INTRODUCTION 

ACCOUNTING used to be restricted to financially measurable matters of profit and loss; expenditure and revenue; taxes and subsidies; investment and liabilities. But the mathematical and statistical skills underpinning a solid set of books and filed accounts are today increasingly being used to measure the environmental and social sustainability of a product, input, production process and supply chain.…

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.

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.…

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).…

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.…

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. …

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.…

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. …

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.…

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/).…

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.…

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.…

THE FINANCIAL Action Task Force (FATF) has said that Iran’s failure to implement AML/CFT controls means that member countries and their financial institutions should consider taking all the precautions mandated by its guidance for high risk ML states.

Its February 19-21 plenary said that Iran still needed to remove an exemption for controls on designated terror groups’ financing when such organisations are “attempting to end foreign occupation, colonialism and racism” – which is taken to include groups opposing Israel.…

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.…

The challenge to increase the participation of African women in science, technology and innovation (STI) tertiary education jobs and courses could be addressed by increasing the amount of such topics taught to girls in primary and secondary schools, Prof. Alice Pell, the former vice provost at New York state, USA’s Cornell University, told a conference of senior female African academics.…

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.…

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.…

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.…

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.…

Digital disruption has been transforming banking services worldwide, and Africa, with its important m-commerce sector, has been in the frontline of this change – a fact not lost on established bank executives, such as Samuel Fredrick Mwogeza, the chief financial officer of Stanbic Bank Uganda Ltd.…

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.…

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.…

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.…

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.…

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.…

WITH an estimated USD1.5 trillion lost to the global economy because of bribes, the World Bank is pushing for a diverse array of technology to be deployed – it is a call being answered with anti-graft systems being installed worldwide.

Reducing corruption “is a priority” for the World Bank, it said in a briefing note in September 2017.…

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.…

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.…

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.…

China seems to have given the world nuclear industry back its mojo this summer with two big moves: the signing in June of an order for four Gen 3+ VVER-1200 reactors from Russia’s Rosatom. This certainly got the bubbly flowing at the World Nuclear Exhibition, in Paris, in late June, following two years of sluggish investment in this globalised industry.…

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).…

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.…

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.…

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.…

MORE companies have ‘fraud response plans’ (FRPs) than ever before to try and mitigate the recurrence and fallout from fraud incidents. But greater adoption does not always equal efficacy, with companies not always had the right procedures to learn from past mistakes.…

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).…

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.…

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.…

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.…

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).…

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).…

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.…

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).…

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).…

THE EUROPEAN Commission must propose a new blacklist of non-European Union (EU) countries considered high-risk money laundering locations, after the full European Parliament (EP) overwhelmingly a proposed list yesterday (May 17), by 392 votes to 80, with 207 abstentions.

A Parliament spokesperson told Money Laundering Bulletin the Commission had no deadline to produce its third list of countries needing to face stricter controls doing business in the EU, but was expected to do so in the next “few months”.…

The European Parliament’s committee on economic and monetary affairs (ECON) and its committee on civil liberties, justice and home affairs (LIBE) have rejected a proposed blacklist of non-European Union (EU) jurisdictions deemed to be high risk locations for money laundering. In a joint vote on Wednesday (May 3), the committees asked the full European Parliament plenary to confirm their opposition to the list.…

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.…

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.…

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.…

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.…

A public forum on how universities help promote transformative leadership by women has highlighted the difficulty of framing policies that simultaneously encourage personal development and directly assist women in securing equal opportunities. This discussion comes at a time when women outnumber men in university enrolment globally, but continue to trail men in leadership positions in government, research, and the formal economy.…

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.…

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.…

THE EUROPEAN Commission adopted today a list of high risk countries that have “strategic deficiencies” in their anti-money laundering and countering terrorist financing regimes, working under powers from the fourth anti-money laundering directive (4AMLD). Under the law, European Union (EU) banks will have to carry out additional checks on financial flows from these countries.…

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. …

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.…

In Uganda, recent graduates are learning a tough lesson: a university education is no guarantee of a job. More than half of people under 30 are without full-time employment, and the problem is particularly acute among degree holders. The country’s developing economy, still based largely on agriculture, is generating few highly skilled positions to offer the 40,000 university graduates each year.…

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.…

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.…

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.…

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 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’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.…

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.”…

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.…

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%.…

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.…

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.”…

THE FINANCIAL Action Task Force (FATF) has warned Iran it faces tighter international scrutiny of its financial services and dealings, should it fail to criminalise terrorist financing and boost its suspicious transaction reporting (STR) requirements.

