Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) through the Uganda Communications Universal Services and Access Fund (UCUSAF) last week launched a call for proposals on how to enhance ICT adoption through digital literacy for rural border communities. The successful applicant will partner with UCC/UCUSAF to implement key activities under a general thematic area of addressing the digital divide amongst 12 rural border communities. The key project action is conducting digital literacy training for up to 2,400 community members (minimum of 200 inhabitants per location) around the border district areas of Kyanika, Oraba, Kagitumba, Mutukula, Vurra, Malaba, Elegu, Bunagana, Busia, Katuna, Mpondwe and Lwakhakha. The successful partner will also be required to conduct a baseline survey on the use of ICTs in the selected border locations. Project objectives To bridge the digital divide and foster digital citizenship To empower communities and make them digitally literate To facilitate utilization of citizen services through digital means To create learning interest To improve life skills To improve employment opportunities and entrepreneurship Background According to UCC, COVID-19 and the social distancing measures implemented to curb the spread of the pandemic, including the urgent need to digitalise work, education, and trade, have rendered digital literacy skills more essential. Greater demand for digital services has exposed the digital divide – the uneven access to and distribution of ICTs in communities. Among the rural population of Uganda, the Commission stated, the adoption of digital skills has previously been left out of public discourse, relegated to the periphery by the disproportional focus...

The African Development Bank (AfDB), which sets its primary tasks of contributing to the continent’s economic and social development by providing the necessary concessional funding for projects and programmes, as well as offering and coordinating assistance in capacity-building activities, has now embarked on various post-COVID-19 initiatives throughout the continent, especially in the least developed African countries. In the latest was the mid-March event where potential investors have examined more than $50 billion of curated bankable projects in key priority sectors identified in the Africa Investment Forum’s 2020 Unified Response to COVID-19 initiative. The sectors include agriculture and agro-processing; education; energy and climate; healthcare; minerals and mining; information and communications technology and telecommunication; and industrialization and trade. Nine of these projects are women-led, with a potential value of $5 billion. The AfDB has secured $32.8 billion in investment commitments for projects in Africa. The largest deal secured at the three-day Africa Investment Forum was $15.6 billion for the Lagos-Abidjan mega highway of about 1,200 km (745 miles) will have four to six lanes, connecting West Africa’s two major cities in Nigeria and Ivory Coast, said AfDB President, Mr Akinwumi Adesina. “Africa is a very bankable continent. We’ve gone through hard times because of the Covid-19 situation but here we are on a rebound,” said Adesina. “Africa is back for investments.” The projects, part of the bank’s Covid-19 response, touch on sectors including agriculture and agro-processing, education, energy and climate, healthcare, minerals and mining, and information and communications technology. Adesina said that...

If the world is to achieve the 2030 development goals, African countries must institute government-backed efforts to switch to the sustainable Circular Economy model of production/consumption. The circular economy is a model of sustainable production and consumption that shifts economic growth from resource consumption to more sustainable approaches. For example, the Circular economy demands designing products for longer use and ease of repair rather than consumption, a profit-oriented approach that produces short life products to force resell. Economy experts describe the circular economy model as a new paradigm for business that aims to achieve economic growth through new sustainable business models. There are various factors that influence the transition to the circular economy including market awareness, behaviour change, greater access to data and regularization of informal activities. For the circular economy to work, it requires rational practices by all parties of any given product value chains, from producers all the way to the consumer, all are responsible. In this regard, multinational companies (MNCs) are key because they have long value chains including their suppliers, consumers, and even financial and government institutions. To meet global circularity goals, as articulated in Sustainable Goal Number 12 'Responsible Production and Consumption,' circular economy principles require extremely close cooperation between the MNCs and Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) suppliers who are mostly in developing countries. However, the trouble is that SMEs are reluctant to switch from Linear economy models because they are profitable in the short run. To ensure this noble goal is met, there...

