Cote d’Ivoire where we lived for 2 years with my mother’s family. In 1991, my father was appointed as an Ambassador to the Middle East by the interim government of Liberia led by Amos Sawyer and we moved to Egypt where we lived for 4 years, followed by 2 years in France and another 2 in Cyprus. In 1999, I came to the U.S. to attend Lesley College [in Cambridge, Massachusetts] and transferred during my sophomore year to Harvard College where I studied Government and International Relations. After college, I spent 5 years working in private equity for the Singapore Government’s Economic Development Board, a job I left in August 2010 to focus on FACE Africa full time.
Why did you set up Face Africa? Why are you doing this?
The path that led me to FACE Africa started really when I was a young child. I have always had a strong concern and compassion for others, and have always strived to help whenever possible. From a very young age, I was exposed to a world of diplomacy, travel and community service (my father was a public servant and career diplomat). Born in Liberia, my experiences traveling the world, as well as my time spent living in four different countries (Ivory Coast, Egypt, France and Cyprus), made me certain I wanted to do something internationally that would help people, and specifically my native Liberia – I just never knew what. One thing I did believe was that the most effective way to bring about positive change in Africa and end the cycle of poverty was to invest in the education of its young children.
In 2005, I began sending funds back to Liberia to help a young family friend with his school fees. After two years, he went on to complete high school and enrolled at the University of Liberia where he is currently a student. When I realized just how much of an impact my rather small support had made, I decided to scale up my efforts and dedicated myself to improving the lives of those less fortunate. I had also read Bill Clinton’s book “Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World,” a book I highly recommend because it really touches on the power we all have to make the world a better place and give others a chance to live out their dreams. The book inspired me tremendously and made me want to do more – something on a larger scale. In early 2008, I launched FACE Africa… with the goal of providing educational opportunities to children and young adults in Liberia and other war-torn countries.
In October 2008, during my first visit to Liberia in nearly 20 years (I left Liberia years when I was eight years old), I was faced with the harsh realities of a post-conflict Liberia and the enormous challenges facing the country. My visits to various communities, orphanages, markets, clinics, etc exposed me to a cycle of poverty for which I was woefully and naively unprepared. The long and devastating civil war had left Liberia’s infrastructures in ruins – roads, buildings, health clinics, communications networks, schools, farms and factories were almost totally destroyed. With one of the highest unemployment rates in the world, extreme poverty with average earnings of $1 a day, no electricity, no running water or sewage system, and an inadequate education system, the country had enormous needs.
I left Liberia somewhat depressed and disheartened but also had a new found understanding of the needs and challenges as well as ways in which I could contribute to the rebuilding efforts. One of the areas that I felt needed immediate attention was the water and sanitation issue. The war destroyed major water points and water systems, forcing millions of Liberians to go without access to clean and safe drinking water and proper sanitation facilities.
In October 2009, with a $10,000 grant from the Davis Project for Peace [a Vermont-based charity], we began implementing our first clean water project in Barnesville, Liberia. The project involved the installation of a water purification system capable of producing up to 20,000 liters of drinking water per day and currently supplies over 600 residents with clean drinking water. Exactly one year later, we broke ground on a water and sanitation project in a small rural community called Joezohn with no access to safe drinking water or sanitation facilities. The project was implemented in partnership with Concern Worldwide [an international humanitarian organization based in Ireland] and funded with the help of a $20,000 grant we received from the Chase Community Giving Program.
What do you hope to achieve with Face Africa in the long term?
The world water crisis is one of the largest public health issues of our time, causing 2 million deaths every year. In Liberia alone, millions of people do not have access to clean water and sanitation facilities. At FACE Africa, we believe that providing clean and safe drinking water is the first step to breaking the cycle of extreme poverty. We have an ambitious yet simple goal: clean, safe drinking water for EVERY SINGLE person in Liberia! And once we have accomplished that goal, we plan to target other African countries, with an emphasis on post conflict environment with similar challenges and needs as Liberia.
Your organization is called ‘Face Africa,’ but you seem to be focused on Liberia. Do you have any future plans of expanding and reaching out to other parts of Africa?
We figure we can have the greatest impact by focusing on one country at a time and have selected to focus on Liberia. Liberia only recently emerged from 14 years of civil war which left it a collapsed state: 80% unemployment; extreme poverty with average earnings of $1 a day; no electricity, landlines; running water; or sewage system. According to a recent CDC report, a necessary starting point in rebuilding the country is to provide access to clean drinking water and sanitation facilities. Improving water quality is therefore our first line of attack.
How long has Face Africa existed? What are your most pleasant memories in all the time you’ve run the organization?
FACE Africa is a very young organization and we obtained our non-profit status in January of 2009. We began operations in Liberia later that year. Since 2009, we have raised close to $250,000 and by the end of this year, will implement enough clean water projects to benefit over 10,000 people in Liberia.
There’s nothing more pleasant or fulfilling than seeing the smiles on the faces of women and children who no longer have to travel miles every day to fetch contaminated water and can now drink water without worrying about getting sick from it. Seeing the look of pride on the faces of the community residents who were involved in the entire process of implementation warms my heart. Hearing from parents about how their children no longer complain of stomach problems is also a highlight of my work.

How do you raise funds for the organization?
We raise funds through three main avenues: 1) Online donations through our website using Paypal or credit cards, 2) Annual fundraising events throughout the year with our main fundraising event being the Annual Gala held every March to commemorate World Water Day. You can read more here. 3) Through small corporate and foundation grants such as those we received from the Davis Project for Peace, the Chase Community Giving Program and the Global Neighborhood Fund. Donors can get more information about our work via our website or contact us at: contact@faceafrica.org. They can also read about other ways to get involved with FACE Africa here.

What inspires you?
I am inspired by my generation! A community of smart, ambitious, socially conscious young men and women who believe they have the power to change the world and make it a better one. Being a part of this dynamic group of young people who share my interests, passions and beliefs is the most inspiring thing ever. Feeling like I am part of a movement encourages me to push myself harder to make my contribution to this community really count. I’ve become a better and more creative person in the process and I have my generation to thank for it. I hope to also inspire other young people to work towards leaving our world a bit better than we met it.

We podcast AICO Africa’s investment analyst presentation

2011-07-01T11:31:00.000+02:00

We are proud to announce that we have podcasted the full investor analyst presentation of AICO Africa Limited. AICO Africa Limited is our 22nd listed company client and the 5th in the agricultural sector. To cater for slow internet links we have published a low resolution and a hi resolution version.

AICO is Zimbabwe’s leading diversified agro-industrial conglomerate (with a market capitalization of approximately US$96m) and owns dominant brands in the seed, cotton, FMCG industries in Zimbabwe and surrounding regions, and is the holding company of Seed Co Limited (market capitalization +/-US$252 million), Olivine Industries and the Cotton Company of Zimbabwe Limited.
AICO is the second company in Zimbabwe to professionally podcast their analyst presentation and is one of the few listed companies in Zimbabwe that is actively disseminating information on its long term investment story as its businesses emerge stronger from the hyper-inflation that ended in March 2009 when the Zimbabwe economy dollarised.
AICO’s new website and communications tools are designed to push information to investors and stakeholders as soon as it is released. AICO also actively solicits feedback of the recipient of their email alerts and the company has invited investors and stakeholders to register and communicate with AICO – you will be assured of a response.
You will also be interested to note that so far my survey on online investor relations practices in Africa reveals that 54% of respondents think that regulators should take the lead in using the internet to disseminate listed company information. Only 26% feel that listed companies should lead the way. AICO is a company that is leading the way –as their online investor relations practices are among the most progressive in sub-Saharan Africa and set a leading example for its peers.
Published on 29 June 2011 by AfricanisCool in For investors, For listed companies, For regulators

ECOWAS to Emulate Chinese Devepment Model

2011-06-27T16:47:00.000+02:00

Beijing — ECOWAS would explore the possibility of emulating the integrated approach to development which has transformed China into an economic giant for the benefit of the citizens, the President of the ECOWAS Commission, His Excellency, James Victor Gbeho, has said in Beijing.
At a meeting with the Chinese Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Zhai Jun, at the start of a week-long visit to mobilize additional Chinese support for the development of West Africa, the President said that such a development approach would enable the region to realize the dividends of democracy more expeditiously. "ECOWAS will continue to look at the Peoples Republic of China as a source of inspiration on how to bring economic progress and integration to the West African region," affirmed President Gbeho, who is leading a high-level ECOWAS delegation for talks aimed at strengthening cooperation between China and the Commission and its Member States. He conveyed the gratitude of the ECOWAS Chairman and Member States to the Government and people of the Peoples Republic of China, for their contribution to the development of West Africa.
Recalling the historic links between China and ECOWAS Member States which dates back to about 50 years, Ambassador Gbeho also used the opportunity to thank the United Nations Security Council of which China is a member for their support and understanding which contributed to the resolution of the recent political crisis in Cote d'Ivoire. Welcoming the delegation, Minister Jang said West Africa has a lot to learn from China which has prioritized the development of its infrastructure as the surest way of bringing development to the people in an integrated manner. He assured the delegation that China would continue to cherish its relations with the region through a deepening of cooperation toward the realization of West Africa's development objectives.
The ECOWAS delegation was also at the China-Africa Development Fund (CADfund) where President Gbeho canvassed the Fund's support for the development of the region's infrastructure and agriculture. He listed the priority areas to include investments in the energy, roads, rail, water and agriculture sectors, noting that in spite of its immense potentials, the region is characterized by subsistence farming with low productivity. To improve food security, the ECOWAS chief said efforts were being intensified to introduce business elements into the region's agriculture, adding that some Community Member States had already drawn up investment programmes with the purpose of infusing business elements into the sector. CADfund is active in the region with investments in the energy and other sectors. President Gbeho said the key objective of the mission is to deepen and strengthen cooperation between China and ECOWAS through increased private sector collaboration.
The visit, which is under the auspices of the 2008 Memorandum of Understanding between ECOWAS and the China Council for The Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) ,also enabled the ECOWAS team to hold discussions with officials of the China-Africa Joint Chamber of Commerce, the Export-Import Bank of China, the China Development Bank and the Deputy Minister of Commerce, Mr. Fu Ziying.

USA/Africa-Trade Mission to Cameroon

2011-06-24T12:28:00.000+02:00

Praxis Management Advisors LLC

Invites you to a Presentation at the

Prince George’s County Africa Trade Office

“Trade & Business Mission To Cameroon

July 22nd – August 2nd

Buea, Douala, Limbe & Yaoundé

CAMEROON

”

Business Leaders & Entrepreneurs are invited to find out about the opportunities in Cameroon. Meeting will take place:

Thursday, June 30th at 10am

Location: PG EDC, 1100 Mercantile Lane Suite 115A, Largo, MD 20774

Admission: FREE

Opportunities in:

Renewable Energy, Road & Bridge Construction, Seaport & Airport Construction, Real Estate Development, Telecommunications, IT, Cloud Computing, Nanotechnology, Banking,

Investments & PPPs, Tourism, Healthcare,

Distance Learning & Curriculum Development, Higher Ed Services, Research Park Construction,

Mining Services, Manufacturing, Import/Export, Data Services, Logistics & Agriculture

For More Information and to RSVP: Viola Llewellyn Email: vllewellyn@PraxisAm.com

Tel: 301-583-4615 OR Tel: 202-390-2165 (RSVP Deadline Wednesday June 29th

Time is getting short to invest in African financial services

2011-06-24T12:14:00.000+02:00

Companies looking to enter Africa’s financial services space need to move quickly as the window of opportunity is rapidly closing.

In a report titled At the tipping point: African financial services come of age, consulting firm Accenture notes that due to growing income levels, many Africans are embracing financial services. However, once consumers have access to a particular bank or insurer, they are not likely to switch easily.
“So companies that hang back now may find that the early movers have already gained an unassailable lead at a defining moment,” says Accenture. “Decisions that companies make now with regard to Africa will shape their future ability to participate in the continent’s rapid expansion over the coming years.”
The report says that many African and international banks and financial services firms are already positioning themselves to capitalise on the continent’s underserved markets.
In recent years there has been considerable merger and acquisition activity in the financial services area. To name a few: Barclays has bought stakes in South Africa’s Absa bank and Nile Bank in Uganda; the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) acquired a 20% share in South Africa-based Standard Bank; and Portugal’s Banco Espírito Santo bought 25.1% of Mozambique’s Moza Banco. “Soon there will be fewer . . . companies to buy,” says Accenture.
Many lenders have also secured partnerships with mobile network operators to develop their mobile banking capabilities. “Telecom providers typically establish close partnerships with only a few selected banks, so their dance cards could soon be filled.”
Accenture has developed a Tipping Point Index, which ranks the maturity and attractiveness of Africa’s financial markets. Key factors such as financial infrastructure, consumer financial services and economic development have been used to segment African countries into four distinct groups.
Established markets
Key characteristics: Mature financial markets. Large stock and bond markets. High percentage of bank assets and retail deposits relative to GDP. High percentage of people with bank accounts.
Countries: South Africa, Mauritius
Forging ahead
Key characteristics: Fairly large, mid-level income economies. Relatively well-developed institutional frameworks, but awaiting critical financial reforms. Emerging stock and bond markets. Lower percentage of people with bank accounts. More difficult business environments than established markets.
Countries: Nigeria, Botswana
Next movers
Key characteristics: In the process of overcoming barriers of low income, limited financial access and institutional or governance deficiencies. May lack fully developed stock and bond markets.
Countries: Kenya, Ghana, Senegal, Zambia, Namibia, Uganda
Transitional economies
Key characteristics: Constrained by poverty. Little or no access to financial services. Difficult business environments. Lack of financial infrastructure.
Countries: Gabon, Angola, Tanzania, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Sudan.

AFRICA: Eight business opportunities for June

2011-06-14T16:45:00.000+02:00

Below are eight business opportunities entrepreneurs in Africa can pursue in the month of June.

1. Vending machines – the ultimate passive income business
Pro Vending, South Africa’s leading supplier of vending machines, is offering entrepreneurs in Africa the opportunity to run their own full-time or part-time businesses. The machines can also be used by shop owners to boost sales at retail outlets. Read more
2. Manufacture quality beverages for the growing African market

Soda King, a manufacturer of soft drinks and purified water, is offering business people and entrepreneurs across the continent a unique franchise opportunity to establish a localised bottling plant. Read more
3. Tap into the market for furniture
Furniture manufacturer Outdoor Lifestyle is expanding into Africa and seeking distributors in the rest of the continent. Read more
4. Establish your own ice manufacturing business
Minus 40′s Ice Block Maker offers an excellent business opportunity for entrepreneurs across Africa. The company has drawn-up a full business plan that entrepreneurs purchasing the Ice Block Maker can follow. Read more
5. Manufacturing company looking to partner with stakeholders in Africa
Calculus Products is offering firms in Africa a complete solution to all their manufacturing needs. The company is also enthusiastic about assisting stakeholders in expanding their manufacturing capacity. Read more
6. Grow your business by investing in bottle filling technology
Aspiring entrepreneurs as well as established food and beverages companies can benefit from using Marefa International’s state-of-the-art bottle filling equipment. We sat down with Marefa’s Peter Vermaak to talk about the company’s products and the opportunities in bottle filling. Read more
7. Why dairy production is a good business venture
Central Milk, a South Africa-based manufacturer of stainless steel equipment for the dairy industry, is able to offer African farmers a complete solution for the establishment of a dairy processing facility. Read more
8. Fruit juice has good potential in Africa
Pacmar, a contract packaging company, is seeking capable distributors in West and East Africa for its own brands of fruit juice. Read more
All the above business opportunities are sponsored advertisements. For more information about promoting business and investment opportunities on How we made it in Africa, email us at sales@howwemadeitinafrica.com

Made in Ethiopia: The story of Holland Car

2011-06-14T16:38:00.000+02:00

When Tadesse Tessema’s company first started to sell its locally assembled cars in Ethiopia, one of the biggest challenges was to convince the public that its vehicles were of the same quality as the brands imported from the west.

Holland Car's Awash Executive model in Addis Ababa.

“Our main achievement is that we have been able to change the minds of the people,” says Tessema, general manager of Ethiopia’s first indigenous vehicle assembly company Holland Car.
Born in Ethiopia, Tessema lived in the Netherlands for many years. During his occasional visits to Ethiopia he discovered a big demand for cars. So he created a company which exported used vehicles from the Netherlands to Ethiopia. After a while he, however, spotted an opportunity for local assembly. “I thought, why don’t I go back and assemble new cars in my country.”
To access funds for the new business, Tessema went into a joint venture with a Dutch firm, Trento BV Engineering. This allowed Holland Car to obtain additional funding from the Dutch government. After launching operations in 2005, the company in 2006 celebrated its first assembled car during a ceremony at the Hilton hotel in Addis Ababa.
All car parts are imported from China and assembled at a facility outside the capital. The Daily Monitor newspaper earlier reported that Holland Car used to import parts from Chinese auto manufacturer Lifan Motors. This partnership was later ended and the company currently works with JAC Motors.
At first the assembly plant was only able to turn out one car per day, but following additional investments and facility improvements, the company currently has the capacity to produce up to six units. Tessema wants to increase this to ten cars per day. He also has plans to go from assembling cars to manufacturing the parts as well.
All Holland Car’s models are named after rivers in Ethiopia, with names such as Abay, Tekeze and Shebelle. Tessema says this is to emphasize the cars’ local credentials and to foster a sense of national pride.
Plans are also underway to roll-out a biogas powered car. The goal is to not only assemble the vehicle, but to also produce the gas itself. Holland Car is, however, seeking further government assistance before going into full-scale production. “From the distance we have travelled so far, we have come to the conclusion that there is nothing to hinder us from manufacturing biogas cars here in Ethiopia,” reads a statement on Holland Car’s website. In addition, the company is also marketing a mass transportation bus designed and manufactured in Ethiopa, for both the local market as well as the rest of the continent.
With a population of around 80 million and double-digit GDP growth rates in recent years, many are viewing Ethiopia as the next big investment opportunity in Africa. Last month, Ethiopia’s newfound importance as a business destination was confirmed when it was announced that the 2012 World Economic Forum on Africa will be held in Addis Ababa.
Tessema says that companies like Holland Car are changing perceptions of Ethiopia. He said that “the sky is the limit” for investors looking to do business in the country and that “now is the time” to invest.
Africans themselves need to grab hold of the opportunities on the continent. “Investors from Asia are coming to invest money here, while we Africans still sit down and wait,” Tessema notes.
He believes that the African diaspora can play a significant part in the continent’s transformation. “If 10% of these people can come back to Africa, most of the problems in Africa would be solved. Governments have to give the opportunities . . . and incentives to bring these people back . . .”

UO to export sustainability expertise to Gabon

2011-06-13T23:08:00.000+02:00

University of Oregon President Richard Lariviere, left, speaks with Gabon President Ali Bongo Ondimba following the Friday signing ceremony to establish a joint research center at the UO and in the west-central African nation of Gabon. (Photo by Peter Lockley, courtesy of University of Oregon.)

By Christina Williams
Sustainable Business Oregon

University of Oregon is establishing a joint research center headquartered in Eugene and Gabon, West Africa, to study sustainability, economic development and natural resource management.
Richard Lariviere, UO's president, was in Washington, D.C., Friday to meet with Gabon President Ali Bongo Ondimba to sign the agreement, which will include research and training.
The Gabon-Oregon Transnational Research Center on Environment and Development is part of the university's Global Oregon Initiative, one of UO's five "Big Idea" priorities for research and teaching.
In a press release, President Ondimba emphasized the educational benefit the agreement will bring to Gabon.
"This unique cooperative agreement will enable us to address our urgent educational needs and also modernize our universities and research centers," he said.
The Oregon African Studies Consortium, which includes UO, Oregon State University, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland State University and Willamette University, will partner with the Gabonese government to create a new model for sustainable development in Africa.
Gabonese leaders are pushing to move from an economy based mainly on oil to sustainable natural resource management, low-impact ecotourism and significant investments in education and human capital development.
Gabon, nestled south of Cameroon and west of Congo, has a population of 1.5 million and its economy is supported by its coastal and offshore oil industry. It also boasts national parks covering 11 percent the country, with rain forests covering much of the rest.
While it's sometimes called the "Eden of Africa," Gabon is not without its problems. A meeting between President Ondimba and U.S. President Barrack Obama was called into question this week because of human rights and corruption charges leveled at President Ondimba's family.
"Gabon can be recognized as the place in Africa for a green, sustainable model of development," said Dennis Galvan, an Africa expert, associate professor of international studies and co-director of the Global Oregon Initiative at the UO. "There are few places where you can learn about how to do this in the U.S., and Oregon is at the cutting edge of sustainability and green development. So Gabon is making a strategic investment for its future by partnering with the UO."
Collaboration in the project could include organizations such as the Smithsonian Institution, which has had a center in Gabon for several years and will help in developing a forest and ecosystem management curriculum

Hedge funds 'grabbing land' in Africa

2011-06-09T23:56:00.000+02:00

Hedge funds are behind "land grabs" in Africa to boost their profits in the food and biofuel sectors, a US think-tank says.

