Author: Giza Mdoe

• Top five priorities for the African Union 
• Building Nutrition and Food Security top African Union Agenda
• Africa requires an equitable representation at the United Nations

The Assembly of African Union Heads of State and Government held its 35th Ordinary Session early February this year and listed the continent’s top five priorities. The Assembly meeting saw the handover of the rotating leadership of the Union from H.E. President Antoine Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of Congo who was Chairperson in 2021, to President Macky Sall of Senegal.

The Heads of State and Government launched the African Union Theme of the Year 2022 as Year of Nutrition: “Strengthening resilience in nutrition and food security on the African continent: Strengthening agro food systems, health and social protection systems for the acceleration of human, social and economic capital development”.

Five priorities were listed: Resilience to Covid-19 and Africa manufacture of vaccines, action against …

• African nations are harnessing it’s push toward the oil and gas industry despite global push to reduce greenhouse gasses
• Oil-rich nations are keen to explore and pump out various fossil fuels as the rest of the world moves toward being Carbon Neutral
• COP 26 focused on resolutions for the world, but that was mainly the developed world, what about Africa?

Part 1: The fuel of modern-day civilization

The backdrop of modern-day development as embodied in Europe, America, Asia and the Arab Peninsula all lies in fossil fuel, crude oil, black gold. It is the burning of fossil fuels that runs our engines and powers our economies.   Indeed, we owe our modern civilization and advances to fossil fuel.

Great!  What is not so great is the cost that comes with burning fossil fuels.   The primary cause of current climate change, altering the Earth’s ecosystems and causing human and environmental health problems …

• African Union hosting eight events at the Expo 2020 Dubai
• The world sees Africa as the new frontier for business, trade and investment
• How the UAE is setting itself up as the launchpad for doing business in Africa

The African Union (AU) is hosting eight events at Expo 2020 Dubai. With one event each week, the AU hopes to highlight the continent’s investment opportunities and reshape the general world view of Africa, the least not being, science and technology development on the continent.

“From the onset, we set our sights on showcasing the incredible and continued opportunities that lie across the African continent,” remarked Dr. Levi Uche Madueke, the AU Expo Commissioner General.

“We are hitting the ground running.  Our Expo 2020 Dubai activities further advance the cause of fulfilling the aspirations of Agenda 2063,” he said reassuring all visitors of ‘a great show of marvel and awe.’

As part …

Unreported mergers and acquisitions, false advertising, or aggressive marketing tactics all place the farmer, the common trader, at odds with the market. 

A farmer in rural Tanzania incurs high costs of production particularly on the agro inputs used to grow, store and transport a given product. When this product gets to the market, it is put to competition with similar products produced by large corporate syndicates that can afford mass production at marginal cost. 

What it all means in simple terms, is the rural farmer’s prices are higher than the syndicated prices and so the farmer cannot sell and is forced to lower prices to meet the competition. In the long run, suffering high costs of production and minimal returns, the farmer is forced into a perpetual cycle of poverty.   This is simply not fair.

A consumer unwittingly buys a box of milk under the assumption it is pure cow …

• Aga Khan Hospital will use the funding to support covid-19 pandemic response
• The funding will benefit hospital and outreach centres in Tanzania and Kenya
• Qualifying groups to receive care at no cost

Aga Khan Hospital will start offering quality care treatment to qualifying needy patients at no cost. The development comes thanks to EUR 2.3 million of grant funds issued to the Aga Khan Hospitals in East Africa (Tanzania and Kenya) by France, through the French Development Agency.

The funding has been issued through Proparco, the private sector financing arm of AFD Group, the French Development Agency to help increase access to health care services by boosting oxygen supply and supporting needy patients with quality care.

“France has made supporting health systems one of the priorities of its covid-19 pandemic response and has been at the forefront of the European and international efforts to support developing and emerging countries through …

With so many more mouths to feed every year, the World’s ambitious Sustainable Development Goals, particularly on poverty eradication and ending hunger, seem further away than ever before.

The trend is global, and on October 16, 2021, the UN admitted and warned that the global fight against hunger is being lost.

With the warning, the UN called for action to improve food security for the world’s most vulnerable people, African coming on top of that list. For a place that relies so heavily on substantial farming for a livelihood, Africa faces a most daunting reality, clear forests to farm, lose potential output.…

In the most recent development, an additional 282km of the railway are being constructed to connect Tanzania and Burundi giving the latter access to East Africa biggest and busiest port.

The construction is an extension of the already laid down Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) in Tanzania. The two governments have signed an agreement that paves way for new rail to be laid at a sum of US$900 million.

What does this extension mean for Burundi and how will it benefit Tanzania?

Apart from the obvious economic benefits, let’s first consider the small towns through which the railway snakes. From Tanzania’s little town of Uvinza in the Kigoma region to the bustling capital city of Gitega in Burundi, the railway is expected to spark life, rejuvenate slowed businesses and build new people relations.…

Other than the trade issues, the session examined and harmonized implementation of decisions across various sectors of bilateral cooperation including immigration, education, transport, communication, defence and security, energy and mineral development among others.

The meeting was a success to say the least, however, it still remains to be seen whether in the wake of the meeting, Ugandan truckers will pay less at the Tanzanian border. With a six month reporting period, a lot can transpire in the interim.

It is now going towards a month since the January sit-down and no ground reports have been publicized as to whether the toll fees have been harmonized for Uganda to match other EAC charges at the Tanzanian border.…

In Tanzania, the Fair Competition Commission (FCC) is responsible for promoting and protecting effective competition in trade and commerce as well as protecting consumers from unfair and misleading market conduct.

Without such an entity, companies use false advertising to capture markets, mergers of large firms occur undermining smaller businesses unfairly and the end-user, the consumer, is put at threat.

It is for this reason that Tanzania has recently passed the Fair Competition Order which sets out the thresholds for mergers that should be reported to the Fair Competition Commission (the FCC). In this most recent Order, Tanzania moved the merger notification threshold from USD 360,000 to USD 1.6 million.…

• Protectionism and non-tariff barriers persist between the two countries
• countries have varying processes which seriously delays the movement of goods due to the need for multiple certification processes across borders
• Harmonizing infrastructure projects key to boosting trade

Tanzania Kenya EAC Trade Investment Regulations

It is only through economic growth that the East African Community (EAC) can successfully realize its much-coveted regional integration. For this to happen, a delicate balance must be achieved between competition and cooperation; therein lies the dilemma, a race or partnership? As far back as two decades, in 2004, Kenya Uganda, and Tanzania, the founding partners of the East African Community, signed the Protocol for the Establishment of the East African Community (EAC) Customs Union that is known as the Customs Protocol yet to date bottlenecks remain.

Three years after the founders inked the Customs Protocol, the next parties followed suit,  Burundi and Rwanda adopted the …