The launch of the new Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) last week provides an excellent opportunity to reset the UK’s economic engagement with low- and middle-income countries. As the new department takes shape, it is crucial to consider the stated benefits of bringing development and diplomacy together through this merger of the Department for International Development (DFID) and the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO). One area in which the benefits could be large and visible is economic development, but so far there has been little attention to the role of the FCDO as an economics ministry. This is perhaps surprising: DFID is rightly proud of its recent experience in managing economic development programmes such as Trademark East Africa and Nepal’s Economic Policy Incubator. A new set of essays, published last week by ODI, considers 10 ways the experience of the FCO and DFID could underpin economic policy in the FCDO. Ten new opportunities for the FCDO The essays offer 10 economic development proposals for an imaginative new approach to capitalise on mutual interest and help achieve development goals. They are: 1. Publish a coherent UK–Africa strategy This must help to reinvigorate UK-Africa trade and investment relationships following a decade of stagnation, during which time Africa has stepped up engagement with other parts of the world. Leaving the EU means the UK needs to consider new trading arrangements with African countries, which are set to integrate through the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA). The UK-Africa Investment Summit in January also needs follow up. It is time for an ambitious Africa strategy. 2....

The Kigali International Arbitration Centre (KIAC) received 33 cases from July 2019 to June this year, highlighting yet another milestone for the dispute settlement institution. The record included three emergency arbitration cases, according to KIAC. Beyond Rwanda, the cases registered in the year 2019/20 came from eight countries including India, Singapore, Egypt, China, Kenya and France. Overall, 67 per cent of the new cases were domestic in nature while 33 per cent were international. KIAC says the increase in international cases is a statement of confidence that Rwanda is playing a key role in positioning Africa on the market of international arbitration, as well as its global appeal to users from diverse legal systems and cultures. Launched in 2012, KIAC was established by the Rwanda Private Sector Federation (PSF) in partnership with the government. Since then, about 160 cases have been submitted to the centre missioned to do commercial justice by the use of arbitration and other alternative dispute resolutions such as mediation and adjudication. The biennial 2020 SOAS Arbitration in Africa Survey Report ranks KIAC amongst the top three arbitration centres that were chosen in Africa. This, KIAC says, confirms that fact that it is now one of the leading arbitration institutions in Africa providing ADR services in both national and international contexts. KIAC administers cases under its arbitration rules and those of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) arbitration. The Secretary General of KIAC, Fidele Masengo, said the centre has achieved a "milestone". "When we...

...Lauds JPM for keeping economy open amid Covid-19 THE East African Business Council (EABC) has called for a deeper collaboration between the Public and Private sectors to boost East African Community (EAC) intra-trade. Also, the council has lauded President John Magufuli for a job well done, especially in spearheading major economic reforms in the country. Amid the global economic disruptions caused by the Coronavirus pandemic, EAC private sector wants to steer better relations as a strategy to boost trade and investment in the region. The leaders noted that the decision by President Magufuli to keep the economy open, offered the private sector a major relief in terms of business resilience as it also strengthened local supply chains. EABC Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Dr Peter Mathuki said that is the spirit for the region - both public and private sector to move forward and business to prosper. It came about after consultations of CEOs at a roundtable meeting organized by the EABC in collaboration with German Development Agency (GIZ) with a theme 'Creating Perspectives Project', convening companies' CEOs with an aim of deliberating on approaches that the private sector can explore to revamp businesses amid the pandemic. Tanzania took absolutely a different approach in dealing with Covid-19, by President Magufuli who seeks a second term in office led the nation in style, by ruling out lockdown, letting business go on but with taking reasonable protective measures and it paid handsomely. In spite of the situation in the bloc, Africa and world...

