Ubuntu Times

Political Instability, Intra-state Conflicts, And Threats To AfCFTA Agreement’s ‘Made In Africa’ Aspirations

Gibson Nyikadzino

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December 15, 2023

Political Instability, Intra-state Conflicts, And Threats To AfCFTA Agreement’s ‘Made In Africa’ Aspirations

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is arguably the African Union’s (AU) biggest project since the launch of the continent’s Agenda 2063 in January 2015. Launched in March 2018, the AfCFTA agreement connects 55 African economies and is the largest free trade area in the world in terms of country membership.

When the AfCFTA agreement was initially proposed at an AU summit in 2012, it had two goals: to build a Pan-African agenda in trade and cooperation, and secondly, to lift a large percentage of people out of poverty by instituting structural economic changes and cooperative legislation.

AfCFTA is understood to be a groundbreaking opportunity to both create an industrial revolution within and across Africa and opt out of the types of deals like the United State’s Africa Growth Opportunities Act (AGOA) that keep the continent at the bottom of global production, trade, and investments.

But little of this has yet been achieved. The rising number of conflicts, military coups, terrorism, ethnic violence, warlordism, and the presence of mercenaries on the continent is dimming the hopes of the trade renaissance expected to have “Made in Africa” goods dominate world markets.

Hindrances to these aspirations were manifest in 2022. Libya, South Sudan, the Central African Republic (CAR), northern Mozambique, Ethiopia, and Cameroon’s north-west and south-west regions were six African conflict hotbeds that year, against expectations that the continent would silence guns by 2020. In other circumstances, democratic backsliding continues, with insurgencies, insecurity, and weak governance leading to military coups in Burkina Faso, Mali, Guinea, Niger, and Gabon, further restricting the prospects of sustainable trade practices and the successful implementation of the AfCFTA. Alongside dire humanitarian costs, the absence of peace in Africa is disrupting economic activities.

According to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, in 2022, the number of Africans who were forcibly displaced by conflict stood at over 40 million people. An additional 3.2 million Africans have been displaced due to conflict over the past year. This is impacting Africa’s intra-trade potential.

Though it aims to provide broader and deeper economic integration across the continent as well as attract investment, boost trade, provide better jobs, reduce poverty, and increase shared prosperity, in 2022, intra-continental trade share in Africa stood at only 12 percent, compared to 47 percent in North America, 53 percent in Asia, and 69 percent in Europe. This makes Africa the only bloc with the least trade among its 55 members.

What others are doing

The EU is considered to be the most advanced model of regional economic integration. In facilitating smooth trade, the bloc identified three categories where barriers needed to be resolved: physical, technical, and fiscal.

In terms of physical barriers, the bloc acknowledges that border posts entail additional costs that pass on unnecessary delays. In the end, the countries streamlined their procedures to abolish border controls within the EU.

For other concerns about technical and fiscal barriers, what is certain for the EU bloc is that the headway made is far more comprehensive and satisfactory to member states. This explains why the EU is very actively pursuing its goal of gradual irreversible progress on a worldwide scale on how it engages other partners in trade initiatives like the EU, Chile, and the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). This has helped the group adopt positions in favor of having binding multilateral rules in relation to the facilitation of trade.

Defining trade in African terms

Dr. Levious Chiukira, an expert on trade and lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe, thinks Africans need to redefine what they term trade and highlight at what level and capacity trade should be considered as such by African businesses and entrepreneurs. He fears Africa might be defining trade on the basis of blue-chip companies that might benefit alone from the AfCFTA, as it appears to be a platform to anchor white monopoly capital while substituting home industries or backyard start-ups, which contribute more to Africa’s economy.

“We need a new discourse that redefines what we call African trade. We have allowed trade to be defined by some blue-chip companies. African trade has to be redefined because the bigger elements of our trade lie in what has been labelled informal trade, yet that is what constitutes small and medium enterprises (SMEs), cross-border trade, and backyard industries. We need to break the hegemonic definition of cross-border trade as if African trade is illegal. By calling our people informal traders, they are being illegalised and their trade is not being recognised,” said Dr. Chiukira.

Working on upgrading the border management systems — Zimbabwe’s revenue collection authority has invested in modern border equipment to plug loopholes necessitated by the evasion of formal tax collection systems in the movement of goods. Credit: Gibson Nyikadzino / Ubuntu Times

The World Bank (WB) estimates that small businesses represent 90% of all businesses and that Sub-Saharan Africa alone has 44 million SMEs. While acknowledging their importance, the WB confirms that small businesses, especially those in Africa, are poorly understood due to a lack of or fragmentation of data.

