Last month, from December 8-14, 2017, Rwanda celebrated its annual Green Growth Week. The week is part of the country’s efforts geared at achieving economic growth through sustainable resources utilisation as well as safeguarding the environment. Rwanda is one of countries, making consistent efforts in achieving green and sustainable economic growth. Green growth aims at fostering economic growth and development by ensuring that natural assets continue to provide the resources and environmental services on which economies well-being relies. Green economic growth is part of the country’s developmental policies and some of endeavours include ban on use of plastic bags, maintaining minimum forest cover of 30 per cent, green funds and green projects, and enacting of the green development policies, among others. Again, Rwanda is committed to green economic Transformation. Rwanda’s green growth and climate resilience strategy was launched in 2011 as one of steps towards sustainable economic growth and to address challenge of climatic change. Important components of this strategy are green fund and green projects financed by green fund. The country has established a national environment and climate fund for financing green projects. It has thus developed a well-designed pathway for achieving green growth through various policies. Globally all countries are required to adopt green economic growth strategy as a part of sustainable economic development and meet challenges of climatic change. Recently, the World Bank asserted on making green growth inclusive through three pronged pathway. Prong one relies on inclusive green growth strategies to maximise local benefits. The second...

Infrastructure is crucial to Africa’s growth prospects. But it’s also hard to get right. Until now, policy-makers have focused on improving access to finance. But a consensus is developing globally that a major factor hindering infrastructure implementation is a lack of good governance and well-planned projects. This makes it crucial for African countries should plan for infrastructure and develop governance frameworks that facilitate inclusive and sustainable investment decisions. There’s certainly no denying the need for infrastructure development on the continent, as has been emphasised during the course of Germany’s G20 Compact with Africa initiative. In sub-Saharan Africa, only 35 per cent of the population has access to electricity. Access to modern transport has declined in the region over the past 20 years, and 23 per cent of the population still lacks access to safe water. Against this background, it’s understandable that the investment focus over the past 10 years has been on utilities and trying to improve access to electricity and water. For some countries this is a significant challenge. Ethiopia, for example, needs to spend 20 per cent of its GDP to meet its electricity Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and another nearly seven per cent to meet its water SDGs. That’s a major chunk of its GDP, particularly when you compare that the average investment in all infrastructure in Latin America stands at about 5.5 per cent. Ethiopia is not unique and such cases point to a significant underinvestment in economic infrastructure such as ports, airports and roads across...

Kampala. The Board of Directors of the African Development Bank (AfDB) has approved the Bank’s 2018 borrowing programme for $8 billion (Shs28.6 trillion) to be raised from capital markets. Uganda is one of the countries that benefit from AfDB’s funds. AfDB has also shown a strong commitment to socially responsible investment programmes. The AfDB Green Bond programme facilitates the achievement of the bank’s corporate priority of green growth through the financing of eligible climate change projects. “We have stepped up our profile in the international capital markets and will continue to raise funds across the globe to provide cost effective resources to our clients” said Ms Hassatou N’Sele, the acting vice president finance of the AfDB Group. The AfDB high 5 operational priorities are: Universal access to electricity, agricultural transformation, economic diversification, regional market and access to social and economic opportunities. AfDB president, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, says these focus areas are essential in transforming lives. Source: The Monitor

Uganda plans to refocus its efforts on revamping its metre gauge railway in the medium term as Kenya’s delay in raising financing for the Kisumu-Malaba leg of its standard gauge railway will cause Uganda to defer its plans for at least three years. The EastAfrican has learnt that although the two countries have already agreed to synchronise their projects, the process is still riddled with challenges that will hold back building the $2.3 billion standard gauge railway from Malaba to Kampala. “We still have issues to sort out during 2018. I cannot answer when we will get financial closure for Malaba-Kampala. We need to first agree with Kenya on how quickly they can get financial closure for Kisumu-Malaba,” said Keith Muhakanizi, the Secretary to the Treasury and Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance. Mr Muhakanizi could not give details of how much money government intends to use to revamp the existing railway, currently operating by Rift Valley Railways, but he insisted that the 2018/19 budget will provide funds for this purpose. “We are putting money in the budget for this. We have to do something about railways,” he added. Experts told The EastAfrican that even if finances for the Kisumu-Malaba and Malaba-Kampala are availed immediately, it would take another three years to get the project over the line from commencement of construction. No feasibility studies It is understood that a meeting that was to be held in Beijing in October to discuss the final funding proposal failed to materialise. “The ministers for...

