Search Results for: Kenya
302 results out of 302 results found for 'Kenya'.
KENYA’S HALAL FOOD MARKET AND INDUSTRY IS GROWING, BUT EXPANSION COULD BE MADE MORE SUSTAINABLE
The halal food market and industry in Kenya, east Africa’s economic hub, is growing, say experts, although reforms in regulation and certification are needed to underpin the sustainability of this growth.
As elsewhere, said Eugene Jernigan, director of International Trade Policy and Development at the Action Green for Trade and Sustainable Development (AGTSD) organisation, that serves small businesses in Kenya, Covid-19 hit food service sales in Kenya, and that included halal outlets.…
KENYA BUSINESS LEADERS CALL FOR STRENGTHENING OF KENYA TEXTILE BACKWARD LINKAGES TO PROVIDE ALTERNATIVE TO SECONDHAND CLOTHES
The Kenyan government is being urged to strengthen the country’s backward linkages in clothing and textile production to ease poorer Kenyans’ reliance on imports of commercial second-hand clothing, factory and shop rejects.
Phyllis Wakiaga, chief executive officer at the Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM), stressed to just-style how the textile, apparel and cotton sub-sector has been identified as a key priority, with the potential for high growth and economic impact.…
IMAGINATION AND INNOVATION PUSHES SMALL-SCALE RENEWABLES INTO SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
Sub-Saharan Africa has natural resources that aids the development of renewable energy, it has lots of sun, plentiful wind, and much potentially sustainable biomass. With the development of small-scale affordable renewable energy technologies, such systems have been promoted by major aid agencies keen to prevent deforestation and excessive reliance on fossil fuels, that – even where they are plentiful, have not usually led to widespread economic development.
…PANDORA PAPERS SHOWS REPUTATIONAL AS WELL AS CRIMINAL RISKS OF USING OFFSHORE FINANCIAL SERVICES
The huge offshore finance leak unveiled last month (October 3) by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has highlighted the risks major companies face when doing business in offshore jurisdictions. Keith Nuthall and Andreia Nogueira report.
Major companies undertaking international business must comply with increasingly tough beneficial ownership transparency laws, and risk reputational damage if they are associated with particularly elaborate devices to avoid tax, even if it is legal.…
AFRICAN UNIVERSITIES MUST PAY MORE FOCUS ON STUDENT NEEDS TO SECURE FUTURE RELEVANCE
African universities must undertake strategic collaborations, boost innovation and develop entrepreneurial initiatives, targeting the needs of students to remain relevant in the future, a higher education conference in Nigeria has been told. These concerns formed the core of discussions when public and private sector tertiary education experts gathered over Zoom and in-person in Lagos to discuss the future of African universities at the second edition of the University of Lagos (UNILAG) International Week conference.…
COVID-19 HAS NOT DETERRED OVERSEAS STUDENTS FROM PREFERRING IN PERSON FOREIGN CAMPUS PLACEMENTS
A comprehensive study of 3,650 students from 55 counties worldwide has indicated that the expansion of online learning during the Covid-19 pandemic has not reduced the attraction of moving countries to undertake in-person higher education in foreign universities and colleges.
Indeed, the study, by IDP Connect, part of Australia-based international student recruitment leader IDP Education, showed that 79% of students questioned were only considering overseas on-campus options.…
MASSIVE PANDORA PAPERS LEAK REVEALS HOW BO LAWS ARE IMPACTING FILINGS BY OFFSHORE COMPANIES
The huge offshore finance leak unveiled yesterday (October 3) by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and its media partners has highlighted the pressures AML reporters face in complying with increasingly tough beneficial ownership transparency laws.
Reports generated from 2.94 terabytes of data within 12 million documents leaked to the ICIJ from the confidential records of 14 offshore service providers have been analysed by 600 journalists from 150 media outlets in 117 countries.…
MAJOR NEW UK-AFRICA REPORT PROPOSES TARGETED AND PROACTIVE WORK TO BOOST PHYSICS STANDARDS IN AFRICA
THE NEED for a proactive effort to improve the teaching and researching of physics in sub-Saharan Africa, as a foundation for critically important scientific work, has been highlighted in a new report from the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) and the UK-based Institute of Physics (IOP).…
FINANCIAL CRIME IS MAJOR RISK FOR TEXTILE AND CLOTHING SECTOR – GAINING INSIGHT CAN HEAD OFF MAJOR LOSSES
INTRODUCTION
Financial crime is a minefield for the international textile and clothing industry. With extended international supply chains extending into jurisdictions where the rule of law and a reliable independent judiciary may have a weak hold, if they exist at all, textile and clothing brands and manufacturers must take care.…
KENYA’S PAINT SECTOR FIGHTS OF COVID-19 AND SCANS GROWING MARKET FOR OPPORTUNITIES
Demand for paints and coatings in Kenya is set to recover this year from the impact of Covid-19 epidemic, being driven by the rebound of building construction and other civil engineering works that require use of paints, the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics has predicted.…
INTERNATIONAL REGULATORY ROUND UP – ICCO POISED TO WEAVE SUSTAINABILITY INTO GLOBAL COCOA AGREEMENT
THE RULING council of the International Cocoa Organisation (ICCO) is preparing to agree major reforms to the International Cocoa Agreement, which should see the agreement increase its commitment to boost sustainability in the chocolate sector.
Council members are considering final changes committing the ICCO to ensuring that cocoa production, processing and manufacture is socially, economically and environmentally sustainable.…
AFRICA FABRIC SECTOR LOOKS TO INNATE CULTURAL RESOURCES 19 CRISIS TO PULL OUT OF THE COVID-19 CRISIS
AFRICA’s clothing and textile sector has been hit hard by Covid-19, with an emerging production industry being hit by falls in demand and disruption in supply chains. India-based market researchers Mordor Intelligence concluded in a report assessing the African industry’s prospects for 2021-5 that “disruption of the Covid-19 pandemic on global value chains and its impact on African businesses is already evident.”…
ACADEMICS AT UGANDA’S MAKERERE UNIVERSITY TAKE ADVANTAGE OF COVID-19 TEACHING LULL TO BOOST RESEARCH OUTPUT
Academics at Uganda’s Makerere University appear to have taken advantage of the lull in face-to-face teaching caused by Covid-19 to increase their research output, a self-assessment study has suggested. Research publications from Kampala-based Makerere, one of Africa’s oldest universities, rose from 992 papers in 2019 to 1,301 in 2020. …
BRITAIN’S TRADITIONS OF SOFT POWER CAN OFFER POWERFUL EXAMPLE TO ARAB WORLD
In 2021, when the UK has thrown away its most precious diplomatic asset, its membership of the European Union, for dubious democratic gains, burning major European civil rights enjoyed by Britons and causing likely economic long-term damage, it is maybe time to recall when Britain followed more enlightened international policies.…
BRITAIN’S TRADITIONS OF SOFT POWER CAN OFFER POWERFUL EXAMPLE TO ARAB WORLD
In 2021, when the UK has thrown away its most precious diplomatic asset, its membership of the European Union, for dubious democratic gains, burning major European civil rights enjoyed by Britons and causing likely economic long-term damage, it is maybe time to recall when Britain followed more enlightened international policies.…
KENYAN GRADUATES IN CANADA USE UNIVERSITY TRAINING TO CREATE HOME COUNTRY-BASED INFLUENCER-BASED MARKETING PLATFORM
AS every small business owner knows, marketing and sales is a tough task, especially when the day-to-day delivery of services to existing clients takes up so much time. Hiring a full-time marketer is also beyond the means of most small businesses.…
COVID-19 HELPS RISK CONSULTANCIES PERSUADE CLIENTS TO PREPARE FOR THE UNCERTAIN, SAYS MAURITIUS BUSINESS AND AUDIT ADVISOR
Covid-19 has ripped through the economy of the Indian Ocean country Mauritius, but it has helped island business advisory agency managing director Sheila Ujoodha make her case to clients that risk assessments and contingency planning are important.
The owner of SmarTree Consulting (SCL) since she created the company in 2018, Ujoodha is busy suggesting how businesses can cope with the pandemic, through its services of internal audit, risk assessment and regulatory consulting.…
CONSENSUS GROWS IN SOMALIA – UNIVERSITIES ARE FAILING TO DELIVER GRADUATES ABLE TO GROW WAR-SHATTERED ECONOMY
A consensus is growing within Somalia’s higher education services that the current tertiary sector needs to be better aligned with the country’s developing labour market demands as its economy emerges from years of conflict.
There has been a significant level of agreement to the conclusions of a new report highlighting such concerns – ‘Somalia’s Education Sector: Fostering Skills Through A Demand-driven Education System’, co-produced by a think tank the Heritage Institute for Policy Studies and the City University of Mogadishu.…
TEXT FRAUD CAN HIT VICTIMS HARD BECAUSE VICTIMS REPLY TO PHONE MESSAGES IN HASTE, BUT REPENT AT LEISURE
TEXT fraud is maybe more dangerous that email fraud, given the tendency for mobile phone users to respond to texts swiftly and without careful thought, cyber-security experts warn.
The Covid-19 pandemic has also created opportunities for fraudsters using texts and messaging services such as WhatsApp to launch fishing and other attacks on the unwary.…
QUANTUM COMPUTING RESEARCH DEVELOPING ACROSS AFRICA, WITH SOUTH AFRICAN WORK UNDERPINNING PROGRESS
The cutting edge IT field of quantum computing is developing across Africa, with South Africa considered the hub, in part through an IBM centre in Johannesburg that enables academics throughout the continent to freely access its quantum computer network, based in the USA, through the cloud.…
PAKISTAN’S PAINT AND COATINGS SECTOR HAS UNDERLYING STRENGTH – POISED FOR POST-COVID-19 RECOVERY
PAKISTAN’S paint and coatings sector is understandably suffering from Covid-19, which has hit the country hard with 276,288 cases and 5,892 deaths as of July 28. But the industry has been expanding and its executives hope for a sustained recovery once the pandemic has abated, ending the current series of rolling smart lockdowns targeting infection hotspots.…
NIGERIAN ACCOUNTANT MOVES COUNTRIES AND BECOMES UGANDAN AND KENYAN BEER FINANCE BOSS
Taking up a new job where you are responsible for overseeing how a business operates in three countries during a global health pandemic is not a task many financial professionals would take on lightly. But that is what Busola Doregos, a Nigerian accountant working in Uganda has just done. …
INTERNATIONAL REGULATORY ROUND UP – UN FAO WANTS PERMANENT COCOA MARKET OBSERVATORY
THE UNITED Nations’ Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has proposed creating a permanent ‘observatory’ monitoring cocoa markets, assessing value and costs, to help chocolate sales revenues be more equitably distributed throughout supply chains.
In a report called a ‘Comparative study on the distribution of value in European chocolate chains’, the FAO said such “objectified and cross-checked data” would aid “a multi-stakeholder discussion” at national and global levels on revenue sharing.…
SOMALILAND EXPANDS TERTIARY EDUCATION SECTOR, BUT LACK OF INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION OF SELF-DECLARED STATE IMPEDES PROGRESS
Somaliland’s higher education capacity may have been growing, but a lack of financial and human resources and the continued lack of international recognition of its country’s self-declared independent status continue to impede progress, say local education leaders.
Ahmed Musa, director-general at the ministry of higher education of the Republic of Somaliland, said infrastructure weaknesses and a shortage of qualified teaching and non-teaching staff were to blame.…
KENYA’S LEADING-EDGE AFRICAN OUTSOURCING SECTOR REELS FROM COVID-19 PANDEMIC
KENYA’S clothing manufacturing industry, which had been growing at the cutting edge of sub-Saharan Africa’s expanding outsourcing sector, has been punched hard by Covid-19’s devastation of the garment markets within the United States and the European Union (EU).
The London-based Overseas Development Institute has noted that “garment factories in Sub-Saharan Africa have started laying off workers,” and Kenya is no exception.…
KENYA’S GROWING MIDDLE CLASS IS EXPANDING DAIRY MARKET WITHIN EAST AFRICA’S ECONOMIC POWERHOUSE
IT is fair to say that cheese and other processed dairy products have not traditionally played a key role in tickling the Kenyan collective palate, but that was yesterday. Now, as the country, east Africa’s economic dynamo, grows a middle class interested in consumer consumption, there has been exponential growing demand for dairy products of all kinds.…
WHISTLEBLOWING RULES IN MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA EMERGE, BUT ARE INCONSISTENT
Only a handful of countries in the Middle East and Africa have dedicated whistleblowing laws – South Africa, Mozambique, Zambia, Uganda, Ghana, Liberia, Algeria, Morocco, and the Israel-occupied Palestinian territories, according to Blueprint for Free Speech, a charity promoting freedom of expression (https://www.blueprintforfreespeech.net/).…
SLOW PROGRESS ON TOBACCO REGULATION IN BOTSWANA’S STABLE AND PROSPEROUS MARKET
IF there was a sub-Saharan African country expected to steer a middle course between World Health Organisation (WHO) demands on smoking and protecting a stable and prosperous tobacco industry and market, it would surely be relatively wealthy Botswana – with an average per capital income in 2018 USD7,750.…
PMI PUSHES AHEAD TO SEIZE GROUND IN SOUTH AFRICA’S GROWING VAPING MARKET
South Africa’s electronic vaping product (EVP) market is growing fast – at 5% a year, according to management consultant Canback Consulting, and already estimated to be worth South African Rand ZAR1.16 billion (EUR82.8 million/USD68.2 billion). To target such growth, Philip Morris South Africa (PMSA) opened its first standalone IQOS store last August (2019), selling its smoke-free devices and associated product in the upmarket Johannesburg neighbourhood of Sandton, adding to the 11 kiosks in malls it was already operating in the provinces of Gauteng, Western Cape and Kwazulu-Natal.…
COVID-91 HALTS EFFORTS BY SOUTH SUDAN HIGHER EDUCATION SECTOR TO REBUILD AFTER PEACE AGREEMENT ENDED CIVIL WAR
The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted efforts by South Sudan tertiary education leaders and ministers within the newly formed South Sudan unity government to restore the country’s universities, many of which were devastated by the years of civil war that may now have ended.…
AFRICA’S CIVIL AVIATION SECTOR GROWS, BUT FACES CHALLENGES TO BUILD SUSTAINABLE REGIONAL MARKET
AFRICA is commonly hailed as the world’s next big focus of economic growth, but for the civil aviation industry, this prospect will require significant investment in new intra-African routes and related airport and ATC infrastructure. It will also require governments to remove immigration barriers preventing African air travellers flying to other countries on their home continent.…
KENYA STARTS GM COTTON PRODUCTION THIS YEAR IN BID TO KICKSTART ITS UNDERPERFORMING TEXTILE MANUFACTURING SECTOR
Kenya will start to grow genetically modified cotton this year, becoming the first country to do so in Eastern Africa. The move is significant as it is likely to inspire other counties in the region start to grow Bt cotton hybrids that are resistant to African bollworm and other pests.…
AFRICA HIGHER EDUCATION IS MAINSTREAMING INCLUSIVITY INTO SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION, CONFERENCE TOLD
Universities and other institutions of higher learning should incorporate well-structured capacity building programmes that target women at all levels of the academic life within strategic policies to promote gender inclusivity in science, technology and innovation (STI), an African HE conference has been told.…
INTERNATIONAL HE ACCESS DAY CONFERENCE HEARS HOW WELL-MEANING COMMITMENTS NEED PRACTICAL SOLUTIONS AND MONEY
INTERNATIONAL collaboration, financial and strategic support and government policy consistency that endures beyond changes in political administrations are vital to maintain accelerating global gains in access to higher education, delegates at an international conference in Scotland were told this week.…
EUROPEAN COMMISSION CONSIDERS ADDING ZIRCONIUM TO EU CRITICAL RAW MATERIAL LIST
THE EUROPEAN Commission will next year (2020) consider whether to add zirconium to the European Union (EU) critical raw material list, with the aim of encouraging production and recycling of a mineral so resistant to corrosion, it is widely used in the nuclear industry.…
KENYAN EXPORT ZONE BOSS HAILS NEW SRI LANKAN CLOTHING FACTORY LAUNCH
THE HEAD of the Kenyan export processing zone that will be hosting a new factory run by Sri Lankan apparel and textile manufacturer MAS Holdings, has told just-style that the new plant will involve the creation of between 3,000 and 3,500 jobs directly, when it starts operations by January 20.…
AFRICAN GARMENT MAKERS SEEK TIGHTER CONTINENTAL INTEGRATION OF THEIR SUPPLY CHAINS, EXPO PARTICIPANTS SAY
African garment and textile manufacturers are trying to create more synergy to better integrate the supply chain within the continent, but North African producers still dominate, and are expanding capacity, particularly in Egypt, say participants at a major regional industry meeting.…
AFRICAN GARMENT MAKERS SEEK TO INTEGRATE SUSTAINABILITY INTO THEIR SUPPLY CHAINS, EXPO PARTICIPANTS SAY
African manufacturers are trying to integrate sustainability in their textile and fashion supply chains as retailers demand compliance with increasingly high standards fuelled by consumer pressure. But to do so, manufacturers are asking for assistance from international organisations to implement change.…
NATURAL AFRICAN LOOKS INCREASE IN PREDOMINANCE AS SUB-SAHARAN BEAUTY MARKETS BECOME MORE SOPHISTICATED
Beauty markets in sub-Saharan Africa are becoming more sophisticated, and with this comes an increasing desire by consumers to use cosmetics that better match their own skin and hair characteristics, rather than utilising products that of more universal appeal.
