Botswana on Tuesday signed a tripartite free trade area agreement which marked a milestone in the trade agenda of the African Union. The document was known as the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Free Trade Area (FTA) Agreement. Speaking at the signing ceremony, Botswana's minister for Investment, Trade and Industry Vincent Seretse said the Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) will boost intra-African trade as a result of elimination and reduction of tariffs and non-tariff barriers as well as market expansion. Seretse said the TFTA is also expected to serve as one of the building blocks of an African Economic Community, thus facilitating deeper regional and continental integration in Africa. According to SADC Deputy Executive Secretary Thembinkosi Mhlongo, the tripartite agreement has the potential to boost trade in Africa and accelerate development by creating a huge single market of about 700 million people with an estimated gross domestic product of well over 1.4 trillion U.S. dollars. Source: Xinhua Net

On his second day in office as the new African Union Chairperson, President Paul Kagame, alongside his Togolese counterpart Faure Gnassingbé and AU Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki, launched the Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM) initiative during the last day of the 30th AU Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, yesterday. The effort seeks to connect African countries and streamline transportation and trade on the continent. President Gnassingbé was appointed to champion the initiative. Monday’s launch follows about three years of efforts following its adoption at a previous AU summit. With 23 member states at the moment, the initiative is likely to have more countries come on board in the coming days. The initiative is aimed at creating a single unified air transport market in Africa and the liberalisation of civil aviation in Africa. This could reduce scenarios where travelers have often been forced to spend long hours or days in transit due to infrequent commercial flights between African countries. It’s common to come across cases where African travelers from East Africa had to travel to connect to West Africa through Europe and Asia due to lack of interregional connecting flights. The model is similar to that of developed markets such as Europe, where airlines from participating countries can fly to airports of fellow member states. Rwanda is part of the Ministerial Working Bureau as the Rapporteur. The government is upbeat about the development as it is likely to see RwandAir access more countries and markets across the continent. State minister...

President Paul Kagame has called for increased private sector collaboration in African Union’s key initiatives. Kagame was speaking at the closure of the 30th African Union summit yesterday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Kagame, who on Sunday began his term as the AU Chairperson, told his counterparts that the private sector was eager to get involved as critical partners in creating opportunities and building prosperity. “As we go forward, I would encourage closer collaboration with Africa’s private sector on the Union’s key initiatives. The business community is always eager to get involved, and more importantly, they are critical partners in creating opportunities and building the prosperity our continent needs,” Kagame said. He also called on African countries to pay more attention to conservation, saying it would enable the continent to make the most of its assets and better management of sectors such as agriculture and tourism. “Africans need to take the lead, in partnership with like-minded global organisations, in conservation because it affects us directly. Driving conservation will allow us get the most out of our continent’s assets, contribute to better management of our agriculture and tourism sectors, and support efforts to mitigate climate change,” he said. Addressing questions by members of the press, the President said that the African Union reforms were picking up the pace as countries and their respective leaders were in support of the process. “Reforms need a lot of mindset change, change doesn’t come easy, it requires hard work and sometimes taking risks but the most...

Heightened demand for energy, a shift in policy and the emergence of viable entrepreneurial innovations are propelling transition to sustainable energy in the East African region. This emerged during a two-day conference organised by Kenya’s Strathmore University‘s Energy Research Centre (SERC) in partnership with Renewable Energy Solutions for Africa (RES4Africa) – an association that promotes the deployment of large-scale and decentralised renewable energy in sub-Saharan African countries. The meeting was held on in Nairobi. During the January 23-24 conference, which was convened here with support from the Africa-EU Energy Partnership (AEEP) to discuss best practices for effective renewable energy deployment in the region, stakeholders explored issues facing the sector and possible solutions. Momentum has also been buoyed by strong regional agencies that enhance collaboration in the energy sector development. These include the Eastern Africa Power Pool (EAPP), with a mandate to ensure optimum development of energy resources and ease access to electricity, and the East African Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (EACREEE) which, among other roles, ensures policy harmonisation and awareness creation. Isaac Kiva, Director of Renewable Energy at the Kenya’s Ministry of Energy and Petroleum said they are supporting the development of renewable energy. “Having a grid that can meet demand is important, and it is the reason Kenya has a renewable energy Master Plan,” he added. However, the journey for the growth of renewable energy is still fraught with challenges. Bernard Osawa, Vice Chair of the Energy Sector Board, at the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA),...

Foreign Affairs Minister, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey has implored Ghanaian businesses to take advantage of the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) yet-to-be rolled out by the African Union (AU). She said the Agreement, targeted at creating a single continental market for goods and services, will open up the over one billion African market to Ghanaian businesses. Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the 30th Ordinary Session of the AU's Assembly of Heads of State and Governments, the Minister said the CFTA will bolster trade and ensure a "borderless Africa." “Already the protocol of free movement of goods and services through the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) works very well – the East African Economic Community (EACC) and also the South African Development Community (SADC) works perfectly as well," she said, making a case for uniform trade. Intra-continental trade in the year 2000 accounted for about 10 percent of Africa’s total trade, and only increased marginally to 11 percent in 2015. Trading among members of the European Union (EU), for example, amounted to 70 percent in 2015. Intra-African trade is still estimated at less than two percent (2%) of global trade. To improve trade among countries, Heads of State in Africa signed an agreement to implement the Continental Free Trade Agreement (CFTA), which negotiation started in June 2015. The CFTA, when implemented, will reduce the continent’s vulnerability to external shocks and expected to enhance the participation of Africa in global trade as a respectable partner. Ms Ayorkor Botchwey believes the CFTA will wean African countries off foreign aid. “So now the...