The World Bank’s latest Doing Business Report reveals improved rankings for many countries in the East African Community (EAC), such as Rwanda and Kenya, climbing up 15 and 12 places, respectively, from last year. This development has had a positive impact on the East African container trade market, which continued to see improvements in both imports and exports. Mads Skov-Hansen, Managing Director at Maersk Line Eastern Africa – a member of A.P. Moller-Maersk – says that the container trade growth experienced over the third quarter of 2017, however, has been limited by the political uncertainty that surrounded the recent elections in Eastern Africa’s economic hub, Kenya, which spilled over into other key countries served by the Northern Corridor, such as Uganda. Despite these political influences, the A.P. Moller-Maersk 2017 Third Quarter East Africa Trade Report reveals an improvement in aggregate trade levels over the last quarter, resulting in overall year-on-year growth of 3% for the region. “It’s always difficult to analyse a specific period during an election year. We typically see significant trends play out which may mean that the results captured are not actually a true indicator of real growth experienced,” says Skov-Hansen. IMPORT GROWTH DRIVEN BY CARS AND TEXTILES These trends are particularly relevant to note with regards to imports. “During an election year, imports tend to see a boost just before the election day, as people tend to stock up on basic commodities. There is then usually a drop in imports immediately after, as people hold back...

Kenya is selling to Uganda the reduced cost of clearing and moving goods from the Mombasa Port to Uganda, and the standard gauge railway, to revive its bid to extend the line to its neighbour. Uncertainty hit the Kenya-Uganda SGR project after Uganda said it was considering building a railway through Tanzania. In a bilateral meeting between President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Ugandan counterpart Yoweri Museveni at State House, Nairobi, Kenya sold the project as the answers to its neighbour’s transport needs. It is estimated that more than 50 per cent of the cargo handled at the Port of Mombasa is destined for markets like Uganda, with 11.2 million tonnes of cargo moved between the two nations annually. On Tuesday, Mr Kenyatta said that the completion of the second container terminal increased the port’s overall capacity to 1.65 million containers, with its capacity expected to hit 2.7 million containers per year once the three-stage project is complete. “The modernisation programme has resulted in reduced average time to import and export goods through the port of Mombasa — from 11 days to under 3.5 days, and work for even greater efficiency continues,” State House said in a statement on Tuesday. Source: Business Daily

US President Donald Trump’s newly-unveiled National Security Strategy has shifted America’s engagement with Africa away from human rights, good governance, trade and development to one that merely sees the continent as a market for US goods and services. Mr Trump also depicts Africa as a competitive arena in which US interests are pitted against those of China. “Africa contains many of the world’s fastest growing economies, which represent potential new markets for US goods and services,” the Trump plan states in the slightly more than one page it devotes to Africa. “The demand for quality American exports is high and will likely grow as Africa’s population and prosperity increase,” the paper adds. The Trump team’s global strategy outline, which can be viewed as a roadmap for US foreign policy in the coming years, makes only a single reference to human rights in its 55 pages. This was an exceptionally low figure compared to Barack Obama’s mention of human rights 16 times in a 29-page strategy document his administration issued in 2015. Mr Trump’s America-first approach to global trade involves an explicit determination to outpace China, which the president regards as the US’ top economic rival. This worldview comes into focus in the Africa chapter of the national security strategy, which sees China as expanding its economic and military presence in Africa, “growing from a small investor in the continent two decades ago into Africa’s largest trading partner today.” “Some Chinese practices undermine Africa’s long-term development by corrupting elites, dominating extractive...

