Browsing: COVID-19

Time is running out for Africa to guarantee food security for its population. As the saying goes, it is not very reasonable to keep doing the same things and expect different results.

Africa needs crops that can withstand pests and disease, withstand drought, flourish without excessive pesticides and fertilizers, and produce healthy food. Africa needs crops to enable smallholder farmers to prosper. GMOs provide a powerful instrument for Africa to address these demands when other choices fail over time.…

Sierra Leone’s government may have to impose severe austerity measures.  These measures will address inefficiencies and inadequacies in allocating and administrating public resources. However, all hands must be on deck within these economic management measures. This will secure the ring-fencing of money for essential objectives like education, livelihood preservation, and health. These objectives remain critical to maintaining social stability and a rapid return to the economic recovery path.…

This year’s progress has been threatened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has caused a global economic shock that has hit Africa at a time when the government’s policy space to respond to it is small to nonexistent.…

The confirmation of William Ruto as president indicates that Kenya will remain on track with its IMF program and plans to strengthen medium-term public finances, but a sovereign credit 2022 ratings downgrade remains inevitable in the subsequent months.…

Nations launched the AfCFTA as one of the actions made to support more extensive intra-African trade. The AfCFTA aspires to establish a unified continental market for goods and services. The agreement seeks to harmonise the continent’s various trade liberalization procedures and promote regional integration. Each African nation is a member of at least one of the continent’s approximately 30 bilateral or regional trade agreements.

Africa suffers from marginalization in the global trade system. Nevertheless, the African Regional Trade Agreements heralded a new age of economic integration with significant trade creation impacts. The path to free trade poses several significant obstacles and concerns that African governments must solve.…

While massive and spectacular infrastructure projects seem to point that East Africa’s largest and most vibrant economy remains in the right direction, increasing state debt, soaring fuel and commodity prices and high unemployment threaten to water down the economic footprint of Kenya’s fourth president Kenyatta.…

• When the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on March 2 to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, African countries accounted for almost half of the 35 abstentions including South Africa.
• The conflict triggered by Russia’s invasion has complicated the challenges and sources of stress already facing Southern Africa.
• A few countries are sensing long-term growth opportunities from the crisis. Specifically, Africa’s natural gas could reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian energy.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has upended the existing world order and with it the global energy, production, distribution, and financial systems. Russia and China are openly challenging the Pax Americana. But the question of what the next world order will look like remains wide open.

On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a large-scale invasion of Ukraine, its neighbour to the southwest, marking a dramatic escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War that began in 2014, Putin announced a “special military operation” in …

Rising costs have remained a critical issue in the aftermath of the outbreak. Data from the World Bank/NBS Nigeria – COVID-19 National Longitudinal Phone Survey 2020 reveals that food prices rose rapidly following the pandemic. In March and April, basic food commodity prices increased by 17.2 per cent and 18.37 per cent, respectively. According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the rise remains the highest in two years.

Recent findings based on comprehensive and long-term monthly food price data have revealed considerable price rises for all chosen food categories during the pandemic. Imported rice and wheat costs, for example, have climbed by 41% and 21%, respectively.

Wheat prices surged by 21% nationally, with considerable increases in price dispersion across markets when the epidemic began, and prices continue to grow.

Wheat is the main component of bread and other products such as noodles, pasta, semolina, and other Nigerian pantry staples. …

The practical implementation of the AfCFTA, the expanding middle class, the evolving consumer market, enhanced use of financial technology and services, and the efficiency of the vibrant private sector will all be enablers of African export diversification and long-term economic growth.…

The African Development Bank (AfDB)’s Board of Directors has approved the establishment of the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation, a new ground-breaking institution that will significantly enhance Africa’s access to the technologies that underpin the manufacture of medicines, vaccines, and other pharmaceutical products.

Africa has great potential for drug discovery. The continent has natural resources, indigenous knowledge, and human capacity

AfDB Group President, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina said: “This is a great development for Africa. Africa must have a health defence system, which must include three major areas: revamping Africa’s pharmaceutical industry, building Africa’s vaccine manufacturing capacity, and building Africa’s quality healthcare infrastructure.”

The World Trade Organization and the World Health Organization, respectively, also welcomed and lauded the AfDB’s decision to establish the African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation.…