Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo argues that African agriculture needs innovation and the youth. Every year, thousands of young Africans migrate from their families’ small, often struggling farms in the countryside. Their dream — sometimes fulfilled, often not — is to find a more rewarding and stimulating life in the continent’s rapidly growing cities. Few return but even fewer ever completely sever their ties. It’s a complicated connection and one I deeply understand. My own exodus to the city as a young man opened up lifetime opportunities that culminated in serving as president of Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy.  But not only did I retain my ties to agriculture, I have now returned to my roots.  I’m a farmer again — at Obasanjo Farms Limited — and I’ve never been happier. Working as a farmer once more has given me a better perspective on two of the biggest challenges facing Africa today: how do we provide employment opportunities to the millions of young Africans under 25 years of age so they can stay in the village and farm? And how do we put an end to the seemingly endless cycles of food crises that are, as I write, playing out again with dismaying familiarity in parts of eastern and southern Africa? US$1 trillion food market Fortunately, more and more Africans such as myself are seeing these issues as intertwined. We see agribusiness as Africa’s biggest opportunity to not only end hunger and malnutrition, but also as Africa’s best hope for generating...

The WTO has published its 2016 Annual Report covering the organization’s activities in 2015 and early 2016. The Report begins with a message from Director-General Roberto Azevêdo, who looks back at a memorable year for the WTO marked by the organization’s 20-year anniversary and the successful conclusion of the WTO’s Tenth Ministerial Conference in Nairobi. The opening section of the Report provides a brief overview of the past year, focusing on the WTO's major areas of activity. The second part provides more in-depth accounts of the WTO's work, covering trade negotiations, implementation of WTO agreements, trade monitoring, dispute settlement, support for developing countries and outreach activity. The Report includes a special focus on the major events of 2015: the 20th anniversary of the WTO; the Nairobi Ministerial Conference; the Fifth Global Review of Aid for Trade; the 2015 Public Forum; and the WTO’s Open Day. The Report is available as a printed publication and a PDF. An app of the report will soon be made available for viewing on tablets and smartphones. This will be available for download from the App Store, Google Play and Amazon. Source: WTO

For millions of Africans with no access to electricity, the old assumption was to wait for the grid to extend to rural areas in an election year. A new report by PwC however suggests that policymakers need to embrace the new renewable off-grid technologies and innovative business models to electrify the 634 million Africans by 2030. John Gibbs, Africa Deals Power & Utility Lead at PwC joins CNBC Africa to breakdown the findings of the report. Source: CNBC Africa

General Electric has partnered with Mara Group and Atlas Merchant Capital in an initiative dedicated to investing in the highly underdeveloped African infrastructure sector. The companies, through a statement, said the joint venture will seek to invest in infrastructure equity projects in selected countries throughout Africa. The region has a plethora of hurdles that need urgent address and they range from electrification, water storage, transportation and port capacity. “More than 50 per cent of our African nations including Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania and the DRC, don’t have access to electricity and an infrastructure investment of US$360bn in power production, power transmission, water storage, modern railways, port capacity and modern highways will be required until 2040,” said the statement. “Furthermore, Africa needs to spend $90 billion a year for the next decade in order to upgrade and maintain its existing infrastructure alone.” Africa's population is set to rise to 1.5 billion by 2025 and the surge will bring with it a strain to the current infrastructure. “Africa presents high growth prospects in power generation, transport, oil and gas and other infrastructure areas including mining,” read the statement. “The joint venture will focus on this broad set of segments by facilitating access to capital, thus offering the ability to execute and fully finance both advanced and early development stage projects.” President and CEO of GE Africa, Jay Ireland, said the venture unifies three businesses with a strong commitment and expertise in infrastructure in Africa. The joint venture is our response to an...

A former vice chairman of the East African business council has been elected chairman during the council’s annual general meeting held in Nairobi, Kenya. The new chair, Econie Nijembere, who is also the chairman of Burundi federal chamber of commerce and industry, will now oversee the council’s general activities for one year, taking over from Rwandan Dennis Kerera who was chair over the 2015/2016 period. During the annual general meeting, the new chairman announced the increment of membership services by 20% as one of his key agendas. Source: Standard Media

The East African Community has unveiled its budget with a 20.2 per cent reduction in donor dependency and 8.4 per cent cut in spending. In the $101.4 million budget estimates for the 2016/17 fiscal year, the bloc reduced expenditure by $9.3 million and slashed the donor aid target by $11.8 million. The budget for the year ending June 30, 2016 was $110.7 million. EAC Secretary-General Liberat Mfumukeko termed it the most efficient budget, reflecting the austerity measures ordered by the EAC Heads of State. But critics termed the cuts contradictory in the face of expanding regional programmes among the six member countries. “The EAC membership has expanded, meaning more expenditure in executing programmes and projects, but the budget reflects a sharp slash,” said East African Legislative Assembly member Abdullah Mwinyi of Tanzania. South Sudan was admitted into the EAC by the 17th EAC Summit and the signing of the Treaty of Accession on April 15. Juba is expected to submit the instruments of ratification to the Secretary General before the end of the year. The Secretariat has been tasked with putting in place mechanisms that will facilitate the follow-up on the ratification by South Sudan, and develop a roadmap for the subsequent processes that are required to integrate Juba fully into the EAC’s programmes, projects and processes. All these processes, understandably, will result in an increase in expenditure. Tabling the budget, Tanzania’s deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs and East African Co-operation Susan Kolimba said input from development partners would drop...