As Rwanda was holding its national dialogue (Umushyikirano) bringing together all its children on one table to chart a new course and address shortcomings, a thousand kilometres away, drama was unfolding that left a major blot on the region’s future. While Umushyikirano was all about consolidating Rwanda’s hard earned unity and strengthening the country’s economic and social gains, in the Tanzanian northern town of Arusha, cracks were again beginning to appear in the unifying bond of the East African Community (EAC). Well, consolidating the East African unity, be it political or economic, has always had its ups and downs, but what happened at the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) this week left a sour taste in the mouth; EAC members are not reading from the same text. The bone of contention was the election of the Speaker of the EALA fourth Assembly, a post that is usually occupied on a rotational basis but through the ballot. Since Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda had occupied the previous three slots, the post was open to the other three members. Theoretically, South Sudan was out of the contest as it was the first time it was participating, so the floor was left between Burundi and Rwanda, to be decided democratically. It is still a mystery why Tanzania decided to join the fray yet it had already exhausted its slot, but that was not the issue; the ultimate decision lay with the Assembly through the ballot. Attempts to scuttle the elections by walking out failed,...

Kenya is banking on the reduced cost of clearing and moving goods from the Mombasa Port to Uganda and the progress of the standard gauge railway project to revive its bid to extend the line to its neighbour. During a bilateral meeting between President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Ugandan counterpart Yoweri Museveni at State House, Nairobi, on Tuesday, Kenya said the speed of clearing goods and the upcoming cargo trains are the answer to Uganda’s transport needs. President Kenyatta said that the completion of the second container terminal increased the port’s overall holding capacity to 1.65 million containers per year, with its capacity expected to hit 2.7 million containers per year once the three-stage project is complete. “The modernisation programme has resulted in reduced average time to import and export goods through the port of Mombasa – from 11 days to under 3.5 days – and work for even greater efficiency continues,” State House said in a statement. CARGO And with the commissioning of the Inland Container Depot at Embakasi, President Kenyatta told his counterpart that more goods would be transported by train. “This will further shorten the time of moving goods from Mombasa to Kenya’s hinterland and neighbouring countries as well as the cost for doing so by a further 30 per cent,” the statement added. Uncertainty hit the joint Kenya-Uganda SGR project after Uganda said it was considering building a railway through Tanzania instead. It is estimated that more than 50 per cent of the cargo handled at...

Egypt can be a front runner in transforming intra-African trade and boosting innovation and industrialization on the African continent, Kanayo Awani, Managing Director of the Intra-African Trade Initiative at the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), said today. Speaking in Cairo during the opening of a one-day workshop on intra-African trade, organized by Afreximbank, Ms. Awani said that despite current low trade figures, opportunities abounded and there were many areas in which Egypt could expand its trade with the rest of Africa. “With the new significant policy shift toward export promotion, especially within Africa, and capitalizing on regional trade agreements, like COMESA and the upcoming Continental Free Trade Area, an improved and dedicated shipping line from Sokhna Port to Mombasa, quality and competitive Egyptian products and services, Egypt can transform its trade with Africa and become a major trade partner,” she stated. Egypt could expand its export trade in textiles, electricity, utilities and construction services, said Ms. Awani, who added that there were opportunities to boost pharmaceuticals exports to Nigeria, and furniture to Kenya, as well as to import beef from Sudan and fruits and vegetables from East Africa. The Managing Director said that Afreximbank had engaged with Egyptian businesses over the last year in order to address their trade finance needs and to identify the trade facilitation issues they faced as they tried to expand into existing African markets or to enter new ones. She explained that the Bank decided to organise the workshop in order to respond to some of...