Uganda has condemned the continued use of non-tariff barriers by her East African Community neighbors despite several petitions, saying it beats the purpose for which the community was created. Uganda has for long felt that her neighbors, mainly Kenya, Rwanda, and Tanzania keep backtracking when it comes to implementing the free trade treaties that govern the EAC bloc. Recently, sugar exports to Tanzania have been blocked and returned to Uganda, while Kenya has often blocked Uganda’s sugar, poultry, and dairy products. And in all instances, exporters say, there are no proper reasons given The Assistant Commissioner for Regional and Bilateral Division External Trade at the Ministry of Trade, Richard Okot Okello, says there must be renewed efforts to remove all barriers if intra-regional trade is to be revamped. He was speaking at an online regional symposium on the effects of Covid-19 on women’s economic empowerment in East Africa, organized by the Eastern African Sub-Regional Support Initiative, EASSI. Okot-Okello says regional countries have persistently put nationalist and protective measures above the regional mechanisms that were put in place to enhance regional integration. On her part, Dr Juliet Wakaisuka, a lecturer at Makerere University Business School, expressed worry that in all the support and economic recovery programs, the special plight of women is not being given special attention. She calls for affirmative action like helping women entrepreneurs formalize their business, and supporting them to adapt fully to the digital-based environment. The Commercial Attache at the Kenyan Embassy in Uganda Robert Okoth said...

With three of the eight candidates to become the next leader of the World Trade Organization (WTO) coming from Africa, BBC Africa business editor Zawadi Mudibo looks at what difference having one of them at the helm would make for the continent. There is a growing feeling among African diplomats that someone from the continent should be at the helm of one of the world's top economic institutions. Whereas an American has always led the World Bank and a European has always been at the head of the International Monetary Fund, an African has never taken an equivalent position. But if one from Nigeria's Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Kenya's Amina Mohamed or Egypt's Abdel-Hamid Mamdouh emerges from the long selection process as the WTO's next director-general, the continent can feel that it is playing in the same league as the rest of the world. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="976"] IMAGE COPYRIGHTGETTY IMAGES: image captionGarment factories, like this one in Kenya, could benefit if trade opened up[/caption] The WTO sets the rules for global trade and adjudicates in trade disputes between nations. It is also, according to its website, supposed to "open trade for the benefit of all". The Geneva-based organisation's ability to get global agreements of basic principles that every country signs up to has been hamstrung in recent years but the WTO leader has influence and a bully pulpit. The director-general attends G7 and G20 meeting and can broker disputes between world leaders. But is there more to be gained for the...

According to the African Union, in order to get maximum benefit of the arrangement as a country, we need to work on minimising or eliminating non-tariff barriers altogether. The Africa Continental Free Trade Area (ACFTA) was supposed to be launched at the beginning of July, but due to the coronavirus crisis, this has been pushed back to January next year. ACFTA will liberalise the movement of goods, services and people throughout the continent which is an important ingredient for the transformation of Africa's people. A major challenge for Africa is that it does more trade with the outside world than it does within itself. This is a historical arrangement that was set in place by the colonialists. Trade between African countries accounts for 15% of all trade done by the continent. This is woefully small compared to Asia's 58% or the European Union's 75%. Being the major markets for our products means the former colonial powers can set the price of our coffee, tea, cotton and even gold. Increasing trade within the continent will break this monopoly market, create greater interdependence between our countries and unlock the vast potential of our continent. It will also make us a more attractive investment destination, aid in technology transfer and in so doing reduce poverty and aid the transformation of our countries. We have evidence here at home of how through the opening of regional markets, the East African Community (EAC) has boosted our farmers' production of grain. Imagine if the same concept...

COVID-19’s dire short-term economic consequences have the potential to act as a catalyst for much needed change for SEZs across Africa. Many marginal Special Economic Zones (SEZ) programs, which were already underutilized prior to the pandemic, may fail. This will create room for new and better projects with a focus on knowledge transfer and long-term investment. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) expects world trade to fall by 13-32% in 2020. Statistics from the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) World Economic Outlook Database suggest that Africa’s exports represent an estimated 2.6% of total world exports in 2018. According to this data, this would mean a 2020 loss of export earnings for the African continent of more than $500 billion.[1] Additionally, logistics bottlenecks related to lockdowns and quarantines have significantly increased the costs of doing business in Africa. Large economies such as South Africa and Nigeria will suffer the most from this chokepoint in trade competitiveness. Certain growing economies, such as Rwanda and others, may successfully use SEZs to benefit from COVID-19. African economies dependent on international Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) flow will have to now rely on their local neighbours for trade. A combination of factors will cause international FDI flows to continue slowing down. COVID-19, commodity and tariff trade wars, as well as US military withdrawal worldwide will decrease international trade.[2] UNCTAD’s report outlines that 2019 was one of the worst years for African FDI in the past 15 years. View source. This is problematic because intra-regional trade among African countries only...