Nigeria’s personal care product industry continues to grow, and given its population is the largest in Africa – now estimated by the United Nations at 200 million – this market inevitably has the most potential in the continent.…
ERASMUS+ SPENDING ON AFRICAN UNIVERSITIES IS RISING – WITH HOPE EXPANSION WILL CONTINUE
THE EUROPEAN Commission – the European Union (EU) executive – has claimed its Erasmus+ higher education exchange initiative is significantly boosting tertiary studies for African students and academics, with 8,500 Africans benefiting this year (2019).
In a report on the programme, which has been hailed as a flagship of the EU’s positive international impact, the Commission said that this figure was poised to keep growing, so that it will have helped more than 35,000 African students and academics by 2020.…
UPCOMING AFRICA SYMPOSIUM WILL PREPARE NEW INITIATIVE TO BOOST POSITION OF WOMEN IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Mentorship and sharing experiences will be a key part of the discussions on boost numbers of women in leadership and senior positions within Africa’s higher education sector, when African women vice chancellors meet for their annual symposium in December 2-6.
This meeting of the Forum for African Women Vice Chancellors (FAWoVC) is being staged alongside the annual general meeting of the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM), to be held at the University of Cape Coast, in Ghana.…
EAST AFRICA PUSHES AHEAD WITH SOLAR POWER ROUTE TO RURAL PROSPERITY
Despite having high solar radiation with between 2,800 and 3,500 hours of sunshine in a year (when there are 8,760 hours for each non-leap year), the solar energy potential in East Africa is yet to be fully exploited.
But in this region, it is not fossil fuels that dominate.…
NONWOVENS SECTOR IN MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA STRUGGLES WITH OVERCAPACITY
THE NONWOVENS industry in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is still struggling with over-capacity, while declining purchasing power has hit the mid- and higher-tier segments, prompting global players to reconsider product offerings.
MENA economies have been impacted by low oil prices and regional instability, with growth forecast at 1.5% this year, down from 1.7% in 2018, according to investment bank JP Morgan.…
UK SFO INVESTIGATES DE LA RUE OVER SOUTH SUDAN GRAFT
The UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has opened an investigation into the world’s biggest banknote and passport printing company De La Rue over its operations in South Sudan. UK-based De La Rue has held the contract to print South Sudan’s currency since the country was founded in 2011.…
TANZANIA’S WIG AND HAIR EXTENSION TAX PROMPTS INDUSTRY CONCERN ACROSS EAST AFRICA
THE TANZANIAN government’s decision to increase levies on dry hair imports and associated wigs, hair pieces and extensions, and which are widely popular in the country, has been met with real concern and some anger by the east African beauty industry.…
WOLLASTONITE OFFERS GREAT POTENTIAL AS BASE FOR DEVELOPING CARBON EMISSIONS REDUCTION TECHNOLOGY
WOLLASTONITE has been described by a Canadian producer as “a white mineral for a greener world,” and it seems governments, businesses and industries agree – with wollastonite is set to see increased market growth in its traditional uses plus a new focus on its powerful qualities to help tackle climate change.…
WOLLASTONITE OFFERS GREAT POTENTIAL AS BASE FOR DEVELOPING CARBON EMISSIONS REDUCTION TECHNOLOGY
WOLLASTONITE has been described by a Canadian producer as “a white mineral for a greener world,” and it seems governments, businesses and industries agree – with wollastonite is set to see increased market growth in its traditional uses plus a new focus on its powerful qualities to help tackle climate change.…
KENYA BRINGS IN NEW BANKNOTES TO CURB CORRUPTION
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) Governor Patrick Njoroge have unveiled the latest weapon in the country’s battle against corruption, counterfeiting and money laundering with the introducion new banknotes. The Kenyan government requires old Kenyan Shilling KES1,000 (USD9.87) notes to be exchanged for the new bills by October 1, with the new KES50 (USD0.49), KES100 (USD0.99), KES200 (USD1.97) and KES500 (USD4.93) notes being phased in gradually.…
MONEY SERVICE BUSINESSES IN EMERGING MARKETS FACE TOUGHER COMPLIANCE AND DERISKING DEMANDS
MONEY service businesses (MSBs) are having a tougher time operating in compliance with international AMF/CFT rules, especially those in emerging market countries, where they have to deal with a double challenge of tighter controls and derisking by banking partners.
MSBs throughout the Middle East, for instance, have been hit by derisking from correspondent banks as well as designations by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).…
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA AIRPORT SECTOR EXPANDS AS AIR TRAFFIC PUSHES FACILITIES TOWARDS CAPACITY LIMITS
AFRICA is without doubt the continent to watch for airport and air traffic control investment in the future. It is the world’s second most populous continent (home to more than 1.2 billion people), and according to Airports Council International (World) – ACI World – Africa was the fastest growing region for air passenger traffic in 2017 and 2018, which rose 6.3% in 2017 year-on-year and 10.8% in 2018 to June year-to-date, year-on-year.…
UGANDAN UNIVERSITY WORKS WITH MASTERCARD FOUNDATION TO TEACH REFUGEES AGRI-BUSINESS SKILLS
Refugees have welcomed an international initiative at Gulu University, in northern Uganda, that is equipping them with skills on agribusiness and micro-enterprise development, helping them become financially independent.
Gulu is one of two African universities implementing the Mastercard Foundation-funded Transforming African Agricultural Universities project whose goal is meaningfully contributing to Africa’s growth and development.…
KENYAN PAINT COMPANIES FACE RISING COSTS – BUT BOOMING CONSTRUCTION MEANS THAT SALES WILL STILL GROW
WITH Kenya’s economy still growing fast – its GDP is projected to increase by 5.8% this year (2019) east Africa’s economic hub is expected to provide the paint and coatings sector plenty of extra sales. Such growth in the construction industry is reflected in its neighbouring countries, notably Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda, offering additional sales for companies with the scale to score regional sales.…
CHINA’S TRADE WAR WITH AMERICA COULD ACCELERATE CLOTHING AND TEXTILE MANUFACTURING GROWTH IN AFRICA
AFRICAN garment and textile manufacturers have a long way to go to increase capacity, develop the supply chain and diversify overall production away from North Africa, an industry conference staged in Cairo has been told. But while north Africa accounts for more than USD10 billion out the continent’s USD13.54 billion in clothing and textile exports (during 2016, according to international trade data), the much discussed potential of Africa as the world’s next sourcing hub is starting to materialise.…
CHINA’S TRADE WAR WITH AMERICA COULD ACCELERATE CLOTHING AND TEXTILE MANUFACTURING GROWTH IN AFRICA
AFRICAN garment and textile manufacturers have a long way to go to increase capacity, develop the supply chain and diversify overall production away from North Africa, an industry conference staged in Cairo has been told. But while north Africa accounts for more than USD10 billion out the continent’s USD13.54 billion in clothing and textile exports (during 2016, according to international trade data), the much discussed potential of Africa as the world’s next sourcing hub is starting to materialise.…
ICAO BUDDY SYSTEM HELPS EMERGING MARKET COUNTRIES PREPARE FOR CORSIA
A BUDDY training system has been launched by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), enabling countries with significant regulatory capacity to help other states prepare for the upcoming CORSIA (Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation) scheme. ICAO has been training national officials to advise on ensuring CORSIA’s legal requirements are written into local laws and also on building the emissions data monitoring, reporting and verification systems they need to measure their airlines’ carbon footprint.…
DIGITAL CLOTHING AND TEXTILE SECTOR TECHNOLOGIES EMERGE IN EGYPT AND SOUTH AFRICA – BUT WILL THE REST OF AFRICA FOLLOW SUIT?
DIGITAL production technologies could help African manufacturers pick up business lost by Chinese rivals because of the trade war in the USA, with brands looking to take advantage of the free trade agreements that many African countries have with the USA and Europe.…
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA’S DIVERSE BEAUTY MARKETS COMBINE TASTES FOR TRADITION WITH AN APPETITE FOR GLOBAL TRENDS
THE PERCEPTION of beauty and hence the design and supply of personal care products is slowly changing in sub-Saharan Africa as its increasingly wealthy middle class consumers take a more personalised approach to how they look. The region has a widely diversified consumer-base, whose varied tastes are pushing brands to rethink personalising cosmetics and personal care products like never before. …
AFRICAN SOURCING AND FASHION WEEK EXPLORES HOW CONTINENT’S CLOTHING AND TEXTILE SECTOR CAN GROW SUSTAINABLY
As he took in the fourth Africa Sourcing and Fashion Week (ASFW) in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa last week, Kenneth K Han, managing director of Shints ETP Garment Plc, said he is optimistic over the country’s potential in the textile and apparel sector, despite many challenges.…
INTERNATIONAL REGULATORY ROUND UP – US-CHINA TRADE WAR HITS CONFECTIONERY EXPORTERS
AMERICAN confectioners may suffer from the latest tit-for-tat tariff exchange between the USA and China, with retaliatory duties from China targeting US confectionery exports. Many of these duties are high – at 25% – imposed from September 24 on US-made sugar; cocoa powder; milk powder; honey; jams; and more; plus 20% duties on US-made confectionery without cocoa; chewing gum; some chocolates; and more.…
EXPERTS POINT WAY AHEAD FOR INJECTING TECHNOLOGY INTO AFRICAN CLOTHING AND RELATED SECTORS
SUB-SAHARAN Africa may not have been the most fertile ground for technological innovation in the clothing, textile and fibre sectors but speakers at an International Textile Manufacturers Federation (ITMF) conference in Nairobi, Kenya, September 7-9, stressed the best way ahead.…
AFRICA’S CLOTHING SECTOR NEEDS TO BECOME MORE FLEXIBLE AND ADOPT MORE TECHNOLOGY, GLOBAL CONFERENCE HEARS
A FAILURE to embrace and adopt science and technology is hurting the clothing, textile and cotton industries of Africa, delegates attending an International Textile Manufacturers Federation (ITMF) three-day conference in Nairobi, Kenya, from September 7-9. The annual conference, staged this year in a sub-Saharan African country for the first time in the ITMF’s 114 years of existence, heard experts commenting that a reluctance by African companies to adopt new technology had not only slowed growth in the apparel and textile sector, but was also potentially pushing companies towards stagnation.…
INTERNATIONAL AGRI-RESEARCH INITIATIVE AIMS TO CREATE AFRICAN REGIONAL RESEARCH HUBS FOR RURAL DEVELOPMENT
MAJOR universities from six African countries will next year (2019) be able to develop their services through each receiving USD20 million grants from the World Bank, via a regional rural development research initiative, with the money designed to turn these institutions into regional hubs for agricultural learning.…
KENYAN SENATE MOVING FORWARD ON LAW TELLING MINERALS FIRMS TO HIRE AND SOURCE GOODS LOCALLY
The Kenyan Senate is consulting on a proposed law that will commit international mining companies to hire Kenya-based staff and source supplies locally. The Local Content Bill (see http://kenyalaw.org/kl/fileadmin/pdfdownloads/bills/2016/LocalContentBill_2016.pdf) has been reintroduced formally to the Senate this year – an original text had been tabled in 2016, but debates were interrupted by Kenya’s 2017 general election.…
KENYA UNIVERSITY CONFERENCE CALLS FOR MORE CRITICAL THINKING IN KENYAN UNIVERSITIES
EDUCATIONALISTS have called upon Kenyan universities to include social justice and transformation in their teaching curriculum, to prepare graduates to serve their societies selflessly and diligently.
At a conference called ‘Touching Hearts, Teaching Minds and Transforming Lives’, staged at Tangaza University College, in the capital Nairobi, delegates were told Kenyan students are not fully prepared for the society they are expected work and serve within, upon graduation in the current system.…
EAST AFRICAN MONEY LAUNDERING BLAMED ON LACK OF LAW ENFORCEMENT
EAST African countries maybe updating their anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) legislation and strengthening related institutions, but experts warn that a lack of enforcement will aid the proliferation of ML and TF in the region.
In Kenya, a Proceeds of Crime and Anti-Money Laundering (Amendment) Bill was approved by the country’s parliament last March (2017).…
REGULATORY CONVERGENCE OF COSMETICS LEGISLATION WILL HAPPEN – BUT SLOWLY, SAY EXPERTS, COSMETICS EUROPE MEETING HEARS
ACHIEVING regulatory convergence in the USD465 billion global cosmetics industry (Euromonitor 2017 figures) is an important long-term goal, industry experts agreed at European personal care product association Cosmetics Europe’s June 13-14 annual conference 2018 in Brussels. Europe is a key market for this industry – providing EUR77.6 billion’s worth of personal care product sales last year, and supporting more than two million jobs, said Cosmetics Europe president Loïc Armand, also president of L’Oréal France.…
SINGAPORE GOVERNMENT PLOTS EXPANSION OF CITY STATE ACCOUNTING SECTOR
THE SINGAPORE government has released an accountancy roadmap, enabling the profession in the city state to grow 5.6% annually to generate Singapore dollars SGD2.03 billion (USD1.48 billion) in nominal value-added income, creating 2,000 new PMET (professionals, managers, executives and technicians) jobs by 2020.…
COATINGS SALES BOO IN KENYA AND ACROSS EAST AFRICA
THE BUSINESS of selling paints and other coating products is expected to skyrocket in Kenya as the government implements President Uhuru Kenyatta’s agenda of providing affordable housing in urban and rural areas and promoting manufacturing industry, over the next five years.…
BRAZIL AND CHINA TOP LIST OF MOST FCPA INVESTIGATIONS
Brazil is by far the country most-named in American investigations for crimes against the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), with China trailing behind in second place, according to the latest listing from a blog, FCPA Tracker. It says industries cited in the different FCPA probes tied to Brazil include power generation, waste management, oil and gas services, food production, steel manufacturing and telecommunications.…
KENYA TOBACCO FARMERS FACE TOUGH TIMES
TOBACCO farming in Kenya is facing challenging times, with Tobacco Journal International being warned by farmers, government officials and market researchers that large-scale cultivation of the crop has been declining for five years in its traditional western region heartland.