In a report, the Oakland Institute said hedge funds and other foreign firms had acquired large swathes of African land, often without proper contracts.
It said the acquisitions had displaced millions of small farmers.
Foreign firms farm the land to consolidate their hold over global food markets, the report said.
They also use land to "make room" for export commodities such as biofuels and cut flowers.
"This is creating insecurity in the global food system that could be a much bigger threat than terrorism," the report said.
The Oakland Institute said it released its findings after studying land deals in Ethiopia, Tanzania, South Sudan, Sierra Leone, Mali and Mozambique.

Foreign firms are snapping up farming land in Africa, a new report says

'Risky manoeuvre'
It said hedge funds and other speculators had, in 2009 alone, bought or leased nearly 60m hectares of land in Africa - an area the size of France.

"The same financial firms that drove us into a global recession by inflating the real estate bubble through risky financial manoeuvres are now doing the same with the world's food supply," the report said.

It added that some firms obtained land after deals with gullible traditional leaders or corrupt government officials.
"The research exposed investors who said it is easy to make a deal - that they could usually get what they wanted in exchange for giving a poor tribal chief a bottle of Johnnie Walker [whisky]," said Anuradha Mittal, executive director of the Oakland Institute.
"When these investors promise progress and jobs to local chiefs it sounds great, but they don't deliver."
The report said the contracts also gave investors a range of incentives, from unlimited water rights to tax waivers.
"No-one should believe that these investors are there to feed starving Africans.
"These deals only lead to dollars in the pockets of corrupt leaders and foreign investors," said Obang Metho of Solidarity Movement for New Ethiopia, a US-based campaign group.
However, not all companies named in the report accept that their motives are as suggested and they dismiss claims that their presence in Africa is harmful.
One company, EmVest Asset Management, strongly denied that it was involved in exploitative or illegal practices.
"There are no shady deals. We acquire all land in terms of legal tender," EmVest's Africa director Anthony Poorter told the BBC.
He said that in Mozambique the company's employees earned salaries 40% higher than the minimum wage.
The company was also involved in development projects such as the supply of clean water to rural communities.
"They are extremely happy with us," Mr Poorter said.

Africa's Green Revolution may be a long time coming

2011-06-02T00:30:00.000+02:00

Africa needs the kind of Green Revolution that caused a huge leap in agricultural productivity in many parts of the world in the 20th century. But efforts to change how farmers work may take decades.

Bill Gates speaks after a meeting on global food security with US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack (l) and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner (c.) last spring at the Treasury Department in Washington, DC. Finance ministers from the United States, Canada, Spain, and South Korea, as well as the leadership of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, met to announce an initial contribution of $880 million for a new fund to tackle global hunger and poverty.

It's tough to keep your eye on the long view when the prospect of famine is at the door. But that's what organizations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, CARE, and the United Nation's World Food Programme are trying to do more and more.
The old adage seems to have truth in it: Give people a fish, they eat for a day. Teach them to fish, and they can feed themselves for a lifetime.
The Gates foundation is committed to spend $1.7 billion to alleviate the underlying conditions that create poverty and hunger in Africa, says an Associated Press story. But it may take two decades or more to bring its work to fruition.

"It takes years and years to shift the system," says Roy Steiner, deputy director of global development for the Gates foundation. "Giving food to people is certainly necessary when there's a crisis," he said. "But these people don't want to be depending on outside charity. And, frankly, who is going to pay for all of that food being given?"
The "fishing poles" that it and other relief agencies are trying to provide include more drought-tolerant seeds, better fertilizers, educating farmers on better farming techniques, and helping them get their crops to market more easily.
Agriculture has come under the spotlight as world population grows along with concerns about how changing climates may affect food production. A report released yesterday by the aid agency Oxfam, called Growing a Better Future, "warns that spiraling prices and endless cycles of regional food crises will create millions more hungry people unless we transform the way we grow and sell food." It predicts that the price of basic foods such as corn could more than double in the next 20 years.
What's needed in Africa is the kind of Green Revolution seen in other parts of the world in the 20th century. Whether genetic-modification of plants will be a key part of the answer in Africa remains to be seen (see "How science could spark a second Green Revolution").
The Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, led by African scientists, economists, and business leaders, helps small farmers, especially women, improve their farming methods. It's just one effort receiving aid from the Gates foundation.
By Gregory M. Lamb, Staff Writer / June 1, 2011

Africa Becomes Attractive To Foreign Investors

2011-06-02T00:03:00.000+02:00

A few weeks ago, Ernst and Young launched the maiden edition of its annual Africa Attractiveness survey. It’s a must read for anyone serious about doing business in Africa. The survey analyzes the attractiveness of Africa as an investment destination for foreign direct investors and is the result of analysis from 500 international business leaders polled from a diverse range of industries.
The consensus: The continent is becoming more attractive than ever before to international investors, and perceptions are becoming more distinctively positive as a result of the improved socio-economic growth that has pervaded the continent. They agreed that Africa is the region with the fastest economic growth rates and the highest return on investment (ROI), and as the continent continually makes improved strides in political reform, macroeconomic stability and social development, these trends are likely to improve.
It’s a good time for the continent. Foreign direct investment (FDI) flows have strongly increased in the last decade, and it’s expected to get even better. Projected capital inflows are expected to hit the $150 billion mark by 2015. Among other things, this anticipated payday is fueled primarily by ever-increasing population growth and an unprecedented explosion in the size of the middle class. According to a recent report by the African Development Bank, it is estimated that at least 310 million Africans (about 30% of the population) now fall within the middle-class bracket, which makes for an increased consumer market base demanding to be serviced with new goods, products and services. These components have opened up untold opportunities for foreign direct investors, making Africa an investment haven of sorts.
It’s a great time to invest in Africa, and while the continent might be savoring its new-found sexiness to foreign investors, there is still a lot of work to be done. Despite the growth trends, Africa still attracts less than 5% of global FDI projects. This is relatively low when looked at on a global scale. The reasons include political instability and an inadequate level of education in several countries.
More importantly, major African countries still suffer a dearth of infrastructure. Take Nigeria, for example: The country has suffered a major setback through a devastating electricity crisis it has suffered for several decades. Unfortunately, successive governments (even the current one) have displayed a lackadaisical commitment towards providing a lasting solution to the problem. Businesses cannot function effectively without electricity; hence, foreign businesses that would have otherwise thrived in the country have to look elsewhere. Similar infrastructural deficits are replicated in several countries all over the continent. Furthermore, corruption, despite experiencing a downturn, still remains a major component in doing business in several African countries.
But in spite of these little shortcomings, Africa is still the next best place to put your money. It’s about time you stepped in.

Mfonobong Nsehe The Africa Chronicles

Follow me on Twitter @EmperorDIV

TANZANIA-INDIA A Rewarding Relationship

2011-05-31T01:15:00.000+02:00

DAR ES SALAAM, May 27, 2011 (IPS) - The Indian prime minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, concludes a three-day visit to Tanzania on May 28. Singh arrived in Dar es Salaam from the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, where he took part in the Second India-Africa Forum Summit, which began on May 20.

The Tanzanian leg of his overseas trip has reinforced already close cooperation between the two countries, and comes at an opportune moment for the Tanzanian government in its search for foreign investment.

Tanzania and India have long historical links. The first bilateral cooperation agreements between the two countries date back to January 1966, just two years after the official birth of Tanzania from the union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar in 1964. (Zanzibar is an island off the coast in the Indian Ocean.)

The total value of trade between India and Africa stood at 31 billion dollars in 2009-2010; trade between Tanzania and India exceeded a billion dollars that same year. India is Tanzania's leading source of imports (900 million dollars in 2010) and the second largest investor, after Kenya, according to the economic desk at the Indian embassy in Tanzania.

India's involvement with Tanzania can be explained first of all by the large Indian Diaspora which in this East African country. The first Indians arrived here more than 90 years ago, shortly after the First World War, when the League of Nations designated the territory as a protectorate under British control. At independence in 1961, a large number of Indians remained in the country and today occupy an important place in the country's economy.

According to figures provided by the Indian embassy in Dar es Salaam, the economic capital, there are 40,000 Tanzanians of Indian origin, and an additional 8,000 expatriate Indians. The Indian community lives mostly in the country's major cities, where they are involved in commercial enterprises and industry.

At the first India-Africa summit held in New Delhi in 2008, India and Tanzania agreed on cooperation in two key areas, food security and health. In line with this, a first batch of 288 tractors arrived from India in October 2010, to help Tanzanian farmers achieve better yields.

"Four hundred others, of an eventual total of 1,700, will arrive soon," the Indian ambassador to Tanzania, Kocheril Bhagirath, told journalists this week, stressing that the country will continue to support Tanzanian agriculture.

For 45 years, Tanzania has benefitted from Indian expertise in numerous domains. "The partnership is very dynamic," says the Tanzania-India Friendship Association, headed by the former Tanzanian prime minister Salim Ahmed Salim. "India has helped us to realise some of the millennium development goals, particularly in the health sector."

A new hospital is to be constructed in Dar es Salaam in 2013, which will be co-managed by the Tanzanian government and a private Indian firm. It will offer specialist treatment that is not currently available in the country, with patients forced to seek treatment overseas.

In 2010, day-patient units for treating cardio-vascular complaints were established in two clinics in Dar. The city's Lions Club - financed by diasporic Africans - has also sent 2,000 Tanzanian children suffering from serious cardiac problems for treatment in India, according to the Indian embassy.

Even before that, in 1996, Tanzania's first private university, the International Medical and Technological University, opened in Dar es Salaam, a project supported by the Bangalore-based Vignan Educational Foundation.

Also expected to be raised during the Indian prime minister's visit is the struggle against terrorism and Somali piracy. Piracy has disrupted maritime trade in the Indian Ocean that both countries depend on and the possibility of cooperation between the naval forces of the two countries was to be discussed, according to reports.
By Arnaud Bébien

Africa does not need irresponsible investments

2011-05-30T23:50:00.000+02:00

The World Bank has sent a strong notice to foreign investors who want to invest in Africa saying that the continent does not need irresponsible investments.
In a speech delivered as part of celebrations to mark the African Union Day, the World Bank Vice President for the Africa Region, Obiageli Ezekwesili told investors and African ambassadors in Washington DC that even though Africa is open for business, it is not open to just any business.
“Africa does not need the irresponsible investments that have for many decades unleashed corruption and degrading conditions upon those they claim to serve”, Ezekwesili said.
The continent can only afford responsible investments, she emphasised.
According to Ezekwesili, Africa needs investments that are people-focused and pro-poor, promotes Africa’s efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, helps in creating jobs and promotes transparency, accountability as well as good governance.
Investments that bring about the emergence of an African middle class and build the skills Africans need to compete in today’s global and knowledge-based economy, she added.
Analysts have projected that FDIs into Africa will grow in the coming years.
Global financial experts, Ernst & Young has predicted that FDI into Africa will reach $150 billion by the end of 2015.
The World Bank, in a document titled “Africa’s Pulse” estimates that at the end of 2011, foreign direct investments (FDI) into Sub-Sahara Africa will hit a record high of $40.8 billion.
The extractive industries is expected to receive majority of these FDIs into the continent due to its perceived potential growth with some sectors such as tourism, consumer products, construction , telecommunications and financial services emerging as attractive investment options, it said.
The World Bank indicates that FDIs into Africa rose to $32 billion at the end of 2010 with prices of oil and metals exports seen as the main drivers.
By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi & Ekow Quandzie

UNBANKED AFRICA SUMMIT 2011

2011-05-27T17:55:00.000+02:00

Mobile phone: An opportunity for low cost Banking in Africa.
Africa, home to over 800 million people is still grappling with significant unbanked populations even among the urban populations across cities, semi urban and rural communities.Regulators, innovators, technologist,financial services providers, international developmental organizations and governments are rallying around this significant dilemma of Banking the unbanked African.
New exciting technologies like the Mobile and cards are bridging the wide divide with innovative solutions like agency Banking, mobile financial services, community and micro finance Banking.
Unlike any other place on the Globe, mobile financial services is ushering a new dawn and hope to millions of unbanked people in Africa. Bringing convenience of banking anytime and anywhere using the mobile phones as a means of authentication for basic financial services. The mobile technologies is proving to be the solution to a century old challenge as a transformational channel for previously unbanked which are accessing services for the first time through the convenience and security of the mobile phone.
The ubiquitous mobile phone with the strong compelling needs of Africans, coupled with sheer ingenuity is changing lives and connecting Africans to the global e-commerce ecosystem which is more advanced with formal Banking services.
With the wide spread availability of the Mobile phones across regions in Africa, the unbanked African is only an sms away!
Plan to attend a one day summit which will proffer practical regulatory, technological, commercial solutions to the challenge of reaching the unbanked in Africa.
The summit will examine the following:

Reducing cost of reaching the unbanked though technology innovations.
Social benefits of banking unbanked populations.
Measuring impacts of regulation on the unbanked.
Building sustainable commercial propositions.
Evaluating cost effective channels, technologies and solutions to reach the unbanked.
Improving financial literacy to Africa’s unbanked.
KYC methodologies suitable for African market.
Examining the cross road between Micro Finance, agency Banking and mobile money.
Promoting a sustainable investment climate for financial inclusion.
Impact of credit in unleashing the potentials of unbanked.
Agency Banking as Cost effective channel to deliver commoditized financial services.
Delivering transformational Banking experiences for underserved communities.
Technological innovations promoting access to low income segments.

Speakers from across the world will deliberate and proffer solutions that will radically change the present situation and position Africa’s unbanked population to benefit from the growing global economy.
Join solutions providers, technologist, international development experts, regulators, Micro finance experts, financial services providers, mobile money providers, Mobile network providers, agency Bankers and other leading subject matter experts to chart the way forward at the UNBANKED AFRICA SUMMIT – 2011.

The First 4th Generation Broadband Wireless Internet Provider to Start in Cameroon Read more: http://www.heraldonline.com/2011/05/27/3102193/the-first-4th-generation-broadband.html#ixzz1NZHeHLIy

2011-05-27T17:47:00.000+02:00

4G Africa is contributing to the reduction of the digital divide

4G Africa

DOUALA, Cameroon, May 27, 2011 --

/PRNewswire/ -- 4G Cameroon, the local subsidiary of 4G Africa AG, launched its operation in Cameroon under the brand name "YooMee" only 12 months after it won the necessary permissions to operate a broadband wireless internet access network from Cameroon's telecom regulator ART.
The wireless network covers Douala. Yaounde will be operational during the summer.
YooMee's mission is to provide affordable, reliable and state-of-the-art internet access in Cameroon. YooMee services are designed for the residential and SME markets, as well as governmental entities. The product range includes various types of wireless broadband internet access.

Mr. Dov Bar-Gera, the CEO of 4G Africa said: "We have the pleasure of sharing with you the launch of our services. The Cameroonian market is very attractive for these types of services."
The company offers a variety of services using either a mobile internet USB key, or a stationary desktop device. The service offering starts with CFA 1'000 for monthly 90 minutes and up to an unlimited subscription.
The download speed of YooMee is unusually high for Cameroon – 640 kbit/s, compared to market offerings of 256 kbit/s or lower.
All devices can be bought through authorized dealers.
YooMee's services are based on the fourth generation (4G) mobile broadband technology. The company started with mobile Wimax (16E), upgradable into LTE, should it be necessary.
4G Africa AG, a private Swiss company, was founded in 2009 by a team of telecom entrepreneurs active in emerging countries for the last decade. The team includes the founders of a wireless broadband operator in Europe, which deployed over 200 base stations in Austria, Slovakia and Croatia, and acquired thousands of customers. Under the leadership of this team, this company obtained twice the "Best of Wimax World Awards" (2006, 2007).
The company's main office is Douala. As of today, the company employs directly and indirectly about 50 people in Cameroon. In the coming 24 months, the team will continue in its growth.
4G Africa is committed to closing the digital divide and supporting the economical development by providing an immediately available, speedy and stable Broadband Internet connection.
Contact:
Marcin Marszalek tel. +48 507833998marcin.marszalek@4gafrica.com www.yoomee.cm
SOURCE 4G Africa

A Nigerian story on the face of an Italian woman

2011-05-27T15:46:00.000+02:00

Ilaria Chessa is an Italian economist-turned filmmaker in Nigeria.
She is originally from Verona north of Italy. She had lived in Nigeria for the past seven years. She was the director of ION International Film Festival held in Nigeria (2009) and currently pursuing her passion in the Nigerian film and music industry.

Last week, 13th May 2011 she came to summit some artistic works, both for the upcoming Verona’s African film festival (November 2011) and for (a web-based) Afriradio, Verona.
That was where we met.

How long have you been in Nigeria and what is your impression about the Nigerian people?
I arrived in Nigeria in early 2004 and I felt welcomed from the first moment. I could feel the heartbeat of the country and the heartbeat comes from the people. Nigerian people are the best… the richest resources that Nigeria, a very rich nation already has. Nigeria is rich of oil, gas and agriculture. Yet human resources, the people are the best asset…
I have the feeling that when you enter a new environment with a positive outlook and openness that the same openness will come back to you; good things will come back to you. My experience is that I entered Nigeria with openness and I haven’t stopped receiving… It’s a very generous place from human perspective and it’s an amazing place in terms of opportunities.

Having lived in Nigeria all these years, especially within the entertainment sector, how do you judge the viability of Nollywood, the Nigerian film industry?
Entertainment business is a very viable one in Nigeria and in Africa. Africans are natural consumers of entertainment; they are natural storytellers and they are amazingly talented artists. So the market is all there.
It was just a matter of putting some numbers together in order to make investors realize the potential the entertainment industry has. In order to convince investors to shift some of their resources from the more traditional sectors like oil and gas and for example real estate, which are the major in Nigeria.
We have to prove that the entertainment sector is indeed viable. Together with two friends of mine who share with me the love for Nigeria, we set up a communication agency.
The purpose of the communication agency was to share with Nigerians and quite frankly with the rest of the world, the beautiful things and the talents that were worth celebrating in the country.
Filmmaking is an example of success in Nigeria. Nigeria is the second largest film producer in the world and yet the world hardly knows of the existence of the Nigerian film industry. So we felt that communicating to the world and finding platforms where these kinds of examples could be celebrated would be a way of counterbalancing the wave of negative news coming out of Nigeria and Africa.
We went to Los Angeles and pitched a touring film festival, called: “ION International” and we convinced them to produce the 6th edition of the ION film festival in Nigeria (2009) and it was bombastic.
We had Hollywood, we had Bollywood, we had the independent European films and we had the independent African films.
Everybody was conveyed in Nigeria to celebrate filmmaking and frankly to zoom the lens on the Nigerian film industry.
The purpose was really to get investors to see filmmaking as a viable industry. With films you can “educated”, you can “inspire”, you can “tell your own story”, you can “employ” and you can “make money”. You can target all these five… I don’t know of any industry where you can have this multiple objectives, yet the creative industry can do it and Nigeria has proved that it is viable already.
Nollywood has been producing a thousand films a year, making money. Nollywood is viable. It has proved to be viable. It has proved that a film which costs 15, 000 to 20, 000 euros can recoup and even triple the returns in two and half months – from conceiving the project to the distribution point. So in two and half month, you are making like 200% to 300% out of your investment, Nollywood has proved that making films is profitable.

