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Africa
- Remittance flows to developing regions were shaped by several factors in 2022 including reopening of host economies as the COVID-19 pandemic receded.
- Remittances as a share of GDP are significant in the Gambia (28%), Lesotho (21%), and Comoros (20%).
- Industry data shows most of the funds go towards supporting families in purchase of food and household goods
Remittances to Sub-Saharan Africa grew by 5.2 percent to $53 billion in 2022 defying the effects of the global crisis.
World Bank’s report on Migration and Development however noted that the growth slowed from the 16.4 percent that was recorded in 2021.
“Remittances in 2023 are projected to soften to 3.9 percent growth as adverse conditions in the global environment and regional source countries persist,” noted the report.
Flows to Nigeria and Kenya have continued to dominate remittances to Sub-Saharan Africa although the region remains highly exposed to the effects of the global …
- The 3.9 million Euro donation will go towards the World Bank’s MSME Business Development Project in Djibouti, which provides MSMEs business support
- It is believed that barely 5% of the Djibouti’s formal firms receive bank financing
- Financial institutions, public institutions, and MSMEs-supporting programmes are among the intermediate beneficiaries
The World Bank and the European Union Delegation in Djibouti signed an Administration Agreement on behalf of the European Union to help Djibouti’s Micro, Small, and Medium-Sized Enterprises grow (MSMEs).
The 3.9 million Euro donation will go toward the World Bank’s MSME Business Development Project in Djibouti, which provides MSMEs with services such as digitisation, improved accounting procedures, credit applications, business planning, and legal and marketing strategies.
It will also help create a virtual “one-stop-shop” where MSMEs can apply for permits and other services all in one spot. The European money will be channelled through the MENA Regional Umbrella Multi-donor Trust Fund …
- President Ruto ran for office partly on a Beijing-skeptic platform in response to claims of Chinese predatory lending to African nations
- The Kenyan President assured American businesses that his administration would create a favourable business climate to encourage foreign direct investment
- Moderna will soon start producing vaccines in Kenya, joining other major American corporations in the East African superpower, like General Electric, Meta, Google, and Microsoft
- He obtained pledges in waste-to-energy solutions, space technology, carbon trading systems and markets.
When Kenya president William Ruto and other African heads of state arrived in Washington, DC, last week for President Biden’s US-Africa Leaders’ Summit, It was Kenya’s chance to rebuild strategic ties with the west.
Along with meetings with companies like Google, Visa and the Rockefeller Foundation in the private sector, as well as general conversations on political relations, security, and economic development, the president of Kenya also made a speech about …
Ahead of the US-Africa Summit in December, the Russia-Africa Summit next year and as new geopolitical alliances form, Africa is under great pressure to take sides.
China is increasingly becoming a strong economic powerhouse while Russia is making its own stand. The West finds itself reliving history, scrambling for portions of Africa.
This summer was most fulfilling for me, not because the Earth’s revolution had finally brought the sun to shine on my part of the World, I live in Tanzania, East Africa, its spring and summer all year around.
- Africa is under increasing pressure to take sides in new global alliances
- Africa wants an economic proposal in the upcoming US-Africa Summit
- 2022 witnessed the highest number of diplomats & presidents visiting Africa
No, it was not the weather, the reason my summer was most memorable is that my daughter came to visit from the US. We had excellent family …
Meanwhile, Africa is looking to take pre-emptive action to avert the inevitable food crisis.
The United States has pledged support to help the continent grow and distribute more food. The aid will come through the African Development Bank (AfDB). The Bank is looking to fund a significant increase in food production in an effort to ward off the food crisis wrought by the Russia-Ukraine war.
In May this year, the AfDB set up a US$1.5 billion African Emergency Food Production Facility. It was established with the aim of supporting some 20 million smallholder farmers produce more food and to do so more sustainably.…
The connection bypass road launched by the five presidents of the East African Community (EAC) has set precedence in the importance of neighbouring countries undertaking joint projects to improve transport infrastructure between and amongst themselves.
This point is underlined in the World Bank report; “Patterns of shipping, transshipping, and distribution mean that trade depends not only on the quality of infrastructure in the two trading countries but also of that in key third party countries on the trading network.”
The point is that while two countries can come together to improve transport infrastructure, it is not enough because trade, in many cases, goes much further than the border between two countries.…
The Kenyan economy’s leading indices of economic activity show ongoing solid growth in the second quarter of 2022, according to CBK, with strong activity in storage and transport, retail and wholesale trade, construction, information and communication, and lodging and food services.
“Despite decreased agricultural performance and sluggish global growth, the economy is anticipated to remain resilient throughout the balance of 2022,” CBK added.
Goods exports have been strong, increasing by 11.0 per cent in the year to August 2022 compared to the same time in 2021.…
The continent comes in last in terms of funding and green development mechanisms in the global carbon market, which increased by 164% to a record $851 billion last year.
The largest market for trading carbon credits is in Africa, but what are the responsibilities of the sellers and buyers? Munyazikwiye questioned.
According to Mohamed Adow, the founder of the climate think tank Power Shift Africa, “Rich countries do not want to decarbonize their economies. It’s a sky trap. Rather than cutting emissions, they pay poor countries to run projects that lower emissions and take credit for that. Africa doesn’t have emissions to cut, but emissions to avoid.”
Adow urged all African leaders to take the helm of climate talks in their nations because “you need to choose the appropriate climate path if you’re the least developed and confront the highest climate vulnerabilities.”…
Ghana’s case specifically plays out with the dramatic effect consistent with a Shakespearean tragedy. The west African nation ironically is a darling of the West in terms of foreign direct investment. Yet, its debt levels have breached what multilateral institutions consider to be sustainable. A painful irony in the case of Ghana is that it was offered the opportunity to renegotiate the terms of its debts through the World Bank’s Debt Service Suspension Initiative. However, Ghana did not elect to participate.
A second painful irony is that Ghana, this time around, does not owe most of its debts to multilateral institutions like the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank. It owes the bulk of its debt to private lenders like the world’s largest asset manager Black Rock, and its has expressed that it has no interest in renegotiating the terms of Ghana’s sovereign debt.
If Ghana had borrowed from …
