Africa lags behind in the international trade of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) goods earning just a small percentage from the lucrative sector. The continent’s share of the USD 2.1 trillion in 2017 remained negligible despite the demand for electronic components used in Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices driving the value of trade in international ICT goods in 2017. According to figures released by UNCTAD, trade in ICT goods grew slightly faster than merchandise trade representing 13.4 per cent of the total in 2017. The Global ICT Trade Indicators. Africa still lags behind importing more than it exports. The global market however shrunk from the 16.1 per cent high during the dot-com boom in 2000 but it remained the highest in two years. By comparison, in 2017 machinery and transport equipment accounted for 37 per cent and food for 8 per cent of merchandise imports. “This is the first time that global ICT goods imports have rebounded since 2014, showing a good 6 per cent annual growth and bringing a reprieve to the past two years of decline,” Shamika Sirimanne, Director of the Technology and Logistics Division at UNCTAD, said. Among ICT products, trade in electronic components continued to expand with an annual growth rate of 8 per cent – just below that of computers and consumer electronics (9 per cent) – and it shows long-term, steady growth. “The expansion of electronic components, which are the basic building blocks of electronic circuits and semiconductors, reflects the fact that more and more products...

On a trip to East Africa last week, a beaming French President Emmanuel Macron was driven through the grounds of the Kenyan president’s official residence in a locally assembled Peugeot 3008 car. Two days earlier, he toured churches hewn into the rock in Ethiopia. On a visit last year, he went to a Nigerian nightclub. Macron, 41, is trying to recast the style of France’s engagement in Africa, where it was once a colonial power, hoping that building warmer cultural and personal ties will help boost business, trade and investment. He signed contracts worth about €2 billion ($2.27 billion) while in Kenya, whereas British Prime Minister Theresa May did not conclude any on a similar trip last August. A consortium led by Vinci secured a 30-year concession worth €1.6 billion to operate a highway linking the Kenyan capital and Mau Summit in western Kenya. Renewables firm Voltalia sealed a €70 million contract for a solar power plant and an Airbus-led consortium won a €200 million deal for coastal and maritime surveillance. But Macron’s four-day tour of Kenya, Ethiopia and former colony Djibouti showed how big a battle France faces in Africa, where China, Turkey and others have moved in quickly and aggressively, and competition is fierce from African countries. In 2017, French exports to Kenya, a former British colony, were about $200 million — about half Uganda’s exports to its neighbor. China exported $3.8 billion, making it Kenya’s biggest trading partner. The personal touch is vital when competing with China,...

Ethiopia’s parliament on Thursday approved the membership of the country into the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), bringing the number of ratifications across the continent to 21. The African Union Commissioner for Trade and Industry, Albert Muchanga took to Twitter to celebrate the news, describing the decision as timely and historic. ‘‘One more parliamentary approval and we move towards launch of the operational phase of AfCFTA,’‘ read part of Muchanga’s tweet. While up to 44 African countries enacted the AfCFTA last year in Rwanda, 22 ratifications are required to effectively bring the agreement into force. Once in force AfCFTA will be the largest trade zone in the world, increase intra-African trade by 52% by the year 2022, remove tariffs on 90% of goods, liberalise services and tackle other barriers to intra-African trade, such as long delays at border posts. Source: Africa news

A majority of African countries collect only about 16 percent of their GDP in taxes undermining their capacity to fund development projects. South Africa and Rwanda are some of the few countries that have been able to leverage new technologies to expand revenue collection to at least 25 percent. Ms Vera Songwe, the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) executive secretary, said the ability to increase revenue collection is key to the continent’s capacity to finance its own development, in particular Agenda 2030 for sustainable development and Africa’s Agenda 2063. She was speaking at the opening session of the 38th meeting of the Committee of Experts of the Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development in Marrakesh, Morocco on Thursday. “The potential of Africa is, and has always been, promising. With a growing working-age population; abundant arable land and a multitude of other resources, the continent has all the pre-requisites for rapid economic transformation in the next decade,” she said. “However, ensuring the availability of adequate public resources and quality investments to drive structural change requires responsive policies that promote fiscal sustainability, optimise returns from economic activity, and enable economies to fully participate in an increasingly interconnected and globalised world.” At the conference, delegates are expected to discuss modalities of how to better finance Africa’s growth and ways to ensure that the young populations participate in the economies. Adam Elhiraika, the director of the macroeconomics and governance at ECA said African countries greatly needs policies to diversify...