Considering quality as the first point of critic against many Nollywood films, what would you say?
Quality is definitely an issue in Nollywood. Some people say it is the issue of resources as in financial resources. I would argue that you can have a better management with the resources that are put right now into Nollywood. I think it’s very much an issue of capacity, as in like in technical capacity. It’s an issue of motivation as well.
The kind of story you want to tell and perhaps some patient as well. If you are not too much in a hurry to recoup your investment, you can invest in the quality of the story you are about to tell.
There are Nollywood filmmakers today that are driven by the message, for example Jeta Amata. Jeta Amata produces and directs films that have very strong socially related message. Now his drive is to tell something to his own people and get that message across to other parts of the world. In order to reach the rest of the world, he is investing in quality production.
There are other filmmakers that are interested in culture. So they are interested for example, in making people to understand the beauty and the depth of their local traditions and believe, like the director of Figurine, Kunle Afolayan. They are both investing in the local story as well as the quality of the film, so that the film is actually watched and it can go and tap into the secret of international film festivals.
The more the film is watched the more people will learn about your culture and will pick your message.
If your quality is too low, then the message is only restricted to the local audience.

Within the Nigerian entertainment industry what are your plans for the future?
What I’m doing right now is to prove that there is a viable model to invest in films and I’m proving it by producing a film, a Nigerian inspired universal story, which will be directed by a Nigerian filmmaker. It’s going to be acted primarily by Nigerian actors, even though being a universal story it also has some international actors.
We really want to get appeal to the African market and the non-African market.
We want to prove that the box-office in Africa can recoup the cost of the film.
We also want to prove that the quality of the film does not require a huge kind of investment, so you can achieve great quality and excellences.
We are hearing things like 5 million dollars film, 10 million dollars film. We think that you can improve on the existing Nollywood film production by a much more modest kind of investment that it can be absolved and recouped directly in the local market.
I’m also walking on a film called: “Ghetto Red Hot”. This is a ghetto story and it is set in Ajegunle, Lagos. Here, I want to showcase the music talents of Nigeria. I believe that Nigeria is second to no one in terms of music talents.

What would you say is the greatest success of Nollywood so far?
I believe that the greatest success of Nollywood is that it has told its own stories. And it has proved that it can tell its own stories without losing money, which is also important because it makes the industry and the business sustainable so you can tell more stories.
By Ewanfoh Obehi Peter

BiD Network updated its online database of financiers!

2011-05-24T16:19:00.000+02:00

All of the financiers specifically target small and medium sized enterprises: we included only those that do investments above 10.000 and below 2.000.000 USD.

How to find the SME financiers?

1. Go to http://www.bidnetwork.org/search
2. Click 'Advanced search' and check 'Finance'
3. Here you can search for financiers by their investment focus: Startup/Established, Theme, Country and Sector of your business
4. Once you have made your selection, click 'Search' (not necessary to fill in keywords)
5. There you will find profiles of financiers including links to their websites and the information you need to apply for their services.

Please let us know if you think we miss an SME financier in the database and please inform us if you have successfully found the financier you were looking for!

Manufacturing: Can Africa become the next China?

2011-05-24T16:10:00.000+02:00

By Claude Harding.

In 2000, when William Hickey, president and CEO of US-based packaging company Sealed Air, took a long-term view on the future of his company, he predicted that by 2050 Africa would have replaced China as the world’s manufacturing hub.
“Eleven years later I think we are behind . . . 2050 becomes a challenge [but] I still think it is doable,” Hickey said during a session on manufacturing at the recent World Economic Forum on Africa, held in Cape Town.Headquartered in New Jersey, Sealed Air manufactures a wide range of packaging materials and equipment for food, industrial, medical and consumer industries. The New York Stock Exchange listed company has a presence across the world, including Africa.

“I know of one company, and only one at this point, that has moved their manufacturing operations from China to Africa. I thought that would be the tipping point, but that was six years ago and I know of no other customer of ours that has moved its manufacturing from China to Africa,” Hickey noted.
With factory wages rising in China and other parts of Asia, some multinational companies are considering to move their production plants elsewhere in world.
Manufacturing accounts for a very small proportion of GDP in most Sub-Saharan African countries,” said Ann Bernstein, executive director of South Africa’s Centre for Development and Enterprise. Manufactured goods currently constitutes only 14% of Africa’s exports. Even in South Africa, the continent’s industrial powerhouse, manufacturing has declined significantly since its peak in 1981 and its contribution to the total economy is now just 15%.
Challenges facing Africa’s manufacturing sector include a shortage of skills; rigid labour laws in some countries; inadequate electricity supply; cumbersome and expensive transport within the continent; low levels of productivity; political instability; and corruption.
Value-adding
Rob Davies, South Africa’s Minister of Trade and Industry, told the session that there are currently two main drivers of Africa’s growth. “The one is the minerals boom, and the second one is growing domestic markets. I think that both . . . need to be consolidated with a big boost to manufacturing,” he said.
Africa has abundant resources, from minerals to agricultural produce. Most of these are, however, exported for processing abroad. Davies said that Africa needs to add value to its raw materials through processing activities. According to him, most of the industrial developments on the continent have been in light industries such as textiles and food processing.
He gave the example of a proposed project in South Africa to process mineral sands into rare metals. Titanium sand sells for US$440 a ton; processed into titanium sponge it fetches $4,000 a ton and as an alloy, used in the aircraft industry, the price goes up to $100,000 a ton. The minister said that in addition to large financial benefits of beneficiation, a project like this would also create thousands of jobs.
Although Africa has a population of over a billion people, many of the individual country markets are too small for many manufacturers to be competitive. Business Daily reports that discussions are currently underway to unite three of the continent’s existing regional economic communities: The Southern African Development Community (SADC), the East African Community (EAC) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa). This proposed free trade area would comprise 26 countries with a total population of 521 consumers. “One thing is that we have to export, the other thing is we need to grow our domestic economies. If [we] look at ourselves as individual countries, we are too small on our own, but as a bloc we start to crack the numbers,” said Davies.
Labour productivity
Davies explained that a trained workforce is crucial to boost industrial output. “We need to engage much more seriously on questions like training, and training which is much more closely related to industrial needs.”
“Certainly what we need . . . is an educated staff, said Hartmut Reinke, director for the Middle East, Turkey and Africa of US-based multinational DuPont.
He used the manufacturing of packaging materials as an example. “When you think of packaging, and you think of a big international food company, let’s say Nestlé in Nigeria, they will not accept packaging that they buy and source locally, that does not meet international standards. So a country needs to be able to produce at international standards . . . with the skilled labour that can do that,” he explained.
“What we are looking for are certainly academically educated people who can run the site. You need accountants. You need customer service representatives. But you need also the people on the line that know what they do. They need to be able to read, to listen [and] to think about what they are doing to be productive.”
He said low wages is not necessarily enough to attract manufacturing firms to the continent. “It is not a question if the wages are low or high. They come as a calculation of productivity. If productivity is high, the wages are increasing. That is what we are seeing in China, the workers are participating in higher productivity. They are producing more in less time.” He noted that the wages for unproductive labour is normally lower.
Conclusion
A lot of work still needs to be done for the continent’s manufacturing sector to realise its full potential, but it is crucial to ensure that this happens. As Davies put it: Africa is at a critical moment in time where it needs to boost industrial development if it wants to turn its current growth spurt into sustainable development.

Seven business opportunities for May

2011-05-03T22:51:00.000+02:00

Below are seven business opportunities entrepreneurs in Africa can pursue in the month of May.

1. Manufacture quality beverages for the growing African market
Soda King, a manufacturer of soft drinks and purified water, is offering business people and entrepreneurs across the continent a unique franchise opportunity to establish a localised bottling plant. Read more
2. Hydropower firm seeking qualified business partners

Onsite Recovered Energy, a South Africa-based developer of innovative hydropower technologies, is seeking suitably qualified, reputable business partners. Read more
3. Tap into the market for quality furniture
Furniture manufacturer Outdoor Lifestyle is expanding into Africa and seeking distributors in the rest of the continent. Read more
4. Establish your own ice manufacturing business
Minus 40′s Ice Block Maker offers an excellent business opportunity for entrepreneurs across Africa. The company has drawn-up a full business plan that entrepreneurs purchasing the Ice Block Maker can follow. Read more
5. Manufacturing company looking to partner with stakeholders in Africa
Calculus Products is offering firms in Africa a complete solution to all their manufacturing needs. The company is also enthusiastic about assisting stakeholders in expanding their manufacturing capacity. Read more
6. Grow your business by investing in bottle filling technology
Aspiring entrepreneurs as well as established food and beverages companies can benefit from using Marefa International’s state-of-the-art bottle filling equipment. We sat down with Marefa’s Peter Vermaak to talk about the company’s products and the opportunities in bottle filling. Read more
7. Why dairy production is a good business venture
Central Milk, a South Africa-based manufacturer of stainless steel equipment for the dairy industry, is able to offer African farmers a complete solution for the establishment of a dairy processing facility. Read more
All the above business opportunities are sponsored advertisements. For more information about promoting business and investment opportunities on How we made it in Africa, email us at sales@howwemadeitinafrica.com

Cameroon: Economic Competitiveness - EU, ONUDI Train Nationals on Diagnostic Analysis

2011-05-03T22:18:00.000+02:00

In view of the putting in place of the European Union Economic Partnership Agreement, the European Union (EU), United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (ONUDI), in partnership with the government of Cameroon are upgrading the capacities of local enterprises to make them competitive with others from elsewhere when the partnership agreement effectively goes operational.

This was the focus of a week-long capacity building workshop for experts in various sector of the economy in Yaounde from April 25 - 29. It drilled Cameroonian experts on economic competitiveness mechanisms who will in turn help national enterprises to better organise their marketing strategies, financial arrangements and their production capacity so as to have a greater access to markets within and without the country. The training was within the framework of the Pilot programme to support the upgrading, normalisation and quality of Cameroon enterprises (PPAMNQ).
The programme, whose objective is to ensure the competitiveness of the country's enterprises, is financed by the European Union to the tune of FCFA 2.5 billion with the contribution from Cameroon as well as technical support from ONUDI.
According to Jean Claude Chimi, National Financial Expert of PPAMNQ, the over 80 experts trained during the seminar will go into these companies to do a financial market, human resources and technical analyses and to advise the enterprises on what potentials they have, their limitations, opportunities and threats they might have in the country and subsequently make some recommendations.
"The experts have been trained on human resource management, finance, production and computer system and marketing. With the assessment we have made, we will choose in each module at least four experts to assist some 15 pilot companies in their diagnosis and upgrading", he said.
Speaking during the closing ceremony of the training, the Director General of Economy, Planning and Public Investment in the Ministry of the Economy, Planning and Regional Development, Dieudonné Bondoma Yokono, said government attaches a lot of importance to the competitiveness of the economy and building the capacities of experts in various sectors of the economy was welcome. "This is in line with the country's long-term growth strategy contained in the Growth and Employment Strategy Paper", he added.

Why Africa needs its own business school model

2011-04-26T16:47:00.000+02:00

In a recent article for the Financial Times, Prof Walter Baets, director of the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business wrote that Africa should prepare itself for a second wave of colonisation as foreign “western-style” business schools look at boosting their presence on the continent. He said that because Africa has a unique business environment, foreign schools should not merely replicate their current models on the continent.
Jaco Maritz | April 26, 2011

A number of foreign schools have established a footprint on the continent. Shanghai’s China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) recently launched an executive MBA programme in Accra, Ghana. UK-based Henley Business School and Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business both have campuses in South Africa. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, France’s Grenoble Graduate School of Business collaborated with Morocco’s ESCA Ecole de Management to establish a new campus in Casablanca, geared towards training African managers. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Germany’s Frankfurt School of Finance and Management has launched an academic research centre devoted to the study of microfinance. In conjunction with the Université Protestante au Congo it has also developed a two-year master of microfinance degree programme. Frankfurt is considering to eventually roll-out MBA programmes in the DRC.
Baets sees the approach followed by some foreign business schools in Africa as neo-colonialism. He says that rather than prescribing to Africa what kind of education it needs, foreign schools should rather work with local institutions in order to develop programmes that are relevant for the continent.
“I am not sure if the models of these foreign business schools are the right models for Africa. A good African business school needs to be relevant to the economy. In South Africa, for example, issues such as social innovation, entrepreneurship, health leadership and education are very important,” Baets told How we made it in Africa in an interview.
He says foreign schools should also invest in building local capacity, rather than flying in lecturers from abroad, as some are currently doing. “They teach . . . and they fly out again, so nothing remains. I have another concept of education, and I have another concept of economic development. He is troubled by the notion “that the Anglo-Saxon business school model has served the world so well that we can just take it up and put it somewhere else”.
Seeking emerging market skills
As more western companies expand beyond the developed world, many students see value in doing MBA’s and other executive courses in emerging market schools located in countries such as India, China, South Africa and Latin America.
Baets says that most of the classical business schools’ models are designed for stable economies where everything is foreseeable. Executives operating in complex emerging markets with high uncertainty and inequality, however, need unique qualities to succeed.
“Emerging market thinking goes beyond the geographical emerging markets. For me it is all about thinking how are you as a leader able to take responsibility in an economy that is changing every day. That is something you would rather learn in an emerging market business school, than in a stable (western) business school,” he notes.

Guinean govt., Rio Tinto sign iron ore mining agreement

2011-04-26T16:39:00.000+02:00

The Guinean government and the mining company, Rio Tinto, have signed a new contract, worth US$ 700 million, under which Rio Tinto is licensed to mine for iron ore in the West African country.

Under the agreement, Simfer S.A (Simfer), a subsidiary of Rio Tinto, is empowered to prospect for iron ore with a view to having the Guinean government export its first set of the product by by mid-2015.

The new Guinean authorities had threatened to cancel the former contract with the mining giant, citing the inability of the company to invest in the country since it arrived in the country over a decade ago.

"Simfer will make all reasonable efforts to achieve a first production by the end of 2014", the communiqué quoted the company officials as saying.

On its part side, Simfer SA will pay US$ 700 million to the Guinean Public Treasury following a presidential decree granting it a mining concession.

The Guinean government will hold a 35 percent share in the deal.

Rio Tinto is an international mining group whose headquarters are in the United Kingdom

How Africa can learn from Chinese agriculture

2011-04-20T16:38:00.000+02:00

African countries have spent decades trying to jump-start agricultural production. In the search for new approaches, many experts are looking for answers in China’s impressive agricultural achievements, which raised hundreds of millions of peasants from rural poverty in the past 30 years. China’s agricultural investments and development projects in Africa are growing. How relevant is the country’s model to the continent?
By Steve Davis and Jonathan Woetzel

China, of course, is very different from Africa: it is a single country with homogeneous demographics; a powerful and stable central government; well-developed public-sector institutions, infrastructure, and capabilities at every level; and a long tradition of rice and wheat cultivation. Africa comprises 53 countries with different tribes, ethnic groups, and languages. Many of these countries have unstable leadership, non-existent or weak institutions and infrastructure, little consensus on policy and planning, a postcolonial legacy, harsh climate and health conditions, and agricultural traditions that are not naturally suited for a green revolution. Yet Africa has some important competitive advantages over China — for instance, more arable land and water, as well as a smaller, but fast-growing, population.
Significant agricultural reform must be rooted in priorities promulgated and carried out by political leaders. China’s commitment in the 1980s to increase food production and rural income rapidly was a central pillar of the broader economic-development agenda of “opening up.” In fact, agricultural reform in China was not really an independent development goal but rather a key strategy for broader economic reform. The objective was to create the food security, rural stability, surplus income, and labour supply to drive broader industrial development. In Africa, agricultural policy is too often subordinate to the demands of more politically influential urban interests and incidental to other development policies.
Moreover, attempts to solve agricultural challenges through surgical approaches, such as a focus on accelerating one input or other (say, fertiliser, seed, or irrigation), have failed across Africa as input was turned into a commodity politicians traded and abused as political currency. Strong, comprehensive, and integrated development and investment policies, with agricultural reform as a centrepiece, must therefore serve as a starting point in Africa.
People and programmes matter, but institutions endure and thus enable true transformation. China has set out to create institutional capacity at every level and across many aspects of the agricultural value chain. These include R&D institutes; the world’s largest and most comprehensive agricultural-extension system; credit and financing capabilities at the national, provincial, and local levels; and systems for managing seed, irrigation, production, market integration, and export support. While China’s strong government bureaucracy may be difficult to replicate, putting in place the necessary institutions and ensuring support for them will be critical.
China undertook its agricultural transformation on a massive scale, but its genius lies in small, practical approaches. The drivers of Chinese reform, focused on smallholders, manifested themselves in programmes at the micro-level: extension programmes in every village; agricultural engineering that emphasised small tools, machines, and systems; and incentives that engendered self-financing, iterative improvements, and incremental learning. By contrast, African leaders, as well as Western donors and investors, sometimes try to tackle problems with large-scale models and expansive programmes that are inappropriate for smallholders.
It is also easy to overlook the role of technology in China’s rural-development story. China created or expanded scores of R&D institutes and universities focusing on agricultural innovations. New models for seed, fertilisers, and hydraulics were implemented; agronomics flourished as an academic pursuit with practical applications; a million-person extension service created direct links to farmers to ensure appropriate training and uptake; and private-sector investments were supported to ensure further innovation.
The African experience to date has often underemphasised the role of technologies and extension services. But these will be critical to address the gaps, in productivity and market access, that continue to stifle agricultural development. Except for large infrastructure projects, there has so far been only limited success in transferring Chinese agricultural engineering and technologies to Africa. Yet this kind of uptake will probably flourish in the coming decade as better distribution channels emerge, more sophisticated models for adapting technologies to local conditions prevail, and Chinese private-sector investments in Africa are strongly encouraged and supported by huge multibillion-dollar commitments from the Chinese government.
No doubt there are fundamental limits to the application of lessons and opportunities from China to African agriculture, particularly given the vastly different political and economic environments and cultures of accountability and entrepreneurship. Yet it is no foolish exercise for the continent to see China as a source of important clues. For one thing, Africans should consider the negative consequences of China’s aggressive agricultural development: environmental degradation, labour exploitation, and social inequities. Nonetheless, China will continue to be a vital player in all economic-development activities across Africa, through its vast aid, investments, and strategic programs. Many of China’s specific approaches to increasing agricultural productivity and food security, if appropriately adapted to the realities and societies of Africa, may help more of the world’s poorest people to improve their daily lives greatly.
Steve Davis is director of social innovation at McKinsey; Jonathan Woetzel is a director in McKinsey’s Shanghai office. Article republished with permission from McKinsey & Company.

Nokia looks to Kenya, low-cost markets for expansion

2011-04-20T16:05:00.000+02:00

Leading international telecom firm Nokia Siemens Network is looking to introduce low cost telecom equipment as it battles Chinese companies for low-cost markets in Africa. Much of the focus will be on East African countries, with Kenya being marketed as a top priority.
The Finnish telecom giant said that it hopes the introduction of the new, lower cost mobile products will enabled it to “defend and grow” its share in the infrastructure market across the region.
According to the company, the smaller versions of telecom equipment are less costly to implement and can operate on a massive scale to buttress infrastructure projects in the region.
“We are also introducing a new business approach and technology that should help the operators save on costs,” said Dmitri Diliani, head of Africa region at Nokia Siemens.
“The African market is growing at a strong pace and we felt the need to provide additional focus to support its growth,” he added.
Nokia Siemens, as part of its expansion efforts, has established an African office in Nairobi and hopes this will help ease planned upgrades of the East African 3G and 4G platforms.

Rwanda: New cassava flour plant to give farmers a ready market

2011-04-20T01:58:00.000+02:00

A new Rwf5 billion (US$8.4 million) cassava flour processing plant in Rwanda will provide farmers with a ready market for their produce.

The new cassava flour processing plant will provide farmers with a ready market for their crops.