In its latest assessment of jurisdictions failing to comply with FATF anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) recommendations, the global AML body singled out the Islamic republic, giving Tehran until February (2015) to make reforms, or face the consequences.…

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.…

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.…

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.…

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.…

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.…

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.…

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.…

Time was when energy projects funded by developed world institutions in poorer jurisdictions tended to be large – major power plants and large infrastructure projects. And while these have certainly had benefits, the value of smaller smarter investments in rural areas is increasingly appreciated.…

PLANS to exploit Malawi’s oil and gas potential are continuing apace despite a border dispute with neighbouring Tanzania that affects some of the exploration sites.

Geological investigations have indicated that conditions are favourable for oil and gas to exist beneath Lake Malawi and the Lower Shire Valley in southern Malawi, both part of the East African Rift System.…

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.…

THE JAPANESE pharma sector may have previously lagged behind its counterparts in Europe and north America helping the very poorest people in the developing world, but the enthusiasm with which five of Japan’s biggest pharmaceutical companies have embraced the Global Health Innovative Technology (GHIT) Fund indicates a sea change in policy.…

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.…

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.…

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.…

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.…

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.…

THE WORLD’S 49 least developed countries have been given another eight years to implement the intellectual property protection rules demanded by the World Trade Organisation (WTO). This means that their governments have the freedom to choose whether to protect trademarks, patents, copyright, industrial designs, geographical indications and other rights, potentially harming pharma companies.…

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.…

EXPERTS representing accounting bodies from around the world urged accountants in Africa to help reduce corruption and mismanagement in their governments through effective bookkeeping and auditing, as the continent moves towards sustainable growth. The 2^nd Africa Congress of Accountants (ACOA) gathered in Accra, the capital of Ghana, from May 14-16.…

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.…

It is easy to show how vice-chancellors and other senior university officials can lead academic policy and programmes – because that is their job. The role of intellectuals and senior academics without formal power in leadership is harder to define. But some intellectuals are so prominent that they inspire change and development in academia – and such is the case with Professor Dr Mahmood Mamdani, the African historical, political and social commentator.…

IT has been called the world’s most powerful bank. In their book ‘China’s Superbank Debt, Oil and Influence – How China Development Bank [CDB] is Rewriting the Rules of Finance’, Bloomberg journalists Henry Sanderson and Michael Forsythe describe how the “CDB’s system of local government finance has helped lift millions out of poverty and shielded the country from recession”.…

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.…

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.…

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.…

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.…

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.…

BY ANDREW GREEN, IN KAMPALA

Uganda is undergoing a higher education boom. The result of introducing universal primary education in 1997 and universal secondary education a decade later is a surplus of students looking for a university placement. Uganda’s 30 public and private universities offer 50,000 spots for qualified secondary school graduates.…

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.…

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.…

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.…

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.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

THE POOREST countries in the world have an unprecedented opportunity to attract investment in the pharmaceutical sector, according to a new report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

The study stressed how large research and development-based pharmaceutical transnational corporations facing the expiration of blockbuster drug patents are entering into partnerships with profitable generic manufacturers in developing countries as a survival strategy.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A WORLD Bank has promised to help set up a petroleum industry training centre in Uganda, as it expands its oil sector. In a briefing note on its Ugandan policies, the bank promised policy advice on revenue and public investment management, managing production in environmentally sensitive areas and development programmes for nearby local communities.…

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.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

HIGH sugar prices and tight supplies are a constant worry for confectionery manufacturers this year, and the European Union (EU) has been trying to keep these problems under control. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has estimated that global prices rose 81.4% from last July (2010) to this January (2011) and the EU has taken action.…

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.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE MULTILATERAL Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) of the World Bank is planning to guarantee a US dollar USD2.1 million investment in Uganda by Italian chocolate producer Icam. This would fund the building of three cocoa processing plants, operated by subsidiary Icam Chocolate Uganda Limited in three cocoa-producing regions.…

BY BARBARA BIERACH

WHILE the Reserve Bank of Australia has a licence to print cash, two subsidiaries wanted one too, it seems – only using international sales agents to bribe foreign public officials over banknote printing contracts. Barbara Bierach reports from Sydney.…

