Browsing: AU

Health Diplomacy The Pew Charitable Trusts

China actively honours its commitment to making vaccines a global public good. At the time when Chinese vaccines had just reached the market and domestic supply was tight, China began to supply vaccines to Africa in support of its battle against the pandemic.
By November 2021, China had provided over 1.7 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccine to more than 110 countries and organizations, including 50 African countries and the AU Commission, and is striving to provide an aggregate total of two billion doses by the end of 2021.
In addition, it donated US$100 million to COVAX, which aims at ensuring all countries have access to a safe, effective vaccine.…

A section of the GERD Dam under construction. The GERD is expected to boost Ethiopia’s growth into a middle-income country by 2025. www.theexchange.africa

In 1991, Ethiopia was among the poorest in the world having endured a devastating famine and civil war in the 1980s and by 2020 it was one of the fastest-growing economies in the world averaging 9.9 per cent of broad-based growth per year.
The GERD will help secure the future water supply not only in the Nile Basin but in the entire region, thereby curbing the occurrence of severe drought and famine.
The flow of the River Nile has been nothing but winding, peacefully meandering its way downstream, oblivious of the decade-old tension that besieges its much-needed waters.
Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia are neighbours that have been embroiled in a row over the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) by Ethiopia on the Blue Nile causing a diplomatic standoff among the countries.
Being the longest river in Africa, the Nile bears paramount significance across several African nations that …

Demonstrations before the COP26 opening. Africa is suffering the brunt of climate change. www.theexchange.africa

As part of the requirements under the Kenyan Act, the government additionally established an Integrated Monitoring Reporting and Verification (Integrated MRV) system and published Kenya's National Climate Change Action Plan 2018-2022 (NCCAP). The five year plan requires the government to develop “action plans”, providing mechanisms to assist stakeholders in bringing about low-carbon climate-resilient development. 

Angola boasts some of the most ambitious targets for transition to low carbon development in Africa, albeit having ratified the Paris Agreement in November 2020. Since then the country has launched a national development plan, established a climate observatory and implemented a continuous national emissions monitoring system.

In addition, Gambia is committed to reducing its GHG emissions unconditionally, by 2.4 per cent by 2025 having implemented the Sustainable Energy Action Plan in 2015, which sets out the country’s renewable energy targets and corresponding measures necessary for their achievement. It has also committed to terminating oil importation…

People in factory. The 2021 Africa Industrialization Day comes just a week after the culmination of the COP26 in Glasgow. www.theexchange.africa

Albeit marred with difficulties, green manufacturing in Africa is possible and the continent stands to greatly benefit from the transition. It will promote inclusive economic transformation through domestic manufacturing and a commodity-based industrialization process, capitalizing on the continent’s resources and opportunities presented by the dynamic nature of the global structure of production.

Green industrialization has been identified as the holy grail of Africa’s socio-economic transformation; infusing green initiatives into value chain activities for instance, during sourcing and processing of raw materials to the marketing and selling of finished products. The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) economic report on Greening Africa’s Industrialization, deduces that it is imperative for African countries to identify green industrialization entry points, set policies that support green industrialization and mobilize resources from the public and private sectors, as it is a precondition for sustainable and inclusive growth.…

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Moving goods in a warehouse. PAPSS provides Africa with greater capacity to conduct cross-border transactions and expand the scale of both active and latent opportunities for enhanced intra-African trade. www.theexchange.africa

The pan-African payments infrastructure was commissioned after a successful pilot phase in the West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ) countries where live transactions were done instantly.

Afreximbank worked with the West Africa Monetary Institute (WAMI) to launch the system in the WAMZ.

Following this successful milestone, PAPSS is now engaged in advanced discussions with other national and regional institutions for its rapid expansion across the continent.…

The Port of Mombasa. Kenya is competing against Tanzania for supremacy in the sea port logistics sector. www.theexchange.africa

Africa’s blue economy has been hailed as the ‘new frontier of African renaissance’ due to the maritime industry’s huge economic potential across the continent. The significant economic opportunities in the blue economy on the continent include seabed mining, fisheries, oil drilling, trade, aquaculture and tourism whose potential can drastically transform Africa’s future.

The African Union (AU) highlights that thirty-eight of Africa’s 54 states are coastal, and maritime zones under Africa’s jurisdiction.…

Deep frying fish. African farmers will need to improve the agricultural value chain to be able to feed Africa of the future. www.theexchange.africa

With an estimated 150,000 and 300,000 tonnes of fish swimming throughout the EEZ, Kenya lies within the lucrative tuna belt. This is one of the most pressing reasons why Kenya is investing in blue-economy principles and increased investment in the sustainable development of its tuna resources.
In addition, Kenya can invest in blue-forest habitats like the mangrove forests where carbon storage offers the country a unique opportunity for financial gain through the blue-carbon markets incentives.…

Preparing a field for planting using a tractor. Africa should embrace mechanisation which includes irrigation systems, food processing and related technologies and equipment to increase agricultural productivity. www.theexchange.africa

Until early 2019, Omar al-Bashir was the President of Sudan after holding the position from June 30, 1989, to April 11, 2019.

For the three decades he was president, the country had not witnessed an uprising over food in the scale as huge, and widespread until 2018 when the country erupted in violence over the price of bread.

So dire was the need for bread which was unavailable that people could go for days without bread. Not because they could not afford it but because it was simply not there.

Read: Will digital agriculture bring economic development to Africa?

This scenario sounds like a scene from a movie but it is the reality facing many African countries.

The lack of food is getting worse every passing year due to several factors including poor seeds and the ravaging effects of climate change and soil degradation. With the continent whose agriculture is …