The plant, located in Rwanda’s Southern Province, will have an expected capacity of 250 tons of cassava tubers per hour, which in turn will produce 60 tons of flour per day. The finished product will be sold in the East African market, while some will also be exported internationally. Any remaining product will be used for animal feed.
The Rwanda Development Bank is responsible for setting up the project. The Bank has been mandated by the government to act as the investment arm, financing the nation’s development objectives with a focus on the priority sectors of the economy.
The cassava flour processing plant is expected to be completed by September 2011.
According to the Rwanda Agricultural Research Institute, cassava is both a staple food and cash crop, ranking third in terms of production, behind banana and sweet potato.
Renaissance Capital noted in a recent report that agriculture represents a third of Rwanda’s GDP and it employs 80% of the population in largely subsistence farming. The sector depends highly on the short and long rainy seasons that do so much to drive inflation – in December, inflation ended the year at zero, due to ideal weather in 2010.
Recent value-added developments include fully washed coffee beans that sell at twice the normal price, and a move into horticulture that may challenge other exporters, from Kenya to Colombia.
Land reform, the application of fertilisers and allowing land titles to be used as collateral might all support the country’s ambitions to become a regional exporter of agricultural products.

The Singapore of Africa?

2011-04-20T01:54:00.000+02:00

Rwanda’s ambition to become the Singapore of Africa is succeeding, according to a recent report by Renaissance Capital.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame has played an important role in repositioning the country.

An analyst at the Russia-based investment bank says in the report that a visit to Rwanda early in April provided for the greatest positive shock of his professional career.
Visa-free travel, a well-functioning airport, a comforting police presence, working streetlights, low-crime and a good road network, all contributed to the analyst’s good impression of the East African country.
In the 1960s, Singapore had a per capita GDP of around US$400. The country was vulnerable to conflict and over-dependent on foreign aid. Singapore, however, managed to transform itself through sound macroeconomic policies, infrastructure planning, the creation of an economic development bank, industrial parks to attract investment, and even the beautification of the airport and city to give foreign investors a positive first impression.
Renaissance Capital’s report notes that the Rwandan Development Bank, the use of privatisation proceeds to fund a fibre-optic broadband network, as well as the recent launch of a special economic zone just a kilometre from the airport might all be seen as Rwanda following Singapore’s example. “We see clear evidence of forward planning and a strategy for the country,” states the report.
Transport infrastructure has been upgraded across the country, including roads to Tanzania and Burundi, with a route to the northern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) expected to be completed by mid-2012.
Rwanda is also looking to transform itself into a conference destination. The ongoing construction of a US$300 million conference centre, a planned new airport and the privately funded Marriott hotel will allow for continued expansion of the roughly US$100 million earned every year through business tourism.
On the education front, Rwanda’s has extended free schooling from age 12 to 15, and invited a German firm to roll-out vocational skills colleges. The report also notes that the country is open to immigration in order to provide the skills the country requires.
Renaissance says that it believes Rwanda, with its population of 11 million people, is politically stable, with the next presidential election to be held in 2017.
According to the World Bank’s 2010 Doing Business survey, Rwanda was the world’s best reformer. In 2010, Rwanda registered 6,000 companies, about equal to the number registered during the previous five years.

Swaziland: Development - Swazi Village Tastes Sweet Success With Sugarcane

2011-04-19T23:21:00.000+02:00

Mbabane — The previously impoverished community of Malibeni, previously ravaged by drought, is bustling with farmers who have transformed the area into a bread basket.
Lush green fields of sugarcane and vegetables have replaced an expanse of dry shrubs near this community in northeastern Swaziland.
By Mantoe Phakathi.
The project has two main components, one improving water and sanitation for homesteads in the area and the other irrigating the sugar cane fields of a farmers' association.

"This year we'll finish the debt with the bank which we used as capital for the project," says James Mahlalela of the Intamakuphila Farmers Association. "Next year we'll start getting dividends."

Over the past eight years the Swaziland Water and Agricultural Development Enterprises (SWADE) have transformed Malibeni and surrounding areas in line with its mandate to alleviate poverty.
Supporting commercial agriculture
The parastatal SWADE completed the Maguga Dam in September 2001, and adopted a participatory approach to setting up irrigation infrastructure, involving users, planners and policy makers at all levels to design agriculture projects for Malibeni.
The reservoir irrigates 7,400 hectares of farms in Swaziland - roughly a quarter of this area is vegetable gardens, with the rest devoted to sugarcane.

Nine communities directly benefit from this dam. According to Gugulethu Hlophe, SWADE strategic communications manager, the communities had to agree to pool together their land resources to establish commercial farms.

"At first, the community was rather sceptical because they thought we wanted to grab their land," said Hlophe. "But people eventually saw the benefits of forming associations and cultivating sugarcane."
SWADE ensured that the different associations were able to access loans from banks while the Royal Swaziland Sugar Corporation expanded its mill to process 80,000 tonnes of sugarcane every year.
"Members will reap the benefits of sugarcane after finishing [paying off] their debt at the financial institutions," said Hlophe.

Mahlalela said his association, Intamakuphila, which has a 280 hectare farm, will pay off its debt of 286 000 dollars this year. In addition to the association's 162 members who have an ownership stake, all the salaried field workers from the community, strengthening income beyond the shareholders.

"As of next year, we'll receive dividends calculated according to the land each one of us contributed to this association," said Mahlalela. "Each member represents a household in this area."
Mahlalela, like most of his neighbours, is also maintaining a garden where he is cultivating tomatoes, cabbages and beans and sells his produce nationwide and beyond.
He also has an orchard which he irrigates through the same water system as the garden."These are the short-term benefits of the KDDP project," said Hlophe.
One dam, multiple purposes

Parallel to setting up sugarcane and vegetable growing operations, the Malibeni community has been able to put water and sanitation infrastructure into place.

Hlophe explains that SWADE pursues holistic approach to community development and regards access to water and sanitation is a basic requirement for every household in its areas of operation.
Mancane Dlamini, a mother of two, says she remembers only too well where the community used to fetch water, walking as much as two kilometres to the river. Seven of her neighbours' children had drowned in the Komati River many years ago.
"There is a very steep slope at the river and the children would slip and fall back into the river," she says.
Each household now has water piped directly to its compound. SWADE provided the community with the necessary material and contractors to install a slow sand filter system.
Water from the Maguga Dam is stored in a smaller reservoir near the community - this reservoir also stabilises the pressure from the water pumped from the dam so that the sugarcane irrigation infrastructure is not damaged.
"Water from the smaller reservoir is drawn and supplied to a 5000-litre tank at each individual homestead," said Hlophe. "The water is purified in a filter bed in a 1,000-litre tank before the clean water goes to another tank of the same size."
The Mahlalela household uses this water for their domestic needs, including a flush toilet which is attached to the water structure.
"For the past eight years we've been using this system without any problem," said Mahlalela.â-¨â-¨He said, for now, the community pays nothing for water although SWADE has warned that in the future they might have to make a small contribution towards its maintenance.

Nigeria: Country Leads in Agriculture Research, Devt - Study

2011-04-19T23:16:00.000+02:00

Abuja — The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has said that investment in agricultural research and development (R&D) in Sub-Saharan Africa increased by more than 20 per cent between 2001 and 2008, with Nigeria alone accounting for one-third of the increase.
This was contained in its survey report of 32 African nations released recently.

The study found that investment in agricultural research and development had rebounded in many of the larger countries, namely; Ghana, Nigeria, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda while noting that spending declined in 13 countries.

"Even where funding did increase, much of the money went to boost low salaries and rehabilitate infrastructure and equipment after years of neglect," the report said.

According to the report, the state of agricultural R&D was particularly grave in francophone West Africa, where insufficient national investment has left programmes debilitated and dangerously dependent on volatile external funding. "Many of these countries are also struggling with a rapidly aging pool of scientists, many of whom would be due for retirement within the next decade. Most countries in the study are facing human capacity challenges, such as recruitment freezes, retention problems and researchers who either lack high-level training or are old and nearing retirement," it observed.

The report further showed, that only a few countries were making necessary investments. In 2008, it said only eight countries; Botswana, Burundi, Kenya, Mauritania, Mauritius, Namibia, South Africa, and Uganda spent more than one per cent of their agricultural GDP on research and development, the target set by the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). Moreover, it added that many countries still depend on donors for funding, which was often short-term and unpredictable, leaving programmes vulnerable and hampering long-term planning.
In order to address the challenges hindering agricultural R&D in Africa, the report recommends increased, consistent, and coordinated funding among governments and donors to counteract decades of underinvestment in agricultural R&D, improve recruitment and training, and expand investments in higher education to resolve human resource capacity issues.
Increased regional and sub-regional cooperation in agricultural R&D to pool resources, information and innovations sharing were also recommended.

Portuguese group Sonae to open first Continente brand hypermarket in Angola in 2013

2011-04-19T14:51:00.000+02:00

Porto, Portugal, 13 April – Portugal’s Sonae and Angolan company Condis have signed an agreement for the Portuguese company to enter the Angolan market with a network of Continente branded hypermarkets, Sonae said Friday in a regulatory filing with Portuguese stock market regulator CMVM.
“The agreement will be established by setting up a partnership that will be 51 percent owned by Condis and 49 percent by Sonae, in which relevant decision will be shared, and operational management will be Sonae’s responsibility,” said the statement issued by the Portuguese group.
Also according to the statement, this strategic partnership “brings together the technical knowledge and retail experience that Sonae has with Condis’ knowledge of the Angolan market,” although the project is still “subject to final approval from the Angolan authorities.”
The launch of the first hypermarket is expected to take at least 18 months, said Luís Moutinho, chief executive of Sonae MC, Sonae’s sub-holding for food retail.

Danish company plans to set up wind farm in Angola in 2012

2011-04-19T14:46:00.000+02:00

Luanda, Angola, 14 April – The managing director of Danish company Vestas in Portugal, Mário de Graviria Forbian, said in Luanda that in 2012 his company planned to set up an industrial unit for production of power using the wind in Angola.
Forbian said the decision was based on Angola’s political and economic stability and the country’s financial capacity.
The Vestas managing director, who was speaking at an Angola-Denmark forum, said that the company was operating in Cape Verde and spoon would also be in the Mozambican market by taking advantage of funding that the Mozambican government had been given to invest in renewable energy sources.

The forum was attended by the Angola Industrial Association (AIA), the Angola Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCIA), the National Agency for Private Investments and Danish companies that operate in the Angolan market. (macauhub)

Liberia: revival of unused hydropwer plant

2011-04-18T16:43:00.000+02:00

Liberia could see a revival for one of its unused hydropower plants with the help of Brazilian mining giant Vale SA.
The country’s president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said that while many issues are still pending, discussions are continuing. She said, “Some of these [issues] have to do with external partners.”

The dam, the Mt Coffee Hydropower Plant, could increase the country’s power generation by 1,000 MW. Sirleaf added: “I can assure you that by next month, we hope to conclude the Vale deal.”
Source: ae-africa.com

Women are central to feeding Africa

2011-04-18T12:14:00.000+02:00

Women’s role in agriculture and food security is critical in sub-Saharan Africa. However many researches point out the lack of visibility of their participation, and contribution in agriculture and development in general. The impediments to women's empowerment encompass their lack of access to decision making processes, their low participation in local governance, as well as their limited access to technology inputs and credit. Land tenure is another stumbling block to women’s full access and control of land and the agricultural output. Although many projects endeavor to address rural women’s needs, their empowerment should go beyond the efficiency, functionalist approach that only value their productive and reproductive roles. It is a matter of equity to empower women in a key sector where they are the major contributors to household, community subsistence and food security.

Women in agriculture generally work longer and harder than men for less reward

In developing countries, more than 60% of women are directly involved in agricultural work, but very few gain access to information, training or supplies. More action and less rhetoric on this issue could put more food on the world's table and help drive economic growth, writes Pamela Whitby.

Lindiwe Majele Sibanda has agriculture in her blood.
One of five children, she grew up on a farm in Zimbabwe where her parents still live and farm today.
"Farming," says Ms Sibanda, who runs her own commercial cattle farm, "is a family tradition."
She admits, however, that cattle farming is one type of agriculture that it is possible to run remotely and she does this from her base in South Africa.
"You vaccinate, you put in place your programme and you get a good manager," she explains.
Having an extended family helps too, which is "the beauty of being an African".
Women contribute She is among just 10% of women in Africa who own livestock and among the 1% of women who own land.
Ms Sibanda, who trained as an animal scientist in Egypt and the UK, is committed to improving the livelihoods of Africa's rural women through her work as chief executive of a food, agriculture and natural resources policy analysis network called Fanrpan.

The organisation on ensuring food security and alleviating poverty in Africa.

"Women are responsible for the lion's share of agricultural production and there are real benefits in getting our women farmers involved in influencing policy," she says.
She has a point.
According the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), some 70% of the world's food is grown on farms of less than two hectares and these are tended largely by women.
Hard work In sub-Saharan Africa, women grow as much as 90% of the region's food.
Yet despite the central role they play, the conditions they work in leave much to be desired.
For one, the working day of women is at least 50% longer than that of men.
In addition, some 75% of the essential work women do, such as planting, hoeing, weeding and harvesting, is done with the most rudimentary tools and little outside assistance.
What is more, government agricultural strategies, which facilitate access to information, training and farm inputs (seeds and fertilizer), have typically focused on increasing production of cash crops and are largely provided to men.

Lindiwe Majele Sibanda wants to improve the lot of women in agriculture

Women, meanwhile, have access to just 5% of such resources.
Little training Another overlooked challenge is how the agricultural work environment affects the health of women, says Dr Saloshni Naidoo from the Department of Occupational and Environmental Health at South Africa's University of Kwa-Zulu Natal.
Click header to read on...

Nigeria: Govt Can Save N1 Trillion Using Renewable Energy - Expert

2011-04-18T11:33:00.000+02:00

If Nigerians embrace the renewable energy solutions, they will save up to one trillion naira annually out of the total amount spent burning fuels for electricity generation.
It was estimated that Nigerians expended about three trillion naira last year alone burning fuels to generate power in the country.
The country's epileptic power supply which remains below 3500 mega-watts for years, has left the citizenry with no options than to generate their power through fuel-powered generators.

Rajan Menon of Simba Group said yesterday in Abuja that the use of solar energy and inverters among other renewable energy sources will help eliminate the waste of burning fuel unnecessarily.

Mr Menon said while organising training for technicians on the use of uminous inverters in Abuja that inverters can save up to 30 percent of the fuel waste for individual or organisations that use generators for business or at home.
On solar energy, he explained that a well-fixed solar panel can last for at least 15 years providing uninterrupted power.
He urged Nigerians to look beyond short term benefits of fuel generators and concentrate on the long term benefits of the renewable energy, saying that, if a household spend N1,000 to buy fuel daily, he/she will spend N90,000 monthly on fuel.

Hamisu Muhammad

18 April 2011

Finding Funding for LDCs Amidst Global Financial Crisis

2011-04-18T11:27:00.000+02:00

BRUSSELS, Apr 15, 2011 (IPS) - Representatives of the world’s poorest nations are preparing to assemble a new "programme of action" to reduce grinding poverty. Among proposals that could emerge from the U.N. Least Developed Countries Conference in Istanbul next month is a global tax on financial transactions that would generate billions of dollars a year for development assistance.

"We will recommit the international community to continue to extend support to the 48 least developed countries around the world for the next decade," said Cheick Sidi Diarra, a United Nations high representative who will lead the conference.

Development assistance to the world's poorest nations hit a record 122.4 billion dollars in 2008, just as the financial crisis slammed the United States, Europe and other major contributors. Diarra commended donors for the rise in aid but said fresh support is needed to sustain progress in areas such as primary education and improved water supplies.

"The donor countries have done what they could during the decade, especially in 2008 before the [financial] crisis," Diarra said in a telephone interview from New York. But aid levels are falling well short of commitments, he said, and around half of development aid in recent years has been spent on just two countries: Iraq and Afghanistan.

Building on Brussels

LDCs are classified by the U.N. as those with an annual per-capita income below 745 dollars as well as high rates of illiteracy and child mortality, economic volatility and weak agricultural output.

The Brussels Programme and other poverty-reduction efforts have yielded limited success.

Only three nations - Maldives, Botswana and Cape Verde - have moved out of the category since 1970, according to the U.N., while several countries, including Somalia and Haiti, have grown more desperate. U.N. High Representative Cheick Sidi Diarra said inadequate aid is part of the problem, but not the only reason.

"There is also an issue of governance, mismanagement of resource, lack of skills, but all this has to be corrected in context of the governance priorities that we are going to set for ourselves in Istanbul," he said.

Today 33 African nations and 14 Asian and Pacific countries fall into the LDC category. In the Americas, Haiti is alone in the category.

In Africa, they are Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Togo, Uganda, Tanzania, and Zambia.

The Asian and Pacific nations are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Kiribati, Lao Peoples Democratic Republic, Myanmar, Nepal, Samoa, Salomon Islands, Timor-Leste, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Yemen.

A decade ago, the first LDC conference, held in Brussels, set out a programme to reduce poverty and improve economic opportunity in poor and vulnerable nations. It established guiding principles including better trade opportunities, protecting the environment, improving governance, and promoting transparency to encourage private investment.

A year later in Monterrey, Mexico, leading donor countries pledged to work toward providing the equivalent of 0.7 percent of GNP to development assistance - in 2009, total ODA amounted to less than half of this.

The U.N. has estimated that up to 60 billion dollars is needed annually for the poorest countries if they are to achieve poverty-reduction targets, known at the Millennium Development Goals, by 2015.

The timing of a fresh cash call is unfortunate.

The global financial crisis that followed the collapse of the U.S. housing market has forced many donor countries to scale back development assistance.

Natural disasters have also taken precedence. The Asian Development Bank and World Bank estimated that last year’s flooding in Pakistan alone caused as much as 10.8 billion dollars in damage and could take years to repair, while donors have provided nearly 4 billion dollars in aid to Haiti since its earthquake in early 2010.

Leaders in Japan - typically the most generous donor after the United States - estimate the Mar. 11 earthquake and tsunami caused 300 billion dollars in damage and warn of austere times ahead.

New sources of finance

The four-day conference that begins on May 9 is expected to address calls for more cash, better governance, and improved investment and trade opportunities for the next decade.

Given such challenges, finding alternative sources of development funding could take a prominent place on the LDC Conference agenda.

One option is financial transactions taxes, or FTTs, which have been considered in the past as an alternative ways to finance U.N. operations and humanitarian assistance. Taxes on cash transfers were promoted at an LDC ministerial meeting in Lisbon last October. Prominent figures in finance, including the economist Joseph Stiglitz and the financier Warren Buffett, have argued that such taxes would generate revenue while dampening speculative trading in currencies or financial products.

Civil society organisations meeting in New York to prepare for the Istanbul conference agreed earlier this month to press for sweeping debt relief.

"[LDCs] spend over $6 billion every year on debt servicing," said Arjan Karaki, head of the LDC Watch, a Kathmandu-based organisation. "In many LDCs, more money is spent on debt servicing than on essential services like health care, drinking water and energy," Karaki said in a statement.

The U.N.’s Diarra acknowledged that there are major financing challenges ahead, and said the Istanbul meeting should seek to improve investment and trade opportunities, drawing on efforts such as the EU’s Cotonou Agreement and "Everything But Arms" initiative that promote economic partnerships with developing countries.

Diarra added that leaders in LDC countries also have a responsibility to commit to "more transparent rule, rules that are respectful of human rights, and more respectful of private property, and also protect the foreign investment and local investment as well."

Civil society groups are also preparing appeals in the area of human rights and social protections, although more controversial proposals calling on nations to cut military spending and funnel the money into aid are unlikely to be on the official agenda.

"We want solutions that are consensual and agreeable for everybody," Diarra said.

Some 6,000 government, civil society and business participants are expected to attend the LDC meeting in Istanbul.

SENEGAL Dispute Over Fishing Permits for Foreign Fleets Hots Up

2011-04-18T11:25:00.000+02:00

Senegal's artisanal fear licences to foreign trawlers will destroy their livelihoods.
Credit: UN Photo

DAKAR, Apr 16, 2011 (IPS) - Senegal's small-scale fishers are challenging the government over licences granting foreign trawlers permission to fish in Senegalese waters. The artisanal fishers condemn the "selling off" of the country's fishery resources at a time when stocks off Senegal's coast are severely depleted.

The protests have been led by GAIPES, the Senegalese Association of Fishing Companies and Ship Owners, which is demanding the Minister of Maritime Economy withdraw 22 licences they association says were granted in the first quarter of 2010. According to GAIPES, the foreign beneficiaries are Russian, Belizean, Mauritian, Ukrainian and Comorian trawlers.