Just when poverty-reduction efforts around the world were already slowing, recent forecasts indicate that the global economy is heading into a period of deepening uncertainty. That makes measures to boost growth and expand economic opportunity all the more urgent – which is why revitalising trade must be high on the global policy agenda. The evidence is clear: as an engine of economic growth and a critical tool for combating poverty, trade works. With today’s trade tensions, it is easy to lose sight of the progress the world has made over the past few decades of economic integration. Since 1990, more than one billion people have lifted themselves out of poverty, owing to growth that was underpinned by trade. And today, countries are trading more and deepening economic ties even faster than in past decades. There are currently more than 280 trade agreements in place around the world, compared to just 50 in 1990. Back then, trade as a share of global GDP was around 38%; in 2017, it had reached 71%. Open trade is particularly beneficial to the poor, because it reduces the cost of what they buy and raises the price of what they sell. As new research from the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation makes clear, farmers and manufacturing workers earn more income when their products can reach overseas markets. In Vietnam, for example, a series of trade reforms in the 1980s and 1990s helped transform the country into an export powerhouse, sharply reducing poverty there....

Kenya and Tanzanian wildlife conservation agencies are banking on closer collaboration to help curb illegal wildlife trade across the border. Speaking at the Voyager Beach Resort, Mombasa County, Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) Coast Conservation Area Assistant Director, Dr Arthur Tuda said that poachers and traffickers in illegal wildlife products have been devising ways to conceal wildlife products and defeat detection as they go about their illegal activities. He said that some of the most traded wildlife products lately include Pangolin scales which find favourable markets in the Far East nations and which are mostly sought after for use in black magic, tortoises, elephant tusks, sandal wood, reptiles, snakes including other flora species. The three day Kenya- Tanzania Coastal cross border enforcement training programme has brought together expects drawn from the immigration department, Kenya Revenue Authority, Tanzania Revenue Authority, officials from Tanzania Ministry of Natural Resources and Wildlife and Police to discuss how wildlife crime has evolved in the 21st century touching on wildlife crime trends. The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) is supporting the workshop. ''As IFAW ,we facilitate this kind of workshop  where different government agencies meet together  as we seek to enhance skills  and knowledge on how to combat  illegal cross border trade on wildlife and wildlife products,'' Mr Steve Njumbi, Head of Programmes  IFAW East Africa said. Njumbi added that the coming together of personnel from the different concerned agencies will leads to networking that makes it ideal to fight the menace at hand. ''I am confident that at the end of workshop, participants shall be able to demonstrate knowledge and skills acquired on the subject matter so as to make it easier in their day to day work,'' he said. He added that once...

Sudan and South Sudan have agreed to open the border crossing points agreed between the countries within a month besides activating the Safe Demilitarized Border Zone (SDBZ). The agreement came during the meeting of the Joint Political and Security Committee (JPSC) between the two countries on Monday in Khartoum. In press statements following the meeting, Sudan Army’s Chief of General Staff Kamal Abdel-Marouf said the meeting also agreed to form joint teams under the auspices of UNISFA to ensure none presence of military forces from both countries on the SBDZ. Abdel-Marouf, who headed the Sudanese side during the meeting, said the agreement reached reflects the strong will of both countries, pointing out that they look forward to taking further measures to achieve the interests of the two peoples. For his part, South Sudan’s defence minister Kuol Manyang Juuk stressed his country’s keenness to implement all measures pertaining to the opening of the crossing points and the SDBZ. He said the opening of the crossing points would enhance relations and promotes security and stability in the two countries, pointing to its economic importance particularly in light of the difficult economic situation in both countries. In May 2017, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) decided to reduce UNISFA troops and warned it may withdraw its support to the Sudan-South Sudan border monitoring force if they continue to impede the activation of the operation. The buffer zone and other security arrangements have been agreed since September 2012 but its operationalization had been stopped...