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.…

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.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

SIGNIFICANT benefits to tobacco and tobacco product companies will present themselves if a deal on the long-running Doha Development Round is clinched next year at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). And some diplomats at the WTO’s base in Geneva are asking if agreement is not reached next year, whether the current negotiations will be scrapped.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A WEBSITE has been launched by the UN Food & Agriculture Organisation to track Ug99, a devastating strain of wheat stem rust disease. Scientists fear it is spreading across Africa and could infect South Asia. The mutation shows that keeping a food disease at minimal levels does not guarantee safety.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE WORLD Bank has predicted "biofuels is unlikely to become a new source of growth for the cotton oil market". The verdict comes in a report analysing cotton by-product industries in Uganda, Tanzania, Benin, and Burkina Faso. The bank says other oils are likely to meet "the recent surge in demand for commodities used as feedstocks for biofuels".…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

IMAGINATION and guile continue to help fraudsters milk hundreds of millions of Euros from the European Union’s (EU) well-stocked budgets, explains the latest report from EU anti-fraud agency OLAF, writes Keith Nuthall.

OLAF spends a lot of money sniffing out fraud in the institutions and programmes of the EU and the payment of duties earmarked to fund this spending.…

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.…

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.…

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.…

BY MARK ROWE and KEITH NUTHALL

THIS April, the UK will launch a feed-in tariff for electricity, which the government said will accelerate take-up of green energy among the general public. According to the European Commission’s energy directorate-general, the European Union (EU) already uses at least 20% more energy than is justified, which has led to twin concerns – the need to reduce consumption of fossil fuels and to encourage consumers to switch to green energy tariffs and sources.…

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.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE

EGYPT

Eastern Tobacco Company

450 Al Ahram Street, Giza

Tel : +20-18-5724711- 5724332 – 5724945

+20-23-5793326

www.easternegypt.com

British American Tobacco Egypt

City Stars Complex

Star Capital – Tower 4A

Omar Ebn El Khattab Street

Postal Code 11771

Heliopolis, Cairo

T: (+20) 2 480 1080

Japan Tobacco International (Regional)

2nd Floor, Lophitis Business Centre

249, 28th October Street & Emiliou Hourmouziou Corner

CY-3035, Lemesos

P.O.…

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.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EDUCATING farmers in simple disease control techniques has rolled back a Uganda cooking banana plague, threatening to destroy this staple crop, upon which 14 million people depend. A joint UN Food & Agriculture Organisation-Uganda government project has advised 3,000 farmers on fighting banana bacterial wilt (BBW).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE UN Food & Agriculture Organisation has helped more than 3,000 Uganda banana producers contain an outbreak of banana bacterial wilt (BBW), a potentially devastating disease. Its experts have introduced precautionary planting methods preventing the pathogen spreading.

ENDS…

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.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE SECURITY of nuclear power installations may be a priority in terrorism-fearing rich countries, but not in poorer states, with many other problems. But it is equally important of course: nuclear accidents, sabotage and terror attacks are devastating wherever they occur.…

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.…

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.…

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.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) has promised that its institutions will cooperate with the International Criminal Court (ICC), even exchanging information with its investigators. The cooperation agreement that will come into force on May 1 involves creating a central EU contact point for the ICC.…

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.…

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.…

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.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE LEASING of transport services in Uganda is to be funded by the European Investment Bank (EIB), which is planning to lend Euro 10 million’s worth of Ugandan shillings (UGX 21.4 billion) to the Kampala-based DFCU Leasing Company Ltd.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

ECONOMIC growth, especially in emerging markets, is forcing international food businesses to take a closer look at opportunities in potentially unstable countries, and the global aid community is keen to help. One international institution is well positioned, especially given the increasing demand for development projects to be largely private financed: the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, or MIGA, of the World Bank.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE MULTILATERAL Investment Guarantee Agency, or MIGA, is the international organisation companies turn to when they want to invest in a jurisdiction where their assets might not be that safe. Mining companies have long used MIGA to cover risks that are too tasty for the private insurance industry, and the agency has issued 58 guarantees for the sector since it was formed in 1988.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THAT criminals abuse the insurance industry is nothing new for a sector routinely screening claims for hints of fraud. However, its managers have proved far less alert to the risk of it being exploited by money launderers and terrorist financers, a new detailed report has claimed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE MULTILATERAL Investment Guarantee Agency, or MIGA, is the international organisation companies turn to when they want to invest in a jurisdiction where their assets might not be that safe. Mining companies have long used MIGA to cover risks that are too tasty for the private insurance industry, and the agency has issued 58 guarantees for the sector since it was formed in 1988.…