Dr. Chiukira sees infant industries or SMEs promotion in the framework of AfCFTA as only developing not on the basis of free trade policy but of understanding the needs of what facilitates African trade.

“Sustainable African trade has to be done in the precept of understanding what facilitates trade. We have failed to address the needs of the African people, and we have failed to understand the challenges of trading within Africa. Conflicts are hampering trade. In the end, human capital will not be functional as conflicts might trigger movement of refugees,” added Dr. Chiukira.

Deepening regional integration and cooperation

Regional Economic Communities (RECs) are central to the AfCFTA agreement’s implementation. However, in every REC, there are one or two cases of internal or intra-state conflicts. In the Southern African Development Community (SADC), Mozambique and the DR Congo are facing upheavals; in the East African Community (EAC), Kenya and Somalia are fighting Al-Shabaab terrorists; in the Economic Community of West African States and the Sahel, military coups, terrorism, and internal conflicts are key characteristics.

The AU and RECs have a common goal of achieving regional integration. However, little progress has been made, and one of the challenges and criticisms of the institutions’ efforts towards achieving the African integration agenda is poor coordination. Achievement or failure to achieve regional integration for the AfCFTA agenda is highly dependent on these supranational bodies.

Zimbabwe's President Emmerson Mnangagwa and Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa's President — Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa (left) shares a moment with South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa (right) after launching a joint Border Management Authority (BMA) at Beitbridge Border Post in October to prevent the illegal movement of goods, a key principle for AfCFTA. Credit: Gibson Nyikadzino / Ubuntu Times

Mr. John Bosco Kalisa, the chief executive officer (CEO) of the East Africa Business Council in Tanzania, believes that promoting deeper integration through regional economic communities is a starting point to ensure the success of the AfCFTA.

The failure to silence guns is a concern.

“Every region is grappling with conflicts; these conflicts are hindering the ability of individuals and firms to produce goods and services that are required to stimulate economic growth and prosperity that are aspired to under the AfCFTA. Our leaders need to make concerted efforts to silence the guns, as espoused by the AU, the agenda of an Africa we want.

“Our African economies have been for so long depending on global supply chains, especially on essential food stuff such as rice, wheat, barley, fertilisers and others. The current Russia-Ukraine conflict which we are not party to creates negative spillover effects. This serves as a wake-up call for policymakers to design appropriate policies to build resilience within their systems and RECs,” argues Mr. Kalisa.

So near yet so far

Indications enunciated in the Agenda 2063 and AfCFTA policy documents make Africa appear as if it is progressing. To be so close and yet so far implies that in the AfCFTA agenda, policy documents, plans, and coordination may reflect as if the continent is nearing its goals, but realistically, Africa is far apart in attitudes, emotions, understanding, or meaning of the goals it wants.

“We talk of the AfCFTA, but countries that experience unconstitutional changes of government through coups or other means are automatically suspended from participating in the AU bodies, including the AfCFTA. For instance, the AU and ECOWAS closed their airspace and borders to Niger after the July military coup. Conflict resolution and prevention are essential for creating a conducive environment for trade integration and development in Africa.

“The effects of conflict can have lasting consequences on the skills, capabilities, and opportunities of the current and future generations of Africans,” says Mr. Tanatsiwa Dambuza, an intra-African trade knowledge management expert for Development Dispatch and co-founder of the Zimbabwe Institute of African Integration.

The AfCFTA project is showing signs of difficulties for the AU, and soon, without good political commitment by leaders, it will be realised soon that a miss is as good as a mile.

Africa’s Rebirth At 60: Carrying Noble Ideas That Nobody Is Willing To Implement

Gibson Nyikadzino

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September 10, 2023

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Africa’s Rebirth At 60: Carrying Noble Ideas That Nobody Is Willing To Implement

To most academics, intellectuals, and pragmatists advocating for a genuine Pan-African renaissance six decades after the founding of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU, later renamed African Union in 2002) in Addis Ababa in 1963, the continent’s aspirations as highlighted in Agenda 2063 might fail to materialise as overwhelming evidence point to Africa’s lack of creative framing, knowledge and thought leadership in global affairs.

Since COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic in March 2020, Western global media corporations have put Africa at the tail end of post-industrial development by formulating narratives that befit Western ideology, markets, history, values, and perspectives at the expense of Africa’s existence. Even so, the outbreak of monkey-pox in Western countries got giant media deflecting the source and linking it to Africa.