Experts say output decline has been noted in the administrative areas that have dominated Kenyan tobacco leaf production.…
AFRICAN COMMONWEALTH ANTI-CORRUPTION CENTRE TARGETS GROWTH THROUGH FIGHTING GRAFT
CORRUPTION saps economic competition that drives productivity improvements and grows emerging market economies – this is a key reason behind the establishment of the Commonwealth Africa Anti-Corruption Centre (CAACC). Another is the established link between the perception of risk from corrupt practices in a country and foreign economic investment.…
SOMALIA REGAINING ATC CONTROL OF ITS OWN AIR SPACE FROM CARETAKER ICAO
A SOMALIA air traffic control organisation has taken control of the country’s civilian airspace 26 years after the collapse of the country’s government left ATC affairs in the hands of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). The handover of control to the Somali Civil Aviation and Meteorology Authority (SCAMA) happened on December 28 (2017).…
SOMALIA SUFFERS FROM GLUT OF POOR TERTIARY GRADUATES WHO LACK SECONDARY EDUCATION
SENIOR figures in Somalia’s education and employment sector are calling on the country’s increasingly influential government to bring down the numbers of tertiary colleges and universities to better match the lower number of graduates from secondary schools.
The proliferation of universities within Somalia, especially private organisations, as peace has taken root in the country, has prompted concern among experts that standards of education has weakened.…
SLUMP IN TOBACCO PRODUCTION - ZAMBIA FEELS THE PINCH.
WITH tobacco being a key driver of Zambia’s agriculture sector and a past reliable source of export earnings, a recent decline in leaf production has taken a heavy toll on this southern African country’s economy. Indeed, Zambia saw its agricultural foreign exchange earnings (of all farm-based products) fall by USD100 million in 2017, according to Zambia’s agriculture ministry.…
NONWOVENS DEMAND GROWS ACROSS AFRICA AND MIDDLE EAST, BUT OVER AND UNDER-PRODUCTION PROBLEMS PERSIST
THE NONWOVENS market in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) is increasingly important to the global nonwovens industry, with rising consumer demand being generated by middle classes that are growing in size. Countries in the region are also comparatively young, with high birth rates, boosting demand for diapers and wipes.…
BANKS STRUGGLE TO MANAGE AN EFFECTIVE AND SOPHISTICATED DERISKING POLICY
THE DE-RISKING by banks of their correspondent banking relationships is a long-standing problem and is today becoming a truly global phenomenon. From the Caribbean to the Pacific Islands, to Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe, banks have lost correspondent relationships with international financial institutions.…
LAW ENFORCERS SEEK TO EXTRADITE FRAUDSTERS THROUGH TREATY AND DIPLOMATIC MUSCLE, AS INTERNATIONAL CRIME PROLIFERATES
FINANCIAL fraud, as all practitioners know, has become increasingly international, a trend that will doubtless continue. For law enforcers based on national units of theoretically sovereign countries, this poses challenges, and one particularly tough nut to crack are procedures to extradite suspects to face trial in the country where their alleged victims reside.…
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA PERSONAL CARE EMERGING MARKETS STILL SURGE AHEAD WHILE WEALTHIER SOUTH AFRICA STAGNATES
SUB-SAHARAN Africa continues to grow as a key market for personal care product brands, with enlarging middle classes providing more spending power – however, the region’s most mature market – South Africa – has been experiencing some stagnation.
The rest of the region still is performing as emerging markets should – with growing sales, even when uneven across categories, giving brands much hope for the future.…
TECHNICAL REGULATORY ROUND UP - OECD RELEASES TAX EXCHANGE DATA
OECD SAYS 49 JURISDICTIONS WILL AUTOMATICALLY EXCHANGE TAX INFORMATION THIS YEAR
THE IDENTITY of 49 jurisdictions that will automatically exchange tax information in 2017 under a global standard has been revealed by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD).…
ICAO GREEN AIRPORT SEMINAR HEARS HOW ACI WILL LAUNCH NEW ECO-TERMINAL PEER REVIEW SYSTEM
AIRPORTS Council International (ACI) is to launch in the New Year a pilot programme designed to boost environmental good practice in airport management. The organisation’s director general Angela Gittens told a seminar on green airports, at the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), in Montréal, Canada, that the roll out would begin at Mariscal Sucre International Airport, Quito, Ecuador.…
AFRICAN GOVERNMENTS WAKE UP TO POTENTIAL OF OUTSOURCED CLOTHING BUSINESS
Africa governments are waking up to the fact that the continent could be a ‘new frontier’ for clothing manufacturing sourcing, export associations and manufacturers at Destination Africa, a trade event in Cairo, Egypt, have told just-style.
They stressed that Africa has significant opportunities to divert manufacturing from Asia due to rising production costs, especially in China, and take advantage of the proximity to European markets.…
AFRICAN CLOTHING MANUFACTURERS PROJECT GROWTH AS CHINA LOSES COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE AS AN OUTSOURCER
African clothing exporting countries are banking on rising costs in China and changing consumption patterns worldwide to attract buyers to the continent to take advantage of lower production costs.
Major hurdles abound, but manufacturers are hopeful that clothing facilities built from scratch that abide by international best practices will help the continent’s apparel sector develop.…
LOW LEVELS OF AFRICA TAX TAKE DEMONSTRATED BY OECD
DATA has been released by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) that shows how African governments collect less tax as a proportion of their countries’ wealth than in Latin America and the Caribbean. Africa’s average 2015 tax-to-GDP ratio was 19.1%; compared to 22.8% in Latin America/Caribbean and 34.3% for the 35 richer countries within the OECD.…
LAOS OFF TO A LATE START TO ESTABLISH ADEQUATE AML CONTROLS
LAOS, or the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), with its population of just 7 million, is the least developed member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and a communist one-party state where corruption is rampant and transparency scarce. …
ETHIOPIA MOVES TOWARDS EXPLOITING HUGE RENEWABLE ENERGY POTENTIAL
Ethiopia’s energy sector is undergoing a rapid transformation, becoming a trail blazer for renewables growth in Africa. Although still one of the continent’s poorest nations in Africa (gross national income per capita just USD660 in 2016, says the World Bank), its potential for green energy production is massive.…
OPERATION RENEGADE YIELDS IMPORTANT COUNTERFEITING INTELLIGENCE IN ONGOING GLOBAL STRUGGLE AGAINST FAKES
A MAJOR international anti-counterfeiting action ‘Operation Renegade’ did not just seize more than 70,000 counterfeit auto spare parts, oil and air filters, grills, and fuel pumps, and nearly 600 cylinders of chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) refrigerants, it yielded valuable anti-smuggling and counterfeiting information.…
PUTTING ON A BRAVE FACE – JAPAN’S COATINGS SECTOR INVESTS ABROAD AS DOMESTIC SALES FACE DECLINE
JAPAN’S paint and coatings sector is putting on a positive face and playing up overseas expansion efforts, as well as its traditional strength in innovation, but analysts are concerned about the longer-term outlook for domestic companies.
Sales of paint in Japan came to Japanese Yen JPY 675 billion (USD6.10 billion) in 2016, a marginal increase of around 1% on the previous year’s figure, according to the Japan Paint Manufacturers Association.…
INTERNATIONAL REGULATORY ROUND UP – INDIAN CONFECTIONERY SECTOR GRAPPLES WITH NEW GST
CONFECTIONARY manufacturers in India are having to grapple with their products and ingredients attracting a wide range of tax rates under the country’s new goods and services tax (GST), which started to be levied from July 1.
India’s GST Council, a body representing the central and state governments, has been deciding which goods will be covered by the zero, 5%, 12%, 18% and 28% tax rates allowed under India’s GST legislation. …
CONFERENCE HEARS HOW KENYA IS PUSHING AHEAD WITH DRONE REGULATION
Kenya is likely to become the second country in east Africa after Rwanda to use unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), popularly known as drones, for commercial purposes, according to Capt. Gilbert Kibe, director general of the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA).
Speaking during a ‘Drones East Africa Conference’ held in Nairobi on June 20-21, Kibe briefed delegates on draft regulations that will open Kenya skies to UAVs: “The policy procedures and regulations for remotely piloted aircraft systems…have been approved and will provide a roadmap to the industry,” Kibe told delegates at the event, organised by the International Quality and Productivity Centre (IQPC).…
MIDDLE CLASS STILL DRIVING DEMAND FOR DEODORANTS IN KENYA
THE EVER-intensifying skyline of Nairobi, Kenya’s capital city, illustrates the rapid economic growth of this equatorial East African country, and its growing workforce is increasingly keen to buy deodorants to keep them dry and comfortable in the office and outside.
An increased focus on banking, industry, manufacturing and construction have raised the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) by 5.3% year-on-year in 2014 and 5.6% in 2015 (Deloitte Economic Outlook 2016).…
‘TAX INSPECTORS WITHOUT BORDERS’ SEND EXPERTS TO HELP DEVELOPING COUNTRIES BOOST TAX TAKES
Demand is growing for a major international programme designed to support developing countries build up their tax audit capacity and – critically – the funding is there to meet that need. Launched as a joint initiative of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in July 2015 after an initial pilot phase, Tax Inspectors Without Borders (TIWB) sees tax experts work side-by-side with local officials in developing and emerging markets.…
IPSAS SET TO STANDARDISE KENYAN GOVERNMENT’S FINANCIAL PROCEDURES
KENYA is east Africa’s economic dynamo and what happens in this jurisdiction has a lot of influence over government policy in neighbouring countries. So, the fact that the Kenyan government is now pushing hard on installing detailed public accounting standards, following in the footsteps of next-door Tanzania – is important.…
TRADERS CALL FOR LAWS TO REGULATE TOBACCO TRADE IN SOMALIA
Slowly, a central government is re-establishing itself in Somalia. But it is far from being a safe place in which to do business. Even though other sectors (such as livestock) are establishing themselves, the tobacco sector still lacks a functional regulator and effective regulation.…
EAST AFRICAN GOVERNMENTS PASS TOBACCO CONTROL LAWS, BUT EFFORTS ARE UNEVEN AND IMPLEMENTATION PATCHY
GOVERNMENTS in east Africa may have been passing legislation and regulation to control the tobacco sector, but these laws’ effectiveness is being weakened by lax implementation.
Kenya has been leading the local pack with controls, in 2007 enacted its first Tobacco Control Act, and in 2014 ratifying the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO-FCTC).…
AFRICA STARTS TO ADOPT PUBLIC ACCOUNTING STANDARDS – BUT THE JOB WILL NOT BE EASY
WITH the economies of sub-Saharan Africa emerging from past poverty, informality and occasional chaos, the regularisation of the region’s public sector accounts is increasingly viewed as an important way of ensuring growing tax revenues are spent wisely.
As a result, accounting experts have been encouraged by growing moves to adopt International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS).…
MOROCCO SOLIDIFIES POSITION AS AFRICA’S NUMBER TWO DESTINATION FOR AFRICAN STUDENTS STUDYING ABROAD
MOROCCO is becoming an increasingly attractive destination for African students seeking to study abroad, and is now their second most popular destination on the continent, following South Africa. According to the latest statistics published by Morocco’s ministry of higher education, training and research, more than 18,000 African foreign students are currently enrolled in higher institutions in Morocco.…
DEMAND FOR NON-WOVENS INCREASING IN MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA, BUT LOCAL PRODUCTION CAN BE LACKING
THE MIDDLE East and Africa is certainly a promising regional market for nonwovens manufacturers, given the high level of economic growth in many countries and the rise of consumer-culture focused middle classes. But companies need to be sophisticated in their investment and sales tactics given the immense variety of economic and social fortunes experienced by countries in this most diverse region.…
AFRICA DIASPORA UNIVERSITY CONFERENCE
KENYA’S EDUCATION MINISTER CALLS FOR LESS GOVERNMENT MEDDLING IN AFRICAN UNIVERSITY MANAGEMENT
Kenya’s education minister has called for African governments to pull away from direct management of their country’s universities, saying such meddling is unnecessary and can hinder the development of effective management.…
OIL AND GAS SECTOR NOW WALKING THE TALK ON SUSTAINABILITY
The oil and gas industry is reshaping its strategies, practices and values as it responds to global agreements on climate change and sustainable development. The 2015 United Nations Paris Agreement on climate change and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – which came into effect in January 2016 – are prominent among global governance challenges driving change in the oil and gas industry, but pressure just keeps building.…
REGULATORS START TO DEVELOP COMPREHENSIVE CONTROLS FOR VIRTUAL CURRENCIES
With the value of Bitcoin skyrocketing over the past year, up from USD525 per Bitcoin last August to USD1,200 in mid-April, with one unit now being able to buy an ounce of gold, finding ways to efficiently regulate decentralised and independent virtual currencies (VCs) has become a top priority among governments and regulators worldwide.…
RECTOR/PRESIDENT OF THE SOMALI NATIONAL UNIVERSITY WANTS TO REPAY COUNTRY FOR HIS EDUCATION BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR
Speaking to University World News, Mr Jimale recalled how he graduated from SNU faculty of veterinary in 1983, then becoming a lecturer in the same department, in the years before the 1991 collapse of the Somali government in the midst of civil war.…
RECTOR/PRESIDENT OF THE SOMALI NATIONAL UNIVERSITY WANTS TO REPAY COUNTRY FOR HIS EDUCATION BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR
Professor Mohamed Ahmed Jimale, Rector of the Somali National University (SNU), hopes his work will enable poorer Somalis to attain the kind of education that launched him on his career.
Speaking to University World News, Mr Jimale recalled how he graduated from SNU faculty of veterinary in 1983, then becoming a lecturer in the same department, in the years before the 1991 collapse of the Somali government in the midst of civil war.…
DERISKING CONTINUES, ALTHOUGH AML BODIES ARE PRESSING BANKS TO BE MORE CAUTIOUS
THE DE-RISKING by major banks through cancelling correspondent banking relationships (CBRs) has started to raise such alarm that anti-money laundering institutions are starting to advise against such caution.
“There has been international pressure to make banks think twice about turning down customers and not just have blanket bans on certain jurisdictions or certain types of institutions,” said Sarah Ouarbya, partner in Mazars, one of the UK’s largest accountancy firms and an international specialist in audit, tax and advisory services.…
SOLAR COOKERS OFFER HIGHER LIVING STANDARDS FOR THE POOR AND MAJOR EMISSION REDUCTIONS
SOLAR power of course draws on a free renewable energy to create electricity, but a burgeoning sector is enabling the harnessing of heat for cooking, which can promote energy efficiency in all manner of climates – solar cookers.