Our continent is undergoing an unprecedented and rapid transformation. Some of the world’s fastest growing economies are in Africa. Our cities and our populations are exploding. The “wild” side of Africa is changing as new infrastructure to accommodate this boon, as well as increased regional and global trade, are transforming urban and rural areas. In this, many are writing the first chapters of Africa’s rise. But are we seeing the full story? Climate change, population growth, increased water demand and environmental degradation are all putting pressure on our freshwater resources. In a number of African countries, demand for water outstrips available resources. More than half of Africa’s population still relies on forests for their livelihood yet the continent lost 3.4 million hectares of forest per year between 2000 and 2010 to human activities. For wildlife, the future doesn’t look much brighter. As trade routes between Africa and other parts of the world open and multiply, so do the opportunities for smuggling of our natural heritage. Each year, more than 20,000 elephants are killed by poachers for their tusks, and more than 1,300 rhinos were poached in 2015 in Africa. ENVIRONMENTAL IMPORTANCE And while Africa’s “lion economies” continue to grow, Africa's lions are in a state of serious decline. Clearly we are not undertaking a complete environmental accounting of our success. Last week, Nairobi hosted the second session of the United Nations Environment Assembly, the world’s highest-level governing body on the environment. Protecting the environment is not merely about saving elephants...

The decision by Uganda and Rwanda to ditch Kenya’s proposed oil pipeline in favour of Tanzania’s should ring alarm bells in terms of what this means, not just for the economy but for the viability of the standard gauge railway that is being touted by the government as a game changer. It may soon dawn on us that not only was the SGR a very bad idea, but that it will put the country in such serious debt that Kenya could soon be rushing to the International Monetary Fund for a bailout loan. Already the IMF has warned Kenya that the country’s debt burden and the huge loans from China can bring the country’s debt to unsustainable levels. By arrogantly excluding Tanzania from discussions and assuming that it could play big brother to its neighbours, Kenya shot itself in the foot and lost the goodwill that it took for granted. Kampala and Kigali probably realised that Kenyans had been taken for a ride and, therefore, put their heads together and decided that rather than rely on Kenya for its transport needs, it should turn to Magufuli’s Tanzania. At least Tanzania does not have the perennial conflicts that Kenya seems to have every election cycle and with less corruption, Ugandan and Rwandan goods will probably be safer and cheaper to export and import from there. The question we must ask now is whether the Chinese hoodwinked us into undertaking the SGR project knowing full well that it was not viable. A...

Kigali. Until 2001, Rwanda was a net importer of wheat flour and it largely depended on Tanzania’s millers. That was the situation that President Paul Kagame found when he took office in 2000. President Kagame embarked on the task of searching for credible investors who would relieve the country out of that mess. Between then and 2010, Rwandan government officials held discussions with several investors from within the East African Community (EAC) region and beyond. In its marketing approach, Rwanda issued several incentives to investors in that particular field. In 2006, a team of government officials from Rwanda held discussions with Tanzanian investors who operate the Dar es Salaam-based Mikoani Traders Ltd - the producer of several products under the Azania brand name. “That was how the decision to build this state-of-the-art wheat flour mill here was reached upon….after analyzing the incentives, the investor saw it was worth it,” the Mikoani Traders Ltd country manager for Rwanda, Mr Jerome Mpagaze, told participants in the recent Tanzania-Rwanda Trade Forum in Kigali. The company has injected a total of $10 million into the milling plant that grinds 150 metric tonnes of wheat per day, complete with a storage facility that has a capacity of loading 10,000 tonnes of the products at any given time. True to its promises, the Rwandan Government gave the company- located at the Special Economic Zone in Kigali – everything that would be required for it to operate efficiently. “Everything was concluded swiftly…..the government provided us with space...

ADDIS ABABA (Xinhua) -- A senior official of the African Union (AU) has underlined the need for AU member states to act quickly to move forward the agenda of realizing continental free trade (CFTA) in Africa. Fatima Haram Acyl, AU Commissioner for Trade and Industry, made the remark on Monday during the opening of the First Ministerial Meeting of the Specialized Technical Committee on Trade, Industry and Minerals at the headquarters of the pan-African bloc in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa. The two-day meeting, which was preceded by session of experts, has been organized under the theme, “Promoting regional integration through trade and inclusive and sustainable industrial development in Africa.” Recalling that the AU summit in June 2015 launched the CFTA negotiations in commitment to the realization of CFTA by 2017, the AU Commissioner called for speedy action to ensure the ambitious agenda of the continent on CFTA. “We have an ambitious agenda before us. It is therefore incumbent on us to ensure the effective delivery of this target. We should therefore be prepared to provide the necessary guidance bearing in mind the overall goal of One Africa, One Market, in line with the aim and objectives of the Abuja Treaty,” she said. “As a result of the foregoing, we can agree that it’s time for us to act and act quickly. It’s time to move forward our Agenda,” she added. In his statement made through a representative, Abdalla Hamdok, Deputy Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA),...