When Russia launched its special military operation on Ukraine on February 24 last year, DSTV’s Multichoice shut down Russia Today (Russian television) Channel across Africa in the view that Africans must not listen to anything balanced or sympathetic to Russia, and even so, they decide on what information should be made available to Africans across the continent.

In the face of the hegemonic and dominant Western media organisations’ onslaught, Africa’s political leaders have not reacted with relevant material and content to diffuse narratives against the continent. Theirs has been an unresponsive and less committed call to action while thought leadership is needed.

The effect of the failure to provide African thought leadership has now seen African journalists writing stories about Africa without targeting the African audience but writing for a Western audience. The news framing is the same.

Dealing With A Distorted Image

Internal conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Sudan, and the war in Ethiopia that ended last November give hard lessons on the dangers of leaving foreign media corporations with the responsibility to frame Africa’s events.

African media houses have not done much to tell the African story, in most cases, they have allowed the dominant media from the Western countries to lead the narratives, and because Africa has become a ground of military, political and economic contests between the West and East, media companies such as China Global Television Network (CGTN) and Russia Today (RT) have also taken a side in framing Africa.

Instead of using hard power in Africa, both Western and Eastern countries now prefer soft and smart power, a component that infuses foreign values, principles and norms in which they assimilate and graft Africa into the phenomenon of their narratives.

At the 60^th anniversary event to commemorate the founding of the OAU on May 25, 2023, at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed restated a position he made last year before African heads of state that “Africa needs to tell her own story”.

PM Ahmed said, “On this same occasion last year, I called on all of us to tackle typically the negative portrayal of Africa by the global media. I stressed the need for Africa to tell her own story and not allow others to tell it in the service of their own interests.

“In this respect, please allow me to reiterate yet again the need to establish an African Union Continental Media House. Until Africa tells her own story, her image remains distorted. And distortions affect not how others view us, but also how we view ourselves. We owe it to ourselves and our children that Africa’s truths need to be told as they are, untainted with external interests and bias.”

Without a doubt, Africa’s leaders are not oblivious to what they need to do to reconstruct the image of the continent through having a devoted African Union Continental Media House.

Ahmed’s Old Suggestion

Professor of Journalism and Media Studies at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, Admire Mare says the proposal by Ethiopia’s Ahmed is old as African leaders like Ghana’s independence President Kwame Nkrumah and Libya’s Col. Muammar Gaddafi made the same.

“The proposal by the PM of Ethiopia is not new. Similar proposals were made by Kwame Nkrumah and Muammar Gaddafi. It is an attempt to turn the gaze and use technological infrastructures controlled by Africans to speak back and showcase their own stories.

“Similar attempts have been seen with Al Jazeera, CGTN and Russia Today. The role of the media is still seen in instrumental ways, that is, as an enabler to speak back and speak out. On paper, the proposal is appealing but media sustainability and editorial interference are teething problems.”

According to Mare, African governments will face serious challenges in relation to financing models to fund the African Union Continental Media House, at a time when the AU is also failing to fund its operations.

He made reference to the closure of The Southern Times newspaper, an initiative set up by the governments of Namibia and Zimbabwe in 2004 to provide alternative narratives to Western views that targeted Zimbabwe at the height of its land redistribution programme. The Southern Times announced in 2019 that it was closing operations due to “dwindling financial resources”.

Prof. Mare adds, “We have seen the closure of The Southern Times (a Zimbabwe-Namibia) initiative, so there is no guarantee such a proposal by PM Ahmed will not close shop. To make it work, there is need to come up with a solid business model, strong and accountable board of directors and hiring of media professionals from all African countries. The media house should have bureau chiefs or correspondents in all the countries in Africa.”

Media and Journalism senior lecturer at Limkwokwing University in Lesotho, Mr. Tawanda Mukurunge shared similar thoughts with Prof. Mare that PM Ahmed’s proposal is old and documented in the 1980 MacBride Report also known as Many Voices, One World sponsored by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

Findings of the MacBride Report were in response to the 1970s New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) debate on the non-equitable access to information and media imperialism.

“There is nothing new about this concept. We have the Pan-African News Agency that was formed in 1979, with headquarters in Senegal, to produce content that presents and preserves the voice of Africa. The essence of NWICO was to counter the reports that Global South countries should be in the periphery of information access,” said Mr. Mukurunge.