The East African Business Council (EABC) is pushing for a review of the EAC protocols to transform the EAC Secretariat from a coordinating body to an enforcement agency, to make the entity more relevant. This is because many resolutions are made at different levels of the community up to the heads of states summit, but only the willing partner states implement them, while those violating the resolutions cannot be forced or penalized. This is evident in the failure by the EAC to fully implement the harmonization of tax policies, as well as the persistence of non-tariff barriers, because countries put national policies before the demands of regional integration. These have also seen outright confrontation between countries with some unilaterally closing their borders to neighbours. This is part of the demands the region’s private sector wants handled by the next Heads of States Summit. John Bosco Rusagara, the EABC Board Director recommended for the institutional review of the functions of the EAC Secretariat via elevating its role from coordination to enforcement by transforming the EAC Secretariat into a Commission. The business leaders also condemned the government in the region for doing little to cut the cost of doing business. “EAC Partner States should fully operationalize the EAC Single Customs Territory and adopt technology to transform our EAC region to be borderless for goods and services! The Partner States should work towards to bringing down East African borders for trade to flourish,” said EABC Chairman Nicholas Nesbitt. Speaking at a dialogue on...

7TH PIDA WEEK: Implement SAATM agreement to lower cost African leaders have been urged to urgently implement the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM) agreement, in order to lower the costs of air transport in Africa and in turn boost development. Speaking in Nairobi, Kenya, at the 7th Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) week, EAC Secretary General Dr Peter Mathuki stated that air cargo currently accounts for only 2% of the global air cargo adding that air transport remains out of reach for both passenger and cargo haulage due to high associated costs. “These costs can be brought down if we have political commitment to implement the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM) agreement,” he noted. The Secretary-General noted that the region continues to ramp up investments in infrastructure to narrow the infrastructure gap and enhance intermodal connectivity. “These investments have yielded impressive results; for instance, the transit time from Mombasa to Kampala has improved from 20 days in 2010 to an average of 6 days in 2021, with a resultant cost reduction from US$3,500 in 2010 to US$2,200 in 2021,” he noted. The Secretary-General hailed African leaders for prioritizing investment in One-Stop Border Posts (OSBPs), which have facilitated transboundary trade by enhancing border crossing efficiency. “The use of technology at OSBPs has improved sharing and exchange of information among agencies, enhanced border security, reduced processing times at the border transit times for traders and transporters, and enhanced the reliability of the supply chain through streamlined and harmonised...

LAPSSET key in Africa’s Integration Agenda The Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia-Transport (LAPSSET) Corridor Program and free trade agreements have immensely contributed to the African integration agenda by bringing opportunities closer and reducing regional tensions. The remark was made by Silvester Kasuku, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), of the African Center for Transport, Infrastructure and Regional Integration (ACTIRI) and former CEO of LAPSSET Authority, in Nairobi on Tuesday during the sideline of the 7th Program for Infrastructure Development in Africa, (PIDA) Week under the theme "The investment potentials of the LAPSSET Land Bridge to Central Africa and beyond. The LAPSSET Corridor Program is a regional flagship project intended to provide transport and logistics infrastructure aimed at creating seamless connectivity between the Eastern African Countries of Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan. The project connects a population of 160 million people in the three countries and is part of the larger land bridge that will connect the East African coast from Lamu Port to the West coast of Africa at Douala Port. According to Kasuku infrastructure projects like the LAPSSET corridor project which is Eastern Africa’s largest and most ambitious infrastructure project is key not only for Kenya, but the whole region as a whole. He added that the project forges linkages that strengthen East Africa’s regional integration thus creating the new basis needed for economic growth. While emphasising the project’s unique importance, he said the road has improved connectedness between Kenya, Ethiopia and South Sudan thus generating positive economic synergy between the three...

The Government of Kenya has lifted the mandatory presentation of negative Covid-19 results requirement for its heavy goods truck drivers and appealed to the EAC partner states to follow suit. The resolution was communicated by Kenya Transport Association to its members after the Kenyan cabinet meeting on Friday, a development which was warmly welcomed by East African transport companies and drivers. “To the EAC secretariat, the ministers of health- Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, DRC, South Sudan and Tanzania, we thank the government of Kenya for removing the mandatory requirement of negative Covid-19 test results for fully vaccinated truck drivers entering Kenya,” reads part of the statement by KTA to its members. According to KTA, the government of Kenya has given its reasons for removing this requirement and believes that the basic parameters observed in Kenya in relation to the current Covid-19 pandemic situation are being replicated in the East African community region. Mr Newton Wang’oo’, the chairman of the transport association of Kenya welcomed the lift pointing out that the EAC governments have always worked with harmonised Covid-19 protocols to facilitate uniform requirements when drivers cross the borders to deliver essential goods in the region. “We therefore, respectively ask the EAC countries to vacate the mandatory requirement to present a negative Covid-19 test result for all fully vaccinated truck drivers crossing all borders in the EAC region,” he said Reports indicate that a total of 42,344 trucks crossed into Uganda from Kenya and 37, 769 trucks crossed into Kenya from Uganda...