Tanzanians have theorised on leadership, and the country has several leadership training schools. But, they are mainly based on the East/West divide of the Cold War days, whereby they produce loyal ruling party apparatchiks. Of course, there is nothing really wrong with that. The problem that Tanzanians face in this digital era is that the challenges have become much more than how people can be whipped into toeing the political party line and salute the party hierarchy. We are faced with an overwhelming youth numbers; youth who have had education, with some of them attaining varsity degrees –never mind the quality or relevance of the degrees to today’s market needs. It boggles the mind why so many of our problems refuse to go away and, instead, seem to multiply when we have so many degree holders walking around with dog-eared brown envelopes. Indeed, quite a number of them have lost hope of ever finding gainful employment. It is a sign of failure of our education system... But that’s another story. The mchakamchaka-type of training leaders was relevant for about 40 years post-independence. Today, while we still need good leaderships, these have been turned topsy-turvy by global changes that we can do nothing about. We must adopt and adapt. The paradigm has shifted so much that the people we were training to lead a nation of workers and farmers today find themselves in an unreal situation where they are now led by their followers – in terms of feelings, desires and...

The importance of digitalisation and the digital economy in driving growth and structural transformation, as well as optimising fiscal performance in Africa cannot be overstated, economic experts have said. Vera Songwe, the Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), noted this while officially opening the 52nd session of the ECA Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, underway in Marrakech, Morocco The value of the global digital economy, she said, is estimated at over $11.5 trillion, set to rise to over $23 trillion by 2025. It is now estimated to represent 15.5 per cent of global GDP and is expected to reach 25 per cent of global GDP in less than a decade. Songwe said: “There has been a rise in the digital innovation hubs on the continent, such as the Silicon Savannah in Nairobi and the Kumasi Hive in Ghana, not to mention more solution-oriented technologies such as ‘Flutterwave.’” The Flutterwave application enabled global payment processing in Nigeria through a single, seamless platform. Last year, it processed $1 billion worth of transactions. Such digital developments, Songwe said, can have a transformative effect across the economy by reducing barriers to entry and expanding market reach for businesses, creating jobs, and boosting both domestic and foreign trade in goods and services. “Digital trade in Africa is rapidly growing at an estimated annual rate of 40 per cent, and is expected to constitute a growing share of trade, especially for intra-African trade.” Digital technology, she added,...

In November 2018, we were proud to organize the first ever Africa Trade Forum on the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) in Nigeria. The convening examined the role that the AfCFTA could play in securing brighter futures for its bulging population of over 1 billion. The Agreement commits countries to removing tariffs on 90 percent of goods, liberalizing services among African countries, and tackling so-called “non-tariff barriers” – such as long delays at the border – which hamper trade between African countries. AfCFTA has the potential to boost intra-African trade by over 50%. Underpinning the agreement is a belief that consolidating Africa into one trade area provides greater opportunities for businesses and consumers alike, and increases the chance to support sustainable development in the world’s least developed region. In fact, ECA estimates that the AfCFTA has the potential to boost intra-African trade by over 50%, which would have significant implications for wealth creation, employment and social infrastructure in education and health. Co-organized by the ECA and The Rockefeller Foundation in collaboration with the African Union Commission (AUC) and hosted by the Federal Government of Nigeria, the AfCFTA convening brought together and connected governments, advocates, corporations, NGOs and other civil society organizations — very much in the spirit of The Rockefeller Foundation’s pursuit of positive change around the world. With these values in mind, the Forum not only targeted policy makers and traditional influencers from across the continent but also included and gave voice to African citizens. This contributed to injecting...