According to Mr. Mukurunge, the key challenge to the full realisation of this proposal is the lack of unity between African countries.

“Some of the Francophone countries rely too much on their former coloniser, France, to the extent that as African leaders might agree on something, but when it comes to voting and execution they tend to get directives from France, and that is problematic.

“Remember when Zimbabwe was seeking to galvanise African leaders through having support on its land reform programme, it was Senegal’s former leader Abdoulaye Wade who opposed Zimbabwe’s position to please the French. As long as some of our people are controlled by external forces, as a continent we will not go anywhere,” added Mr. Mukurunge.

So Much Work To Do

There is so much work to do. African journalism needs to go beyond the simple problem of news framing to epistemic framing. Epistemic framing is about the locus of enunciation of the story, that is, the body political and geopolitical of the subject that speaks.

When one listens to or reads African print and electronic news, there is no difference to tell whether the news is meant for an African or Western audience. This tends to show that African journalism seems to be preoccupied with lower-order ethics shaped by the social and epistemic location of the storyteller.

Politics and Journalism lecturer at the Africa University in Zimbabwe, Dr. Alexander Rusero says African journalism will never see an authentic framework as long as it remains in the shadows of the West.

“We (Africans) are still hunters and gatherers of information. We have no authentic African journalism or media but rather colonial mimicry,” says Dr. Rusero.

Aid To Africa: A Deceptive Neo-Colonial Tool Enforcing Mental Slavery Without Restraint

Gibson Nyikadzino

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June 17, 2021

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Aid To Africa: A Deceptive Neo-Colonial Tool Enforcing Mental Slavery Without Restraint

“The root of the disease was political. The treatment could only be political. Of course, we encourage aid that aids us in doing away with aid. But in general, welfare and aid policies have only ended up disorganizing us, subjugating us and robbing us of a sense of responsibility for our own economic, political and cultural affairs. We chose to risk new paths to achieve greater well-being.” These were the remarkable words from Burkina Faso’s iconic leader Thomas Sankara.

The issue of aid in Africa, which Sankara was vehemently against, is topical and today used in determining how alliances are built and strengthened between the continent and its former colonizers. From the western world, Africa should get military, humanitarian, emergency and charitable aid to promote growth and security among other issues. In these times of the Coronavirus pandemic, giving alms to Africa has gone a gear up through a new phenomenon called “medical aid.” Global players have also joined the race to aid and rescue Africa. After the 2018 Forum for China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), China pledged aid worth US$15 billion to Africa between 2019 and 2021.

Aid is a new form of colonialism. it is friendly but vicious. It is the new face the west and other global players are using to subjugate Africa because of its friendliness. Nearly four years after Ghana’s independence and realizing colonial defeat, then United States of America (USA) president John Fitzgerald Kennedy announced a new plan to address Africa’s ‘needs’.

“AID represents a very essential commitment. As important as any work that is being done by anyone for this country,” said President Kennedy in 1961 at the launch of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) initiative.

Emergency rescue — Food donations by non-governmental organizations create a dependency syndrome that will see citizens expecting more handouts even when they have the land to grow crops for self-sustenance. Credit: Gibson Nyikadzino / Ubuntu Times

According to a 2019 report by the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a group of wealthy donor nations, the value of international development aid in the world reached a new peak of US$152.8 billion, a slight increase over 2018. Africa has received more and this is not mere generosity.

Giving A Crumb After Taking A Loaf

The amount of aid which the west or east call important for African countries is not commensurate with what the global powers are exploiting and shipping out. Resource exploitation and plunder, slave labor and under-pricing of Africa’s resources have become key characteristics of what multi-national corporations are looting, and later return the crumbs in the form of aid.

Africa’s resources were plundered by the Europeans many years before they agreed to formally colonize Africa at the Berlin Conference in 1885. Slave trade stole the continent’s human resources. According to historians, over 12.5 million Africans were shipped out of the continent due to the slave trade. While it is a complex exercise to calculate the monetary value of what was stolen in Africa, but a decade before the American civil war, in New Orleans, a healthy African male slave was auctioned for $1,200. A girl aged nine or ten was auctioned for $1,400 considering her ability to bear more children for resale.

The value of the resources even after independence continues to bring slave wages in Africa. In Ethiopia, one of Africa’s biggest exporters of coffee, farmers are made to sell the coffee at US$4 per kilogram while large coffee companies sell the same at US$200 per kilogram on the international market. The same goes for cocoa in Ivory Coast. As a result, multi-national corporations continue making profits that run into millions while ‘independent’ Africa remains poor. Africa is strategic to global powers because of their reliance on its natural resources and economic opportunities.