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.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CHINA has resisted calls at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) by its developing country competitors for special efforts to protect them from economic dislocation caused by January’s end of textile import quotas. Mauritius, Bangladesh, the Dominican Republic, Fiji, Madagascar, Sri Lanka and Uganda pushed at a WTO Council on the Trade in Goods for a WTO secretariat study identifying the likely problems and recommending solutions.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
TRADE liberalisation is not enriching the world’s poor, claims a new UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) report, with increased exports not necessarily boosted local consumption. Bangladesh, Guinea and Uganda were the only least developed countries where this happened in the 1990s.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Criminal Court (ICC) is a step closer to launching its first case, with Uganda President Yoweri Museveni referring the terror wrought by his county’s rebel group the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) to ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Health Organisation (WHO) claims it is near to making guinea-worm disease the first parasitic illness to be eradicated globally. Only 35,000 sufferers remain in west Africa, the Sudan, Ethiopia and Uganda. The worm grows inside the abdomen and emerges through painful blisters on lower limbs.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
UGANDA has launched “MTN villagePhone,” a (World Bank) International Finance Corporation supported joint venture between the country’s leading telecommunications company, MTN Uganda, and Grameen Foundation USA. Villagers borrow microloans to buy equipment allowing them to sell mobile phone services in areas unconnected to landlines.…

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.…

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.…

BY ALAN OSBORN and MARK ROWE, in London, MONICA DOBIE and PHILIP FINE in Montreal, MATTHEW BRACE in Brisbane, and RICHARD HURST in Johannesburg

Introduction

Europe

Cuts to EU catch quotas

New sources of fish

Affect on fish producers

Wild alternatives to cod

Farmed cod

North America

USA – Healthier local stocks

USA – Demand up

USA – Fish imports

Canada – Farmed fish exports

Canada – GM issues

Australasia

Australia – New wild sources

Australia – Aquaculture

Australia – Wild fish innovation

Australia and New Zealand – sustainability

South Africa – Export increase and conservation

Japan – Local and regional supply

Japan – Maintaining quality

Japan – Non-Asian sources

Introduction

ONCE it was said, cod was so abundant that fishermen in some parts of the world boasted they could walk on the backs of the fish to find their catch.…

BY MARK ROWE
WARS are usually fought over coveted resources, such as oil, diamonds or fertile land. Now water, the most indispensable of mankind’s needs, is seen as the resource which may spark the armed conflicts of the 21st century.

Indeed, United Nations (UN) cultural and scientific organisation UNESCO is stepping up efforts to calm tension in some of the world’s most water-stressed areas.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IT is rare that an international organisation report on a scandal involving crime, corruption, war and environmental degradation names and shames high profile companies, but that is what is contained within the latest United Nations (UN) Security Council report on the Congo.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CONSERVATIONISTS have welcomed a controversial United Nations (UN) report identifying wealthy western companies allegedly involved in wartime projects in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) they say may endanger rare great apes.

It says Barclays Bank, diamonds giant De Beers, British mining corporation Anglo American, Belgian bankers Fortis, South African miners Iscor, and the United Arab Emirates’ Standard Chartered Bank and 79 other companies have broken OECD multinational good behaviour guidelines by their association with mining, logging or road building in the Congo.…

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.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FINANCIAL restrictions should be imposed on companies, businessmen, ministers and soldiers charged with involvement in the shameless plundering of the mineral resources of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a United Nations (UN) committee established to investigate the problem has concluded.…

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.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Atomic Energy Agency has secured a radioactive source containing a significant amount of cobalt-60 in Uganda. It had been discovered and impounded by the Ugandan authorities and the IAEA team checked its shielded container’s security and safety.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BACK in the last century, it was easy to find economists who liked a little corruption, saying it oiled the wheels of government and commerce. Today, this complacency has gone, with most development specialists saying bribes weaken governments and shrink private investment.…

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.…

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.…

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.…