International trade and investment have always relied on the cross-border mobility of individuals. Transporting goods across borders involves humans, and will do so for the foreseeable future despite important technological advances. In addition, face-to-face contact continues to play a critical role in addressing some of the information and transaction costs involved in trading goods internationally. Physical proximity between producers and consumers is essential for many types of services trade. In some instances, this proximity is achieved when individuals cross international borders. Indeed, the temporary cross-border movement of natural persons is one of the four modes (i.e. mode-4) through which services may be traded in the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), while services purchased abroad by consumers is another (mode-2). Individual mobility is also a factor beyond these two modes, since business travel is frequently part of services provision through the establishment of a commercial presence abroad (mode-3) or remotely, for instance online (mode-1). Indeed, the modes of supplying services are often bundled, with varying degrees of substitutability amongst them. In this sense, human mobility constitutes services trade in its own right, while also enabling trade in goods and other services. With the objective of containing the Covid-19 pandemic, governments around the world have imposed temporary travel or immigration restrictions, which have severely restricted the cross- border movement of individuals. While these mobility-related measures are not motivated by trade considerations, but by public health reasons, they have a significant impact on trade. Perhaps paradoxically, this has brought into sharper...

In the Business Think Tank today, Smart24 TV’s Kamweya Tushabe will encourage our panel of experts to talk about the ‘Economic Contribution of Women in Informal Cross-border Trading’. The panelists are: Jane Nalunga, the executive director of SEATINI Jacob Siminyu, the spokesperson of the ministry of Internal Affairs Connie Kihembo, the CEO of Uganda Women Entrepreneurs Association Limited (UWEAL) Sarah Jesca Agwang, programme coordinator (Women’s Economic Justice and Empowerment) at Uganda Women’s Network (UWONET) Sheila Kawamara, the chief executive of EASSI ( The Eastern African Sub-Regional Support Initiative for the Advancement of Women. Follow this link to watch the event live Before Covid-19, Uganda enjoyed a booming cross-border informal trade, 80% of which was being done by women as their sole source of income. Research by the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD), (2018) notes that informal cross-border trade is still rampant at over 40% of all intra-regional trade Over the past decade, increasing the participation of women in cross-border trade has been a key focus area for stakeholders in trade, including the Government, through the ministries of trade and the East African Community affairs and development partners, including TradeMark Africa (TMA), USAID and the Eastern African Sub Regional Support Initiative for the Advancement of Women. Policies have been instituted to increase the participation of informal cross-border women traders to boost their incomes, improve living standards, and contribute to the country’s overall economic development. Data from the Bank of Uganda (BOU) indicates that informal cross-border exports fetched the country...

Unlike anything before it, the Covid-19 pandemic has underlined the importance of harmonising legislation governing the transport of goods across borders. This was the message from all four speakers at the second webinar hosted by the Southern African Transport Conference (SATC) earlier this month. The webinar explored Covid-19’s impact on freight and logistics, and was addressed by Transnet group chief executive Portia Derby, TradeMark Africa senior director of transport Abhishek Sharma, and International Road Transport Union senior advisors Jens Hügel and Kazeem Asayesh. The view of every speaker was that harmonising the legislation that governs cross-border good transit would bolster economies by reducing transport and warehousing costs, and thus increase individual countries’ resilience in the face of economic crises. Sub-Saharan Africa had taken several hard knocks due to the pandemic, which had caused significant supply chain disruptions that had led to shortages of vital commodities such as food and medicines, said Sharma. “The sub-Saharan region is not the only one to feel the negative effects of the pandemic on freight and logistics,” said Hügel. The IRU is a global road transport organisation representing companies that provide transport, mobility and logistics services in more than 80 countries across the world. Globally, movement restrictions, health screening, and border controls and closures – put in place to ward off the virus that caused Covid-19 – had led to an estimated 18% average decline in annual turnover for goods transported by road, Hügel said. The Asia-Pacific and Middle East-North Africa regions are the worst...