The imposition of colonialism on Africa altered the course of the continent’s history. Its impact is felt entirely. The settler regimes had a poor and worse record for poverty reduction, considering the mineral resources of South Africa and then Southern Rhodesia (modern Zimbabwe).

With a continued pouring of aid in Africa in the name of “transforming lives” failing to meet the continent’s demands, economist and author of Dead Aid says the issue of aid in Africa is “one of the greatest myths of our time.”

“The state of postwar development policy in Africa today is one of the greatest myths of our time. That billions of dollars in aid sent from wealthy countries to developing African nations has helped to reduce poverty and increase growth is false. In fact, recipients of this aid are not better off as a result of it, but worse – much worse,” wrote Dambisa Moyo.

Road To Hell Paved With Good Intentions

Humanitarian or emergency aid through drugs and food, charitable aid through scholarships and non-governmental organization (NGO) work, and other interventions have not been sufficient to transform African societies. In the longer term, these are not going to help Africa develop. Public goods such as healthcare, education, and infrastructure are in many instances being financed in most instances through donor funds. What donors are providing are goods that African governments should provide their citizens.

In 2010, in an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakariya, Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame said the role of aid is to support the socio-economic transformation of people and help people achieve things they want and ultimately wean off aid.

Europe's Top Diplomat — Ambassador Olkkonen says the wealth Zimbabwe has is enough to transform the country’s socio-economic condition and in the long term wean it off dependence on aid. Credit: Gibson Nyikadzino / Ubuntu Times

European Union (EU) head of delegation to Zimbabwe Ambassador Timo Olkkonen acknowledges that Zimbabwe has wealth of resources and that in “the longer term we should move away from dependence on aid.” “Zimbabwe is a wealthy country in terms of natural resources and touristic and agricultural potential. In the longer term, we should move away from dependence on aid. Concurrently with providing development cooperation we are building our trade relations with Zimbabwe based on the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) we have. We are in the midst of negotiating an expansion of that agreement to cover other areas than trade in goods,” Ambassador Olkkonen says.

According to a 2019 CSO Sustainability Index for Sub-Saharan Africa prepared by USAID, the US government pledged to give NGO’s financial aid to “empower and transform livelihoods of citizens in all sectors.” Despite reports of mismanagement of donor finances, Ambassador Olkkonnen said his bloc has mechanisms in place “to avoid any un-procedurally benefitting from our funding” adding that “the thousands of beneficiaries of EU support all over Zimbabwe will disagree” that EU aid is “just plain wasteful”.

Decolonize The Mind And Return To Freedom

Africa’s modern leaders have abandoned the self-sustenance philosophies of leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, and Thomas Sankara. Zimbabwe’s media scholar and academic Dr. Lyton Ncube said aid will never develop the continent, but will only avail short-term benefits.

“That issue is a complex one and we need to understand the political economy of aid from the Washington Consensus and taking it from either the eastern or western blocs. When we look at the role of aid in transforming lives of Africans, perhaps the benefit is short-term sustainability and not for the long term. The main problem is those who fund have their own interests, goals, and ambitions. I would refer you to some of the revolutionaries when you look at the philosophies of Thomas Sankara, Patrice Lumumba, and Kwame Nkrumah they managed to embark on what I would call the return to freedom,” said Dr. Ncube.

According to Dr. Ncube, the issue of aid resembles the problem of coloniality in Africa and urged governments to take the lead from Zimbabwe when it embarked on the land redistribution exercise in 2000 that benefitted over 300,000 households. Before 2000, only 4,500 former white commercial Zimbabwean farmers owned an estimated seventy percent of the country’s prime land.

Dr. Ncube adds: “To have long-term development we need to own the means of production and be masters of our destiny by value-adding our products. Zimbabwe’s land reform program is a starting point to self-sufficiency. Are you telling me those donors have no people who need help from their countries? Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o says the problem that we suffer from is the problem of the mind. We need to cleanse our minds from the colonial system.”

President Kenyatta Launches Port Of Lamu Amid Uproar From Environmentalists In Coastal Kenya

Dominic Kirui

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June 11, 2021

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President Kenyatta Launches Port Of Lamu Amid Uproar From Environmentalists In Coastal Kenya

Kenya’s President, Uhuru Kenyatta on the 3rd week of May inaugurated the Lamu Port that seeks to link the Indian Ocean to the ambitious regional project, the Lamu Port South Sudan Ethiopia Transport Corridor, otherwise known as the LAPSSET Corridor Project.