Indian solar cooker innovator Deepak Gadhia and Julie Greene, executive director, Solar Cookers International (SCI), co-chaired a 6th SCI World Conference held in Gujarat, India, this January, that demonstrated how these technologies are entering the mainstream.…
KENYA PAINT MARKET AND INDUSTRY GROWING INTI KEY EAST AFRICAN HUB
KENYA has long been regarded as east Africa’s economic powerhouse, with residential and industrial construction boosting sales of paints and coatings – and for now there seems to be no halt in this progress. Indeed, the last World Bank assessment of growth in this 45 million people country was that GDP rose by 5.6% in 2015.…
SOMALIA'S COSMETIC SECTOR RESISTANT TO NEW BRANDS
SUB-Saharan Africa could have a new market on the block: Somalia. With peace and stability starting to take hold in a country that has lacked a strong effective government since 1991, cosmetics brand are starting to eye this Horn of Africa’s 10 million population for sales.…
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA CONTINUES TO OFFER GLOBAL COSMETICS SECTOR PROSPECT FOR RAPID GROWTH
SUB-Saharan Africa offers the personal care product a real chance to see solid and steep growth in sales in upcoming years, with the region’s middle class growing in size and prosperity, served by international brands boosting their retail presence, especially in larger urban markets.…
KENYAN BATH AND SHOWER PRODUCTS MARKET DIVERSIFIES AS SALES EXPAND
The Kenya bath and shower product market is projected to grow on average by 3% year-on-year to 2020, according to UK-based market researcher Euromonitor International. In a report released this September (2016), the sector during 2015 was valued at Kenyan Shillings KES2.4 billion (USD23.4 million at recent exchange rates).…
INTERNATIONAL REGULATORY ROUND UP – ISO PLOTS COCOA SUSTAINABILITY STANDARD
THE INTERNATIONAL Organization for Standardization (ISO) has developed a series of standards designed to promote sustainability in the chocolate and cocoa sector, and wants industry input.
It has released drafts on the ISO 34101 series, on ‘sustainable and traceable cocoa beans’, and wants expert opinions on them, for submission by December 4.…
PROLIFERATION OF UNIVERSITIES BRINGS MIXED BAG OF FORTUNES TO SOMALIA
As guns continue to go silent in Somalia’s waning civil conflicts, exponential growth has been witnessed in the country’s higher education sector, although there are mixed reviews about the quality of education offered by the country’s new independent universities.
Before the 1988 civil war and subsequent collapse of the central government in 1991, Somalia had only one state-owned university, the Somali National University.…
SPA MARKET REPORT – MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA
The United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) spa market experienced healthy growth in 2015 compared to 2014, increasing 11% in value terms to reach Emirati Dirham AED1.57 billion (USD428 million), according to market research company Euromonitor International.
In 2016, the market is predicted to grow by 9% to hit USD435 million year-on-year, accounting for nearly 14% of the Middle East and Africa’s USD3 billion spa market, according to Euromonitor.…
CONCERN RISES IN KENYA OVER IMPENDING END TO DUTY-FREE TRADE STATUS
CONCERN is growing in Kenya that its clothing manufacturing industry will be kicked out from the European Union’s EU) ‘market access regulation’ (MAR) from October 1, which has granted its exporters duty-free and quota-free access to EU consumers and businesses since 2008.…
TRADERS CALLS FOR KISMAYO PORT REHABILITATION TO SPUR LIVESTOCK EXPORTS
LIVESTOCK exporters using the key southern Somalia port of Kismayo are calling for facility improvements to spur this trade, which is of critical importance to the economic health of this war-wracked region.
Inefficiencies, outdated infrastructure and tainted global image courtesy of piracy, is not only holding back livestock exports but curtailing efforts to make Kismayo port profitable, said Ibrahim Ahmed Abdinoor, chief executive officer of the African Shipping Line, which has offices in Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania and Dubai.…
CONCERN RISES IN KENYA OVER IMPENDING END TO DUTY-FREE TRADE STATUS
CONCERN is growing in Kenya that its meat and livestock industry will be kicked out from the European Union’s EU) ‘market access regulation’ (MAR) from October 1, which has granted its exporters duty-free and quota-free access to EU consumers and businesses since 2008.…
PAN-AFRICAN BANKS OFFER MORE FINANCIAL SERVICES TO MORE AFRICANS – BUT REGULATION IS PROVING A CHALLENGE
AFRICA’S economic growth means it does not just have more banks than before, banking groups are spreading across national borders. And while this can boost banks’ lending and savings security, it also complicates the job of regulators charged with ensuring such institutions are honest and solvent.…
KENYA – TURKEY TEXTILE COOPERATION TO INTENSIFY THROUGH TRADE AGREEMENT
The Kenyan textiles and apparels industry has welcomed an anticipated trade deal between Kenya and Turkey designed to boost annual trade volumes between the two countries to USD1 billion, up from the prevailing USD144 million. The Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM), an umbrella body that represents firms across the industrial sector in Kenya, sees this as a reinforcement of long standing trade partnership between Kenya and Turkey, as well as a win for textiles.…
MOBILE MONEY BOOMS, GIVING MONEY LAUNDERERS NEW MEANS TO CLEAN CRIMINAL PROCEEDS
MOBILE money transactions surged in 2015 across the world – increasing by 31% to reach 411 million mobile money accounts, and this is a critical platform for expanding financial inclusion globally, according to GSMA, a UK-based global mobile industry association, in its February 2016 annual report on the ‘State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money’. …
NON-EXECS MUST PREPARE FOR POLICY AND LAW CHANGES FOLLOWING PARIS CLIMATE DEAL
Board directors are being warned they must anticipate and prepare for significant changes to the way their companies do business in the wake of the international climate change accord agreed in Paris last December (2015). The agreement called on all nations to hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.…
UNCERTAINTY, LACK OF UPSTREAM INDUSTRY AMONG CHALLENGES IN EMERGING SOURCING DESTINATIONS
UNCERTAINTY might sound like a rather nebulous concern for international clothing brands considering their sourcing, but it can be a very tough problem that undermines operational efficiency up and downstream. It is an especially large challenge for brands who are venturing out to source apparel from emerging sources such as sub-Saharan Africa or Myanmar among others, Dr Patrick J Conway, department chair of economics at the University of North Carolina, USA, told just-style.…
MEPS GRILL MULTINATIONALS OVER EU TAX RULINGS
A MEETING of the European Parliament’s special committee on tax rulings has grilled multinationals over European Union (EU) member state tax rulings. The European Commission fears they have been abused by governments giving companies low tax rates in return for registering businesses in their jurisdictions.…
INTERNATIONAL SOURCING CHOICES REQUIRE INSIGHTFUL DECISIONS FROM BRANDS
WHILE international clothing buyers today have a lot of sourcing choices, this multiplicity of options can bring its own management headaches, making it important that brands make subtle, complex and fluid purchasing decisions to keep ahead of the competition, Global research firm McKinsey’s biannual sourcing survey – last published in 2015 – of chief procurement officers (CPOs) at leading apparel companies is an interesting window onto today’s complex sourcing landscape.…
FRONTIER SOURCING – NEW MANUFACTURING HUBS OFFER INCREASINGLY RELIABLE SERVICE.
Regardless of the debate about whether China is losing its shine as a clothing source, brands will always be looking for a competitive edge in new manufacturing hubs.
Myanmar’s low wage garments sector, for instance, is poised for rapid growth. The country’s first democratically elected government in 50 years is set to assume power in April and several reforms have already been made to bolster the country’s appeal as a sourcing destination for international clothing brands.…
INTERNATIONAL REGULATORY ROUND UP – END OF EXPORT SUBSIDIES WILL CHALLENGE CONFECTIONERY SECTOR
EUROPEAN confectionery manufacturers have urged caution over the impending end of food export subsidies, which will be scrapped after a World Trade Organisation ministerial meeting in Nairobi, Kenya. Developed country members have promised to remove export subsidies immediately for basic food products, with a slower phase-out for many processed foods.…
WILDLIFE CRIME INCREASINGLY RUN BY INTERNATIONAL ORGANISED CRIMINAL NETWORKS
An unprecedented spike in rhino poaching has not only threatened the existence of the charismatic species but also shone a spotlight on the highly organised criminal networks responsible. Wildlife crime is no longer seen as victimless or offering little reward but authorities are fighting back with some innovative tactics, reports Mark Rowe. …
CHINESE PHARMA COMPANIES EYE INVESTMENTS IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA, BUT THE GOING IS TOUGH
China pharmaceutical industry investors want to help sub-Saharan African countries meet growing domestic demand for medicine in return for tax breaks and private-public partnership initiatives. But there are difficulties – including product quality and standards issues that impede the flow of Chinese Yuan into African pharma production.…
UK PRINTERS FINED GBP2.2 MILLION OVER AFRICA CORRUPTION
A UK court has fined British printing company Smith & Ouzman Ltd GBP2.2 million over corruption offences involving contracts for security documents, such as ballot papers and exam certificates, in Kenya and Mauritania. The fines, handed down in a January 8, sentencing hearing at Southwark Crown Court, follow a four-year investigation by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) into a total GBP395,074 in corrupt payments to public officials for the contracts.…
INTERNATIONAL REGULATORY ROUND UP - WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION BANS EXPORT SUBSIDIES
FOOD and drink export subsidies are to be scrapped after a World Trade Organisation ministerial meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, agreed to phase out these trade sweeteners. Developed country members have promised to remove export subsidies immediately for basic food products, with a slower phase-out for many processed foods and drinks, pigmeat and dairy products.…
AFRICA IS FOCUS OF CORPORATE GOVERNANCE REFORMS
THE NEED for sub-Saharan Africa to improve its corporate governance, promoting sustainable development in a region that still trails the rest of the world in many poverty metrics, has been a key theme of accounting conferences. And new initiatives reflecting this understanding have been making progress in east and west Africa, for instance.…
SOUTH AFRICA GATEWAY TO GROWING SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA REGIONAL COATINGS MARKET
THE GLOBAL paint and coatings sector is looking closely at sub-Saharan Africa as an emerging market, which attracted USD56.3 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2014. And as the region’s richest and most diversified economy, the United Nations Conference on Trade & Development (UNCTAD) has noted, South Africa was Africa’s leading FDI recipient in 2013, with a figure that had more than doubled year-on-year to top USD10 billion.…
INTERNATIONAL REGULATORY ROUND UP – BRUSSELS PROBES CARGILL-ADM CHOCOLATE DEAL
THE EUROPEAN Commission may block or impose conditions on a planned acquisition by US-based Cargill of the industrial chocolate business of its American rival Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). The European Union (EU) executive’s directorate general for competition has opened an in-depth investigation into the deal, to assess whether it could damage the availability of reasonably priced supplies of this key confectionery input.…
GLOBAL ENERGY MARKET VOLATILITY CHALLENGES EU BIOFUEL SECTOR
THE VOLATILITY of the global energy market is presenting several challenges to the European Union’s (EU) biofuel sector. Low oil prices, recession, slumps in demand and political uncertainty in key oil producing areas are all raising questions of an industry that was meant to mitigate or provide solutions to many of these issues.…
KENYA’S CONSTRUCTION BOOM HOLDS PROMISE FOR PAINT AND COATINGS MANUFACTURERS
Kenya is the third largest market for industrial paints and coatings in sub-Saharan Africa, ranking behind South Africa and Nigeria, according to regional analysis conducted by market researchers Frost & Sullivan.
According to their report, released last May (2014), the three countries are projected to have a joint market volume of over 140 million litres for industrial paints and coatings by 2017.…
NIGERIA IS TOUGH PLACE TO MAKE PAINTS, BUT INDUSTRIAL DEMAND IS SOLID
Nigeria maybe troubled politically, but it remains a potentially lucrative market for industrial paints and coatings manufacturers. As with Kenya and South Africa, the country is undergoing rapid infrastructure developments creating demand for paints and coatings.
As this is oil-rich Nigeria, the focus of this action remains its fossil fuel pipelines, floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels, offshore platforms, buoys, tanks, and refineries: “New projects announced in the oil and gas sector and allied industries in Nigeria are fuelling the demand for industrial paints and coatings products,” said Frost & Sullivan’s chemicals, materials & food industry analyst, Anthony Lawrence, in analysis released last year.…
IMPENDING EU-US TRADE AGREEMENT HOLDS OPPORTUNITIES FOR PAINT MACHINERY SALES
THE TRADE agreement currently being negotiated between the European Union (EU) and the USA could bring significant opportunities for paint machinery manufacturers if the two parties agree to align their technical standards.
The European Commission, which is negotiating the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) on behalf of the EU, has said it would like to close the gap between the two sides regarding technical regulations affecting the marketing, use and conformity assessment of machinery, as well as electrical and electronic products.…
EAC TRADE DEAL GIVES EAST AFRICA CLOTHING EXPORTERS PERMANENT DUTY FREE ACCESS TO EU MARKETS
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) and the five members of the East African Community (EAC) are now legally scrubbing the text of a free trade agreement (FTA) concluded last October (2014), to prepare it for signature and ratification, according to the European Commission.…
AGOA’S EXTENSION IMPORTANT FOR MANY SUB-SAHARAN AFRICAN MANUFACTURERS
The United States’ African Growth & Opportunity Act (AGOA) has helped boost many African countries’ apparel and textile sector, giving them duty-free and quota-free access to the US market. And while many are keen to see the act renewed before its expiration this September 30, some countries have benefited more than others.…
EAST AFRICA SHOWS PROMISE AS NEW REGIONAL SOURCING HUB
East Africa is emerging as an attractive sourcing alternative for apparel and textile producers around the world as costs in Chinese outsourcing centres rise especially. With cheaper labour and resources, the region has already attracted foreign investment, particularly from Asia.
International apparel and textile producers are looking hard at Ethiopia as an attractive production and sourcing destination.…
AFRICA HAS POTENTIAL TO RIVAL ASIA AS SOURCING HUB, BUT SHOULD LEARN FROM ASIA’S SUCCESSES AND FAILURES
Africa is emerging as a viable, even strong, sourcing alternative to Asia, but Africa still needs to learn significant lessons from its rival on establishing a strong sourcing hub, say industry experts.
For instance, sub-Saharan suppliers should note how Asia’s garment and textile industry is well-coordinated and integrated regionally, with strong inter-country links.…
ETHIOPIA DIVERSIFIES OIL SUPPLIES WHILE IT EXPLORES DOMESTIC PRODUCTION
Ethiopia’s appointment of the Vitol Group, the Switzerland-based and Dutch-owned physical oil trading major, to supply Ethiopia with petroleum imports in 2015, marks a sea-change for this key sub-Saharan Africa market.
Vitol is replacing the Kuwaiti Independent Petroleum Group after it had supplied the Horn of Africa country with petroleum products for five years.…
TURKEY’S NONWOVENS INDUSTRY POISED TO SEE SIGNIFICANT GROWTH
Turkey’s rapidly growing nonwovens industry is a rising star that everyone should be paying attention to. This was the general consensus at the second Turkish Nonwovens Symposium in Istanbul on November 10-11, held by EDANA, the leading global association of nonwovens and related industries.…
OPEN UNIVERSITY OF TANZANIA OPENS NEW FRONTIERS ABROAD
The Open University of Tanzania (OUT) is reaching out to higher education institutions in other neighbouring countries to establish collaborations that will encourage more foreign students to enroll for distance learning.
University vice chancellor Professor Tolly Mbwette said the institution’s board hoped to spread its influence regionally: “We are now the largest distance learning university in the region and our plan is to take distance learning to most countries in East Africa and those under the Southern African Development Community [SADC] by 2016.”…
EUROPEAN DEAL WITH EAST AFRICAN COMMUNITY SET TO INCREASE AUTO TRADE
AUTOMOTIVE dealers in east Africa have welcomed a comprehensive trade deal, finalised earlier this month (Thursday Oct 16), between the European Union (EU) and the East African Community (EAC) as demand in EAC countries grows for European vehicles.
