Browsing: Russia-Ukraine crisis

The crisis has thrown the energy market into chaos, sending fossil fuel prices soaring. This has birthed the global demand for thermal coal, especially from the Asian and European markets; with most countries in both regions having been dependent of Russia, as the country is the world’s third largest supplier of thermal coal used chiefly for power generation. Coal plants that had been scheduled for closure in Europe have been reopened, to fill the deficit in mitigating fuel costs and generating electricity; as the alternative gas, is inarguably more expensive. With energy security under threat, climate policies and commitments have taken a back seat. The EU recently declared that natural gas now qualifies for green investments.

The African coal market is projected to enjoy double its revenue for the next one year. The prevailing energy gap has created a window of opportunity for African coal producing nations. According to a…

Every African region has felt the effects of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with West Africa also bearing the burden of a war miles away in Europe.

• At a period when West Africa has been facing a severe food crisis since 2011, the Ukraine conflict has complicated matters further.
• For most West African nations, the expenses of regulating rising prices are already too high.
• The West African economic crisis and the Russia-Ukraine scenario highlight the perilous linkages between diplomatic sanctions, commerce, and food security.

Africa's post-Covid recovery hampered

The Russian-Ukrainian conflict has hampered Africa's potential recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic by raising food and fuel costs, interrupting the trade of services and goods, constricting fiscal space, limiting green transitions, and slowing the flow of development funding across the continent.

The crisis has jeopardized homes, communities, and nations across Africa. Before 2020, African countries were among the world's fastest-growing. The COVID-19 pandemic…

Dangote also plans to launch an oil refinery that would produce 650,000 barrels per day. Currently, the Dangote Group is the second-largest employer in Nigeria after the federal government, and a new plant is a tremendous opportunity to replace Russian fertilizer imports with African jobs that create warehousing, transport, and logistics infrastructure that help to reduce poverty.

Global wheat, sunflower, and oil crude prices have soared to unprecedented levels. Africa is heavily reliant on food imports from both countries, and the Continent is already experiencing price shocks and disruptions in the supply chain of these commodities.

Over the past decade, the Continent has seen growing demand for cereal crops, including wheat and sunflower, which has been mainly supported by imports than local production. Africa's wheat imports increased by 68 per cent between 2007 to 2019, surging to 47 million tonnes.…

Many exports from Ghana to the US benefit from duty-free tariff preferences under the American Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) programme. Exports from Ghana to the US that have enjoyed AGOA preferences include yams, apparel and cocoa (beans, powder or paste).

Ghana has exported US$131 million worth of yams to the US since 2012, avoiding a standard import duty of 6.4 per cent under AGOA. Cocoa exported to the US has amounted to US$2.5 billion over the last two decades.

Miss Rosa Whitaker, the President and the CEO of the Whitaker Group (TWG), is significant to the success of AGOA in Africa, facilitating the export of over 9,000 agricultural and manufactured goods to the United States.

Whitaker advocates for African countries to research what the US market is demanding and be alert to new opportunities. She pointed out the success of Ghana’s cocoa…

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could impact relations between the United States (USA) and Africa as global economic and military powers compete for influence on the continent.

Pulling Africa into the West’s war with Russia

But, many African countries are staying neutral on the conflict which is not sitting well with the West.

Indeed, on March 18, 2022, the US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said that African countries cannot remain neutral in the Ukraine conflict.

She said that when the UN General Assembly voted to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine in early March, 17 African countries abstained while another eight did not vote at all.

Thomas-Greenfield was quoted by the BBC saying that there is no neutral ground and that the Russia-Ukraine was not just about the Cold War between the West and Russia.

To bait African nations, Thomas-Greenfield said the United States was working with other countries…