President Kenyatta presided over the operationalization of the first of the 32 berths port, terming it a critical pillar of the LAPSSET project, which is a transport corridor linking the three east African countries.

“As a critical pillar of the Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) corridor project, this Port will connect South Sudan, Ethiopia, and Kenya. Eventually, it will connect northern Kenya to the Middle Belt of Africa; which runs from Dakar, Senegal in the west to Lamu in the east,” President Kenyatta said.

But, the event raised more concern by lobby groups in Lamu, as well as scientists on the president’s commitment to environmental protection, as they claim that these projects are destroying the environment and costing the local residents their sources of livelihood.

The LAPSSET project is the second to be set up in Lamu, after the coal-fired power plant that the government wanted to set up in Kwasasi, a few miles from the new Lamu Port. The coal plant project was halted by the Environment Court in June 2019, on the basis that the stakeholders did not carry out an environmental impact assessment. A consortium of like-minded organizations fighting for environmental justice under the umbrella name, Save Lamu, had filed the case at the court.

President opens Port of Lamu — Swaleh Elbusaidy, a community environmental lawyer shows where the coal-fired power plant was to be set up in Kwasasi, Lamu. Credit: Dominic Kirui / Ubuntu Times

The project also involves the construction of three major cities within the country, an oil pipeline, a standard gauge railway, and major airports.

Likewise, the same organization had filed a case at the High Court of Kenya in January 2012, and a determination was made in 2018 by the same court.

In the April 2018 ruling, the High Court found rampant environmental violations in the project and awarded Sh1.76 billion to Lamu fishermen affected by the project. The ruling remains frozen without implementation, while an appeal by the Kenya Ports Authority and other responders has not been heard by the Court of Appeal since 2018.

Despite this ruling, Lamu Port construction continued for four years unabated. Thousands of fishermen have had their livelihoods affected by four years of dredging and land reclamation. Port construction has profoundly damaged the ecosystem, in particular killing corals and diminishing marine nurseries in a richly biodiverse area.

“Already three years have passed since the court awarded us this compensation, which has been owed to us since 2014 when the port project began,” said Somo M. Somo, Chairman of the Lamu County Beach Management Unit.

“Lamu fishermen leadership attended several stakeholder meetings over these years. We made concessions to find an agreeable resolution. Just two weeks ago, we sat in meetings for a week, while observing Ramadan, to reach an agreed-upon plan, yet they have decided to launch the Lamu Port despite the promise they made last week about the fishermen’s compensation matter,” said Mohamed Athman, Save Lamu Chairman.

“In moving forward with this launch, the government and the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) have failed to keep their word. Rather than resolve this vital fishermen’s compensation matter as promised, instead, they have decided to celebrate and launch Lamu Port,” Athman said.

Many would argue that the development project would be a great opportunity for growth and development for the region, but as Human Rights Watch spoke to a human rights defender working in Lamu, she pointed out that this should not be the case at the expense of people’s livelihood.

“When LAPSSET began, it was touted as a boon for the people of Lamu, a source of hope for many who had lived in poverty for generations. The project was to employ many, open up the region for trade and growth. However, in its early years, the project has left many without land or compensation. Fishermen are losing out on their livelihood since the fishing area is now restricted, and their little boats cannot be used further out into the ocean for deep-sea fishing,” said Salome Nduta, a senior program officer at Kenya’s National Coalition of Human Rights Defenders.

Direct compensation for harm incurred is just one remedy amongst a litany of environmental violations in the planning and construction of Lamu Port, a major component of the Lamu Port and Lamu-Southern Sudan-Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) Corridor Project.

The port has been constructed by the China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), associated with the China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC), for USD $500 million, according to Save Lamu.

However, the organization also blames the regulatory agency, National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA), saying that it has failed in its role to monitor compliance and enforce the violations occasioned by the project proponents.

In a statement, Save Lamu raised concerns and put out their demands to the presidency and all the stakeholders involved.

