Browsing: Ukraine

global fuel prices on the rise

Rising global fuel prices amid a delicate geopolitical shift

Industry and Trade

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 threw oil and gas markets into disarray. Consequently, the world experienced the first real global energy crisis during the uneven economic recovery from the COVID-19 epidemic. Russia’s inclusion in the OPEC+ group has hampered international attempts to manage the situation. This has made it harder to handle the significant inflationary effects of rising global fuel prices, particularly in developing nations.

Global fuel prices have risen exponentially in the last few months. The rise is hugely significant, as it has seriously aggravated the global cost-of-living crisis. African economies have particularly been on the receiving end. The continent has suffered from disrupted supply chains and a slowdown in the global economic outlook. Thus, rising energy costs complicate matters even further.

Russia-Ukraine war, what is the relation with food security in Africa? Photo/EADB

Russia-Ukraine war: the connection to food security in Africa

Investing

Food security in Africa has always been the centre stage of all major global meetings. Photos of starving naked children have been paraded so much that hunger and Africa have become synonymous.

However, after years of talks, recommendations, solutions, funding, monitoring, evaluation, more talks, more recommendations, more funding…and then more years of new talks, new recommendations, new solutions, new funding… it’s exhausting; Africa is still hungry!

 The cool acronyms, the endless list of organizations, the countless projects and initiatives, the billions upon trillions issued every year, its all mind-boggling.

 Global Development Goals (GDG), Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), World Food Organisation (WFP), International Monetary Fund (IFM), World Bank (WB), African Development Bank (AfDB), Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)…it goes on and on.

Monetary and fiscal policy are two powerful tools that governments use to steer economies. www.theexchange.africa

Africa: how countries can manage the rising monetary and fiscal policy constraints

Business

Countries must continue to work to mitigate their vulnerabilities over time. This involves minimizing balance-sheet misalignments, establishing money and foreign exchange markets, and lowering exchange rate passthrough by increasing monetary policy credibility.

However, in the short term—while vulnerabilities remain high—the use of extra instruments may assist relieve short-term policy trade-offs when certain shocks occur. In particular, foreign exchange intervention, macroprudential policy measures, and capital flow controls may help increase monetary and fiscal policy autonomy, promote financial and price stability, and minimize output volatility if reserves are enough and these instruments are available.

Wheat

Lessons from Ethiopia increasing its local wheat production  

Countries

Dr. Tiberio Chiari, former Manager of the Agricultural Value Chains Programme in Oromia- Ethiopia, within the Ethio-Italian Development Cooperation Framework, offers some of these efforts that the government has implemented in the Ethiopian wheat value chain that other African countries can learn from.

Launch and execution of suitable growth policies

The government keeps working harder to ensure the country’s current dependence on wheat importation (of about 1.7 million tonnes) is fully nullified. After years of field experimentation, in 2021, the Ethiopian government launched its new plan.

The objective of the plan is to cut down the import of wheat by producing during the cold season in pastoral dry areas currently available in the Awash, Omo and Shebelle river basins. The approach includes the cultivation of 400,000 hectares of land and the deployment of a large-scale commercial farming model to achieve a productivity of 4.4 tonnes/ha.