The deal is designed to boost trade, including automobiles and parts, between the two regions.…
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA PERSONAL CARE PRODUCT MARKET IS KEY GLOBAL GROWTH ZONE
One of the biggest expanding markets for cosmetics and personal care products is sub-Saharan Africa. A key exporter to the region, L’Oréal has estimated that the overall African beauty and personal care market generated EUR6.93 billion (USD8.61 billion) in 2012, growing at between 8% and 10% annually, compared to a global market growth rate near 4%.…
PHARMA MANUFACTURERS TO BENEFIT FROM EU-EAST AFRICA AND ECUADOR TRADE DEALS
EUROPEAN Union (EU) pharmaceutical manufacturers will benefit from two new free trade deals negotiated by the EU – with the East African Community (EAC) and Ecuador. The EAC deal covers the growing markets of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi – and will see these countries phasing out their import tariffs on EU exports over the next 15 years.…
AFRICAN APPAREL AND TEXTILE SECTOR NEEDS COOPERATION AMONG NATIONAL INDUSTRIES TO THRIVE
GREATER integration and cooperation among African states is needed to boost business and investment in the cotton, textiles and apparel sector of the continent, a three-day industry conference in Nairobi, Kenya, was told.
The Origin Africa event from November 10-12 brought together clothing and textile industry players and experts heard that national cotton apparel and fabric sectors within Africa were duplicating products when a collaborative approach could be more effective.…
EUROPEAN TRADE DEAL WITH EAST AFRICAN COMMUNITY SET TO INCREASE MEAT AND LIVESTOCK TRADE
KENYA’S meat industry is worried that east Africa’s meat and livestock sector could suffer from the impact of subsidised European Union (EU) exports now a trade deal has been agreed between the EU and the East African Community (EAC).
Speaking days after an Economic Partnership Agreement (EAP) has been agreed between the two, Qalicha Wario, chief executive officer of the Kenya Livestock Marketing Council, warned: “I think that if they give a subsidy of 80% per cent [to EU farmers] it is not fair.”…
EU/WTO ROUND UP – AMERICAN CONCERN OVER CLAIMED EU BIOTECH FOOT-DRAGGING
THE AMERICAN government has complained of delays by the outgoing European Commission that leaves office on November 1 regarding the authorisation of new bio-tech food products and ingredients for use in the European Union (EU). In a strongly worded message to the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) disputes settlement body, the US said that the EU had failed to leave decisions to regulatory committees acting on European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) advice.…
VIRTUALISATION OF NETWORKS OFFERS TELCOS GREAT BENEFITS BUT ALSO MAJOR CHALLENGES, SAYS JUNIPER
DISRUPTIVE technologies engender organisational change by definition. But the wholesale virtualisation of telco networks and services involved with network functions virtualisation (NFV) and software-defined networking (SDN) is likely to bring profound transformation.
And with major top and bottom line benefits available to telcos defending their turf against OTT (over-the-top) providers and internet-systems, it would be foolish for operators to ignore the potential of NFV and SDN.…
EUROPEAN TRADE DEAL WITH EAST AFRICAN COMMUNITY SET TO INCREASE TEXTILE TRADE
A comprehensive trade deal finalised Thursday (Oct 16), between the European Union (EU) and the East African Community (EAC), will boost trade, including textiles and non-wovens, between the two regions.
According to the agreement, tariffs on EU exports to markets in EAC members Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda will be 80% tariff free for the next 15 years.…
EU AND EAST AFRICAN COMMUNITY FINALISE TRADE DEAL
The European Union (EU) and the East African Community (EAC) finalised yesterday (Thursday) a comprehensive agreement to boost trade, including of food products, between their regions.
A new ‘economic partnership agreement’ will give food manufacturers in Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda open access to the EU market.…
JIANGSU LIANFA TO OPEN TEXTILE PLANT IN KENYA
The Kenyan government has confirmed to just-style that its ministry of industrialization and enterprise development has entered into a deal with Chinese firm Jiangsu Lianfa Textile Company to build a major textile plant. The Nantong, Jiangsu province-based corporation has agreed to build the plant at Naivasha, a lakeside town ninety-two kilometres north-west of Nairobi, the country’s capital.…
EUROPEAN TRADE DEAL WITH EAST AFRICAN COMMUNITY SET TO INCREASE TEXTILE TRADE
KENYAN knitwear exporters maybe the biggest knitting sector winners from a comprehensive trade deal struck between the European Union (EU) and the East African Community (EAC), which was finalised on October 16. It should boost trade between the two regions – including of yarns and knitted or crocheted clothing and fabrics.…
CHINESE COMPANY RELEASES INVESTMENT PLANS FOR MAJOR ETHIOPIAN TEXTILE PLANT
Plans to build a major textile factory in Ethiopia are closer to being realised for Chinese textile company, Jiangsu Lianfa Textile Co. Ltd, after a pre-investment plan to construct the USD500 million factory was finalised this month (September).
Its decision to invest in the Horn of Africa country comes after making investment assessments in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.…
NEW BOTSWANA CAMPUS NOW FULLY OPERATIONAL, STILL GROWING
The Botswana International University of Science and Technology (BIUST) is now operating at its permanent home in country’s Central District, having moved from temporary premises near the capital Gabarone.
The project, promoted by the country’s former president Festus Mogae, has been launched to boost science, engineering and technology degree programmes within Botswana, boosting the quality of its labour force.…
EAST AFRICAN COUNTRIES LOOKING EAST AND WEST FOR INVESTMENT
Li & Fung Ltd may have been unwilling to discuss claims that it was considering investing in the country’s planned Athi River export processing zone ‘textile city’ but the truth is that Africa is increasingly a focus of foreign clothing and textile investment.…
EAST AFRICAN AIRPORTS EXPANDING APACE
Rapidly increasing continental air traffic has fuelled intense competition among east African countries in constructing and upgrading airport infrastructure. Indeed, investments could exceed USD1.7 billion in the next three years, according to Andrew Luzze, the executive director of the East African Business Council.…
CHINESE INVESTMENT IN AFRICAN TEXTILE FINISHING IS UNEVEN AND WILL BUILD ON CLOTHING INITIATIVES
Chinese investment in sub-Saharan Africa’s textile processing sector is creating new capacity for finishing, but progress is uneven. Whilst China’s growing presence in the region is far from universally popular, industry figures consulted by International Dyer across the continent were generally positive about the trend.…
ATHI RIVER TEXTILE CITY TO REVIVE TEXTILE SECTOR
The Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM) has told just-style it welcomes government plans to create a textile industry hub at the export processing zone in Athi River town, near Nairobi, saying it will boost backward integration in the country’s clothing sector.…
INNOVATIVE AND LOCAL AFRICA FINANCE CORPORATION RECEIVES HIGH CREDIT RATING
AFTER six years of financing some of the largest infrastructure projects across Africa, a groundbreaking multilateral development institution – the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) – has attained its investment grade international credit rating. Moody’s Investors Service assigned the corporation an A3 (long term) /P2 (short term) foreign currency debt rating, making the AFC, headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria the second highest investment grade rated financial institution based on the African continent, following the long-established Africa Development Bank (ADB).…
UNDER-COVER ACADEMICS EXPOSE WEAKNESSES OF SHELL COMPANY CONTROLS IN DEVELOPED COUNTRY JURISDICTIONS
MONEY laundering through global shell companies could be better tackled with simple and inexpensive measures rather than revisions of complex anti-money laundering (AML) procedures, according to a senior Australian academic. “We don’t need more rules, we need better enforcement of existing rules,” said Prof Jason Sharman, co-author of ‘Global Shell Games: Experiments in Transnational Relations, Crime, and Terrorism’, due for release in April 2014.…
SURGING E-PAYMENTS IN EMERGING MARKETS POSE PROBLEMS FOR NASCENT FIUS
The growth in e-payment systems in emerging markets can pose challenges for local financial intelligence units (FIUs), often recently established and still grappling with suspicious transaction report systems in the formal banking sector.
Kenya is a case in point. It has a burgeoning mobile telephone-based e-payment economy, with consumers using e-wallets to buy and sell goods and services, many of whom lack access to formal bank accounts.…
TURKEY’S PAINT AND COATINGS SECTOR COULD BECOME EUROPE’S THIRD LARGEST – INDUSTRY PREDICTS
TURKEY’S paints and coatings industry has set itself the target of becoming the third largest paints and coatings sector in Europe by 2023 as it seeks to become a key regional hub within the international industry as a whole.
According to data from Turkey’s Association of Paint Industry (Boya Sanayicileri Dernegi – BOSAD), the size of the Turkish paints and coatings market reached 840,000 tonnes in 2012, with a value of USD2 billion.…
POLITICAL UNREST AND VIOLENCE DELAYS SOUTH SUDAN'S PIPELINE DEVELOPMENT
THE CIVIL conflict and political tension that has wracked South Sudan since December has delayed already difficult discussions about building a new oil pipeline to this troubled, oil-rich and landlocked country. As it stands, South Sudan – the world’s newest country – has only one option for exporting its crude: a pipeline cutting through Sudan – the country from which it seceded in 2011, following a decades-long civil war.…
SURGING E-PAYMENTS IN EMERGING MARKETS POSE PROBLEMS FOR NASCENT FIU’S
The growth in e-payment systems in emerging markets can pose challenges for financial intelligence units (FIU) in such countries, who are often just establishing themselves and grappling with suspicious transaction report systems in the formal banking sector.
Kenya is a case in point.…
HAWALA STILL A HARD NUT TO CRACK FOR AML REGULATORS
THE PUBLICATION in October 2013 of the latest international Financial Action Task Force (FATF) report on ‘hawala’ and other similar service providers (HOSSPs) has shed light on such alternative money remittance systems. These remain a complex area for anti-money laundering (AML) and combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) authorities to address. …
BOTSWANA’S FIRST PRIVATE UNIVERSITY EYES INTERNATIONAL STUDENT EXPANSION
Botswana’s first private university, the Malaysian-owned Limkokwing University of Creative Technology (Limkokwing Botswana), has continued to flex its muscles in this diamond-rich Southern Africa nation, taking advantage of a fast growing tertiary education sector. Botswana’s college and university student (aged 18-24) enrollment has grown from 11.4% in 2007/08 to 16.4% in 2012, or 46,613 students.…
AFRICAN COTTON SECTOR NEEDS TO ADD VALUE TO ACHIEVE SUSTAINED GROWTH SAY EXPERTS
AFRICA’S promising cotton sector needs to reinvent itself by adding value, because 65% of the crop it grows is exported as raw material, industry leaders are arguing.
Processors need to tap new technology and modernize its machinery, the Kenya- based African Cotton and Textile Industries Federation (ACTIF) chairman Jaswinder Bedi has said.…
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICAN PERSONAL CARE MARKET GROWS AS WEALTH SPREADS
SUB-SAHARAN African makers of cosmetics and personal care products are profiting from a growing and increasingly stable regional market, where economic growth is increasing demand for personal luxuries.
A report, ‘Business in Africa – Corporate Insights’ by Dianna Games, Standard Bank South Africa estimates that more than half of Africa’s population would be living in urban areas by 2030 and 60% by 2050, when the population would be about 2.4 billion, compared to 1 billion now.…
AFRICA GEARS UP FOR IMPROVED CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
A SALUTARY lesson learnt by the western world since the financial meltdown in 2008, is that there is no easy formula for ensuring economic growth. Despite the resilience of the United States and European institutions, markets and skills, restarting the economic engine has proved sluggish.…
INDIA’S GODREJ PUSHES INTO AFRICA’S PERSONAL CARE PRODUCT MARKETS
INDIAN consumer product company Godrej has been pushing into Africa’s hair care market with four acquisitions in the last five years, putting it in a strategic position to compete with major western companies.
Selling hair colourants, hair extensions and soaps in Africa through brands such as Inecto, Renew, Tura and Darling, Godrej is banking on Africa’s fast growing demand for cosmetics and other personal care products and is moving towards becoming an established multinational.…
SOMALILAND UNIVERSITY STARTS RECEIVING INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION
British universities have been partnering with the University of Hargeisa (UoH), of breakaway state Somaliland, to boost the institution’s international credibility.
Although international recognition has yet to be conferred on Somaliland since it separated from Somalia in 1991, its largest university with 6,500 students, located in the capital city of Hargeisa, been seeking foreign partners to supply a higher educational system to Somaliland students.…
DESPITE AGOA, AFRICAN APPAREL AND TEXTILE MANUFACTURERS LOSING OUT TO FOREIGN COMPANIES
BARACK Obama seems ready to accept an extension of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) for another 15 years before it expires in 2015, but sub-Saharan African textile manufacturers might have mixed feelings.
African ambassadors in Washington DC have been under strict instructions from their governments to lobby the United States Congress to renew the law, forming an ambassadors’ AGOA working group led by Ethiopian ambassador Girma Birru.…
LAWYERS ADVISE ON RESPONSE TO KENYA METAL MINING LICENSES SETBACK
Foreign mining companies may have a range of options to claim compensation against Kenya for revoking mining licenses granted between January 14 and May 15 and introducing new drilling charges and/or royalty schemes, leading arbitration law experts advise.
Lawyers at US-based international law firm King & Spalding say companies with investments whose licenses were cancelled earlier this month and/or whose revenues are hit by new charges and/or royalties may be able to claim through international investment arbitration tribunals.…
ISLAMIC BANKING STARTS TO GROW IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
ISLAMIC banks are big business in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, but not thus far in sub-Saharan Africa. The World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), however, recently took a USD5 million, 15% equity stake in Kenya’s Gulf African Bank (GAB) to support corporate finance and lending to small and medium businesses – its first in the sub-Saharan Islamic bank sector.…
SOUTH SUDAN STARTS TO GROW A PERSONAL CARE PRODUCT MARKET
Edward Shirobo Otieno knows buying cosmetics and beauty products are not going to be a priority for the vast majority of South Sudan’s 10 million people at this time. In the world’s newest country, independent since July 2011, more than 80% of its consumers live on less than USD1 a day.…
LACK OF INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION HAMSTRINGS SOMALILAND RECOVERY
If financial professionals ever doubted the utility of a fully functioning state for business, Somalia has since 1991 shown how its absence can undermine personal and commercial liberty.
And the lesson is underlined by the fate of Somaliland, a breakaway east African territory that declared independence from Somalia in 1991, based on land that was a British protectorate before 1960.…
WORLD BANK FUNDS EAST AFRICA MEDICINE LAW HARMONISATION
THE WORLD Bank is funding a USD5.5 million project to help harmonise the pharmaceutical regulations of the five countries within the East African Community (EAC): namely Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. Under the bank’s schedule, the African Medicine Regulatory Harmonisation Project should be completed by December 2014.…
KENYA ROOTS FOR AGOA EXTENSION
THE KENYAN government is pushing for an extension of the USA’s African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA), which gives sub-Saharan African exporters special access to American markets. The country’s east African affairs, commerce and tourism minister (cabinet secretary) wants AGOA extended at least 10 years from its current September 30, 2015, expiry date: “If possible, we would like to have the current protocol transformed into a permanent trade agreement,” added Kandie, addressing officials of the African Cotton and Textile Industries Federation in Nairobi on June 24.…
JOMO KENYATTA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT GREENFIELD TERMINAL WORK TO BEGIN
THE MANAGING director of the Kenya Airports Authority has said construction for a USD657 million project to build a new greenfield terminal at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi will begin in November and be completed in 2017. Stephen Gichuki’s comments come as the authority secured a grant of Euro EUR5 million from the EU-Africa Infrastructure Trust Fund to help finance technical and management support for the project.…
LEAD PAINTS STILL WIDESPREAD IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
IF there is one paint ingredient that marketers agree should be left off the label, it has to be lead. General and scientific opinion agrees this metal causes health problems and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), working with the UN Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) has embarked on plans to eliminate architectural and household lead paints in Sub-Saharan Africa by 2020.…
EFSA RECOMMENDS RIFT VALLEY FEVER STUDIES AS LIVESTOCK AND HUMAN DISEASE CREEPS TOWARDS NORTH AFRICA
THE EUROPEAN Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has advised the European Union (EU) to launch a series of studies to help assess the risk of Rift Valley Fever being introduced to livestock and humans in north Africa and the Middle East, potentially threatening Europe.…
OECD WORKING GROUP PUSHES AGAINST GRAFT – BUT MANY GOVERNMENTS TURN BLIND EYE TO FOREIGN BRIBERY
THE ORGANISATION for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) has made a lot of noise about its anti-bribery convention. But some countries are failing to comply, and where others do – otherwise honest companies can lose trade. David Hayhurst and Keith Nuthall report.…
ETHIOPIA DEVELOPS MAJOR POTASH RESERVES FOR ASIAN MARKETS
ETHIOPIA’S potential as a source of industrial minerals is beginning to be realised, with a growing number of exploration and mining projects underway, and rapidly increasing foreign investment.