"These boats are fishing under illegal protocols that have been signed by the minister of maritime economy without being recorded by the relevant technical government agencies," Dougoutigui Coulibaly, secretary-general of GAIPES told IPS.
But the authorities accuse the group of conflating separate issues."In 2010, we signed fishing agreements with six foreign fishing boats that were to catch pelagic, or migratory, fish that swim along the coast of Senegal, originating from Morocco and Mauritania. Once the contracts had expired, the boats left," explains Captain Matar Sambou, head of monitoring and control of fishing.

Sambou says an advisory committee at the ministry suspended several licences in December 2010 following GAIPES's complaints. But, since the members of this committee showed that signing the agreements would earn money for the country, the ministry was authorised to go ahead. "At the beginning of March 2011, we signed fishing agreements with 11 or 12 fishing boats for a two-month period," he says.

Senegal's fisheries

Fishing is one of Senegal’s main economic activities, and is the livelihood of some 600,000 people - eight times more than the 75,000 in the civil service.. In 2009, fishing constituted 13 percent of Senegalese exports and 1.7 percent of GDP, according to the ministry of maritime economy.

Small-scale fishing in Senegal has become a mere subsistence fishery because the stocks are so depleted. "There aren’t any more of the larger fish species, like carp and hake. Now, Senegalese people eat only small fish: sardines, jack mackerel, mackerel..." says Raoul Monsembula, from the environmental organisation Greenpeace Africa.

"The licences granted to these industrial fishing boats are going to lead to the disappearance of the country’s fishing resource and as a result, the loss of income of 600,000 people," warns Amadou Chérif Diagne, a sociologist living in Gueth-Ndar, a fishermen’s quarter in Saint-Louis, in the north of the country.

The Greenpeace regional office in Dakar has lodged an appeal with the Senegalese government to revoke its decision to grant industrial licences, in order to put an end to what it describes as "the pillage" of the country’s fish stocks.

But the authorities defend the permits. "Senegal has taken the sovereign decision to make use of a portion of its fishing resources so that the Treasury can benefit from it in the same way that neighbouring countries have," says the minister of maritime economy Khouraïchi Thiam.

"The Treasury can tax 35 dollars on each tonne fished by these foreign trawlers," he says, pointing out that Senegalese fisheries officials board the trawlers to monitor the amounts that are caught.

"1.45 million tonnes of pelagic fish cross from Mauritania, Cape Verde, Guinea Buisseau and Gambia towards Senegal. If this stock isn’t fished, it dies and that will be an enormous loss to the country," the minister told a private radio station on Mar. 29.

Fishers not satisfied

Sada Fall, secretary-general of the 15,000-strong National Collective of Small-scale Fishers (CNPA) threatens direct action if government won't listen. "If the government doesn’t suspend these licences, we will go and find the trawlers and fight it out with them. We are going to chase them out of our waters at whatever price," he warns. The CNPA is based in Saint-Louis, where a government census counted 2,800 fishing dugouts.

Coulibaly, from GAIPES, adds: "We have a whole range of actions to roll out so the government withdraws these fishing licences. We are not ruling out the removal of the industrial and small-scale fleet from the waters and thus closing down the factories."

According to the Senegalese maritime code, "the maritime resources are part of the national patrimony. The state can authorise physical and moral persons of Senegalese or foreign nationality to fish in waters under Senegalese jurisdiction," professor of law at the Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, Alassane Ndiaye, tells IPS.

According to Ndiaye, the maritime code stipulates that those seeking fishing licences must contact the minister of maritime economy, who must take the advice of the advisory committee that grants the fishing licences. If this procedure has been respected, the fishing licences in question are legal," he says.
By Souleymane Faye

Breakthrough for Impact Investing in Africa, as LeapFrog Invests $14M in Insurer Apollo

2011-04-15T23:21:00.000+02:00

NAIROBI, Kenya, April 14, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- LeapFrog Investments has announced a landmark investment of $14 million into East African insurance group Apollo Investment Ltd, the largest deal in the history of microinsurance in Africa. Launched with President Bill Clinton at the Clinton Global Initiative in 2008, LeapFrog's $135 million fund invests in companies providing insurance to under-served people in emerging markets. In Africa, LeapFrog now gains exposure to Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda in addition to its investment in South Africa.
"Some of the greatest opportunities for business growth, profitability, and impact are found in Africa – whose people so often prove the critics wrong," said Dr. Andrew Kuper, Founder and President of LeapFrog. "By investing in Apollo, a fast-growing and multi-line insurance group, we expect to achieve robust returns and to reshape the market – helping bring safety nets to millions of low-income and vulnerable people. It epitomises our profit-with-purpose approach to investing."
Ashok Shah, who is continuing as Apollo CEO, said, "LeapFrog's capital and global insurance expertise will help Apollo to become the preeminent regional player in insurance in East Africa – including in microinsurance. We are taking the next leap." Beyond its current life, health, and property insurance activities, Apollo is now targeting a market of 7.9 million self-employed people in the informal sector. Mr. Shah is the recent winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to the Kenyan insurance industry.
LeapFrog, a pioneer impact investor in Africa and Asia, previously invested in AllLife, the innovative South African insurer that covers people living with HIV. By linking clients with a health management program, AllLife helps people lead long and productive lives, which also makes it commercially worthwhile to insure them. Since LeapFrog's investment a year ago, AllLife has doubled in size.
In addition to capital, LeapFrog's team brings decades of operational experience in distribution and product design to portfolio companies. This enables groups like Apollo and AllLife to swiftly change their growth curve and amplify their impact.
"Our aim as a fund is to reach 25 million vulnerable people with affordable insurance – generating robust financial returns as well as social impact from serving this untapped market," concluded Doug Lacey, the LeapFrog partner who led the investment. "Apollo's track record and commercial courage are exactly what we look for in a partner."
In the coming year, LeapFrog expects to make further investments in Africa as well as Asia, where its focus countries are India, the Philippines and Indonesia.
LeapFrog Investments invests in insurance companies serving 'The Next Billion' consumers in Asia and Africa. Launched with President Bill Clinton in 2008, LeapFrog's $135 million fund targets robust returns for investors while bringing financial security to 25 million vulnerable people. The fund's profit-with-purpose investment approach, combining capital with specialist expertise, has been hailed by The Financial Times, Bloomberg, Fast Company, and many global leaders as opening up new frontiers for alternative investing. Investors in LeapFrog's high impact investment fund include global banks such as JP Morgan, Triodos, IFC, KfW, and EIB; leading funds such as Soros EDF, TIAA-CREF, Omidyar Network, FMO, and Calvert; global reinsurers SCOR, Haverford, and Flagstone Re; and development financiers including Proparco and Accion.
www.leapfroginvest.com
SOURCE LeapFrog Investments

Four lessons for transforming African agriculture

2011-04-15T22:18:00.000+02:00

African agriculture is at a turning point, and a long-awaited “green revolution” may be within reach. Many of the continent’s governments are adopting market-friendly policies and committing more resources to the sector. Traditional big-donor countries are increasing their expenditures on agriculture, while China and Brazil are also beginning to contribute to the effort. African’s agriculture’s private-sector investment is rising rapidly (see sidebar “Sizing Africa’s agricultural opportunity”). High, volatile food prices underline the importance of such development efforts and create not only pressure but also political space for policy makers to act.

But investing these additional resources wisely and fulfilling Africa’s agricultural promise will require better national planning. Work is under way to facilitate such improvements: for example, the African Union’s Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) aims “to help countries critically review their own situations and identify investment opportunities with optimal impact and returns.” Introducing cost-effective agricultural development plans will be a challenge, however. To succeed, they will have to address multiple technical hurdles in the context of limited human resources, corruption, political pressures, shifting priorities, and inadequate infrastructure (see sidebar “Chinese agriculture: A model for Africa?”).
In recent years, McKinsey has worked on the planning and implementation of agricultural development in more than ten African countries, across the public, private, and social sectors. We have codified insights from this work into four lessons: aim for narrower, higher-impact projects; pay more attention to the final market for agricultural goods; assure clear roles for the private sector; and think about implementation from the start. We offer these lessons to move the issue of African agricultural development beyond the question “what” and toward the “who” and the “how.”¹
In this related video interactive, three McKinsey experts discuss what it will take to create a “green revolution” in Africa. Explore the interactive to hear their thoughts or download a PDF of the transcript.

Transforming African agriculture

Three McKinsey experts discuss what it will take to create a “green revolution.”

Infrastructure in Africa can be perceived as both a challenge and an opportunity.

2011-04-15T13:02:00.000+02:00

The ‘Infrastructure Tinted Lens’

Early in the first day of Institutional Investor’s Africa Conference Jay Ireland, the President and CEO of GE Africa (a recently created position), noted that he views opportunity in Africa through “infrastructure tinted glasses.” As Jay sees it, the opportunities for investment in Africa are largely driven by the Continent’s infrastructure needs. We had previously written about this issue as addressed by the World Bank’s Dr. Shanta Devarajan (read here), who noted that Africa would require an additional annual investment of $48 billion per year to bring Africa’s infrastructure to the level of Mauritius. We concur that investment in firms which operate in the African infrastructure space present a number of compelling opportunities.

Infrastructure in Africa can be perceived as both a challenge and an opportunity. As one of the conference’s other panelists noted, road density in Africa is about1/8th what it is in the BRIC economies (McKinsey’s Global Institute claims it is about 1/5th, but regardless, Africa is a clear laggard). McKinsey also notes that power generation in the BRICs is 2.4x that of Africa, and rail density is 2.3x higher. In addition, these numbers also don’t take into account the relative difference between South Africa and the remainder of the continent, for which the gap is significantly wider. Phone and cellular networks – although in many cases improving – remain spotty, and many Africans carry multiple phones in hopes of maintaining service from one place to another.

In addition, urbanization and population growth is putting a strain on many of Africa’s urban centers, where affordable and effective access to housing, water and sanitation, energy, and transportation remains a challenge. Also, the ability for countries to capitalize on natural resources and manufacturing is hampered by poor infrastructure networks. Even if an investor is looking at Africa from a traditional resource-based perspective, the cost of bringing goods to market – and therefore profitability – is directly linked to infrastructure networks that in many cases have not been adequately supported. Also, as African countries attempt to move into more manufacturing and intermediate or finished goods, access to the resources necessary to operate machinery will be a critical factor.
Presumably it is clear that investment in infrastructure is sorely needed on the African continent. However, in stark contrast with previous decades, a significant (and rapidly increasing) amount of capital is being put towards solving Africa’s infrastructure challenges. Perhaps it is not surprising to learn that, according to McKinsey, growth in transport and telecommunications grew by an annualized rate of 7.8% from 2002 until 2007, and construction grew at 7.5% annualized over the same period. For example, according to McKinsey, from 1991-2005 only about 1% of resource deals in Africa had an infrastructure component included. In contrast, that number had climbed to an average of 23% for the period between 2006 and 2010. In fact, McKinsey also predicts that between 2008 and 2020, revenue for infrastructure companies will grow by an annualized 9% rate, reaching over $200 billion by 2020, from approximately $72 billion today.

So what does that mean to us, who invest exclusively in opportunities in Africa? We have been adamant that infrastructure was a huge play for investors. We see great opportunities in many of the sectors mentioned above, as well as the companies which provide them with financing. In fact, we consider infrastructure companies to be one of the three key themes of our strategy, and actively position ourselves to seek companies that we believe will benefit from this trend. We absolutely understand why GE would see Africa through infrastructure tinted glasses – we do the same.

For more information about investing in Africa, please contact Nile Capital Management at (646)367-2820 or info@nilecapital.com.

We know Africa - from Cairo to Capetown.

Tata Chemicals will invest $290 million in a new port-based ammonia-urea fertilizer manufacturing plant in Gabon, Africa.

2011-04-15T01:02:00.000+02:00

Tata Chemicals Ltdannounced on Monday after market hours that it will invest in a new port-based ammonia-urea fertilizer manufacturing plant in Gabon, Africa. The project includes setting up a 1.3 million tonnes per annum urea plant (stream 1), with an option to expand into another stream of equal capacity (stream 2).

Tata Chemicals will invest $290 million (Rs. 1,290 crore) to purchase a 25.1% stake in stream 1. As much as 62.9% stake in stream 1 will be held by Singapore-based OlamInternational Ltd and the remaining by Gabon.

Execution work has already started on stream 1 and it is expected to be commissioned in three years. On the other hand, the time schedule for executing stream 2 would be mutually decided among Tata Chemicals, Olam and Gabon over the next two years. Tata Chemicals’ stake in stream 2 is expected to be substantially higher.
So, what does this development mean for the company? In a presentation, Tata Chemicals has highlighted that it is expecting an annual earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $300-350 million per stream.
Though it’ll be a while before this reflects in Tata Chemicals’ numbers, it would be nonetheless positive. The deal would also give the company some fiscal benefits. There is also an assured supply of low-cost natural gas feedstock for both the streams.
Tata Chemicals would be able to leverage on Olam’s strong network in Africa and the facility would give it good proximity to end-markets. On the other hand, Tata Chemicals would offer project management consultancy, and operations and maintenance service post the commissioning of the project.
But investors don’t seem to be very thrilled. Tata Chemicals’ stock rose by 2% on Wednesday to Rs. 362 apiece on a day when the bellwether Sensex of the Bombay Stock Exchange also increased by 2%. One reason could be because the benefits of this investment would take some time.
This development improves sentiments in the short run for the stock. Analysts had downgraded the earnings estimates of Tata Chemicals for the current fiscal and the next after the company announced weak results for the December quarter, when numbers were affected due to input cost pressures and plant shutdowns.

Mark to Market | Pallavi Pengonda

Africa produces the next Facebook, Groupon, Zynga or Google

2011-04-15T00:33:00.000+02:00

April 13, 2011 in Featured Home by Ben

What will these lists look like 5 years from now? This infographic was produced by Ivan Colic. Located in South Africa, he started a great series devoted to the visualization of African data called Afrographique.
On April 7th Mfonobong Nsehe published ‘Why Africa May Never Produce a Facebook, Groupon, Zynga or Google’ in Forbes. Rightly, he calls for a need for investors to step forward and support promising African startups. I share this call to action, but also recognize the progress that is already being made. We have plenty of African startup success stories and there are more on the rise every day. Investors need to get involved now or we will simply pass them up.

Just last week TxtEagle raised $8.5 million from a consortium of investors including Spark Capital and RBC Venture Partners. This is big news when you consider most of the ground work and prototyping was done in Kenya. TxtEagle leverages USSD protocol that averts many of the costs that restrain SMS use in emerging markets. Their innovative approach has the potential to engage billions of people who till now have been hard for many organizations to reach. They already build on partnerships with 220 mobile operators in almost 100 countries who between them cover 2.1 billion subscribers. That’s 28.5% of the global population and is clearly another African designed platform with global potential. Is this not an example of a global product like Facebook, Groupon, Zynga or Google?
And there is no shortage of capacity and I agree with Mfonobong that Africa has some extremely intelligent techpreneurs. I think its a remarkable accomplishment when someone like John Waibochi, the founder of VirtualCity, walks away with USD 1 million from Nokia and beats out software developers from the U.S, Canada and India! And great African techpreneurs don’t just come from Nairobi :) NandiMobile, a start-up from the MEST Incubator won “Best Business” award at the LAUNCH conference in San Francisco. They were in competition with almost 100 Silicon Valley start-ups!
And let’s remember that Nigeria is about to get seriously connected. We are talking about 5.12 Tbit/s in capacity that will come to shore with the West Africa Cable System. This is four times the celebrated SEACOM cable behind a lot of the tech startup energy and buzz we share in Nairobi. The speed of the WACS cable is such that one could theoretically download about eight million MP3 files or over eight thousand DVDs per minute! And investors aren’t waiting around to see what happens. Already Pagatech announced that they have received investment from Tim Draper, a renowned Venture Capitalist based in the United States from Draper Fisher Jurvetson.
Speaking about his investment in Paga, Draper said “My decision to make this personal investment is premised on the simple fact that I believe in the bold vision of the Paga team and I trust in their ability to execute. Paga is a great innovation which will simplify life for millions of people in Nigeria and beyond. I look forward to the company being a major African success story that serves as an example for many more to come.”
There are exits too. South African Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Thawte, a web security and certificate authority company, sold his business for nearly a half billion USD. So let’s be clear. Investors need to get involved today or they risk missing out on a unique opportunity at a unique point in time.

South Africa: IDC to Invest Billions in Industry

2011-04-12T22:50:00.000+02:00

Pretoria — The Industrial Development Corporation is to invest R102 billion in the next five years to aid the development of industry, Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel said on Tuesday.
"The IDC will substantially increase the level of industrial funding and will make available R102 billion over the next five years for investment in New Growth Path priorities," Patel said as he tabled the department's Budget Vote.
The R102 billion has been revised upwards from the previously allocated R66 billion in its current five-year projections.

Over the next five years, green industries will be allocated R22.4 billion, while mining and beneficiation will be allocated R22.1 billion. Manufacturing will receive R20.8 billion while the agriculture value chain will receive R7.7 billion.

Tourism, creative industries and high level services will receive R14.8 billion with funding to distressed companies receiving R2.5 billion, followed by strategic high impact projects receiving R11.1 billion and venture capital receiving R500 million.
The allocations will be reviewed annually.
The department will focus on the green economy in the year ahead with the belief that 300 000 new jobs are possible in the green economy by 2020.

Patel has also asked the self-financing national development institution to consider a facility to address challenges companies face as a result of the strong rand, possibly through the Distressed Sector Fund. He expects a proposal from the IDC at the end of May.

On the cost of IDC lending, interest on new IDC loans will be up to 100 basis points lower for high development impact investments, which should reduce the average cost of borrowing by 50 points.
Based on existing loan profiles, this should save borrowers approximately R500 million over the next five years alone.
The New Growth Path sets a target of creating five million jobs in 10 years. According to the minister, development finance institutions have a central role to play in implementing the New Growth Path.
"They provide crucial mechanism for forging constructive and productive partnerships with stakeholders to develop our economy," he explained.
The IDC, he said, must play a central role to encourage new economic activities, support new job creation and promote a greener economy.
Of the Economic Development Department's R594 million allocated budget, R219 million will be transferred to small business development, while Khula and Samaf (government's small business funding agencies) will deploy a further R381 million from their own resources.
The minister further added that the facilities offered by Khula will be supplemented by a new direct lending facility, Khula Direct, which has been allocated R55 million this year.

Cameroon buys Credit Agricole's 14 pct stake in SCB

2011-04-07T22:43:00.000+02:00

(Reuters) - Cameroon has bought French bank Credit Agricole's (CAGR.PA) 14 stake in Societe Camerounaise des Banques (SCB), Cameroon's third-biggest bank, for 4.2 billion CFA Francs ($9.13 million), its finance minister said.
The deal takes the state's share in the bank to 49 percent, Lazarre Essimi Menye, the finance minister of the Central African state told journalists at a press conference on Thursday.
Credit Agricole had managed SCB through its local partnership known as SCB-Credit Agricole.
The French retail banker sold some of its stake in the partnership together with shares in other African operations including in Congo, Gabon and Senegal for 250 million euros to Morocco's Attijariwafa Bank (ATW.CS) in December 2008.
"We have concluded discussions between the government and Credit Agricole, which was managing SCB, buying over 14 percent of its shares and bringing government shares in the bank now to 49 percent," Menye said.
The government was forced to sell its shares in local banks three years ago at the height of the economic and financial crisis to buffer state coffers, Menye said, adding that it was now reinvesting in the sector to boost lending to small and medium-sized enterprises and development projects. (Reporting Tansa Musa; Writing by Bate Felix;

Myne Properties & Investment Limited - providing accommodation for Nigerians

2011-04-07T22:37:00.000+02:00

This week Africa Business Communities meet with Tolu Bisade-Phillips, Managing Partner of Myne Properties & Investment Limited, a sought-out property development consulting firm in Nigeria and Ghana.
Welcome Tolu Bisade-Phillip, to Africa Business Communities. Tell us about yourself.
"My name is Tolu Bisade-Phillips, 39 years old. I studied Architecture and had an MBA (Marketing) at Masters Level. I am also a professional Management Consultant being a certified member of NIM (Nigerian Institute of Management). I am married to Bukola Bisade-Phillips and blessed with 2 children. Presently I am the Managing Partner at Myne Properties & Investment Limited, a real property consulting firm based in Ikeja, Lagos Nigeria."
How long have you been involved in the real estate business?
"I have been involved in real estate business since 1997 till date (14 years)."

