NAIROBI, April 19 (Xinhua) -- East African countries said Thursday they have started developing a harmonized forest policy and strategy to increase forest cover and contain drought. The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) countries who met in Nairobi said the initiative is aimed at improved contributions of forests resources to national economies for poverty reduction, environmental sustainability and development of the IGAD member states. "The initiative will contribute to the increment of forest cover to help contain drought that has been a major problem in the Horn of Africa," said Debalkew Berhe, IGAD's Program Manager for Environmental Protection during a forum in Nairobi. Berhe noted that the regional bloc was mandated with the responsibility of managing drought and desertification but over a period of time changed to sustainable development but drought continued to worsen productivity in the region. "Our solution is to develop a harmonized forest policy and strategy to help increase forest cover to improve rainfall pattern, increase food security, address water problem and help address climate change," he added. Berhe said that once the forest policy and strategy becomes effective, it will help address issues on socio-economic benefits of the forestry. According to Gabriel Rugalema, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) Representative in Kenya, with the rising population in the region, there is need for forest policy and strategy to help reduce pressure on natural resources. Rugalema said that given the livelihood opportunities provided by forests and woodlands, it is not surprising that over the past few...

President Paul Kagame has said that even with the recent signing of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), African leaders must work to improve the business environment for citizens to fully benefit from the trade deal. Kagame was yesterday speaking in the United Kingdom at the Commonwealth Business Forum organised on the sidelines of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. Yesterday’s business forum convened government and business leaders to deliberate on whether Africa’s growth story is still alive and well, with a special focus on intra-African trade and attracting investment into Africa. In a panel session that also featured South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa and Kenya’s Uhuru Kenyatta, Kagame said that leaders have to continuously improve their business environment to reap the full benefits of opening up the continent. “African Continental Free Trade Area was adopted last month by African leaders. Trade and investment are set to grow across the continent, creating opportunities for manufacturing and value addition. “We as leaders still have to make sure that the business environment keeps improving, so that citizens can fully benefit from trade and free movement,” he said. The agreement could go into force by the end of this year following the signing of the deal by 44 AU member states in March at an extraordinary African Union Summit held in Kigali. More countries are set to sign the agreement during the next African Union Summit slated for July in Mauritania. Kagame said that what has been done so far was a...

Economic growth in Africa rebounded, but “not fast enough” in recent past, according to Africa’s Pulse, a bi-annual analysis of the state of African economies conducted by the World Bank, released on Wednesday in Washington. The report, which was released during the World Bank Spring Meetings, however shows that, “Growth prospects have strengthened in most of East Africa, owing to improving agriculture sector growth following droughts and a rebound in private sector credit growth. In Ethiopia, growth will remain high, as government-led infrastructure investment continues.” The report suggests that Sub-Saharan Africa’s growth is projected to reach 3.1 per cent in 2018, and to average 3.6 percent in the 2019–20 period. The growth forecasts are based on expectations that oil and metal prices will remain stable, and that governments in the region will implement reforms to address macroeconomic imbalances and boost investment. “Growth has rebounded in Sub-Saharan Africa, but not fast enough. We are still far from pre-crisis growth levels,” said Albert G. Zeufack, World Bank Chief Economist for the Africa Region. To achieve high and sustained levels of growth, Zeufack says, African governments must speed up and deepen macroeconomic and structural reforms. The moderate pace of economic expansion reflects the gradual pick-up in growth in the region’s three largest economies, Nigeria, Angola and South Africa. Elsewhere, economic activity will pick up in some metals exporters, as mining production and investment rise. Among non-resource intensive countries, solid growth, supported by infrastructure investment, will continue in the West African Economic and Monetary...