To date, its Ministry of Mines has granted 72 industrial minerals exploration licenses – 61 to foreign companies, eight to Ethiopian/foreign joint ventures, and three to local companies; and 52 mining licenses – 28 to foreign companies, 17 to Ethiopian/foreign joint ventures, and seven to local companies.…
SOMALIA'S AIRPORT IMPROVES AS SECURITY RISKS SUBSIDE
BY MARK ROWE, MICHAEL KOSMIDES, IN ATHENS, AND MOHAMMED YUSUF, IN NAIROBI
WHILE Aden Adde International Airport, Mogadishu, Somalia, does not serve an unrecognised country, it has operated without an effective government since 1991. But with Mogadishu security now improving, airport traffic has grown from just three to four flights-a-day to around 18 this year.…
ETHIOPIA PERSONAL CARE SECTOR EXPERIENCING RAPID GROWTH
BY JONATHAN DYSON, IN ADDIS ABABA
WITH Africa’s second largest population – around 85 million – and one of the world’s fastest-growing economies (expanding 7% annually over recent years), the potential of Ethiopia as a market for cosmetics products is beginning to be realised by the personal care products sector worldwide.…
TRADITIONAL KENYAN HEALTH CARE HAS ITS CRITICS – BUT GETS SOME RECOGNITION
TRADITIONAL herbal medicine in Africa may have its critics, but some conventional nurses say it should be taken more seriously and be given a proper career path and mire training. Take Kenya – its ministry of public health and sanitation indicates the country’s conventional hospitals, health centres, dispensaries and clinics cater for only 30% of the population.…
WCO COORDINATES FAKE MEDICINE CRACKDOWN IN AFRICA
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Customs Organisation (WCO) has launched a crack-down on illicit medicines in 16 African countries, which sparked the seizure of more than 82 million doses of illegal pharmaceuticals. The haul included antimalarial and anti-parasitic drugs, antibiotics, cough syrups, contraceptive pills and infertility treatments, worth more than USD40 million.…
ETHIOPIA HAS ITS SIGHTS SET ON FULL CAR MANUFACTURING BY 2015
BY JONATHAN DYSON, IN ADDIS ABABA
IN the latest sign that Ethiopia has a robustly expanding auto manufacturing sector, China’s Lifan has said that it is to double its assembly capacity in the country. The manufacturer revealed to wardsauto that it is to open a new plant with a capacity of 1,500 to 2,000 cars per year in Ethiopia in the middle of next year.…
WCO COORDINATES FAKE MEDICINE CRACKDOWN IN AFRICA
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Customs Organisation (WCO) has launched a crack-down on fraudulent medicines in 16 African countries, seizing more than 82 million doses of illegal pharmaceuticals worth more than USD40 million. A WCO note said: "These results are alarming…" Its officers worked with the Institute of Research against Counterfeit Medicines (IRACM) and 16 national customs administrations in raids called VICE GRIPS 2, targeting seaport containers in Angola, Benin, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Congo (Brazzaville), Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Liberia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Tanzania and Togo.…
GROWING MIDDLE CLASS FUELS COSMETICS SALES IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
BY ANDREW GREEN, IN KAMPALA; AND BILLCORCORAN, IN CAPE TOWN
THE TRIPLING in the size of Africa’s middle class over the last 30 years to what the African Development Bank estimates is now 313 million people coupled with increased urbanisation, are driving the growth of the continent’s cosmetics industry and markets.…
CONCERN OVER CHINESE CLOTHING AND TEXTILE DOMINANCE GROWS IN AFRICA
BY WACHIRA KIGOTHI, IN NAIROBI, AND WANG FANGQING, IN SHANGHAI
China’s powerful clothing and textile industry is looking for continued growth in sub-Saharan Africa, whose local manufacturers and brands are worrying about how to deal with the competition.
According to William Gumede, a senior research fellow at the University of Witwatersrand’s school of public and development management in South Africa, Chinese domination of Africa’s textile markets and its industry has promoted significant job losses.…
CORRUPTION? NOT IN MY BACK YARD!
BY ANDREW GREEN
SEPTEMBER 17, 2012
RAYMOND Qatahar, a first-year law student at Uganda’s Makerere University, is eager to be able finally to use Not In My Country. The website launched in May asks university students in Uganda to report corruption in higher education – such as professors and lecturers trading higher grades for money or sex – and lets students rate classroom experiences.…
CORRUPTION ALLEGATIONS IN EAST AFRICA'S KEY TEXTBOOK MARKET ARE HARD TO NAIL DOWN
BY ANDREW GREEN, IN KAMPALA
For publishers working in east Africa, textbooks spell survival, but two major western publishers have found recently that the ethical dilemmas of working in the region can be hard to navigate.
With fierce competition for those contracts and limited local oversight capacity, the industry is dogged by persistent rumors of requests for and payments of bribery, money paid to delay rival’s books and other forms of corruption.…
ACCOUNTING FIRMS SERVICE AFRICA'S ECONOMIC GROWTH
BY VILLEN ANGANAN, IN BEAU-BASSIN, MAURITIUS
INTERNATIONAL accounting firms are exploring opportunities within Africa, and are using the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius – a regional financial centre – as a stepping stone. All the Big Four: Ernst &Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), KPMG and Deloitte are already successfully offering their services to African clients.…
ENGLISH SPREADS AS TEACHING LANGUAGE IN UNIVERSITIES WORLDWIDE
BY ANDREW GREEN, WANG FANGQING, PAUL COCHRANE, JONATHAN DYSON AND CARMEN PAUN
THE POLITECNO di Milano, one of Italy’s most prestigious universities, will teach and assess most of its degree courses and all its postgraduate ones entirely in English from 2014, UWN reported recently.…
SUGAR OFFERS AFRICAN BIOFUEL PRODUCERS A FEEDSTOCK - BUT DEVELOPMENT WILL BE CHALLENGING
BY BILL CORCORAN, IN CAPE TOWN; MOHAMMED YUSUF, IN NAIROBI; AND KEITH NUTHALL
A BOOK launched at last December’s Durban international climate change conference has focused on the growing potential for sugar to be a biofuel feedstock in Africa. ‘Bioenergy for Sustainable Development and International Competitiveness:
The Role of Sugar Cane in Africa’ was written by 44 authors representing 30 organisations in 16 countries and was published by Routledge.…
UNAIDS WELCOMES KENYAN COURT DECISION ON GENERIC DRUGS CONTROLS
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UN agency charged with fighting HIV/AIDS has welcomed a decision by the Kenya high court that an existing national law fighting fake drugs is too loosely worded and could promote the seizure of generic medicines made by legitimate manufacturers.…
AFRICA FACED WITH SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGE
BY GEORGE STONE, IN CAPE TOWN
SUSTAINABLE growth in Africa outside South Africa faces the challenges of strong population growth, commodity price volatility, climate change and food insecurity. The continent’s current population of 1 billion people is forecast to almost double by 2050.…
CHINA PROVIDES NICHE OPPORTUNITIES FOR FOREIGN NURSES
BY WANG FANGQING, IN SHANGHAI
WHILE China is desperately in need of nurses – 1.9 million to be exact, according to the nation’s ministry of health – the opportunities for overseas healthcare providers who are not ethnically Chinese are limited, as the government requires all nurses working in China to be able to pass a national test in Mandarin.…
SUDAN SEPARATION FUELS STRIFE OVER OIL
BY PAUL COCHRANE, IN BEIRUT; AND MOHAMMED YUSUF, IN NAIROBI
IN late January, oil production and exports came to a halt in South Sudan over a transit pricing dispute with its former overlord north Sudan. With no compromise in sight, the newly independent Africa country is mulling other transport options, but, even if production were to resume, it will be months – at best – before its oil sector gets back on its feet.…
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA PUSHES FORWARD WITH ATC IMPROVEMENTS
BY BILL CORCORAN, WACHIRA KIGOTHO, PAUL COCHRANE; and KEITH NUTHALL
SUB-SAHARAN Africa has always been regarded as a problem zone for air traffic control, with weak states struggling to provide the sophisticated and flexible communications required for state of the art ATC.…
ILLEGAL URANIUM MINING CONTINUES IN THE DRC CLAIM RESEARCHERS
BY WACHIRA KIGOTHO
RESEARCHERS studying mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are warning illegal uranium mining continues in a country still riven with political violence and weak government authority.
Indeed, militia groups and government soldiers continue to benefit from illegal uranium mining in the eastern DRC, claims Ms Nyambura Githaiga, a researcher with the Nairobi-based African Conflict Prevention Programme.…
AFRICA PHARMACEUTICAL SECTOR IS SLEEPING GIANT SAYS WORLD BANK
BY KEITH NUTHALL
SUB-SAHARAN Africa might not be the obvious choice as the hub of a new thriving regional pharmaceutical industry, but the World Bank and a key African multi-national economic community think so. The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) has launched a detailed strategy to foster medicine manufacture and World Bank managing director Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala thinks there is every chance the industry can grow south of the Sahara.…
TANZANIA'S TRANSFORMATION FROM SOCIALISM TO CAPITALISM HAS LEFT ITS BUSINESS ETHICS FLOUNDERING
BY JOHN K AGUNDA
IF there was one African country where a business forum on ethics was most appropriate, it might well be Tanzania, given its immediate post-independence history of socialism and self-reliance.
Those purist 1960s and 1970s days of former President Julius Nyerere and his ‘ujamaa’ leftism are now history, of course, with Tanzania, very much part of the gloablised liberal capitalist mainstream.…
CHAOTIC SOMALIA MAY CONTAIN RICH GAS AND OIL RESERVES
BY WACHIRA KIGOTHO
CLASSIFIED as a failed state, Somalia is one of the world’s poorest countries, but oil production could change its fortune. Indeed, politically fractured Somalia is being touted as a potentially rich oil and gas producer. Given security, Somalia is increasingly regarded as economically strategically-located, a view fuelled by recent interest by Chinese and western nations’ oil and gas investment companies.…
USE NON-GOVERNMENT ORGANISATIONS TO FIGHT ASIAN CORRUPTION
BY MUNZA MUSHTAQ
Asia has long been accused of fostering corruption and governments have often turned a blind eye, while their countries grow richer. One answer is increasing the role of non-state actors in dealing with the problem. Munza Mushtaq reports from the 14th International Anti-Corruption Conference (IACC) at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre, Bangkok, Thailand.…
MIGA BACKS KENYA GEOTHERMAL PROJECT
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE MULTILATERAL Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), of the World Bank, has increased its coverage of OrPower 4 Inc.’s power plant in Kenya’s Olkaria geothermal fields by US dollars USD110 million, up from USD24 million. MIGA is covering the plant against transfer restriction, expropriation, war and civil disturbance.…
EMERGING MARKETS MAKE TYRE RECYCLING A BIG GLOBAL BUSINESS
BY DEIRDRE MASON
SALES of new cars are still holding up surprisingly well despite the global downturn, but within a few years of their purchase, how many of them will be running on retread tyres?
The signs are that the market for retread and recycled tyres will grow, as world demand for rubber grows, particularly in China.…
GERMANY BOOSTS GENERIC MEDICINE PRODUCTION IN AFRICA AND ASIA
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE GERMAN government is giving Euro EUR1.2 million to a UN project expanding and upgrading small and medium-sized generic pharmaceutical manufacturers in Asia and Africa. It is run by the UN Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) and aims to spread medicine manufacture across a continent where production is mainly concentrated in South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya.…
GERMANY BOOSTS GENERIC MEDICINE PRODUCTION IN AFRICA AND ASIA
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE GERMAN government is giving Euro EUR1.2 million to a UN project expanding and upgrading small and medium-sized generic pharmaceutical manufacturers in Asia and Africa. It is run by the UN Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) and aims to spread medicine manufacture across a continent where production is mainly concentrated in South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya.…
OECD MONITORING SYSTEM TO PREVENT ARMED GROUPS BENEFITING FROM GREAT LAKES' MINERALS
BY KEITH NUTHALL
PRESSURE is being applied to non-ferrous metal mining companies to follow an Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) code of practice that prevents them fuelling armed conflicts in the Great Lakes region of Africa.
Its countries have been witness to come of the worst human rights abuses and violence of the last 50 years: the genocide in Rwanda and the bloody civil war of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).…
AGA KHAN UNIVERSITY PLANS MAJOR NEW TANZANIA CAMPUS
BY MOHAMMED YUSUF
Aga Khan University plans major new Tanzania campus
Mohammed Yusuf
The Aga Khan University – the Pakistan-based international multi-site higher-education institution – is planning to open a new campus in Arusha, Tanzania. The campus would house an arts and science faculties and educate up to 3,000 students from across east Africa.…
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA MAKES STEADY PROGRESS ON ATM SYSTEMS
BY BILL CORCORAN
ALTHOUGH Sub-Saharan Africa is considered one of the least developed parts of the world in terms of air traffic management (ATM) systems, experts at the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) have said the continent has made progress in recent years.…
EU-Africa university ties to be deepened
BY David Haworth
New plans for broadening the two-way street between African and European universities were unveiled at a conference in Brussels when 150 delegates from both continents debated closer ties in higher education.
The conference focused on the newly published White Paper on bridging arrangements between institutions and greater cooperation between European scholars and their counterparts in sub-Saharan Africa.…
INNOVATIVE PACKAGING TRANSFORMING GLOBAL DRINKS PACKAGING INDUSTRY
BY MARK ROWE
INNOVATIVE packaging is transforming the drinks industry. Heavy tins and bottles are being replaced by lighter composite and biodegradeable materials; hi-tech cartons are being manufactured that tell consumers if the milk’s gone off; and RFID (radio frequency identification) tags are being embedded with temperature sensors.…
EMERGING MARKETS WITNESSING CREATIVITY IN DRINKS PACKAGING DEVELOPMENT
BY WANG FANGQING, RAGHAVENDRA VERMA, BILL CORCORAN, PACIFICA GODDARD, KEITH NUTHALL
DRINKS packaging can be quite different in emerging and developing markets than in the rich world. One issue simply is scale. Poorer consumers are often, simply, more interested in smaller sized portions than richer.…
Can a common history syllabus be developed for Africa?
By Keith Nuthall, International News Services
Historians are working with Unesco and educationalists to try to develop a common African history syllabus, including the teaching approach and pedagogical materials. The ambitious project will initially focus on helping primary and secondary schools and, this coming year, an assessment will consider how universities in Africa could benefit. But can history really be taught on a continent-wide basis?
Both projects draw on the eight volume Unesco-coordinated General History of Africa written from 1964 to 1999 which tried to create a standard for the continent written from an African rather than a colonial European perspective.