What are the greatest advantages and disadvantages of the market in Nigeria and Ghana where you operate?
"The greatest advantage in Nigeria is the population (over 150Million, the largest black race) and the deficit of 17million housing short fall which requires an average of 20 houses to be built in Nigeria on a daily basis for a 4 years plan. Also the fact that 80% of the population lives in rented apartment with the hope of having a roof over their heads in the nearest future. However the disadvantages are insincerity on the part of the government, corruption and lack of infrastructure which impacts negatively on the cost of construction. As for Ghana, I am still fresh in the Ghana market and I hope to understudy the market with time. However, I know that infrastructure is not so much of an issue ( a number of companies have relocated from Nigeria to Ghana, particularly due to the conducive business environment there) corruption index has also greatly improved."

What is the first measure that should be taken so that the Real Estate business will be able to improve in Africa?
"African government should make housing a priority during budget planning and implementation. It should be respected as one of the 3 essentials of good life (food, shelter and clothing). It should also be regarded by African government as a veritable means of job creation and wealth generation, for example Tinapa in Calabar, Nigeria."

Which do you consider to be the most attractive segment of real estate market in Africa?
"The most attractive segment by my assessment will be property development. You have other segments like Agency, Marketing, Financing, Construction etc, but a developer, depending on the type of contract for a given project can make over 100% profit at the end of a single project."

What is your niche market?
"Our niche market is construction supervision. We have realized that finishes is actually what makes a building to either be described as good or bad. Being a management consultant, we deploy our skill in this aspect of the real estate industry. On a daily basis on our projects, we resume work with the contractor and finish with them. This helps to monitor and coordinate construction activities for timely delivery, quality material usage and insistence on standardized construction procedures."

What is the future of Myne Properties & Investment Limited?
"The future of Myne Properties is very bright because our goal is to become a reference point in the Industry through cutting edge management approach in our delivery."

What kind of property attracts most investors?
"Any property with high ROI. For instance in Lagos now, block of residential flats is the most attractive. The upper middle class demands for this type of property more than other types. However, due to the economic situation, there is a gradual shift from 3 bedroom flat ( N30Million to N40Million) to Studio apartment which is less expensive (N8-10Million) and 1 bedroom flat (N12-18Million)."

How can potential buyers learn about your company and services it can offer?
"Myne Properties has a website, www.myneproperties.com, social interactive platform like face book, twitter and blog pages where we discuss topical issues with the people on our network."

What are Myne Properties & Investment Limited main advantages as a real estate broker?
"The advantage as a real estate broker is that our profile gets better and the clienteles base increases progressively."

Are you funded? And are you looking for additional funding?
"If you mean external funding of our operation, NO. But we have a good relationship with our bankers, GTBank at the moment. We are willing to discuss with any company both foreign or local that shows interest in funding our operations as a way of expanding our business potentials."

Is the market hot and what is your advice for home-buyers?
"The market is not at its best now, until possibly after the general election in April 2011. However, the prospect is high."

I’m very curious. What kind of investment do you need to start a business like yours?
"You really do not need to have so much financial Investment other than basic requirement to start any business. But you will need a pretty good years of experience if that will go for an investment. I mean 8-10 years in the industry."

What is the latest news about your business?
"The latest news about our business is the development of a private hostel accommodation in Ibadan, Oyo State Capital. The site analysis was done, sketch designs were done and approved by he client. We are in the process of packaging all necessary drawings (Architectural, Structural, Mechanical, Electrical Drawings) for government approval to enable us move to site for construction works. Also with respect to marketing, our firm was recently appointed alongside 2 other agencies for the marketing of Fountain Estate and April Court Haven, both in Ikeja GRA, Lagos State."

Follow your passion and money will come. True or false?
"True, with hard work."

www.myneproperties.com

Kenya-Investments: Government Targets More Diaspora Investments

2011-04-07T22:33:00.000+02:00

The government plans to partner with financial institutions and organisations of Kenyans living abroad to pull together their remittances for gainful investments. The project will focus on diaspora direct investments, capital markets, tourism and nostalgic trade, retirement and savings for the estimated 2.5 million Kenyans abroad. "We need to come up with customised investment opportunities targeting the diaspora, this will enhance their participation in economic development," said Richard Onyoka, the Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs. Kenyans living abroad have in cases been lured in to fraudulent investments channels sometimes losing their entire life savings.
According to Central Bank Kenya figures, diaspora remittances have been growing by the year hitting $642 m(53.27bn) last year. But the most recent World Bank and African Development Bank survey figures show an even higher amount of $1.8 bn(149.4bn) sent home in 2010 by Kenyans living abroad.Majority of kenyans abroad reside in North America and Europe."Financial institutions should work together to develop a reliable, unified money transfer system," said Onyoka while launching a capacity building project for diaspora last Friday.

The ministry is now in the process of creating a diaspora virtual network hub to facilitate flow of information between government and those living outside the country. The capacity building project is expected to start in July and last for 18 months."Kenya has a diaspora full of professionals; the government is putting in place policies that will enable the full use of their expertise including technology transfers to support the country,"

In the Vision 2030 blueprint, diaspora has been placed as one of the flagship projects under the financial sector. The government also ratified the amendment to the AU Constitutive act that invites and encourages the full participation of the African diaspora as an important part of the continent in building the African Union.

The World bank report titled Leveraging Migration for Africa: Remittances, Skills, and Investments shows African countries received US $406 bn( approx 33.7 trillion) in diaspora remittances last year. while this is the largest net inflow of foreign funds after Foreign Direct Investment.

However most of this money is directed towards consumption by the recipients rather than savings and investments. the minister said those in diaspora have shown interest in the stocks market, unit trusts, real estate and retirement schemes, urging credible institutions in the sectors to engage them.

Winfred Kagwe

The scramble for Africa

2011-04-04T23:10:00.000+02:00

"There's no country where there's no development required in Africa."
(Source: Lawyer)Legal work in Africa is no longer just about infrastructure projects. Joanne Harris discovers a continent where natural resources, telecoms and finance are helping create a land of plenty
A number of repeated themes emerge when lawyers get talking about Africa: natural resources, development and the rise of the middle class are all topics that come up again and again.
But those working in Africa are also keen to stress something else.
"At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, it's a bloody big place," remarks Nicholas Buckworth, head of the project finance group at Shearman & Sterling.
Mass markets
Africa is the world's second-largest continent, with a combined population of more than a billion people spread throughout 54 countries, including the world's newest independent state, Southern Sudan. Therefore, although most Anglo-Saxon law firms market themselves as having 'Africa practices', the breadth of work included in each varies widely from firm to firm.
"It's a tremendously diverse place," explains Anthony Giustini, co-head of Clifford Chance's Africa group. "You can't compare the type of business you'll do in smaller countries on the continent to the type of opportunities there are in Nigeria or South Africa. Firms are going to need to look over the whole continent and pick and choose where they're going to devote their efforts."
But it is worthwhile putting that effort in.
"The continent boasts an abundance of riches," notes a recent report by consultants McKinsey, "including 10 per cent of the world's reserves of oil, 40 per cent of its gold and 80-90 per cent of the chromium and platinum group metals.
"Demand for raw materials is growing fastest in the world's emerging economies, which now account for half of Africa's total trade.
"As trade patterns have shifted, African governments are forging new types of economic partnerships, in which buyers from these countries provide upfront payments, make infrastructure investments and share management skills and technology. "Foreign direct investment in Africa has increased from $9bn [pound 5.6bn] in 2000 to $62bn in 2009 - almost as large as the flow into China when measured relative to GDP."
The report predicted that, by 2030, Africa's top 18 cities could have a combined spending power of $1.3tr. It said the unmet infrastructure needs of the continent required "at least $46bn more in spending per year".
Cash call
Lawyers say these needs and the way they are currently being met (or not) are evident on the ground.
"There's no country where there's no development required in Africa.

Nigeria: The Country Fourth Fastest Growing Economy - UK Govt

2011-04-02T01:57:00.000+02:00

The UK Government in London described Nigeria as the fourth fastest growing economy in the world.

Mr Henry Bellingham, UK Parliamentary Under Secretary of State For Africa and Overseas Territories, said this at a two-day investment forum tagged: "Making Nigeria Your Goal."

"Nigeria has averaged growth of 8.9 per cent which is really stunning.

"Nigeria is the world's fourth fastest growing economy with solid growth in the next five years and beyond ; this is truly remarkable," he said.

Bellingham said the Nigerian economy may outpace that of South Africa in the next 10 years if the current reform in the banking sector was extended to the power, oil and gas sectors.

He commended the Lagos Government for good governance, fiscal responsibility and infrastructure development, saying the state was a model.

Mr Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, Managing Director of Access Bank PLC, said the event was an opportunity to consolidate on the economic gains that had characterised trans-border economic relations between the two countries.

Aig-Imoukhuede, whose presentation was entitled, "Nigeria: Your Market," cited some sectors that had contributed to the real growth of the nation's GDP in the last five years.

These, he said, include telecommunications accounting for 7.5 per cent; construction 6.4 per cent; food and beverages 3 per cent, agriculture 31.9 per cent; cement 1.3 per cent as well as oil and gas 25 per cent.

Earlier, Mr Ben Akabueze, Lagos State Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, highlighted some investment opportunities in the state.

He cited the areas of investment to include power, water supply, real estate and road transport.

Akabueze said the Lekki Free Zone (LFZ), when fully completed, would give priority to manufacturing, warehousing and provision of logistics for industries in the zone.

"The LFZ is turning into a new industrial city as well as a multi-functional special economic zone of Lagos metropolis," he added.

The second leg of the event will continue in Manchester under the same theme.

Participants at the forum were drawn from the organised private sector in Nigeria, the Nigeria High Commission and UK businesses. NAN

Canada seeks closer Economic ties with Africa

2011-04-02T01:35:00.000+02:00

Canada seeks closer Economic ties with Africa
Canada was the largest foreign investor in Africa’s mining industry and its businesses were well positioned to take a leading role in the continent’s economic development, a senior official said Tuesday.
Peter Van Loan, the Canadian Minister of International Trade, was addressing a symposium on “Africa Rising: Entrepreneurship and Innovation Frontiers” in Canada’s largest city of Toronto, an official release says.
“Canada is committed to strengthening its commercial ties with Africa and expanding trade with the continent,” he said, adding that Canadian businesses offered expertise in key economic sectors in Africa.
Canadian companies had the expertise to take on a leading role in developing key sectors in Africa, such as telecommunications, agriculture, energy, transportation, infrastructure, natural resources and education.
In Y 2010, bi-lateral trade with Africa reached almost 13B Canadian Dollars (US$13.2B).
On January 27, 2011, Canada announced the start of free trade negotiations with Morocco, its 1st partner on the African continent and seen as a gateway to Mediterranean and North African markets.
Canada has so far held discussions with close to 50 countries on its ambitious Free Frade and investment agenda.
The symposium brings together leaders in business, science and government to explore key aspects of Africa’s economic growth: business development, growth sectors, financing, commercializing research, new development models, information and communications technologies, natural resources and infrastructure.—Paul A. Ebeling, Jnr. www.livetradingnews.com
Suite 53 Athenee Tower 63 Wireless Road, Lumpini, Pathumwan, Bangkok 10330 THAILAND

French and Chinese Oil Companies Agree to Pay U.S. $2.9 Billion for Oil Fields

2011-04-02T01:26:00.000+02:00

Total a French oil company and the China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) have agreed to pay $2.9 billion (Shs6.9 trillion) for stakes in Tullow Oil's assets in Uganda.
British firm Tullow Oil yesterday announced details of the Sale and Purchase Agreements (SPAs) with CNOOC and Total in Kampala, a day after the deal was signed in Hong Kong, China.

According to the agreements, Total and CNOOC will each acquire 33.3 out of every 100 shares or rights that Tullow holds in exploration areas 1, 2 and 3A in Uganda. Tullow will then retain an equal stake in the same oil exploration areas.

Last year, Tullow paid over $1 billion to Heritage Oil and Gas to own 100 per cent of the oil blocks 1 and 3A. Heritage gave up half of its stake in the fields in the $1.5 billion deal that aroused a $404 million tax dispute with the government.
Mr Brain Glover the General Manager Tullow Oil Operations in Uganda said the new deal will pave way for the construction of a $10 billion refinery in Uganda with its new partners.

"We will now be able to take Uganda to the top 50 oil producers of the world," Mr Glover said while giving the broader significance of the deal to journalists in Kampala, yesterday. Uganda has discovered up to 2.5 billion barrels of oil with the potential to earn the government up to $2 billion per year once the oil is commercialized.

In a statement issued in London, Mr Aidan Heavey, Chief Executive Tullow Oil, added; "Tullow, its partners and the Government of Uganda will now agree a development plan for the Lake Albert Rift Basin with a target of delivering production of at least 200,000 barrels of oil per day and potentially much more as we continue to explore and appraise the basin."
The announcements come two weeks after Tullow, the government and the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to lighten the $404 million tax dispute that remains over the 2010 Heritage-Tullow 2010 deal. The MoU now recognizes the Heritage and Tullow deal as binding unlike before.
In the MoU, Tullow agreed to pay $313.4 million in taxes relating to the 2010 sale, within 10 days of signing the SPAs, to the government through Uganda Revenue Authority. Mr Glover said the money will be paid as "security" to the government as the tax arbitration process between the government, and Heritage takes place. The next step is for Tullow to deposit the security to government for it to be able to sale its interest to Total and CNOOC.

18-hole golf course planned for Emerald Coast Free Zone, Cameroon

2011-04-02T01:00:00.000+02:00

Date: 03/29/2011 ,Sourced by: Golf Course Report World Edition

Africa’s first big off-shore banking haven is set to be built in Cameroon, and it’ll be accompanied by the nation’s third 18-hole golf course.

Emerald Coast Financial & Tourism Free Zone will take shape on 777 acres, including more than a mile’s worth of beachfront, just outside the coastal town of Limbe. It’ll have its own immigration and customs control center, its own port, and its own airport receiving center for VIPs, not to mention an “ultra-secure underground vault,” to be built into the side of a nearby mountain, “for the safe-keeping of hard assets such as bullion and other valuables.”

No doubt, some very high-rollers will be among the foursomes on its golf course. Cameroon’s government has issued a license to build Emerald Coast to GCN Canada, Inc., a group based in a suburb of Ottawa, and Bonanza Estates S.A., an entity based in Limbe.

Robert Sabga, a former high commissioner for the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago and the principal of GCN Canada, said in a press release that Emerald Coast will combine “the benefits of a financial tax haven with the attraction of an ultra-exclusive, resort-style, duty-free zone.” He called it “the only such destination of its kind in the world.”

An Egyptian company, Hiram Estates Investments, has agreed to put up $850 million in financing for the first phase of the project, which will include a duty-free shopping mall, an entertainment center with a casino, a business and financial center, a marina that can accommodate mega-yachts, a boardwalk, and a hotel with 250 conventional rooms and 200 “luxury” condos.

The financing for the subsequent phases of Emerald Coast hasn’t yet been secured, but the zone has been planned to include upscale villas and apartments, time-share condos, several resort-style hotels, an arts and entertainment center, a convention center, a medical center, restaurants operated by “international chefs,” and a “world-class” golf course.

“The Emerald Coast project is going to fundamentally alter the way the rest of the world looks at Africa,” Sabga said in a press release. “It is going to change the continent of Africa as never before.”

As best we can determine, Cameroon currently has just two 18-hole golf courses, Likomba Golf Club in Tiko and Mont Febe Hotel Golf Course in Yaoundé, the nation’s capital. There’s also a golf course in Kribi, but we can’t tell if it has nine or 18 holes.

Poverty as entertainment: Please put to an end Kibera slum tours

2011-03-28T22:06:00.000+02:00

Apparently, a reality show-cum-documentary called Famous, Rich and in the Slums, which has been shot in Kibera, has been airing on a British TV in the last few days.

The film is being promoted as a fund-raiser for the residents of Nairobi’s most notorious slum.

A British journalist, who told me about the film, and who has lived in Kenya for several years, said that she was “shocked and appalled” at the way Kenya was being portrayed to the British public, and wondered why “Kibera has become as iconic as the leaping Maasai warrior used to be’’.

The two-part documentary shows four British celebrities, including the actor and stand-up comedian, Lenny Henry, leaving their privileged lives behind to spend a week with residents of what the producers of the film describe as “one of the most impoverished places on earth”.

The film by Red Nose Day, a charity whose slogan is “Do Something Funny for Money”, shows the celebrities mingling, sleeping, eating and defecating with the locals.

“It’s like being in hell,” Henry is quoted as saying, minutes after relieving himself at a pit latrine that he shared with hundreds of Kibera residents.

For many Kenyans, the film is the worst form of slum tourism because it turns poverty into entertainment in the name of charity.

Kennedy Odede, a former Kibera resident who is currently a student at Wesleyan University in the United States, says that while he understands the need among foreigners to witness poverty, he believes that slum tourism is largely a one-way street: “They get the photos; we lose a piece of our dignity”.

Slum tourism is one of the fastest growing trends in Kenya, particularly since the films, The Constant Gardener (partially shot in Kibera), and Slumdog Millionaire won Oscars.

Odede says that, like the Hollywood films, slum tourism has become another source of recreation for people who think they can understand poverty just by hanging around poor people for a few hours.

In an opinion article titled “Slumdog Tourism” published in the New York Times in August 2010, Odede recalls his first experience of a slum tour when he was 16.

“I was outside my 100-square-foot house washing dishes, looking at utensils with longing because I hadn’t eaten in two days. Suddenly, a white woman was taking my picture. I felt like a tiger in a cage. Before I could say anything, she had moved on.”

In another incident, a documentary film-maker who was interviewing him started to video a man defecating. “For a moment,” he says, “I saw my home through her eyes: faeces, rats, starvation, houses so close no one could breathe.”

What has this kind of tourism done to the residents of Kibera, except erode their self-respect further and make them objects of foreigners’ pity?

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of charities operating in Kibera and other slums like it, with few significant results to show for their efforts.

There may be slightly more sanitation facilities in the slums now, but the living conditions have become only slightly less appalling – they have not improved dramatically. And the slum continues to grow.

What’s worse, rather than addressing the bigger issues of social justice and human rights (which slum residents are denied daily by virtue of their dehumanising living conditions), charities and other do-gooders believe that provision of toilets, water and other amenities is the solution to slum-dwellers’ problems.

For instance, a product called Peepoo is being promoted in Kibera as an environmentally safer alternative to the notorious “flying toilet” plastic bags used by slum residents.

The product (which is patented by its Swedish inventor) is a biodegradable bag that “sanitises the human excreta shortly after defecation”.

Critics say that the bag may be environmentally friendly, but it is hardly a sustainable or permanent solution to the lack of sanitation facilities in slums. Its well-intentioned promoters also gloss over the fact that defecating in a bag is hardly an edifying experience.

Africa: Failing a continent

2011-03-28T21:59:00.000+02:00

That the AU had no say in the recent declaration of a no-fly-zone over Libya is a shame, and a huge step backward for a continent that has been trying to prove it is capable of managing its own affairs.

Against the backdrop of the debate about the foray of the Chinese into Africa, and the resulting concerns about neo-colonialism, we have watched with dismay as Africa's leaders, under the umbrella of the AU and other regional bodies, have repeatedly shirked the responsibility of ensuring that Africa has a say in its internal affairs.

