Browsing: COVID-19

The Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA) has called on the government to gradually and partially re-open the country to preserve the economy and support health response.

Speaking on Wednesday during a virtual meeting with the government through the office of the National Development Implementation and Communication Cabinet Committee (NDICCC), KEPSA Chief Executive  Carole Karuga reiterated that COVID-19 is the new normal and every effort must be made to ensure there is continued economic activity in the country while upholding measures to safeguard the health of its people.

Karuga urged the government to develop a practical recovery strategy that balances health, economy and societal needs with the support of the private sector.

“Coronavirus is the new global reality. We are working hard to protect our people and curb the spread whilst, getting the economy on a recovery path through ensuring both formal and informal sectors resume to normalcy,” Karuga said.

She …

The UK will invest up to £20 million in the new ‘African Union Covid19 Response Fund’ to tackle coronavirus and save lives.

This makes the UK the largest national donor to the fund, which was announced by Cyril Ramaphosa, Chairperson of the African Union (AU) and President of the Republic of South Africa last month. It will support African leaders and technical experts to slow the spread of coronavirus and save lives in Africa and worldwide.

The fund will tackle the pandemic by recruiting African health experts and deploying them where they are needed most, strengthening global tracking of the pandemic, combatting potentially harmful misinformation, providing specialist coronavirus training for health workers and making information about the virus more accessible to the public.

Announcing the funding on May 20th, International Development Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan said:

“As the UK faces its biggest peacetime challenge in tackling coronavirus, it’s never been more

There is no sugar in Tanzania. The little that there is, is very hard to come by and when you do find it, its many times more expensive than you would have bought it last month. It is barely a fortnight since the government confidently said the country has enough sugar and went ahead and placed a cap on sugar prices.

To bring things under control, nationwide crackdowns were carried out and several warehouses were found with allegedly hoarded sugar, fines were issued and arrest made in shops and other outlets where the sellers were price above the government cap, even awhile consignment was seized been smuggled out of the country.

Yet still, two weeks later, there is no sugar. Been the Holy Month of Ramadhan, lack of sugar severely affects the day to day social well being. Most of the staples and beverages need sugar, the tea needs sugar …

Did you know, last year (2019) Africa spent more money servicing debts than the amount it spent on health issues of its public? This obviously a general statement, it does not mean that each and every country in Africa spent more on debt servicing that the money it allocated to its health center, but the fact holds true for most of Africa’s 53 countries.

It is not that Africa does not care about the health of its people, on the contrary, its just that, according to World Bank stats, Africa is home to the World’s highest number of heavily indebted poor countries owing a total of USD 493.6 billion in long term debts.

As the World Bank and International Monetary Fund issue funding aid to help support Africa respond to the effects of the COVID-19 global pandemic, many African countries including Tanzania and Rwanda have asked that the international community …

The Government of Denmark yesterday signed a grant worth $2 million to support the COVID-19 response in Uganda.

The $ 2 million grant will be used to acquire masks and Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) for health workers and will also support the improvement of Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) services in Uganda’s selected districts. The Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the World Health Organization (WHO) will be used to channel the grant.

Nicolaj Petersen, the Danish Ambassador to Uganda, extended his government’s appreciation to the Government of Uganda for implementing strategic and effective measures to prevent and manage the COVID-19 pandemic at the signing ceremony.

“Uganda has managed to control the spread of the Coronavirus so far. Only 81 cases have been confirmed, most of which were detected at entry”, he said.

Also Read: IMF boosts Kenya, Uganda war on COVID-19 with $1.23 billion

Despite Uganda’s success so far, Ambassador …

The Impact of COVID-19 on agriculture value chains especially transportation logistics is immense. Economies must adopt, industries and sectors must find their own solutions to the bottlenecks in the agri-food supply chain.

Now that it is no longer business as usual, what makes up for robust food supply chains when borders are shut down? Will air travel cut prizes and yet break even in cross border food supply routes? What technological advances must we embrace in food production to bridge the growing supply gap? How can digital systems help speed up logistics integration in the transportation sector?

These are the questions that must be answered to charter the way forward for Africa’s food security and maybe even the World’s.

https://theexchange.africa/industry-and-trade/agribusiness/how-africas-122-million-mobile-banking-accounts-can-fund-agriculture/

While the COVID-19 crisis has brought to our door steps the largest challenge for food security of modern times; with lock downs, quarantines and logistics disruptions not to mention the …

No continent suffers worse food security issues than Africa, yet despite the high productivity coupled with disease and drought resistant capabilities of genetic modified organisms (GMOs), Africa has long been resistant to genetically modified food, be they crop or animal embryos.

While the average beef cattle in Africa, say the local Zebu weighs an average weight of a mere 250kg market weight, hybrid beef cattle like the Aryshire, weighs an average of 400kg, almost double the local African breed.

Instead of settling for 1 to 3 litres of milk per day from your local Zebu, you could get in excess of 10 litres of milk everyday from a hybrid Fresian, almost four times more milk.

Not only does the Aryshire beef bull and the Fresian cow produce more, they grow faster and when crossbred, they are even resistant to disease and bad weather. So why would food troubled Africa resist …

While all other agricultural exports are suffering reduced demand owing to the Covid-19 global pandemic, that is not the case for tobacco which has recorded remarkable increase in sales at the beginning of the marketing season.

Reports from Zimbabwe say export of flue-cured tobacco is stable and prices are firm, with tobacco sales having increased more than quadrupled over the cause of the last and the present season. Last season closed with sales of USD232 008 but this season has opened with sales of USD1 598 230 that is a 588 percent increase!

As market season opened at the start of the month, an impressive USD1.6 million was sold. With attractive prices that begun above USD 5 per kilogramme, farmers were more than willing to sell. Only three days after the marketing season opened, farmers had sold almost 700 000 kilogrammes of tobacco.

The country’s Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board …

The private sector is not responsive to the government’s stimulus package as banks report less than desired activities in borrowing. Even though huge fiscal and monetary measures have been taken by the Central Bank, still commercial banks are facing reduced demand on borrowing.

This is evident in weekly turnovers for Interbank trading which is down 92 per cent, the lowest it has ever been over the last decade. Money market analysis for the month of May reported that the Interbank Money Market (IMM) suffered its lowest activities since 2010.

You will recall that 2010 is just two years into the global economic recession that was triggered by among other things, poor lending habits by banks in the US that led to a collapse of the real estate industry.

Numerous banks had to be bailed out just to keep people in their homes as foreclosures were rampant across the country. The …