An evaluation study on using this general history in higher education throughout the continent will be written this year.…
SOMALIA'S SHIFTING SANDS OBSCURE HEALTHY TOBACCO TRADE
BY WACHIRA KIGOTHO
TO say Somalia is a mixed bag for the tobacco industry is an understatement. On the one hand, there is a very weak formal government, whose writ does not run in much of the country. So no public place smoking bans, advertising restrictions and ingredient controls to worry about in this east African country: tobacco is sold freely through a thriving private sector.…
EIB TO INVEST IN KENYA'S JOMO KENYATTA AIRPORT
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) has started financing a major planned upgrade of Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, in Nairobi, Kenya, which will boost its annual capacity from 2.5 million to 9.3 million passengers. The EIB will be co-financing the project with US dollars USD99 million, alongside USD93 million from France’s Agence Francaise de Developpement.…
Can a common history syllabus be developed for Africa?
By Keith Nuthall
Historians are working with Unesco and educationalists to try to develop a common African history syllabus, including the teaching approach and pedagogical materials. The ambitious project will initially focus on helping primary and secondary schools across the continent and, this coming year, an assessment will consider how universities in Africa could benefit from such work.…
PRODUCER COUNTRY TEA MARKETS HAVE MARGIN FOR GROWTH
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UN Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is advising tea-exporting countries to stimulate demand in their domestic markets, because major growing sales are unlikely in traditional importers of black tea, such as Britain and Russia. Here, "scope for expansion in consumption is quite limited…but in the countries where tea is produced the per capita consumption is much lower and so there is a lot more market potential," said Kaison Chang, secretary of FAO’s inter-governmental group on tea.…
UNESCO PUSHES AHEAD WITH AMBITIOUS AFRICA HISTORY TEACHING PROJECT
BY KEITH NUTHALL
HISTORIANS are working with Unesco (UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) and educationalists to try and develop a common African history syllabus, teaching approach and pedagogical materials. The ambitious project will initially focus on helping primary and secondary schools across Africa, and this coming year an assessment will consider how universities in Africa could benefit from such work.…
CORRUPTION IN KENYA: A BARRIER TO FOREIGN INVESTMENT
BY ALYSHAH HASHAM
KENYA, and its capital Nairobi, is the business hub of east Africa. It also has the reputation of being one of the world’s most corrupt places – a place where bribery is an accepted part of doing business.…
BIOFUELS PRODUCTION INCREASES IN EASTERN AFRICA
BY WACHIRA KIGOTHO
EAST Africa is developing as an important source of biofuels and biofuel feedstock, with governments keen to attract foreign direct investment for this potentially strategic rural development option.
Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Sudan, and Tanzania are countries where foreign companies are competing to acquire land for biofuel projects.…
CDM PROJECTS OFF TO A SLOW START IN AFRICA
BY GEORGE STONE
THE KYOTO Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) has made slow progress in Africa, but schemes are slowly getting off the ground, led by programmes in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa.
Under the United Nations-backed CDM process, projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to sustainable development can earn saleable certified emission reduction (CER) credits.…
DE BOER REPLACEMENTS AS CLIMATE CHANGE BOSS EMERGE
BY ERIC LYMAN and KEITH NUTHALL
THE EXECUTIVE secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) Yvo de Boer will switch his attentions to the private sector after standing down from his job on July 1. He will be joining the consultancy group KPMG as global adviser on climate and sustainability and working with a number of universities.…
NAIROBI AIRPORT GETS EU CASH INJECTION
BY KEITH NUTHALL
JOMO Kenyatta International Airport is receiving Euro 68.8 million financing from the European Union (EU), mostly from the European Investment Bank (EIB). It is lending the Kenya Airports Authority Euro 63.8 million alone and granting Euro 5 million in conjunction with German development bank KfW.…
TOBACCO CONTROLS MAYBE GROWING - BUT THEY ARE OFTEN WEAK
BY AHMAD PATHONI, ALYSHAH HASHAM, MARK ROWE and KEITH NUTHALL
GIVEN the constant flow of news about tougher tobacco industry regulations from all continents, tobacco executives could be forgiven for thinking there are no countries where they have a relative free hand to sell their products.…
RINDERPEST WILL BE DECLARED EXTINCT BY FAO
BY KEITH NUTHALL
A CATTLE disease responsible for the destruction of millions of head of cattle and other hoofed livestock should be declared extinct within the next 18 months, with global cooperation the key to success. The United Nations’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the Office International des Épizooties (OIE) – the world animal health organisation – are preparing to announce that rinderpest has disappeared.…
SOMALI PIRACY AND THE SPECTRE OF MONEY LAUNDERING
BY PAUL COCHRANE
PIRACY has increased exponentially off the coast of Somalia in recent years, with ships hijacked deep into international waters despite the presence of a multi-national naval task force, and pirates demanding ever higher ransoms from shipping companies. But while the spoils of piracy are evident in coastal Somali towns, tracking down where the remaining millions of dollars disappear to is hard to pin down, with allegations circulating of ransom money entering the real estate markets of Kenya, to money laundering in Yemen and Dubai.…
AFRICAN CUSTOMS MAKES SIGNIFICANT IMPROVEMENTS
BY BILL CORCORAN and ALAN OSBORN
IT is now some five years since a group of London-based multinationals, among them British American Tobacco (BAT), set up a group aimed at improving the conditions for doing business with and through Africa – named the Business Action for Improving Customs Administration in Africa (BAFICAA) initiative.…
AFRICA'S NEW OIL AND GAS LIONS: MAJORS ENTER THE REGION
BY GEORGE STONE
GHANA, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are Africa’s latest upstream hotspots as major energy firms seek new provinces outside of regional heavyweight oil producers Nigeria and Angola. But jockeying for position has already led to friction between governments and the industry.…
The parsimony of rich governments starves the world’s poor
By Alan Osborn, International News Services
Nature has dealt a string of savage blows to the world’s hungry and poor over the past year or so but just when we might have hoped for rich countries and individuals to help out by digging a bit deeper into their pockets, along comes the economic recession. The crunch may or may not have imposed genuine limits on the cash available to alleviate drought and famine but it has certainly given cautious people a wonderful excuse for doing less, especially after the record food aid donations of 2008.
In fact there’s been a succession of crop-destroying droughts, typhoons, floods and earthquakes in Africa and south-east Asia this year at the very time that needs are greater because of the rise in unemployment and the fall in remittances to home countries from nationals working abroad.…
UNODC LAUNCHES COMPREHENSIVE ANTI-CRIME INITIATIVE FOR EASTERN AFRICA
BY KEITH NUTHALL
CONCERN about growing organised crime in east Africa has prompted the approval of a four-year campaign against the problem coordinated by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Endorsed by 13 ministers from regional governments at a meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, there are three key focuses: countering illicit trafficking (of goods and people), organised crime and terrorism; fighting corrupt
ion and promoting justice and integrity within states; and improving health and human development.…
AFRICAN PHOTO CONTEST HIGHLIGHTS ECOACTIVISM
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE POWER of photographs to inspire sustainable development has been highlighted in a UN Development Programme (UNDP) contest. The ‘Picture This: Caring for the Earth’ competition, organised with the Olympus Corporation and the Agence France-Presse (AFP) was designed to show how "ordinary people work to preserve the environment and reduce the effects of climate change in their communities", said a UNDP note.…
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA OFFERS ECONOMIC PROMISE, BUT FRAUD STILL A MAJOR PROBLEM
BY STEVEN SWINDELLS and BILL CORCORAN, in Johannesburg; and WACHIRA KIGOTHO, in Nairobi
WITH sub-Saharan Africa’s mobile telecommunications sector growing healthily and its offshore oil sector showing signs of great promise in the short and medium term, the region – usually regarded as the world’s poorest and least stable – could be a zone of stability during the global recession.…
GEOTHERMAL BOUNTY LURKS BENEATH RIFT VALLEY
BY KEITH NUTHALL
A BOUNTY of cheap carbon free energy is lurking beneath many developing countries in the shape of geothermal power generation, with new technology making it cheaper and easier to source than ever before. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and Kenyan power company KenGen have carried out a demonstration project testing advanced seismic and drilling techniques to make geothermal power plants cheaper to build.…
PASSION FRUIT RESIDUE RULE SUGGESTED BY EFSA
BY KEITH NUTHALL
A RESIDUE limit for the pesticide trifloxystrobin for passion fruit from Kenya has been suggested by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), which would boost imports into the European Union of this confectionery ingredient.
See http://www.efsa.europa.eu/cs/BlobServer/Scientific_Document/Trifloxystrobin_Passion%20fruit_RO_20081218.pdf?ssbinary=true
ENDS…
INDONESIA PAINT INDUSTRY SET FOR GROWTH ONCE WORLD ECONOMY RECOVERS
BY MARK ROWE
INDONESIA’S paint industry appears likely to weather the worst of the global economic downturn. Indeed, Indonesia may be one of the few major countries where sales of paint for industrial and domestic use will rise. In January 2009, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono forecast economic growth of 6.2% for the year in a budget that revealed capital spending plans that were 14.3% up on 2008.…
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT PUSHES FOR MORE ACTIVE EU AFRICA RESEARCH COOPERATION
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament has pushed for more concrete collaboration between African and European Union (EU) researchers, amidst concerns that grand declarations of altruistic intentions are failing to deliver cash or expertise.
A formal resolution passed by parliament members (MEPs) called for a "special emphasis [to] be placed on research into AIDS in African countries" within the EU’s ongoing seventh framework programme on research, which commands a huge Euro 53.2 billion budget, nearly three times the total GDP of Kenya.…
SUPPORTERS OF GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATION REGISTER PUSH FOR APPROVAL AHEAD OF DOHA DEAL
BY KEITH NUTHALL
AS the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Doha Development Round moves towards completion, a big push is underway to see a wine and spirits geographical indication register established within final deal. A WTO special group for the issue met yesterday (Mon Dec 3) and supporters of the register pushed for full negotiations on the issue, ending technical discussions that have dragged on for years.…
SUPPORTERS OF GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATION REGISTER PUSH FOR APPROVAL AHEAD OF DOHA DEAL
BY KEITH NUTHALL
AS the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Doha Development Round moves towards completion, a big push is underway to see a wine and spirits geographical indication register established within final deal. A WTO special group for the issue met yesterday (Mon Dec 3) and supporters of the register pushed for full negotiations on the issue, ending technical discussions that have dragged on for years.…
SUPPORTERS OF GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATION REGISTER PUSH FOR APPROVAL AHEAD OF DOHA DEAL
BY KEITH NUTHALL
AS the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Doha Development Round moves towards completion, a big push is underway to see a wine and spirits geographical indication register established within final deal. A WTO special group for the issue met yesterday (Mon Dec 3) and supporters of the register pushed for full negotiations on the issue, ending technical discussions that have dragged on for years.…
TEA PRODUCTION MADE ENVIRONMENT FRIENDLY IN EAST AFRICA
BY KEITH NUTHALL
"TEA is known to be good for you, now it is also getting better for the environment:" so said UN Environment Programme (UNEP) executive director Achim Steiner, when launching renewable power initiatives in east Africa. UNEP is coordinating two Global Environment Facility (GEF)-financed projects greening tea production in the region, where it is a pivotal industry.…
INNOVATIVE KENYA VEGETABLE PRODUCTION SCHEME BOOSTS HEALTH AS WELL AS WEALTH
BY KEITH NUTHALL
"EAT your greens": this common-or-garden parental health advice may boost the health and wealth of Kenyan rural communities in an innovative market garden development project. The UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is spending US$26.6 million on improving vegetable production and distribution for local markets, with the aim not only of boosting local prosperity, but also improving the diets of local consumers, improving their health and in turn making them more productive.…
ETHIOPIA'S LEGAL TOBACCO SECTOR GROWS AS COUNTERFEIT TRADE DECLINES
BY PAUL COCHRANE, in Addis Ababa
ETHIOPIA’S tobacco sector is growing at a robust 4% a year, and is estimated to be worth some US$131.5 million (Ethiopian Birr 1.19 billion). But while growth has remained steady in recent years, near endemic levels of smuggled cigarettes are curbing further growth despite attempts to stamp out illicit brands coming into the country from neighbouring African states.…
ETHIOPIA'S LEGAL TOBACCO SECTOR GROWS AS COUNTERFEIT TRADE DECLINES
BY PAUL COCHRANE, in Addis Ababa
ETHIOPIA’S tobacco sector is growing at a robust 4% a year, and is estimated to be worth some US$131.5 million (Ethiopian Birr 1.19 billion). But while growth has remained steady in recent years, near endemic levels of smuggled cigarettes are curbing further growth despite attempts to stamp out illicit brands coming into the country from neighbouring African states.…
SCIENTISTS DEVELOP NANOTECHNOLOGY FUEL MARKERS TO BEAT DIESEL AND PETROL THIEVES
BY MARK ROWE
A FUEL marker so complex that it is all but impossible for thieves to replicate has been developed by scientists; the marker is so sensitive, it can identify illegal stolen fuel by using nanotechnology-based components.
This nanotech-based tracer, developed by Authentix, a nano-science company based in Dallas, Texas, uses hand-held LSX-based technology, and which has already been taken up by Luke Oil, Shell and BP in the United States.…
NANOTECHNOLOGY INNOVATIONS OFFER ADVANCES FOR OIL AND GAS SECTOR
BY MARK ROWE, in London
NANOTECHNOLOGY has huge implications for the oil and gas industry, according to leading scientists who attended a conference on the impact of this cutting edge science on the environment at the Royal Society in London. They stressed the technology offers the prospect of carbon emission reduction, resource use minimisation, hazardous chemical substitution, the chance to dramatically reduce fraud, and pollution reversal techniques.…
ECONOMIC COLLAPSE IN ZIMBABWE FUELS PUBIC SECTOR CORRUPTION
BY BILL CORCORAN, in Johannesburg
AS Zimbabwe descends further into economic and political meltdown the country’s ruling elite are continuing to enrich themselves through fraud, theft and bribery. Bill Corcoran reports from Johannesburg.
UNLIKE politically stable countries where large scale commercial crime is just as likely to occur in the private sector as it is in the public, troubled Zimbabwe’s major fraudsters and thieves are today predominantly found in state run companies or government departments.…
MILITARY OFFERS NURSES UNORTHODOOX PATH TO CAREER FULFILLMENT
BY DEIRDRE MASON
IN an era when military intervention has been given a bad name through the Iraq morass, serving with the army, navy or air force might not be the immediate choice of many nurses as a career path which helps the needy.…
GLOBAL WARMING COULD BE A BOON TO DEVELOPING COUNTRIES - FAO
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has claimed that global warming – whilst posing serious risks for developing countries through flooding and desertification – could actually spur economic growth through sustainable biomass production. Speaking at the recent UN climate change conference in Nairobi, the FAO’s Kenya representative Castro Paulino Camarada said with the right technologies, converting biomass such as wood and crop residues, grass, straw and brushwood into fuel could "provide developing countries an abundant supply of clean, low-cost energy while helping spur economic development in rural communities".…
RAINFALL HARVESTING IS TO FIGHT WATER SCARCITY - UNEP
BY KEITH NUTHALL
AFRICA may be considered a dry continent, but, says the World Agroforestry Centre, it actually has more rain per capita than Europe – the problem is that this often falls in bursts, causing flooding, wastage and evaporation. However, it says with effective rainfall collection methods, many zones of Africa could be cured of drought, a message backed by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).…
LOOMING KEY BASEL CONVENTION MEETING TO CHANGE GLOBAL RECYCLING RULES
BY KEITH NUTHALL
A WORLDWIDE plan to promote the recycling of electronic waste could emerge from the oncoming and eighth meeting of the conference of the parties to the Basel Convention, in Kenya – its first session in Africa – from November 27 to December 1.…
UN AGENCY CALLS FOR CLEAN-UP TO CUT AFRICA SMOG
BY KEITH NUTHALL
TNE UNITED Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has called for African local authorities and governments to unite with fuel and automobile companies to fight the growing blight of urban smog in the continent’s cities. Air pollution is becoming a serious problem in these booming urban areas and has been discussed at an August conference ‘Better Air Quality for African Cities’, held at UNEP’s headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya.…
MIGA SUPPORTS KENYA SUGAR PLANT
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE MULTILATERAL Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA), of the World Bank, is guaranteeing US$18.2 million of investments and loans from British and South African investors into building a Kibos Sugar and Allied Industries Limited sugar factory in Kenya.