Construction of the Northern Corridor transit transport route has been boosted with US$1.05m from Trademark East Africa. The funding will enable the agency to collect and analyze data related to transport of goods and persons. This follows the signing of a finance agreement between Trademark East Africa (TMA) and the Northern Corridor Transit and Transport Coordination Authority (NCTTCA) on Tuesday. The money will be channeled from TMA through NCTTCA. The agreement was signed by NCTTCA acting executive Secretary, Fred Tumwebaze and Ahmed Farah from TMA. The Northern Corridor is East Africa’s main transport corridor that begins at the port of Mombasa with two routes; one through Uganda to South Sudan and the second one through Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi to DRC. NCTTCA member countries include Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan and Democratic republic of Congo, adds a press statement from TMA. NCTTCA oversees the corridor monitoring framework known as Northern Corridor Transport Observatory, which is a performance monitoring tool that informs interventions geared towards reducing costs and delays of transportation and other related logistics challenges. With the new financing, the Authority will improve monitoring of the Northern Corridor performance with regards to movement of people and goods. The statement adds that the authority will adopt modern technologies, including mobile based and online systems to enhance its capability to monitor trade and transport flows, bottlenecks and impact of interventions. Information from TMA indicates that data collected will support evidence-based advocacy and decision-making, resulting to fit for purpose interventions in reducing...

Fostering international development has long been viewed as central to the moral, humanitarian, strategic and security interests of the United States. In particular, there is one area where the United States has been a leader in development assistance — providing trade preferences to African countries, most of which are low-income countries. This has been achieved through the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which was initially passed by U.S. Congress in 2000 and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. The legislation was deliberately renewed by both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. AGOA demonstrates the power of U.S. trade policy to bring about significant change in Africa through measures that, while trivial from the American perspective, can have a sizeable impact in Africa. Specifically, AGOA allows for eligible African countries to export a long list of goods to the United States without paying the import tariffs that most countries must pay and without being subject to import quota restrictions. The beauty of AGOA lies in the fact that it costs the U.S. very little to implement in terms of lost tariff revenue and lost market share. In fact, it’s fair to say that the implementation of AGOA has had zero impact on the U.S. economy, and close to zero in terms of American tariff revenues. At the same time, however, AGOA has resulted in an increase in exports in some key products that have been massive when measured by African standards. For example, apparel exports, which have historically...

TradeMark Africa (TMA) and the Northern Corridor Transit and Transport Coordination Authority (NCTTCA) yesterday signed a financing agreement worth US$ 1.05 million.TMA will disburse the money to the NCTTFA secretariat over a 3-year period (2018 – 2021). Funding will enable the agency to collect and analyse data related to transport of goods and persons along the transport corridor, therefore informing decision making The Northern Corridor is East Africa’s main transport corridor that begins at the port of Mombasa with two routes; one through Uganda to South Sudan and other through Uganda, to Rwanda, Burundi to DR Congo. NCTTCA member countries include Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan and Democratic republic of Congo. NCTTCA oversees the corridor monitoring framework known as Northern Corridor Transport Observatory, which is a performance monitoring tool that informs interventions geared towards reducing costs and delays of transportation and other related logistic a, challenges. With the new financing, the Authority will improve monitoring of the Northern Corridor performance with regards to movement of people and goods. It will adopt modern technologies, including mobile based and online systems, to enhance its capability to monitor trade and transport flows, bottlenecks and impact of interventions. Data collected will support evidence-based advocacy and decision making. This initiative will complement monitoring the implementation of the Mombasa Port Charter. TradeMark was represented by Country Director for Kenya, Ahmed Farah, while NCTTCA was represented by Ag. Executive Secretary Fred Tumwebaze. NCTTCA collects data from over 20 stakeholders in all the member countries with the...

Regional tea exports at the Mombasa Auction have increased, according to the East African Tea Export Auctions report released last week. All the five East Africa member states including Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania and Mozambique registered an increase in exports at the Tea Auction held between April 9 and April 10. The increase, the report says, was occasioned by growth in demand and a rise in crop production. According to the report more than 7.4 million kilogramme bags were sold up from 6.4 million bags sold around the same time last year. This indicates an increase of 8.2 per cent. The five East African member states including Mozambique participated in the auction out of the 10 countries listed at the auction. The other countries, including DR Congo, Malawi, Madagascar and Ethiopia registered no trade. George William Ssekitooleko, the Uganda Tea Association executive secretary, said last week the rains have facilitated growth in crop yield across the region. However, despite an increase in supply prices increased to $1.6 (Shs5,808) up from $1.3 (Shs4,700) per kilogramme. Ignatius Byarugaba, the Uganda Tea Development Agency chief executive officer, said last week prices have been stable in the last three-years and a slight increase would be good news to the market. According to the report Kenya exported 5.7 million kilogrammes bags compared to 5.4 million it exported last year. Uganda, the region's second largest exporter sold 839,824 kilogramme bags up from 747,003 kilogrammes bags exported in the same month last year. EA tea exports...