The Gates Foundation will contribute $50 million (€40.9 million) in financing, as well as an additional $12.5 million (€10.2 million) in technical assistance, to investment projects in the health sector in Africa through the EU’s framework to improve sustainable investments in Africa. This pooling of resources is designed to encourage additional private investment towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and will allow successful projects to be scaled up more rapidly.  The European Commission welcomes this strong support to its efforts towards sustainable development in Africa and will match this contribution with another €50 million. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said: “The EU accounts for a third of foreign direct investment into Africa – this is now helping create jobs and growth on both of our continents. But we must do more to improve the business environment and provide a platform for African innovators to grow. This requires the full involvement of the private and philanthropic sectors, and I am grateful to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for their much-needed engagement. This is an investment in our shared future. Europe’s partnership with Africa is one in which we support each other, help each other to prosper and make the world a safer, more stable and more sustainable place to live.” Bill Gates said: “Improving health outcomes allows a society to become more prosperous and productive. There has been a lot of progress in this area in sub-Saharan Africa since 2000, but we need to do more to incentivize research and...

UN Environment Executive Director Erik Solheim and World Trade Organization Director-General Roberto Azevêdo announced today that their organizations would join forces to launch a new dialogue on promoting innovative ways of using trade to generate greater opportunities to strengthen our economies and our environments at the same time. The two leaders underscored the urgency of facilitating a dialogue among all stakeholders to identify ways of ensuring that trade and environment policies are mutually supportive. At the same time, they recognized that any meaningful action towards bringing trade into closer alignment with a sustainable, inclusive and prosperous world economy would have to be underpinned by new forms of collaboration and innovative partnerships involving consumers, firms, governments and organizations. The two organisations will aim to provide a platform for interested stakeholders from all sectors of society to exchange ideas, showcase successful experiences and improve understanding of how trade can more effectively help bring about inclusive and sustainable development, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals. In this way, the initiative is intended to serve as a springboard for stakeholders around the world to seize the trade, investment and job opportunities resulting from the emerging shift towards more sustainable modes of production and consumption. Executive Director Solheim said: “While trade has brought prosperity to many, we must ensure that it also works for our natural resources, for our climate and for all people. Governments, the private sector, and civil society need to understand that trade can and must work for the environment. By...

Businesses should seize a $6 trillion opportunity to invest in tackling climate change over the next two decades, the head of an Indian multinational said at Davos on Thursday (25 January). “Climate change is the next century’s biggest financial and business opportunity,” Anand Mahindra, chairman of the Mahindra Group, a $19 billion conglomerate, told the World Economic Forum (WEF), an annual meeting of global business and political leaders held in the Swiss Alps resort of Davos. Mahindra likened the transformation to when cars were first introduced and the industry that developed around them. Climate change will also bring new appliances, technologies and retrofitting of old ones, he said. “Why on earth are we talking about this as a compulsion or a burden?” he asked the audience. The idea that companies face a trade-off between improving the climate and their growth or profits is a “myth”, he added. “Everything our group of companies has done to try and improve energy (consumption) or to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has given us a return,” he said. “We have to dispel the idea that there is a trade-off (for business),” said Mahindra, who is co-chair of a climate action summit taking place in California in September. On Wednesday, Philipp Hildebrand, vice chairman of BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset manager, told the WEF a new generation is ramping up pressure on asset managers to put money into investments with a strong environmental agenda and to push companies to play a bigger role in addressing climate change....

The revival of railway connectivity is one of Africa’s top priority, African Union (AU) Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy, Abou-Zeid Amani, affirmed Friday. Addressing the media on the sidelines of the 30th AU assembly of heads of state and government at its headquarters in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa, Mr Amani added that railway connectivity is one of AU’s flagship projects. ‘I urge for implementation of AU’s Vision 2040 for Railway Revitalization in Africa that was adopted by the AU member states in June 2014,” he said. Part of this programme include the creation of an integrated high-speed train network that connects all African capitals and commercial centres on the continent, facilitating the movement of goods, people and services. Compared to other continents, Africa is the least interconnected thus hampering trade. “Until we begin to connect our countries, our trade will not be meaningful in terms of making a dent in the development that we need to undertake,” says Adama Deen, Head of Infrastructure at NEPAD. In recent years, rail construction has picked pace in some parts of the continent. In East Africa for instance, Kenya has completed the first phase of its standard gauge railway(SGR) running from the Coastal city of Mombasa to the capital Nairobi and has embarked on the second phase. Ethiopia on the other hand has inaugurated a major railway line connecting the landlocked country to Djibouti. The railway line links the capital Addis Ababa, to the Red Sea port of Djibouti – a stretch of more...

African economies have been resilient to negative shocks, yet poor infrastructure remains a key obstacle to the continent’s inclusive growth, according to the 2018 edition of the African Economic Outlook (AEO) presented to delegates at the African Union Summit on Friday. Africa’s average real gross domestic product (GDP) growth in Africa registered at 3.6% in 2017, increasing from 2.2% in 2016, according to the report. The report forecasted that Africa’s GDP growth will accelerate to reach 4.1% in 2018 and 2019. The main driver behind the witnessed growth was the overall improvement of global economic conditions, better macroeconomic management, recovery of commodity prices (mainly oil and metals), sustained domestic demand, and improvements in agricultural production. However, job growth remains a problem in Africa, as the continent still suffers from jobless growth as a result to limited structural change. Consequently, the report points out that sustained high growth did not substantially impact job creation. “Basically, a growth acceleration period is one in which the average growth rate of GDP per capita over a period of eight years is at least 3.5% per annum,” the report notes. “These studies present the behaviour of African economies in the face of difficult external conditions and announce the revival of growth with an estimated rate of 4.1% in 2018. We all know that growth is not yet inclusive in Africa, and unemployment affects more women and young people,” said the Commissioner for Economic Affairs at the African Union Commission Victor Harrison. Harrison urged member states...