ENDS…
AFRICA GM TEXTILES FEATURE - MALI, SOUTH AFRICA, EGYPT
BY STEVEN SWINDELLS, in Johannesburg
SUB-SAHARAN Africa’s biggest cotton producer Mali is mulling GM cotton trials, a development which could open up cheap cotton supplies for the textile and clothing trade.
But resistance from local farmers to high seed costs and tough times for existing GM cotton growers in South Africa – the only African country where GM is commercially grown – may mean that Africa’s potential as a key supplier is still some way off.…
INTERNATIONAL RED CROSS WAR NURSE VOLUNTEERS FEATURE
BY DEIRDRE MASON
FROM the scorching heat of Kenya’s northern border with the Sudan to the unforgiving conditions of Afghanistan, International Red Cross nurse Jenny Hayward-Karlsson has seen it all during a varied and challenging 20-year career working in the world’s war zones.…
SOUTH AFRICAN NURSING BRITAIN RECRUITMENT HIT
BY STEVEN SWINDELLS, in Johannesburg
ONGOING recruitment of South African nurses to the UK is pushing South Africa’s already hard pressed public health system close to the brink of collapse and putting patient care at risk, the country’s lead nursing union and health experts have warned.…
SOUTHERN EASTERN AFRICA REGIONAL ANTI-MONEY LAUNDERING BODY FEATURE - ESAAMLG
BY STEVEN SWINDELLS, in Johannesburg
THE FORTEEN countries of the Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG) have their AML/CFT work cut out. Under-funded, lacking resources, short of political will and working in a region that leaks money like a sieve…it is a demanding context for the group’s daunting tasks.…
AFRICA MONEY LAUNDERING FEATURE LOOSE LEGAL CONTROLS CORRUPTION
BY STEVEN SWINDELLS, in Johannesburg
CENTRAL bankers, drug barons, warlords, corporate bosses and small town crooks in Africa are all washing their money despite attempts by governments and international law enforcement agencies to bring them to book. But financial crime has never been as lucrative as now on the world’s poorest continent.…
SOUTHERN AND EASTERN AFRICA TOBACCO PRODUCTION FEATURE
BY STEVEN SWINDELLS, in Johannesburg
AFRICA’S tobacco leaf producers are facing troubled times.
Instead of capitalising on crop and currency woes in rival Brazil, too many producers across the world’s poorest continent are battling drought and low selling prices.
Brazil’s problems should have opened a door of opportunity for leading African producers to claim back at least part of the world leaf market lost to south American and other producers when Zimbabwe’s crop collapsed amid the violent seizure of white-owned farm land.…
GM FOOD SOUTHERN AFRICA FEATURE - MONSANTO SYNGENTA
BY STEVEN SWINDELLS in Johannesburg
DROUGHT-HIT and AIDS-ravaged southern Africa is faced with a looming humanitarian crisis with almost 12 million people in need of food aid. But genetically modified (GM) crops remain off the menu for most African governments who remain reluctant to allow their farmers to do business with GM giants Monsanto and Syngenta.…
WHO AIDS DECREASE - AFRICA, CARIBBEAN
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE LATEST World Health Organisation (WHO) figures on HIV/AIDS indicate some heavily afflicted countries are seeing infection rates fall. Kenya and Zimbabwe are among those with declining infections: amongst all adults in Kenya, from 10% in the late 1990s to 7% in 2003; and among pregnant women in Zimbabwe falling, from 26% in 2003 to 21% in 2004.…
AFRICA LAKE SHRINKAGE UNEP REPORT
BY KEITH NUTHALL
SATELLITE images of the shrinking Aral Sea in central Asia have long horrified environmentalists, but now similar creeping disasters are threatening the many fresh water and brackish lakes of Africa. These are illustrated by disturbing satellite images within an atlas produced by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).…
AFRICA LAKE SHRINKAGE UNEP REPORT
BY KEITH NUTHALL
SATELLITE images of the shrinking Aral Sea in central Asia have long horrified environmentalists, but now similar creeping disasters are threatening the many fresh water and brackish lakes of Africa. These are illustrated by disturbing satellite images within an atlas produced by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).…
ACP EU SUGAR REFORM MEETING
BY KEITH NUTHALL
SUGAR exporting countries from the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of countries have agreed at a meeting in Kenya to continue “a relentless fight” against planned European Union sugar reforms.…
FAO TEA REPORT
BY KEITH NUTHALL
GLOBAL tea production hit a new record high in 2004, growing 2% to reach an estimated 3.2 million tonnes, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation has reported. The expansion was mainly due to increases in Turkey, China, Kenya, Malawi, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, offsetting declines in other major producing countries, notably India and Bangladesh.…
WTO ROUND LATEST
BY KEITH NUTHALL
TRADE and agriculture ministers meeting in Kenya to energise the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Doha Development Round have made progress on moving towards a system where tariffs are always expressed as percentages of the price of products. This would simplify the existing set-up where some duties are fixed prices, or valued per measurement unit.…
UNODC - CORRUPTION
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is sending legal and accounting specialists to Nigeria and Kenya, to help them trace and recover money stolen by previous corrupt governments. The agency will “conduct in-depth assessments of (their) institutional and legal frameworks”, making detailed proposals to “overcome obstacles to asset recovery”.…
GM FOOD SOUTHERN AFRICA FEATURE - MONSANTO SYNGENTA
BY STEVEN SWINDELLS, in Johannesburg
DROUGHT-HIT and AIDS-ravaged southern Africa is faced with a looming humanitarian crisis with almost 12 million people in need of food aid. But genetically modified (GM) crops remain off the menu for most African governments who remain reluctant to allow their farmers to do business with GM giants Monsanto and Syngenta.…
WHO AIDS DECREASE - AFRICA, CARIBBEAN
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE LATEST World Health Organisation (WHO) figures on HIV/AIDS indicate some heavily afflicted countries are seeing infection rates fall. Kenya and Zimbabwe are among those with declining infections: amongst all adults in Kenya, from 10% in the late 1990s to 7% in 2003; and among pregnant women in Zimbabwe falling, from 26% in 2003 to 21% in 2004.…
FAO DAIRY SPOILAGE
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is staging regional training and research programmes to cut the thousands of gallons of milk spoiled in east Africa every week. It estimates that US$59.7 million dairy products are lost annually in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.…
UNODC AFRICA
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is sending legal and accounting specialists to Nigeria and Kenya, to help them trace and recover money stolen by previous corrupt governments. The Vienna-based agency says it will “conduct in-depth assessments of the institutional and legal frameworks” in these countries, making detailed proposals to “overcome obstacles to asset recovery”.…
TEA PRODUCTION RECORD
BY KEITH NUTHALL
GLOBAL tea production in 2003 reached a record high of 3.15 million tonnes, 75,000 tonnes more than in 2002, and although traded tea fell by 2.6% to 1.4 million tonnes, prices remained stable, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).…
AFRICA TEST BED
BY KEITH NUTHALL
A MEETING of the AFI GNSS implementation task force of the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s (ICAO) eastern and southern Africa office has been told of difficulties “establishing reliable communications” between the European satellite navigation system EGNOS and reference and integrity monitoring stations (RIMS) at Addis Ababa – Ethiopia, Bria – the Central African Republic and Nairobi – Kenya.…
AFRICA UNLEADED
BY KEITH NUTHALL
MORE than half of all petrol sold in sub-Saharan Africa is now unleaded, says the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), which wants leaded fuels phased-out in the region by 2006. Kenya has announced plans to switching to fully unleaded petrol by January 1 2006.…
USA MONEY LAUNDERING REPORT
BY KEITH NUTHALL
NOBODY likes to be on a blacklist, especially one written by the American government. But every year, the US state department issues a comprehensive rogues gallery of countries involved in the narcotics trade and related criminal problems. One surprising entrant: the United States.…
EU ROUND UP
BY KEITH NUTHALL
AFTER a long period of consultation, a comprehensive directive protecting the European Union’s (EU) groundwater reserves has been proposed by the European Commission, which would force Member States to establish and police locally sensitive pollution limits. The legislation would insist that national governments carefully monitor groundwater quality and take steps to reverse its pollution, where it has exceeded these self-imposed thresholds.…
ACACIA GUM
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE PRODUCTION of acacia gum – used by cosmetic industry to make capsules and as an emulsifier – is to be boosted in Burkina Faso, Chad, Kenya, Niger, Senegal and Sudan by a US$3.5 million project coordinated by the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation and funded by Italy.…
SUB-SAHARA SUPERMARKETS
BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SUPERMARKET boom in sub-Saharan Africa is raising standards in food production and distribution, which many small producers struggle to meet, said the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). It says the growth of mass retail in South Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, Botswana and Swaziland is having “a direct impact on the lives of millions of small farmers.”…
CANCUN SUMMIT FEATURE
BY KEITH NUTHALL
AS the diplomatic impasse crystallised at Cancun recedes into memory, the World Trade Organisation is facing what may be the sternest test of its eight year existence: can a body of 146 members actually agree comprehensive trade deals by consensus?…
ETHIOPIA GOLD
BY RICHARD HURST
THE ETHIOPIAN government has announced it is taking action to reduce the flood of gold being smuggled from the country, after revealing that US$30-million worth of the precious metal, weighing approximately three million grams, is smuggled annually out through neighbouring countries.…
CORRUPTION PAPERS
BY KEITH NUTHALL
A PHD in rocket science is not required to understand that corruption is a problem worldwide. But such a qualification – and more – would be required to devise an effective plan to fight this financial plague. The United Nations’ (UN) is drafting an international convention on corruption and asked a string of experts to write reports to illuminate some issues.…
AFRICAN UNLADED PETROL
BY KEITH NUTHALL
The UN Environment Programme says that within five years most African countries will be close to phasing out leaded petrol. Egypt, Libya, Mauritius and Sudan – are already lead-free, to be joined this year by Morocco, Reunion and Tunisia.…
INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATION ROUND UP
BY KEITH NUTHALL
FRANCE’S Suez water company and the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) have launched a joint drinking water improvements programme that will provide around Euro 300,000 in its first three years and will initially concentrate on the Volga-Caspian region.…
IMO SECURITY CODE IMPLEMENTATION
BY KEITH NUTHALL
WAY back when….last December….the International Maritime Organisation agreed a compulsory maritime security code for its member countries, covering ships and ports involved in international trade. Governments have to write the code into their laws by December 31 and shipping companies and port authorities are supposed to comply by June 2004.…
HONEY CARE AFRICA
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE GOOD practice of an innovative honey company has been highlighted through its winning a United Nations Development Programme prize for promoting small-scale honey production in Kenya. Honey Care Africa, supported by the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, has won the US$30,000 Equator Prize.…
RINDERPEST EXTINCTION
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) is predicting the extinction of the virulent cattle disease rinderpest by a UN deadline of 2010. It is trying to eradicate the last traces of the virus in northeast Kenya and southern Somalia.…
ANTHROPOLIGICAL ASSESSMENTS
BY KEITH NUTHALL
MINING companies planning projects in the tropics should conduct detailed assessments of potential disruption to indigenous peoples, before going ahead, the United Nations has said. Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said that the same legally binding standards regarding environmental impact assessments should apply to anthropological checks on the “life-styles and cultures of indigenous peoples.”…
INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATION ROUND UP
BY KEITH NUTHALL
*A supermarket boom in sub-Saharan Africa is raising food production and distribution standards, which many small farmers cannot meet, said the UN’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). It called for the funding of cooperatives, micro-loans and training, especially in South Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, Botswana and Swaziland.…
SOUTHERN AFRICA FEATURE
BY RICHARD HURST
MONEY laundering is all about fake respectability, transforming the seedy and ill-gotten into the legitimate and well-earned; so in Africa, where better to launder criminal money than through the continent’s most developed economy, South Africa.
Mike Savage, partner at Ernst & Young South Africa, said that the biggest problem facing African governments wanting to seriously tackle money laundering is to pinpoint the movement of funds that are moved across porous borders in a bid to cover tracks and conceal sources.…
SAUDI FISH FARMING
KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations’ (UN) Food and Agriculture Organisation has welcomed the development of a privately funded fish farming sector in Saudi Arabia, following 20 years of research to identify the ideal fish for local aquaculture.
A note published by the FAO says that the Saudi Fish Company, at Al-Shaqiq near the southern Red Sea, is already producing 1,500 tonnes of fish-a-year; the National Shrimp Company, in the Al-Laith area, also on the Red Sea, is expecting to produce 10,000 tonnes annually soon; and the Gizan Agricultural Company is building farming facilities for 1,000 tonnes-a-year.…
WTO EXPORT SUBSIDIES
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) is facing a mass attack on its sugar export subsidies at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). They have been formally challenged by both Australia and Brazil, with the Ivory Coast, Congo, Madagascar, Columbia, Canada, Kenya, Barbados, India, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Jamaica, Swaziland, Fiji, Guyana and Mauritius expected to line up behind them in support.…
HONEY CARE AFRICA
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE GOOD practice of an innovative honey company has been highlighted through its winning a United Nations Development Programme prize for promoting small-scale honey production in Kenya. Honey Care Africa, supported by the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, has won the US$30,000 Equator Prize.…
CHILD LABOUR
BTY MARK ROWE
THE TOBACCO industry has not been exempt from the problem of young children working in developing countries. But in the past 12 months BAT has taken significant steps to address the question of child labour. Earlier this year it helped launch the Elimination of Child Labour in Tobacco Growing Foundation, which supports community-based initiatives to address the issue.…
AFRICAN QUOTAS
BY RICHARD HURST
USA President George W. Bush has approved 35 African countries as eligible for tariff preferences regarding clothing and textile exports to America under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), with Zimbabwe and Gambia being notable sub-Saharan African pariahs from the move.…
CONGO LATEST
BY KEITH NUTHALL
A MORATORIUM in the trade of illegally exploited Congolese minerals has been proposed by a panel of experts, which has examined how the stripping of resources by foreign military forces has prolonged the ongoing war in the country.…
INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS ROUND UP
BY KEITH NUTHALL
A HOLISTIC global campaign against HIV/AIDS has been agreed by Rome-based UN agencies: the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the International Fund for Agriculture Development and the World Food Programme. The trio will work to minimise the effect on food production of AIDS epidemics in countries where the disease is particularly widespread, namely Cambodia, China, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.…
AFRICAN QUOTAS
BY RICHARD HURST, in Johannesburg
THE UNITED States’ House of Representatives has voted overwhelmingly to double the quota of clothing and textile products that a group of African countries can export to the US duty free, increasing them from 1.5 per cent of overall US imports to three per cent.…
KENYA BOTTLEING
BY RICHARD HURST, in Johannesburg
THE KENYAN finance Minister Chris Okemo has granted competition approval for Coca Cola Sabco, of South Africa, to increase its dominance of the east African country’s soft drinks market.
Sabco is now likely to try and increase its stake in Nairobi Bottlers, which has 52 per cent of the market, and acquire opposition East African Bottlers, which has a market share of roughly two per cent.…
OLAF REPORT ETC
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE PROCESS of transforming the European Union’s anti-fraud office OLAF into a truly independent operator, with enough investigative muscle and legislative teeth to make an impact in Brussels’ fight against financial crime, has proved to be a slow and difficult task, its latest report admits.…