THE new Head of European Union, EU, Delegation to Nigeria, Mr. Ketil Iversen Karlsen was at the State House, Abuja on April 5, to present his Letter of Credence to President Muhammadu Buhari. His main message was that the Economic Partnership Agreement, EPA, between the EU and the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, was designed to accommodate and protect economies that would find it difficult to compete. He told President Buhari: “We are hopeful that there will be a signature on the agreement.’’ He was referring to Nigeria’s refusal since 2000, to sign the agreement with the Europeans. It is worthy to note that former Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan were not convinced by the EU’s sugarcoated tongue and had despite tremendous pressures, refused to sign. President Buhari was also not going to break faith with the Nigerian and African people. He pointedly told the super envoy that Nigeria will not sign the agreement because there is the need to protect its economy, especially the industries and small businesses which currently provide jobs for majority Nigerians. He also stated that the agreement would expose Nigerian indust ries and small businesses to external pressures and competitions, which could lead to factory closures and job losses. Additionally, he said, Nigerian industries currently, cannot compete with the more efficient and highly technologically-driven industries in Europe. One should add that the EPA which would open our markets to unfair competition from Europe, would despite the EU’s promises, turn Nigeria...

Africa’s increasing integration has been much talked about over the past couple of weeks. The progress displayed on this project is one for which Africa’s political leadership deserves praise, and is one of the most significant developments on the continent for many years. Africa’s cooperation efforts date back to 1963, but attempts to achieve this broad strategic objective have failed over the years. The signing of the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) deal by 44 of the African Union’s 55 member states marks a watershed moment for African integration. With the dream of an interconnected Africa now closer than ever before, the continent could welcome new economic opportunities in the coming decade. However, the fragmentation of the African market remains its most significant challenge.  Transportation and communication costs are high when compared to other markets such as China, Europe, or the US. These high costs are holding back the development of integrated supply chains throughout the continent. Africa is headed in the right direction though, with initiatives such as the recent common air transport market, which could drive down airfares, as well as plans for visa-free travel for Africans across the continent. Infrastructure in Africa is just beginning to develop. Ambitious schemes like the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia-Transport Corridor Project (LAPSSET) in Kenya are what the continent needs. LAPSSET is an attempt to build a transport and logistics hub which would cement Kenya as a gateway to the East African sub-region. The rail network is growing quickly, though only within the...

The African Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) agreement was signed by 44 countries on March 22, committing them to remove tariffs on 90 per cent of imports. This according to Renaissance Capital is expected to improve intra-regional trade which stands at 20 per cent in Africa vs 62 per cent between advanced economies. Meanwhile, of Africa’s regional blocs, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has the highest intra-regional trade at 23 per cent. The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) has the lowest at 8 per cent, albeit up from 4 per cent in 2000. RenCap found that the blocs with higher intra-regional trade – SADC and the East Africa Community (EAC), albeit a far second at 10 per cent – have diversified exports and the advantage of having member states that are geographically close. It said that COMESA’s export diversity is undermined by the fact that member states are geographically distant (Swaziland to Egypt). The bloc with the lowest export diversity is the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). RenCap attributed this to the dominance of commodities (crude oil, cocoa, gold) that are exported to offshore processing facilities. However, Dangote Cement’s plan to export 3mnt pa of clinker (c. 17 per cent of its Nigerian production) from 4Q18 could see intra-ECOWAS trade improve from 9 per cent. Intra-regional trade is a growing African story According to RenCap, compared with other regions of the world, trade between African countries is low because several countries export the same...