“We condemn this decision by President Kenyatta and officials to launch Lamu Port while ignoring the project’s serious issues that were affirmed by the High Court in 2018; we call on the Kenya Ports Authority and Treasury to swiftly compensate the fishermen, and to stop shirking their responsibilities and making false promises; we call on the Court of Appeal to hear and resolve the appeal that was filed by Kenya Ports Authority and fellow respondents in 2018 — and stop ignoring a pivotal court ruling; and finally, we call on President Kenyatta to take immediate action to ensure the Lamu fishermen are compensated and resolve the serious and escalating environmental issues with Lamu Port,” the statement concluded.

Desert Locusts Invasion Cause Panic In Tanzania’s Kilimanjaro Region

Kizito Makoye

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March 4, 2021

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Desert Locusts Invasion Cause Panic In Tanzania’s Kilimanjaro Region

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania — At first glance, Hilder Tarimo, a local farmer in a sleepy Ngai Nairobi village in Tanzania’s Siha district, thought the dark dense blot darkening her horizons was clouds ushering in some rains.

But when a swarm of fast-moving creatures finally descended on her farm, the danger was real.

“It felt like a huge cloud falling from the sky,” said Tarimo, who grows maize, beans, and vegetables on her farm.

Efforts to scare them away with smoke did not work since the insects descended in their millions, Tarimo said.

“They caused a lot of destruction in a matter of hours,” she said.

Pleasant Surprise

As local villagers struggled to scare away the invaders, they had a pleasant surprise when they spotted a small plane sprinkling powdery water from the sky barely hours after they arrived, thanks to the swift government action.

Tanzania is battling a wave of desert locusts that has spread in the northern Kilimanjaro and Arusha regions, razing vegetation causing panic among farmers who fear the destruction of their crops.

Although local authorities say the latest invasion of highly mobile creatures is under control, local farmers are still worried about the unwelcome guests who pose a real threat to their crops.

Onesmo Biswelu, Siha District Commissioner said swarms of locusts, which invaded plantations at Ngare Nairobi ward since Tuesday have been obliterated by pesticides sprinkled from special planes.

“We have successfully contained the spread through aerial spraying of powerful pesticides,” Biswelu said.

The Worst Invasion

East Africa had experienced the worst invasion of locusts in the past year, triggering food shortages in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia. The destructive creatures, believed to be fuelled by the changing weather patterns are a potential threat to food security, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.

In January last year, Kenya suffered the worst outbreak of desert locusts in 70 years, as millions of insects swarmed into farmlands destroying crops thus threatening the country with hunger.

Contingency Planning

As part of its contingency planning, the government of Tanzania said it will apportion a sufficient budget in the next financial year to purchase insecticide spraying and mapping equipment including motorized drones to combat destructive insects.

Adolf Mkenda, Tanzania Minister for Agriculture and cooperatives said spraying is an effective strategy to combat locust infestation adding that officials are currently using two hired planes for the task.

“There’s no reason for people to panic, the problem is under control,” he said Wednesday.

The minister said the government is closely monitoring the movement of locusts in all affected regions and will accordingly spray pesticides to kill them.

The minister warned local residents in Siha, Simanjiro, and Longido districts where locusts have been spotted to avoid eating or touching insects since they may contain poisonous substances.

Jeremiah Sanka, a resident of Longido told The Citizen newspaper that locusts invasion is disconcerting especially now maize has started to germinate.

“If the maize is eaten it will be such a huge loss,” he said.

IGAD Member States Bank On Financing Model For Infrastructural Development

Robert Kibet

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November 10, 2020

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IGAD Member States Bank On Financing Model For Infrastructural Development

Nairobi, Kenya November 6, 2020 — Officials from the eight-nation Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) converged in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi to assess the development of the regional infrastructure master plan that is due in December 2020.

The IGAD region has shown to make strides in the development of new regional infrastructure projects such as the Ethiopia-Kenya Power Interconnector and the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

However, leaders argue that underdeveloped infrastructure remains a major constraint in the IGAD region with no regional master plan of priority projects built on the consensus of its member states.

The Intergovernmental Authority on Development Regional Infrastructure Master Plan (IRIMP) which began in May 2018 seeks to establish regional infrastructure development for the region to enhance regional physical and economic integration, and in the long run promote trade, movement of goods and persons, and poverty reduction amongst its Member States.

IGAD To Work Closely With Civil Society

Elsadig Abdalla, IGAD Director expressed his delight in the program, affirming commitment to working with the Civil Society and NGOs in the IRIMP project.

“Previously we have been criticized as being too governmental,” Alsadiq told the conference through a speech he read on behalf of the IGAD Executive Secretary, Dr. Workneh Gebeyahu.