The West African regional group, ECOWAS, is equally guilty of this abdication. For months now, Cote d'Ivoire has lain in crisis; the fallout of disputed presidential elections. Laurent Gbagbo, who has been in power since 2000, is believed to have lost the November 28, 2010 elections to Alassane Ouattara. But Mr. Gbagbo, following the lead of Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, has refused to concede defeat, and continues to hold on to power; polarising a country that emerged from civil war that fractured it into two, only a decade ago.
In the months since the elections, the body count in Cote d'Ivoire has steadily risen; and West Africa is on the verge of yet another refugee crisis. Yet it wasn't until last week that ECOWAS leaders resolved to take concrete action in Cote d'Ivoire to put an end to Mr. Gbagbo's continued illegal hold on power.
One does not need to be a foreign affairs analyst to realise that the ECOWAS leaders were probably nudged into motion by the military action recently embarked upon in Libya, by the United Nations.
After months of equivocation (meetings and half-hearted resolutions, which Mr. Gbagbo predictably ignored) and outright nonchalance, ECOWAS now wants us to believe that it is deeply concerned about the tragedy unfolding in Cote d'Ivoire.
Now that the decision has been made to take military action to save Cote d'Ivoire from Laurent Gbagbo, (the resolution has received the endorsement of the United Nations) we are eager to see how quickly and efficiently the regional body will move to implementation.
It is also important to note how the violence (orchestrated by the state against its citizens) in Libya and Cote d'Ivoire, and the precarious nature of Gabon's situation (also a case of disputed elections) are threatening to reverse the progress that Africa seems to have made in the last decade. Just when we thought we were gradually putting a culture of wars and sit-tight leadership behind us, we are faced with these reversals.
The new century brought with it some hope. The reinvention of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) - a three-decade-old organisation run by dictators and warlords essentially for themselves - as the African Union, in July 2002, was supposed to usher in a new age for Africa. The early days of the AU did indeed promise much. The new organisation launched the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD), and a celebrated (at least in theory) Peer Review Mechanism; and made noise about being committed to good governance and human rights.
But Africa seems to have become quite adept at the one-step-forward-two-backwards motion.
There is now little difference between the AU and the inefficient, dictator-ridden OAU it replaced. Nothing signifies this as much as the decision of the union to elect, in January this year (at a time when Tunisians and Egyptians were revolting against dictators who had held them in bondage for decades) a surviving member of Africa's class of long-standing tyrants (Teodora Obiang, who has ruled Equatorial Guinea for 31 years) as its new Chairperson.
Puzzling as that choice was, it says a lot about the true state of leadership on the continent - more than a third of Africa's Heads of States have spent well over a decade in power; a fifth have spent more than 23 years.
This state of affairs may partly explain why the AU has been largely silent while Libya has tragically descended into civil war. Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan dictator, and Africa's longest reigning Head of State is an influential member - and one of the most prominent in recent years - of the union's Assembly.
Many of Africa's leaders are too deeply implicated in bad governance that they have lost all moral authority to speak boldly about the continent's travails, and to intervene on the side of good when necessary.
Africa has lost a great deal of time to violence and tyranny. Now is the time for redemption. It is dismaying to realise that the leaders in whom we have invested the hopes for this redemption, have not proved themselves up to that task - whether in their domestic affairs, or in matters relating to the wellbeing of the continent as a whole.

MIT SLOAN AFRICAN CONFERENCE

2011-03-28T21:53:00.000+02:00

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Ashifi Gogo

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The Africa Business Challenge in September 2011!

2011-03-28T18:33:00.000+02:00

Dear future participants,

We are proud and happy to announce the start of the Africa Business Challenge in September 2011.

It’s now over 10 years since BTS launched the Global Tournaments. Many simulations have been organized and thousands of people have gone through the original program – across functions, industries and borders.

◀◀◀ In view of its success, we have decided to run a dedicated African Simulation:

The Africa Business Challenge in September 2011!

During the tournament you'll develop:

Business Acumen, Financial Skills, Leadership, Team Development and related managerial skills

We are very excited about this new endeavor and hope that it will be as successful in Africa as it is in the rest of the world.

We enthusiastically look forward to be working with you,

Kind regards,

Arnaud Henneville, Director BTSi-T | a BTS Group Company

Lex Lindeman,Managing Partner Human Resources Boosters

Enroll before the end of May and you receive a 20% discount!
Over 30.000 participants in 65 countries in one of the simulations!

Cameroonian-born Victor Anjeh, Legal Consultant at the U.S. based Nano Ventures Group,propels an International trade delegation from the U.S,Canada and India recently in Cameroon for a FCFA10billion Investment opportunity.

2011-03-25T02:53:00.000+01:00

Cameroonian born Victor Anjeh, a chief promoter of Diaspora investments and financing initiatives for African development and also a specialist in Market entry strategies, Negotiation, Outsourcing strategies, branding and corporate communications, and creative staffing solutions that blend local talent with a mix of expatriate input to fill the gaps in local skills;recently propelled the"Friends of Platinum Building Technology Cameroon", FPBTC to lay the ground works for a FCFA10billion investment with the University Institute of the Diocese of Buea,UIDB.
The Chancellor of the University Institute of the Diocese of Buea, UIDB, Mgr. Immanuel Bushu and officials of FPBTC,comprising an international trade delegation from the USA, Canada and India, recently held a business baquet at the Buea Chariot Hotel after the investors had met the Prime Minister and Head of Government, Philemon Yang, the Ministries of Energy and Higher Education to explain their vision.

Cameroonian-born Victor Anjeh, Legal Consultant at the U.S. based Nano Ventures Group, said it is time to move minds and make Cameroon a knowledge-based economy. This, to him, can only be achieved through those who can think outside of the box. He invited UIDB to be prepared for value proposition, which is making the institution different from other Universities by their ability to acquire the transfer of technology. Anjeh challenged Cameroonians and the investors to make a difference.
During the discussions, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of FPBTC, Rev. Fr. George Nkeze, said his association is out to translate into reality a vision formulated by the Chancellor of UIDB, namely, create University students, who are job creators and not job seekers. "We wish to emphasise in the Cameroonian society the spirit of entrepreneurial development. We are out to introduce a structure whereby our students will be in school and, simultaneously, get the industrial and research skills before they graduate."
According to Fr. Nkeze, they wish to begin this new approach at UIDB with the introduction of new trends in the housing and solar technologies. "The platinum building technology is our first step. Housing is a critical step in growth. This will be followed by solar energy. A student who has a good house, made in a simple model- air-conditioned, enough power, internet-connected, studies well, then, there is room for good thinking. And, by the time our students graduate, they have picked up those skills, which will enable them manufacture their own solar energy and housing systems," he explained.
Bishop Bushu defined the partnership between the trade delegation and UIDB as that of sowing a seed, adding that their coming is a blessing to Cameroon, since their ultimate objective is to make Cameroonians happy.
Furthermore, the Prelate said the investors and Cameroonians will be working for the benefit of Cameroon, which is part of managing God's wealth in the world in His name. "The basic thing is to give tertiary education to some young people, who could not obtain it in some of our State Universities because of inadequate space. With the quality we are introducing, our graduates should be able to fend for themselves after school, instead of waiting - as they generally do now - for the State to give them employment," he said.Speaking on behalf of Genesis Production Services, Barry Keith Webb said they are bringing to Cameroon an American building and construction company, which has been involved in the sector for ten years. He insisted that their operations speak for themselves, adding that they are ten times stronger than any of their competitors. "Our products are relevant for tropical climates like that of Cameroon," he said.The Head of the Indian delegation, Kunal Chandra, a specialist in solar energy, said energy is a necessity for growth in Cameroon. Chandra reassured participants that they will not be offering Cameroon substandard technology, indicating that they have garnered enormous experiences in the field after successful operations in Japan, USA, Europe and other parts of the world.
Chandra said their company, Twincity Sunlife, will transfer knowledge in UIDB as well as encourage income generation through their operations in Cameroon. "Our technology is not only new but cutting edge. We are not coming to Cameroon to tell you what you need, but for Cameroonians to tell us what they need," he said. The Indian investor said their coming to Cameroon would provide them an opportunity "to add value to Cameroon's economy and make solar power a great solution. The students of UIDB must understand the concept of solar energy," he said.

Africa Green Investment Gateway Conference.

2011-03-23T15:33:00.000+01:00

Corporate Africa, London, and ICCouncil, New York, are the organizers of the Africa Green Investment Gateway Conference. More than 1000 delegates from government and business are expected to attend the event.

14 – 16 September 2011
UN Building, New York, USA

Africa Supplies
Africa supplies 40 per cent of the world's natural resources and accounts for less than 3 per cent of carbon emission. All nations on their path to achieving economic growth and dominance have and continue to include Africa in their wealth building equations.

Hence, Africa the world's supplier is ripe to become the focus and target for global investments, towards value adding green technology and projects to exploit natural resources, leading onto an era of sustainable development investments, with balance between human ecology and the natural environment, and the needs of societies and investors.

Having identified the gap in the value chain to be bridged to create a virtuous cycle of reinvestment between African countries and international investors using the bottom up approach (the needs of the people), Corporate Africa and ICCouncil deem the moment appropriate for the first Africa Green Investment Gateway Conference.
An interactive platform hosted by the private sector at the centre of the global economy, New York, provides the stage for the first showing of the Africa Green Investment Gateway Conference. Teams of international experts, investors, and consultants will engage high level government officials, technocrats, Africa’s private sector, and regional and global developmental stakeholders regarding African nations working collectively, and systematically, in collaboration with investors to (a) exploit international climate change financial resources and channel them into Green investments launching an era of sustainable development investments across African industrial infrastructure (b) to turn the region into a top energy research hub for Green sustainable development investments for local and export markets to help them meet national and regional climate change mitigation targets (c) to define policies and incentives to spur innovation into Green investments and lure investors with the right mix of green technologies, which can transform traditional infrastructure industries like building and construction into Green havens that harness the environment to meet the energy and sanitation needs of people and their economies.

Sime Darby Proposes African Palm Oil Plantations

2011-03-22T18:51:00.002+01:00

Sime Darby, the world’s largest public palm oil producer, has proposed a $2.5 billion plantation that it says will meet high environmental standards.
Mohd Bakke Salleh, chief executive of the Malaysian conglomerate, said the group is eyeing 300,000 hectares of agricultural and degraded forest land in Cameroon, in addition to a 200,000 hectare concession granted in Liberia last year, the Financial Times reports.
“Cameroon is our second preferred choice after Liberia,” Bakke said, according to Business Green. Planting in Liberia is due to start next month, and Bakke said the company is also considering plantations in Ghana.
The company has not signed any deals on the Cameroonian land, Bakke said. “We are actively looking. We have been shown potential areas in Cameroon, and the development formula is to work with the local communities,” he said.
The plantation would begin with about 5,000 hectares a year, Bakke said.
Palm oil is a key ingredient in many consumer and commercial products including cosmetics, confectionery, cooking oils and biofuels. But palm oil production has come under heavy fire for destroying rainforests and peatland across southeast Asia, leading to habitat destruction and high carbon emissions.
Sime Darby said it does not cut virgin forest, and that African countries are inviting its investments because of its good track record on the environment, Business Green reported.
The company said it uses the best environmental practices in the industry. It is a founding member of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), and has committed to have all its operating units certified by the end of the year. About a third of its production is currently Certified Sustainable Palm Oil (CSPO).
The World Wildlife Fund has said that the CSPO standard ensures that plantations have good environmental, social and economic standards. “By buying CSPO, major users of palm oil can avoid contributing to the ongoing destruction of forests in Southeast Asia,” the organization said.
Sime Darby also said that it has planted 260,000 rare and endangered trees in the last three years. It has a zero-burning replanting method, avoids pesticides and composts bio-waste to avoid producing methane, Business Green reported.

China in Africa, the Fear among Europeans (Part 2)

2011-03-22T12:51:00.000+01:00

Continuation from part 1

Here comes another contingent, a one time poor Asian country, China is now a major world player and it is trying to rewrite the rule of doing international business. And there is no better place to show this than the world most resourceful continent, Africa.
Both the European and the American economies have relied heavily on African petroleum, gold, diamond, copper, archaeological materials and many more. And the highly sophisticated western big businessmen have been reaping off these resources, using the corruption of their own African elects and the stirred up conflicts across the continent to cover up the theft. Now, a new reality is here.
China, which is equally hungry for energy and other raw materials for its yet growing economy is attempting to offer what the European businessmen did not offer to Africa, infrastructures. And here starts the war of propaganda.
Some said that China is becoming the new colonial of Africa and some others are saying that China is going to do as much harm to Africa as the western capitalists have done all these years.
A few other people have a clearer version on the argument; China has its own army of labourers and it’s entering the African territory with its imported millions of workers, well prepared for a mission. And the danger is that there are many dubious Africans out there whom for the sake of money will collaboration with the devil himself to steal the local resources and destroy their own natural environment.
Well, the truth is that both the Chinese and the European businessmen will forsake Africa if they no longer need its resources but the local Africans will always remain in their land, so they have better choose their tomorrow, today.
In any case, Europe, apart from being Africa’s closest neighbour has had a longer relationship with Africa, compared to China. That also means there are more evidences to examine the Europe – Africa relationship than the China – Africa relationship, which obviously needs more time.
Talking about the Europe – Africa relationship, it is true that during colonialism the European colonialists did built some infrastructures in Africa such as schools, where few Africans were educated barely enough to take orders from their European masters. Roads were also constructed from some hinterlands where resources were available, down to the sea, in order to facilitate the exportation of the local resources into the European markets. There were also nice buildings and other infrastructures as much as were needed by the colonialists, but let not make mistake about this.
Neither during colonialism none in the indirect colonialism as it is today in many parts of Africa were the infrastructures built to facilitate an independent African economies. Instead the so-called African economies are merely subordinate of their colonial masters in Europe and controlled from Europe. This explains why Africans were never encouraged to cooperate among themselves and to grow together as the Europeans themselves have done. It explains also why there are hardly an African-oriented regional politics and economic strategy, irrespective of the European language and logistics barriers across Africa.
One of the main points the ex-president of the European commission touched at the Padova conference was the fact that based on the unfair designed of African political and economic structures, many African countries are not trading among themselves. The trading partners of each African country are not fellow African countries but the European countries, under the terms and conditions that have been set up by the same European countries.
Bellow is an extract from a research on a similar argument:
“Just imagine what the West African sub-region can benefit if a regional train can regularly move passengers and goods from Lagos to Bamako, Accra to Dakar. Imagine the unemployment situation in Africa if the same can be happening in the Eastern, Northern and the Southern regions of Africa. This will obviously lead to a high volume of trade among many African countries, thereby creating diverse opportunities for many young Africans. It will promote innovations and automatically lead to better infrastructural development, healthy competitions and tolerance among different people… Consider the following worst scenario:
Assuming that in the next few days, the Nigerian land space will no longer be habitable by human beings and that the people of Nigeria will need to be evacuated immediately in order to save their lives. Now, if you can prove to me how Britain, the true friend of Nigeria can transport 150 million Nigerians to Europe within these few days, I will show you how it is far more easier and logical to resettle 150 million Nigerians within the West African sub-region. African countries need to cooperate and build trust among themselves, so they can collectively solve their local and regional problems,” page 120, Underdevelopment in Africa: my hands are clean, published on November 10, 2010.
The absence of such people oriented and regional political consciousness has had a strong negative impact on the local economic development, in the sense that Africans seem to have lost the idea of internal cooperation and collective growth.
The idea that economic activities should be understood from the local point of view – the local people, their local problems and their collective effort to resolve their problems in their local way. The fact that the solution to African problems will not come from the benevolence gestures of some Europeans or the Chinese, but through the effort and resolute of the African people.

Ewanfoh Obehi Peter

China in Africa, the Fear among Europeans (Part 1)

2011-03-22T12:39:00.000+01:00

This article is a product of the press conference, tagged: “Africa between Europe and China: which international cooperation today? New sceneries, actors and approaches” held last Saturday, 12 February, 2011 at the University of Padova, north of Italy.
Although as the Prime Minister of Italy he was embattled out of the government in 2008, Romano Prodi is still one of the tallest personalities in the peninsula country. Many will adjudge him as an intellectual repute and a perfect gentleman. Apart from being a one time president of the European commission (1999 to 2004), he also has a wealth of experience both at the international politics and the economy. He is currently lecturing at a university in Shanghai, China’s most crowded city.
Last weekend, Saturday 12^th 2011,Mr. Prodi was celebrated as a guest speaker at the University of Padova, one of the most ancient universities in Europe, and he decided to stand by what many contemporary politicians would easily dodge away from; being honest in an argument, even when it’s not in your favour.
The press conference which began at half past nine in the morning was organised in collaboration with the University of Padova, the local government and CUAMM, a medical NGO that has been operating in some countries of Africa for the past 60 years.
Although the conferences was centred on Africa, another thing was also important, “the fear among some Europeans as to what might become of the present relationship between Africa and Europe” and by extension one of the main reasons for the conferences.
Many were the speeches and they were as diverse and intense as the different faces of the speakers, all in an attempt to resolve the African problems or at least identify them. This is how the African case usually goes, attractive, sensitive and sometimes complicated.
While some people are saying that it will require God himself to save Africa from its economic underdevelopment, some others have convinced themselves that the real solution actually lies in the promises from big western politicians and the generosity of countless NGOs across Africa.
In whichever way you see it, people must keep talking and the local Africans will keep paying the price. They will keep paying the price both for the wrong choices they have made the ones they were never able to make.
“I would love to talk on Europe and China in Africa…,” Mr. Prodi continued after greeting the cheering crowd, a mixture of politicians, academics, economists, NGO workers and several armies of African sympathisers.
Africa, he said, is the second largest continent with 20% of the world territory… Her population is expected to hit 20% of the global population in 2050, but today, Africa has 2,5% of the world production… “2,5%, to put it in abundance,” he emphasized.
With the affirmation, “73% of sub-Sahara Africans lives on less than 2 dollars a day”, Mr. Prodi concluded the first piece of his analysis.
Going further, he submitted: “the problem of rapport with Africa has become the card number one in G8 summits. Every year, there is a growing concern about Africa, in words, only in words. I have to say I have participated in ten G8 summits; five as the president of the European commission and five as the Prime minister of Italy. And with all honesty, we have never maintained the promises we have made…”
At this point one might begin to wonder. Why are the Europeans and their western allies such as the United States always the ones deciding the rules of engagement with Africa; whereas the same western powers can wilfully choose to honour or disregard their so-called promises and the conditions of engagement with their African partners, and nothing will happen?
By the end of the Second World War, a lot of Africans realised that, after all, they could fight for their own liberation from the hands of European powers, thereby starting a revolution which would have done them well as a people. But then, the European colonialists were smarter. They quickly decided to grant freedom to many Africans along the fragile borders, which have been created against the individual history and cultural evolution of the African people. Using the words of Prodi during the Padova conference, the created borders “had nothing to do with the ethnic or political histories” of the local people.
This was a trap and a well-coordinated one. It was going to be a true recipe for conflicts and be used to justify the present destabilisations in many parts of Africa. Right from the onset, however, the end result of this premeditated arrangement was known, “exploitation”.
By granting the kangaroo freedom and installing some local Africans who best suited the interest of European colonialists, the growing awareness about political consciousness and the pride of being a free people was thwarted in Africa. The revolution was eventually replaced with indirect colonialism and the false friendship between Africa and the West; the type of friendship which is still making the African development and self-dependency a rather illusive mission, even till date.
Since freedom is never granted to a people out of freewill but a pay off through the struggle of the concerned people whom at a certain level of maturity realises that they need to be free and so fight to be free, the European colonialists did not truly set the African political and economic system free during the so-called independence of the African states. In fact, they never will, until Africans are politically conscious enough to take their stand for self-determination, while keeping in mind the consequences that might await them.
Until then, nearly the whole continent of Africa might remain what it is today, a mere satellite village with a semi-independent system, which is strictly accountable to a coalition of western powers instead of the local Africans. And to some people, Africa will remain a piece of farmland or better still, an investment. This is why the African case is always at the table of each G8 summit, to decide on how to manage the investment, not because it has suddenly become a necessity to create a better standard of living for the Africans.
So no one should be surprised at the earlier remark by the ex-Italian prime minister and president of the European commission that the big western politicians are not keeping to their promises of alleviating poverty and human suffering in Africa. It is in fact not their job. It is the job of the African people to take up their responsibility and fight for their own interests and survival as a people. And not until they have realised that, no miracle is going to happen, not even with the presence of China in the continent.
Meanwhile, what has been helping to keep the African system in a vicious circle, “the relevance of Europe in Africa”, is now also the reason for the fear among some European futurists on the growing Chinese influence in Africa.