AFRICA Country Business Index (ACBI) has called on African countries to ratify and sign important agreements to promote trade and investment in the continent. According to ACBI recommendations from the study conducted in seven African countries show that they performed better in awareness and use of free trade areas followed by a commercial environment. This was revealed on Tuesday in Arusha by the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and ACBI report that surveyed businesses in Angola, Cote d'Ivoire, Gabon, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria and South Africa. Some of the agreements that African countries were advised to ratify are namely African Aviation Market, People's Free Movement protocols, Copyright and Electronic Trade. Speaking at the Webinar on Primer for the AfCFTA Country Business Index report that was organized by Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the Executive Director, East African Business Council (EABC) Mr John Kalisa said, there is a need for flexible and clear predictable rules of origin for business to benefit from AfCFTA. He also elaborated that the Rules of Origin consists of three broad dimensions as the first is the Good Restrictiveness and Costs, AfCFTA Knowledge and Commercial Environment in particular domestic environment related to services and other new generation issues under negotiation in the AfCFTA. Mr Kalisa further explained that intra-regional trade is sliding back below 20 per cent due to persistent tariff and Non-Tariff Barriers imposed on both large and micro small medium enterprises. He also recommended the sensitization campaigns on the AfCFTA, harmonization of standards and sanitary...

In Summary KRA reported that it had raised over 1 trillion shillings in the first seven months. This is 28.8 per cent above the revenue collected by KRA within the same 7-month period in the last financial year. Last month, the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) reported that it had raised over 1 trillion shillings in the first seven months of the 2021/2022 Financial year. The results showed that KRA is continuing with its impressive post-COVID recovery strategy as it remains on course towards surpassing its revenue target for the Financial year with five months to go. This is 28.8 per cent above the revenue collected by KRA within the same 7-month period in the last financial year. The January revenue alone increased by 28.3 per cent from 142.8 billion shillings compared to 111.3 billion shillings in the same period last financial year. This is an indication that this year’s revenue could increase at a higher rate in a very long time. One of the areas of its operations credited with the improved revenue collection is the use of enhanced technology in Customs operations, especially cargo scanning. This has strengthened multi-agency collaborations to deter smuggling at the border points leading not only to improved revenue collection but also tighter border security. KRA, working alongside other border agencies including the Immigration Department, Port Health Services, Border Police Patrol Unit, Kenya Bureau of Standards and Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service, now boast of better inter-agency collaborations. They also enjoy seamless operations, faster clearance...

Ghana has several opportunities for investors including abundant raw materials including gold, cocoa, and oil/gas It however faces several challenges that hinder foreign direct investment, among them costly and difficult financial services and lack of government transparency Low-cost labour, a national airline with well over 100 passenger connections and growing consumer markets are key elements attracting foreign investment into Ethiopia Companies often face long lead-times importing goods and dispatching exports due to logistical bottlenecks, corruption, high land-transportation costs, and bureaucratic delays Ghana remains a favourable investment destination in Africa in 2022, despite the impact of the challenges the economy faces including the COVID-19 pandemic. Data by the US Department of State indicates that the economy has continued to rebound from the negative impact of the virus, and has made attracting foreign direct investment a priority. The economy has expanded at an average of 7 per cent since 2017 to 2020, but reduced progress amid the pandemic to only register 0.9 per cent. In 2021, the IMF said the country’s growth would rebound to 4.6 per cent in 2021 from the shocks of COVID-19, as a result of improved port activity, construction, imports, manufacturing, and credit to the private sector. “In general, Ghana’s investment prospects remain favorable, as the Government seeks to diversify and industrialize through agro-processing, mining, and manufacturing,” the Department said. Pros of doing business in Ghana  According to available data, Ghana has several opportunities for investors. These include abundant raw materials including gold, cocoa, and oil/gas. The country...