The IRIMP comes in to address this, and solve the problem of inadequate and poor regional infrastructure networks, connectivity, and efficiency.

“In this regional study, we have involved all our stakeholders, especially the NGOs because they are the real owners of our interventions and are the ones who have direct connection with our people at the grassroots in our region,” Elsadiq told Ubuntu Times at an interview.

The development of IRIMP is being financed through the support from the African Development Bank (AfDB) with the overarching objective to create an open, unified, regional economic space for private operators – a single market open to competitive entry and well-integrated into the global economy.

Its components will include a network of efficient infrastructure services; transport, energy, and communications.

Patrick Kanyimbo, the AfDB regional integration coordinator, assured the member states of the bank’s support.

“We are excited to be part of this master plan as we believe it will lead to greater investment floors in the region and we hope it also results in increased trade and economic activities among the member states,” Kanyimbo told the conference.

Banking On Africa’s Youth Bulge

Amb Lemoshira, Director at Kenya’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the conference that the African continent consists of an informed and technologically-savvy youth bulge, hence the need to put in place the appropriate infrastructure for them to be able to practice the tech skills acquired.

“AfCFTA is a game-changer, we are going to set the pace for our future in three ways. That of our capacity to ease movement, absorb new technologies and optimizing Africa’s youth dividend and potential,” said Amb. Moi Lemoshira.

The master plan constitutes one of the region’s high regional integration priority pillars which we leaders have been looking for since the first revitalization of IGAD in 1996.

Guided with two current initiatives, which are the African plan and the continental development agenda for 2063, IGAD regional infrastructure master plan has been drawn and tailored to fit with continental scenarios for development.

In 2018, IGAD contracted IPE Global Limited in association with Africon Universal Consulting to undertake a comprehensive 18-month study at a cost of $ 3.6 million.

Africa’s Telecommunication Professionals Hold Virtual Preparatory Meeting Ahead Of World Telecommunication Development Conference (WTDC) 2021

Robert Kibet

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October 14, 2020

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Africa’s Telecommunication Professionals Hold Virtual Preparatory Meeting Ahead Of World Telecommunication Development Conference (WTDC) 2021

Nairobi, Kenya October 13 — Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia will host this year’s World Telecommunication Development Conference (WTDC-21), the first of such conferences to be held in the African continent.

In preparation for the global event, the African Telecommunications Union (ATU) in conjunction with the National Communication Authority of South Sudan convened the first preparatory meeting held virtually.

The meeting aimed to bring together duty bearers of the telecommunications sector across Africa to establish leading committees to develop the African common proposals and positions on the WTDC agenda items.

The conference and its preparatory meetings come at a time when the world is increasingly acknowledging the crucial role that ICT plays in times such as the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic.

“Digital solutions, economies, and connectivity are key enablers of development and achievement of Sustainable Development Goals,” said Dr. Alsadig Gamaldeen, the Director-General of Telecommunication and Post Regulatory Authority (TPRA) Sudan.

WTDC is a crucial forum for ICT development as it sets the roadmap for achieving telecommunications development across the world.

With the COVID-19 pandemic having shifted the spotlight to connectivity, the forthcoming WTDC will be seen as the foremost conference for driving global ICT development to enable the achievement of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

For the first time, the conference will be held in Africa from 8th to 19th November in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

“These preparations will consider our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats as the African States. We will also sanction special consideration on the pandemic’s outcomes so far and use them to enhance our individual and international collaborations as well as relevant partnerships during the conference,” said ATU Secretary-General Mr. John Omo, who spoke during the opening of the forum.

Through this online preparatory meeting, Africa is expected to among other things, evaluate the implementation of the WTDC-17 outcomes in Africa and consider their contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals action plans.

As a matter of consequence, this should be able to assist in the evaluation of the progress of projects launched under initiatives by regional bodies.

Besides, the professionals say the meeting is crucial in starting the formulation of the African common proposals to the conference that would reflect the new challenges of ICTs in Africa and the mechanisms that would help to accelerate the implementation of the African digital transformation strategy.

“Digital technologies act as a catalyst that could accelerate progress towards the SDGs and make the African region the digital frontier where the truly transformational power and potential of connectivity will finally be realized,” Ms. Doreen Bogdan Director of the Telecommunication Development Bureau of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) told the meeting.

Omo also noted that having a common understanding of the issues that Africa faces and how telecommunications can downplay them is highly crucial for community engagements, economic growth, and international collaborations in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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