Manufacturing in Africa Can be Profitable – And Developmental

2011-03-22T12:09:00.000+01:00

GENEVA, Mar 21, 2011 (IPS) - Investing in adding value to raw materials is crucial for the development of the African continent.

Some foreign entrepreneurs have created food-processing businesses in Africa and are making good money, despite an occasionally difficult business environment.

"A vibrant SME (small and medium enterprise) sector is key for employment, increased income, economic diversification, exports and foreign direct investment," asserts Mohamed-Lamine Dhaoui of UNIDO, the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation.

"But, in Africa, manufacturing contributes only to 10 percent of gross domestic product," adds Dhaoui, who is director of business, investment and technology services at UNIDO.

Raw commodities, like fuel, metals and unprocessed foods, form the most important part of African exports. In contrast, manufacturing export is limited to 29 percent of exports - low compared to other regions.

But the development of the private sector in Africa faces major challenges: a difficult business environment, inadequate technical support services, poor infrastructure and weak technological development, with high costs for processing and electrification.

Advantages of the African business environment include low labour costs, even though the labour force sometimes needs professional training. "And agriculture is one of the key sectors for manufacturing, with its agro- industry, cash crops and food industries," Dhaoui notes.

Some foreign investors have taken up the challenge of manufacturing agricultural products directly in Africa. They are adding value locally, thereby contributing to local development while making good money.

Gary Hannam, CEO of the Swiss company Olivado Ltd, decided to create an international brand of extra virgin avocado oil that is manufactured in Kenya.

"In the Central Highlands of Kenya there is an abundance of good avocados and little domestic competition because local people don’t eat them," he explains. "The possibility of having organic and fair trade certification is quick and the bureaucratic process is corruption-free."

Despite some setbacks, a fair trade organic programme was set up in the record time of seven months. Hannam points out that Olivado is now the largest organic exporter in Kenya, with 820 small farmers certified. After extensive training programmes for farmers and the staff, they are now able to supply supermarkets directly.

"Our employment policy is to identify local people with good potential and train them. A former cleaner is now a fruit manager. And farmers’ incomes have doubled," he explains.

Despite poor infrastructure - water, power and roads - Olivado has become a leading international brand of extra virgin avocado oil that has a presence in 22 countries. The number of farmers is expected to increase to 2,000 in the next four years, producing 460,000 litres of oil.

Based on the Kenyan model, the company is about to start a new factory in Colombia. "I am looking for partners to share this small Swiss company’s ideals," he concludes.

Hans Peter Werder has another success story. The founder of HPW Ag, a small Swiss enterprise with only 12 employees, has built a dried fruit factory in Ghana. "Our strategy is to develop products with added value and target niche markets in Europe," he explains.

"There are many advantages to beneficiation in Ghana, starting with the proximity to the production place and that you need only 15 kg of pineapples to make one kg of dried fruit. But there are also challenges, like unstable fruit supply, especially from small-holder farmers, inflation and the artificial value of the Ghanaian currency," Werder notes.

Pineapples, coconuts and mangoes are prepared in Ghana, certified fair trade by Max Havelaar and sold in Switzerland and other countries.

In Ghana, fruits are prepared in partnership with a local company, Blue Skies, that employs 900 people in rural areas where the rate of unemployment is particularly high. This generates a demand for local hardware and other services.

HPW Ag helps pineapple growers to get fair trade certification. "Today we are the leading agricultural services provider in Ghana. We are responsible for the export of 35 percent of all pineapples from Ghana and possibly have the largest dried fruit factory in Africa. The factory is designed to pack consumer units at source and to supply retailers directly," says Werder.

The key element is the procurement of fruit from multiple sources: 50 percent come from big growers and 50 percent from small ones. "If you stay only with big producers, who sell abroad, you depend on the export market. And with the small ones, you don’t know if they will have enough fruit," Werder adds.

The processing of fruit is done in partnership with a South African dried fruit factory. Management is handled by a team in Ghana and through the relationship with the South African company.

Innovative ideas were required because of the high costs of electricity, gas and oil. HPW Ag decided to work entirely with renewable energy from the organic waste it produces.

Werder cautions that customers must take into consideration sustainability factors. "Whenever I send out my pitch, the answer is: send me the price list. Yes, I can send the price list, but Europeans should look also at sustainability."

HPW assures consumers that approximately 37 percent of the consumer price remains in the country of origin. (END)

Patience, tenacity key to business in Africa

2011-03-21T18:48:00.000+01:00

oing business in Africa is not for the faint-hearted and requires patience, good local staff and above all respect for the continent, bankers and executives say.
Speakers at this week's Reuters Africa Investment Summit said that with Africa firmly on investor radars and seven sub-Saharan African countries expected to be among the world's 10 fastest growing economies over the next five years, it cannot be ignored.
"Africa's time is now," said Jonathan Auerbach, co-founder and Managing Director of New York-based brokerage Auerbach Grayson, who has been doing business on the continent for 15 years.
"The developments throughout Africa are quite extraordinary for those of us who have been traipsing around this patch."
Despite lucrative prospects for investment banks involved in transactions ranging from urban renewal projects in Kenya to project finance for a road construction project in Nigeria, bankers needed local contacts, knowledge and staff.
"If you are going to briefcase in professionals from London, New York and other places, you are going to find it tough. If you are prepared to invest in local talent and train them on the ground, I think it is a lot different," said Clifford Sachs, CEO Africa for Rennaisance Capital.
RenCap has representative offices in six African countries with experienced local staff on the ground, unlike bigger investment banks which typically fly in dealmakers -- so-called "briefcase bankers."
RED TAPE, BUREAUCRACY Michael Larbie, Head, Investment Banking & Coverage, Africa, for South Africa's Rand Merchant Bank, said the difficulty of striking a business deal varied from country to country and is often tied up in red tape.
"You may encounter a project where there are multiple government departments and in some cases they are not all on the same page. So you are essentially the facilitator between the sponsor, various government ministries and the regulator," Larbie said.
Sub-Saharan Africa is near the bottom of the World Bank and International Finance Corporation's 2011 list of most business-friendly regions -- with a ranking of 137 on a scale up to 183 compared to OECD countries with 30 and Eastern Europe and Central Asia with 72.
The higher the ranking, the harder to do business.
RMB's Larbie said engagement with regulators in each country was essential for any transaction to be completed.
"There are a lot of difficult projects, all of them have their uniqueness and their particular challenges but as a banker you have to be tenacious and see it through," Larbie added.
Returns from investments can be astounding.
Jacko Maree, Chief Executive Officer of Standard Bank (SBKJ.J) -- Africa's biggest bank by assets -- said his bank was pushing ahead with starting a bank from scratch in oil-rich Angola, currently the domain of local and Portuguese banks.
"The published profits of some of these entities are phenomenal," Maree said.
(Editing by Matthew Tostevin)

Money, minerals make for Africa-China marriage

2011-03-21T18:41:00.000+01:00

"Zambia President Rupiah Banda said China understands Africa better than most of the world and has proved itself a trusted ally. His country, with a World Bank-estimated $12.7 billion GDP in 2009, is expected to see about $2.4 billion in Chinese investment this year."

By Jon Herskovitz

JOHANNESBURG | Fri Mar 11, 2011 9:06am EST

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - China has been Africa's No. 1 investor for years and its newly affluent could soon follow by sending large flows of cash into the quickly emerging continent looking for better returns than in Asia.
But any money that comes from private investors in China and other parts of Asia will pale in comparison to the billions of dollars Beijing has sent as it looks to secure the mineral resources it needs to power its hard-charging economy.
Zambia President Rupiah Banda said China understands Africa better than most of the world and has proved itself a trusted ally. His country, with a World Bank-estimated $12.7 billion GDP in 2009, is expected to see about $2.4 billion in Chinese investment this year.
"They have big, big industries with great appetites for what Africa has to offer," Banda told the Reuters Africa Investment Summit this week.
"In the process, they are making it easier for us to achieve what we want. What we want is to rebuild our countries."
China forged partnerships with many African states decades ago in their liberation struggles to end colonial rule and later invested in roads, schools, power plants and infrastructure to help the countries grow -- helping it import more minerals from countries such as Zambia, Africa's biggest cooper producer.
As Africa has grown, so has trade with China, which leaped to $126.9 billion in 2010 from about $10 billion in 2000, China's state news agency Xinhua reported.
"The Chinese have selfish interests, naturally," Banda said. "We are prepared to do this with anybody else. It is not that this is reserved for China. It is that they are the only ones who seem to see it the way that we see it."
China, whose biggest African trade partners are its most prominent suppliers of natural resources, has reaped rewards from its largess, but its success has not been as broad as some planners in Beijing would perhaps have liked.
RISK FACTORS
The Eurasia Group said the resources-for-infrastructure deals have helped Chinese construction, telecom and hydro companies, but its oil and mining companies have often failed to overtake Western firms, which dominate those sectors.
"Chinese companies will begin more systematically to incorporate sovereign risk factors and Western best business practices, but their budgetary constraints will remain looser than those of their Western counterparts for some time to come," it said in a report.
Chinese aid has also helped prop up African leaders scorned and sanctioned by the West for suspected human rights abuses, such as Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, whose government plans to take majority stakes in all foreign mining firms except those from China.
But China has also stood by major democracy South Africa and helped it ascend to the BRIC grouping of fast-emerging economies that also includes Brazil, Russia and India.
The move was seen as a signal by Beijing that it viewed South Africa, the continent's largest economy, as a politically important state and entryway into Africa even though its economy is less than a quarter the size of the smallest BRIC, Russia.

China lends Zimbabwe $700 mln, seeks protection

2011-03-21T18:35:00.000+01:00

By MacDonald Dzirutwe
HARARE (Reuters) - China signed nearly $700 million in loan deals with Zimbabwe on Monday, its biggest loan package to date, and urged the government to protect Chinese firms from nationalisation plans.
Shunned by the west, President Robert Mugabe has increasingly sought help elsewhere. China, meanwhile, covets the mineral resources of the southern African country as Zimbabwe struggles back from economic collapse.
Zimbabwean Vice President Joice Mujuru gave details of the loan agreements during a visit by Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan, the second high-level Chinese visitor to Harare in little over a month.
Mujuru said loans from China's Export-Import Bank would be used for priority areas such as agriculture, machinery and equipment -- nearly half the money would go for that -- as well as health and water systems.
Wang said $100 million of the money would be a concessionary loan for the government itself.
Zimbabwe needs the money badly.
There are food shortages in six of ten provinces because of drought. Western countries, which don't trust Mugabe, have not stepped up funding despite the unity government he formed with the opposition two years ago.
Mugabe has ruled for over three decades and the west has imposed sanctions on his ZANU-PF party, accusing him of human rights abuses and election fraud. Donors seek more political and economic reforms before releasing more money

Diaspora Homeward Bonds:Ngozi Okonjo Iweala and Dilip Ratha write about Diaspora Bonds

2011-03-17T02:28:00.000+01:00

Here’s a statistic you may not be aware of: about 50 percent of the world’s uncultivated, arable land is in Africa. This abundance of potential farmland offers Africa the opportunity to feed itself and to help feed the rest of the globe. But consider another statistic: Because of poor roads and a lack of storage, African farmers can lose up to 50 percent of their crop just trying to get it to market. In other words, Africa needs not only greater investment in agriculture, but also in roads, ports and other facilities that are vital to moving the land’s products to consumers. Fortunately, part of the solution could lie with the almost 23 million African migrants around the globe, who together have an annual savings of more than $30 billion. Tapping into this money with so-called diaspora bonds could help provide Africa with the equipment and services it needs for long-term growth and poverty reduction. These diaspora bonds would be in essence structured like any bonds on the market, but would be sold by governments, private companies and public-private partnerships to Africans living abroad. The bonds would be sold in small denominations, from $100 to $10,000, to individual investors or, in larger denominations, to institutional and foreign investors.
Preliminary estimates suggest that sub-Saharan African countries (excluding South Africa, which doesn’t have significant emigration) could raise $5 billion to $10 billion a year through diaspora bonds. Countries like Ghana, Kenya and Zambia, which have fairly large numbers of migrants living abroad in high-income countries, would particularly profit from issuing diaspora bonds. There are precedents for such moves. Greece announced this week that it was preparing to issue $3 billion worth of diaspora bonds in the United States. India and Israel have issued diaspora bonds in the past, raising over $35 billion, often in times of financial crises.
Why would diaspora bonds work so well? For one thing, the idea taps into emigrants’ continuing patriotism and desire to give back to their home countries. And because diaspora populations often build strong webs of churches, community groups and newspapers, bond issuers would be able to tap into a ready-made marketing network.
Another advantage of diaspora bonds for African countries is that migrants make more stable investors in their home countries than people without local knowledge. They’re less likely to pull out at the first sign of trouble. And they wouldn’t demand the same high rate of interest as a foreign investor, who wants to compensate for the risk of investing in what would seem to them like a relatively unknown developing country. Diaspora bonds could also be issued in the local currency, as migrants are likely to be less averse to the risk of currency devaluation. That’s because members of the diaspora have more use for local currency than foreign investors; migrants can always use it when they go back home or for family-related expenses. Take, for example, an African living in the United States who now earns an annual interest rate of less than 1 percent on small deposits; a diaspora bond with an interest rate of about 5 percent certainly might seem attractive. To make the bond even more appealing, the countries the migrants reside in could provide tax breaks on interest income. Donor or multilateral aid agencies could also offer credit enhancements in the form of partial guarantees, to mitigate default risks.
Even more money could flow into Africa if countries tapped into the billions of dollars that members of the diaspora send home each year by using those remittances as collateral to raise financing from international markets. This approach has allowed banks in several developing countries — including Brazil, Egypt, El Salvador, Guatemala, Kazakhstan, Mexico and Turkey — to raise more than $15 billion since 2000.
Here’s how this works: when a migrant transfers foreign currency to a relative’s creditworthy bank in his home country, the bank pays out the remittance from its holding of local currency. That transaction creates a foreign currency asset equivalent to the size of the remittance, which can be used as collateral for borrowing cheaply and over the long term in overseas capital markets. Such borrowing has no effect on the flow of money from migrants to their beneficiaries. Yet development banks, national banks in developing countries and donor agencies can partner to harness enough remittances and create enough collateral to raise significant sums of money to invest in agriculture, roads, housing and other vital projects. The people of Africa are scattered around the globe, but many still feel a powerful sense of belonging to the continent. Through diaspora bonds and remittances, they could create a better future for their homeland.
This article was originally published in the New York Times

Germany: Nigerian emerges Best Exhibitor at ITB

2011-03-16T17:51:00.000+01:00

By Emeka Umejei – Lagos – Nigeria’s strategic marketing and promotion efforts targeted at global travellers has paid off at the recently concluded ITB Berlin, German where it won the best exhibitor award of the prestigious German University, Cologne Business School.

Adjudged as a leading light in Africa within the circle of attendees of International Tourism Business Fair (ITB), which is in its 46th edition, the German School nominated the Nigerian based firm on its rising profile hinged on consistency of its tourism action plans, hospitality offerings, stand design and visibility, diverse culture and the warm reception to visitors and tourists at its stand.

Julia Dorner and Lars Perling of the Cologne Business School who presented the award certificate to NTDC at the Nigerian stand in Berlin, Germany, described the award as a strong indication and confirmation of its arrival and acceptance in the global tourism market as a key destination. “We have been following Nigeria’s determined drive in the last four years to make a tourism statement and are impressed with the consistency and vibrancy brought into the German market, notably, the various innovations, stand designs and tourism product offerings,” Julia Dorner stated.

In his acceptance speech, the NTDC Boss, Otunba Segun Runsewe, said: “I feel very proud that Nigeria is making waves in the global tourism market and this is happening at a time the Federal Government of Nigeria is giving the tourism sector all the necessary support to ensure tourism grows the nation’s Gross Domestic Product substantially.”

“The award”, he added “would further fuel our zeal for strong economic returns for Nigeria through tourism” and pledged the corporation’s commitment “to giving the best to tourism in Nigeria and the African continent”.

Runsewe maintained that the award further justifies the modest efforts of NTDC at repositioning tourism in Nigeria in the last five years.

Gas pipeline from Algeria to Spain switched on yesterday (5 March 2011)

2011-03-16T17:12:00.002+01:00

The Mayor of Almería, Luis Rogelio Rodríguez Comendador, and government sub-delegate in Almeria, Andres Heras, yesterday opened the valve Medgaz connection with the Spanish gas system in a symbolic act that is part of the test sequence.
For the company is a major milestone that marks the start of imports of Algerian gas to Spain via the Medgaz. This new step has been developed by the Receiving Terminal, located in Playa del Perdigal, in the presence of the Head of Industry and Energy for the office in Almería, Luis Díaz de Quijano, and the director general of Medgaz, Juan Antonio Vera.
Last phase of testing
The company is in the final phase of the test gas. After verification of all units in terminal Compression Beni Saf, on March 1 valve was opened offshore Algeria, to begin filling the gas pipeline, and begin testing with gas receiving terminal Almeria. The said event was attended by the CEO of Sonatrach, Noureddine Cherouati, and the president of Medgaz, Peter Miro, Algerian authorities and partners of the company.
The test sequence for commissioning of the pipeline comprises a phase of commissioning and start another. During the commissioning phase systems have been verified, while the boot is gradually introducing gas.
Currently, natural gas continues to circulate in evidence throughout the pipeline, and yesterday was connected to the Spanish gas system, through the pipe Enagás, to continue the process with increasing volumes up to the total system capacity in a stable and reliable. Medgaz expected that the pipeline is technically ready to operate within weeks.
Medgaz is the company responsible for building the Algeria-Europe via Spain. With an initial capacity of eight billion cubic meters a year, about natural gas from Beni Saf, on the Algerian coast to Almería.

Latest Africa NGO’s Jobs

2011-03-06T14:40:00.000+01:00

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Uganda to generate power from waste

2011-02-22T16:42:00.000+01:00

Kampala, Uganda - a Ugandan company has embarked on a project to generate electricity from garbage.
Rather than hydro electricity generation, Sesam Energetics Ltd, will be recycling solid waste to generate renewable energy through a technology that can convert Uganda's predominantly organic urban solid waste into energy.
Announcing a collaboration agreement with a US based Taylor Biomass Energy LLC to operate a waste to energy Plant in Kampala Uganda, Sesam's Chief executive Director Dr Maalanti Noa, said the project will be replicated in several other African countries.
"Within the next six months Taylor Biomass Energy Uganda will conclude the Power Purchase Agreement, the Waste Management Contract and secure the necessary finances and begin constructing the recycling plant," Maalanti said.
Maalanti said the agreement marks the existence of a new entity Taylor Biomass Energy Uganda that will conclude all the project execution instruments including the Power Purchase Agreement with Uganda Electricity Transmission Company (UETCL), and the urban solid waste management contracts.
The proposed project will utilize proprietary Taylor Biomass Energy Technology in an integrated sorting separating recycling and gasification system together with a combined cycle power island to generate 40MW of green electricity.
According to the feasibility studies done by the project promoters, the companies will invest over US$160 million to construct a plant that will recycle almost 1030 tonnes daily of urban Solid Waste from Kampala and the surrounding Wakiso district to generate renewable clean energy for over 35,000 homes.
A senior energy officer, Ministry of Energy, Michael Ahimbisibwe, said the energy sector has gone through a number of reforms. He cited the 1999 Energy Act that allows investors to generate and sell electricity and the Uganda Energy capitalization fund that acts as a source of credit to energy investors.
"Generating energy for waste is still a new area. Before the act, it was UEB, but now everyone can generate and sell electricity," Ahimbisibwe said at Lugala village, 8km from Kampala city where the project is located.
Garbage generation in Kampala is estimated at 1,400 tonnes daily. However, Kampala City Council (KCC) collects only 600 tonnes, which it dumps at Kitezi landfill north of Kampala.
Sesam Energetics Director Operations, Seith Magambo, said the project will start in 18 months time. He said the company will institute more efficient ways of garbage collection that will cater for the uncollected.
"We need over 1,000 tonnes of garbage everyday to generate electricity. So we can utilise all the garbage generated in Kampala and Wakiso districts,' Magambo said.

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